I Was a Stranger and You Welcomed Me, with Rev. Dr. Steven Koski.

I Was a Stranger and You Welcomed Me, with Rev. Dr. Steven Koski. Series: Standalone Services A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon. Scripture: Matthew 25.

Curious about how faith speaks into immigration, empathy, and our shared humanity? Join us this Sunday, online or in-person, as we hear Steven share Maria’s story and explore Jesus-shaped compassion for our neighbors. You’re welcome to come, listen, question, and reflect. You have an open invitation.

Join us each Sunday, 10AM at bendfp.org, or 11AM KTVZ-CW Channel 612/12 in Bend.  Subscribe/Follow, and click the bell for alerts.

At First Presbyterian, you will meet people at many different places theologically and spiritually. And we love it that way. We want to be a place where our diversity brings us together and where conversation takes us all deeper in our understanding of God.

We call this kind of faith “Spacious Christianity.” We don’t ask anyone to sign creeds or statements of belief. The life of faith is about a way of being in the world and a faith that shows itself in love.

Thank you for your support of the mission of the First Presbyterian Church of Bend. Visit https://bendfp.org/giving/ for more information.

Keywords:

First Presbyterian, spacious Christianity, diversity, authentic faith, radical love, Maria’s story, immigration, dehumanization, empathy, compassion, Jesus’ teachings, vulnerable, incarnation, humanitarian love, community support., presbyterian, church, online worship, bend, oregon

Featuring:

Rev. Dr. Steven Koski, Rev. Sharon Edwards, Becca Ellis, Brave of Heart, Guests

Transcript

Whitney Higdon: 0:00

You announcer, welcome to worship at First Presbyterian. We, at First Presbyterian, practice a spacious Christianity, which means, no matter where you are in your faith journey, you belong, and there is space for you at the table, there is space for your doubts and questions. We believe doubts and questions are a gift that invite us into deeper conversations and a more authentic faith. We believe diversity is a strength. Every story is sacred and everybody matters. We do our best to live the spacious and radical love of Jesus so that all might have a chance to flourish in this world. We are so glad to connect with you in this way. We would also love to worship with you in person, if you're ever in the neighborhood on Sunday mornings at 830 or 10am and never hesitate to reach out to us to learn more about us or how we might support You. I hope you enjoy this worship service. Welcome you.

