Contemplating Immigration and Welcome

Dear God of Welcome and Refuge,

You who turned a stable into a sanctuary and made a manger the throne room of heaven — teach us what it means to open the door wide.

Hebrews 13:2 tells us, "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." Lord, we confess that too often we peer through the chain on the door rather than swing it open. We calculate the cost of an extra plate at the table instead of remembering that You fed five thousand with a boy's sack lunch and had baskets left over.

The Black Church was born from people who knew what it meant to arrive somewhere unwelcome — dragged to foreign soil, stripped of language and name, yet somehow building a faith so deep it shook the foundations of an empire. Our grandmothers set a place for the stranger because they remembered what it felt like when nobody set one for them. That memory is holy. That memory is theology.