Welcoming the Stranger

Immigration proves a sticky and contentious issue, burrowing down to the core of how we understand ourselves and our neighbors. What defines us as Americans? What is the relationship between our immigrant heritages – having, as a species, wandered the globe in evolutionary quest for habitability – and our intuitive sense of being ‘home’?

The three lay worship leaders this morning did a beautiful job of caringly and expansively adding personal and spiritual context to these challenging questions. They called us to recognize our underlying human unity; to trace a thread of neighborly compassion directly through the Abrahamic religious patchwork into which we Unitarian Universalists are woven; and to reverently register the courageous decision in 2004 to call an Iranian-American woman as the minister of First Parish. The spiritual work of living in right relationship to those who seem ‘foreign’ is ongoing, and challenging at that. But as Unitarian Universalist minister Amanda Aikman reminds us, “ours is a faith of radical hospitality, a radically inclusive witness in an exclusionary world.” Amidst the cacophony of vitriolic ethnocentrism that strips ‘aliens’ of their very humanity, we can choose to do better – in smiles and with handshakes, in the ballot box and with our patronage, in open-mindedness and with appreciation.

Having grown up as an American overseas, I know well the tenuous act of balancing multiple identities. At times, I felt like an outsider in both worlds. I struggled to reconcile the bounded ‘me’ of my passport with the untidy, often self-contradictory, inner ‘me’ that seeped through national labels. Neighbors didn’t hesitate to bring to my attention to the American-ness of my hobbies or the German-ness of dress. Some embraced me warmheartedly for the cultural mélange I was living; others dismissed me as confusing, or mysterious. While I certainly didn’t suffer from the degree of xenophobia that other immigrant groups experience even today, I came to understand the precarious nature of liminality – of ‘in-between-ness’ – of moving among societies and between peoples.

Etymologically, the term immigrant derives from this experience of ‘moving’ and ‘going.’ I encourage you to take a moment to consider: when did you, or a member of your family, move across this bridge of in-between-ness? What was it like to immigrate? What was gained, what was lost, along the journey? If answers to these questions are not immediately forthcoming, you might try reaching out to other family members to piece your story together. Knowing ourselves, learning about our own immigrant past, opens our hearts to empathically hearing the stories of others.

This rationale undergirds the Jewish exhortation in Exodus: ‘You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way. Remember, you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.’ Welcome others as you would have wanted to be welcomed. In the process, you may get to know someone else more intimately and, by extension, learn something new about yourself. Inviting difference into our lives holds the promise of self-transformation.

Reflection for the week: Hospitality changes our relationship to others and with ourselves.