Steven: 2:19

So we So, friends, we risk losing our own Humanity when we fail to see or protect the humanity of others. There's a diner in Nashville, off Charlotte Avenue. You know the kind of place where the coffee arrives before you sit down, the kind where the waitress already knows whether you want cream or sugar with your coffee. Maria worked the morning ship there for 17 years, 17 years of early mornings and aching feet, 17 years of knowing the regulars by name, knowing when to talk and when to stay silent, 17 years of raising three children on tips and minimum wage. Her youngest daughter was studying to be a pediatric nurse, and then one Tuesday morning, Maria didn't show up for work, no call, no explanation. The owner checked the hospitals called her home. Nothing. That afternoon, Maria's daughter came into the diner carrying a backpack stuffed with documents, birth certificates, social security cards, marriage licenses, asylum verification, everything needed to prove what should never need, proving that her mother existed, that she belonged, that she was real, that she was human. Maria had been taken by ice during a traffic stop, a broken tail light, Wrong place, wrong accent, wrong shade of skin. On a morning when quotas needed to be met, Maria's daughter spent six days making phone calls that that led nowhere. Transferred 43 times she drove to three different facilities, each telling her Maria wasn't there. At the fourth facility, 200 miles away, they admitted they had someone by that name, but couldn't confirm it was her mother. Come back with an attorney. They said she didn't have an attorney. She couldn't afford an attorney. What she had was a backpack filled with proof that her mother was a human being. You know, we talk about immigration as an abstraction, numbers, statistics, policy debates conducted by people who've never missed a meal, wondering whether their parent is eating. We sanitize the language, enforcement actions, removal proceedings, detainment facilities. We don't say what actually happens. A father vanishes from a construction site. An eight year old waits by the window because daddy always comes home until he doesn't. A woman is taken from a grocery store parking lot while her toddler watches from a car seat. The child cries in Spanish. The strangers respond in English. The terror is multilingual. When did we decide that proving your existence should be your burden, while confined to a place you cannot leave, unable to access the very Document? It's demanded of you, the architecture of cruelty is always justified by those who never have to stand inside that very same cruelty. And here's what Jesus says in Matthew 25 I was a stranger, and you welcomed me truly, truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me, not kind thoughts about me, not not debates about me at kitchen tables or in the halls of Congress, not prayers for me from a safe distance. Jesus said I was a stranger. I I was a stranger, and you welcomed me, you fed me, you visited me, you stayed human with me. Jesus doesn't spiritualize suffering. He locates himself inside it. Maria was released after 11 days, no charges, no apology, no compensation, just released as if 11 days of a real life of a real human being, a child of God, could be returned like a library book. Maria doesn't work at that diner anymore. She's too afraid. She carries her documents everywhere now, proof of existence, just in case her daughter dropped out of nursing school. You know, trauma has a way of rearranging our lives. There are hidden costs to every headline we read in the news. This is what disappearing people looks like, not far away, right here in Nashville, in Chicago, in Minneapolis, in Bend, Oregon. It always begins with a story we tell ourselves a story where, where some people are not fully human, where, where some people's lives have less value than other people's lives, where mothers become statistics, where, Where children become shadows at the edge of slogans. We call them criminals, we call them illegals, we call them invaders. Dehumanization. Have you noticed dehumanization is never loud at first. It arrives dressed as concern, as law and order, as common sense, it asks only that we believe the worst about someone else, and promises it won't cost us anything, but it always does, because the moment we accept a lie about another person's humanity, we loosen our grip on our own humanity. We begin to tolerate cages we would never enter, we normalize cruelty that we ourselves would never survive. We accept violence that we would never excuse if the names were people that we knew and loved. Jesus is clear, as you have treated the least of these. You have treated me, which means you can always find Jesus among the disposable, among the dehumanized, among those the systems, the system is designed to forget. You know, former President Jimmy Carter once said the truest measure of our compassion is how we treat the most vulnerable Father Greg Boyle said it another way. He said, compassion in. Standing in awe at the weight that some people are forced to carry, rather than standing in judgment as to how they are carrying it. That is empathy. Empathy always begins with a question that you know, a question that that we seem to have forgotten. What is it like to be someone else? What would it be be like to live, to live their story, to be inside their skin. Imagine for a moment it was your mother, your your father, your spouse, your child. They leave for work on a Tuesday morning, they kiss you goodbye, they remind you to to pick up milk, and then they vanish. No call, no hearing, no lawyer, no no way to find them. How long for you before panic becomes unbearable? How many phone transfers before you start screaming, how many miles would you drive? How many doors would you knock on? How many times would you pull those documents from a backpack, hoping this time, this time, someone might actually care? Empathy? Empathy is loving your neighbor as yourself. Empathy is refusing to accept less for your neighbor than you would accept for your own family. The book of Hebrews puts it plainly, remember those who are mistreated, as though you yourself were being mistreated. You know, not sympathy, which you can do from a distance. Empathy. Which is always close up. You know, the gospel of Jesus, Christ doesn't begin with borders. It begins with incarnation. God does not save us from a distance. God becomes one of us in Jesus. And Jesus says, the way that you love me is seeing me loving me in the stranger, in the hungry, in the imprisoned, in the disappeared. Maria is not a problem to be solved. She is Christ, asking to be recognized. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me, or we didn't, and in the end, the question that Jesus asks is, it's not what we believed, but how we loved who we became. May we choose empathy? May we choose humanity? May we choose love, not just a soft, sentimental love, but a Jesus shaped love. May we welcome Christ again and again and again in the faces of those the world would rather forget, and in doing so, it may be our own humanity that we are saving. May it be so, I invite your heart to join my heart in this prayer, God of mercy, our hearts are our hearts are heavy and. Because we're paying attention, because we have listened, because we've lit the story. Get close. Some of us are carrying sorrow we don't know what to do with. Some of us are carrying anger, a lot of anger. Some of us are are tired of feeling like the world keeps asking us to look away. Meet us here, God, not with easy answers, but with your steady, loving presence. Do not let us numb ourselves to the suffering of our neighbors, or explain it away or grow used to it. Give us eyes to see Christ where he has promised to be among the vulnerable, the excluded, the afraid, the disappeared, when the weight feels unbearable, remind us that compassion is not ours to carry alone when courage feels costly, remind us that love always is and when we feel smaller or overwhelmed, teach us the faithfulness of small acts done with great love keep us human, God, tender, awake, grounded in hope, not the fragile hope of optimism, but the stubborn hope that refuses to abandon one another. We offer you our sore hearts, hold them, shape them and send us back into the world with mercy in our hands. Amen Friends. Go in the name of the God who became human to show us how to be human. Go with hearts tender enough to feel, hands brave enough to act and love, wide enough to welcome the stranger and May Christ be recognized in you everywhere You go, amen.

Whitney Higdon: 27:20

is, thank you so much for joining us, and we hope you enjoyed this worship service. If you would like to make a donation helping make these podcasts possible or support the many ways. First, Presbyterian seeks to serve our community. You can make a financial gift online at bend fp.org, every week, we hear from someone thanking us for the gift of these broadcasts, and what a difference they make. Your support makes that possible. Our church is committed to reach beyond our walls, bringing hope where there is despair and love where it is needed the most. Your generous support helps us to be generous in love. Go to our website, bend fp.org, and click on the link. Give online. Your support is really appreciated and makes a difference in people's lives. Thanks again. I hope to see you next week. You.