Do Not Oppress the Foreigner
Rev. Douglas Taylor
9-14-25
Sermon Video: https://youtu.be/7KmnS8jJB9E

Each Sunday morning we light the flame in our sanctuary chalice. The Flaming Chalice is the recognized symbol of our faith tradition. Fascinatingly, the origin of this religious symbol is pertinent to our topic of immigration this today.

Hans Deutsch, an Austrian artist, first brought together the chalice and the flame as a Unitarian symbol during his work with the Unitarian Service Committee during World War II. The Service Committee commissioned Deutsch to create a logo that they could use on legal paperwork for Jews and political dissidents fleeing the rise of Nazi Germany. It also developed as an underground symbol that transcended the language barrier for those assisting the refuges.

Our central religious symbol as Unitarian Universalists, the image that represents our identity, was first used as a symbol of hope and support for refugees escaping fascism.

The Chalice Lighting words I used this morning were written by Erika Hewitt. Rev. Hewitt wrote:

The chalice, as a symbol of Unitarian Universalism, arose as a beacon of hope in an atmosphere of tyranny. The chalice arose as a sign of promise that the marginalized would neither be forgotten nor ignored, because they are beloved and precious from the perspective of the Holy.

Our faith has a proud history of resisting tyranny and fascism. Of revealing hope, of holding out a promise to treat all people – particularly the marginalized and the vulnerable – as beloved and precious. That’s what it means to be Unitarian Universalist in face of rising tyranny.

You may have noticed the new signs posted on some of the doors in our building in recent months. The signs essentially declare some spaces as ‘private’ such as our main office, the library, the RE classrooms and so on. These signs are not meant to stop members of the congregation from entering those spaces. They are meant to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from entering. Our current federal administration reversed a long-standing position that said ICE agents would not enter sensitive areas such as hospitals, schools, and houses of worship. Ice agents are now being sent into these spaces to find people to arrest and deport. A house of worship is a public space, technically. This is an example of the administration pushing against the fourth amendment rights.

Broome County is not experiencing a surge of ICE activity in our streets. Instead we are seeing it in our jail where more that 25% of the roughly 400 people imprisoned there are part of the ICE arrests and detainments from around the state.

In our country today, we are experiencing the rise of fascism in the form of White Christian Nationalism. This evil among us is targeting immigrants along with a handful of other vulnerable identities. Christian Nationalism is, at heart, a betrayal of Christianity. The practices and policies of the current administration are deeply anti-democratic, anti-Christian and immoral. I mean this in particular today as it relates to immigration, but my statement applies more broadly to be sure. But today, let us consider how immoral and anti-Christian this current administration is with regards to immigration.

In the Bible, we can find a multitude of times when the people receive commandments from God to treat vulnerable people in a fair and just way – particularly widows and orphans, the poor, and foreigners. We heard, for example, the passage from Exodus this morning, Exodus 23:9: “Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.” This passage, and the sentiment it offers, is not a minor point. It is a seminal passage for the Jewish faith. But it has also served Christian ethical thinking as well.

And the passage from Exodus is not an outlier. It is a companion to multiple other times in scripture when we hear the same commandment. Deuteronomy 26:5 and 27:19, Ezekiel 22:7, Leviticus 23:22 and 24:22, Zechariah 7:10, Malichi 3:5, and Jeramiah 7:6 – along with another dozen or so more from Deuteronomy and Leviticus and Exodus. There are a few narratives from Gensis that frame the conversation as well. Add to these the passages from the Gospel of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s letter to the church in Rome along with that amazing passage from Hebrews 13:2, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” Taken together, they frame a very clear call for Jews and Christians to treat immigrants with compassion. It is appropriate to surmise that the overall message from the Bible on this topic is that compassion for immigrants is required of us. We should not abuse or oppress immigrants, and instead we should treat them like citizens.

In fairness, I will say the Bible does contradict itself often; and on this topic we find that to be the case as well. The book of Nehemiah is deeply anti-immigrant; and some Christians – particularly conservative evangelical Christians – do love to quote from that text. Nehemiah’s context is important to notice, however. The first Babylonian exile had happened recently and the temple had been destroyed. Nehemiah took on the project of rebuilding the city walls. Part of his project was to ‘cleanse’ the population of what he deemed to be cultural pollution – meaning there had been a lot of intermarriage between Jews and other groups. Nehemiah’s purity goals and anti-immigration policies served a purpose in his mind, despite being out of step with the rest of scripture.

But again, taken as a whole, the perspective found in the book of Nehemiah is an outlier compared to what the rest of scripture says about how to treat immigrants.

Religious advisors to the current Trump administration encouraged the president to use a hardline Nehemiah interpretation of scripture’s perspective on immigration. “Nehemiah went there to build a wall to keep the wrong people out.” What they don’t say out loud is the way Nehemiah’s rigid cultural purity was at play very strongly. They like that part, but know it would not be popular among the general US population. The general US population is far more welcoming of immigrants than the relatively small subset of white evangelical Christians in the United States. Far more US Christians are familiar with and in agreement with the passages that advocate for compassion toward the foreigner and the immigrant.

And here’s the rub. These religious arguments in our contemporary political debate are disingenuous. The Christian Nationalists using these biblical arguments for anti-immigrant agenda are Nationalists first. The part about being Christian is an adjective – it is a means toward their nationalism. Their goal is not strong borders and crime prevention.

If they wanted to prevent crime, they would not be kidnapping parents as they drop their kids at school or disappearing people who show up for their immigration hearings, or raid work locations. If they really wanted to prevent crime they would be arresting the business owners who exploit the workers, not the workers. But that is not their goal. It never was. Those are merely the arguments they present as they strive to shape our country into their Christian Nationalist dream.

You may have noticed a small nuance in my language about Nehemiah being used to advocate for anti-immigration policies and the scores of other passages such as Exodus and Hebrews being used to advocate for compassion for immigrants. Immigration the way we experience it today is very different from what is being talked about in the Bible. There was no Border enforcement police or deportation processes, no naturalized citizens exactly or work visas. We are extrapolating and interpreting when we use these old texts to guide current opinion and policy.

And if we are being honest, it is worth pointing out that it is a very small number of people who would say their true goal is to be biblically accurate. Most people, if they were being honest, would admit to a different motive.

For me, my motive behind how I think about immigration is this: I believe in the power of our differences, that we are a better community when we have a variety of perspectives and experiences among us. E Pluribus Unum!  Our strength is in our compassion for those who are different, in particular for those who are vulnerable.

For others, the motive seems to be a desire gain control through fear, to dehumanize certain people, and create a monoculture – a white supremacist or Christian Nationalist dream of exclusion and power. They are using the immigration issue because immigrants are one of the easy groups to target in their culture war.

We, as Unitarian Universalists have a role to play in the face of this hate. We have a calling to light our chalice and resist tyranny, again. We must resist the fear and hatred and lies that seek to divide us. Our faith calls us to be generous and gracious with the vulnerable among us who are being attacked and abused.

I encourage you to seek truth, to protect the homeless, our trans siblings, and the undocumented among us. Refuse hatred, but call out that hate when wherever you find it. Go out and meet people, experiences the differences of the broader community. Help the marginalized and vulnerable people under attack to know they are not alone, they do belong, they are beloved. Know that you are not alone, you do belong, you are beloved.

In a world without end,
May it be so.