Action 3: Practice Hospitality
Offer to house a Ukrainian (or any other refugee) family displaced by war and/or volunteer for a refugee service agency in your area to help these new neighbors heal and acclimate to life in your community.
“When [the Magi] saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child [Jesus] with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. ...
When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up,’ he said, ‘take the child [Jesus] and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.’
So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’”
Reflect
Exodus 22:21
“Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.”
Leviticus 19:10
“Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.”
Leviticus 19:34
“The foreigners residing among you must be treated as native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”
Deuteronomy 10:18
“He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.”
Psalm 146:9
“The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.”
Zechariah 7:10
“Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.”
Matthew 25:35
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.”
John 15:12
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
Ephesians 2:19
“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household.”
Hebrews 13:1-2
“Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers for by doing that some have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”
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