Ordo Amoris (II)
Seeing the face of God in the stranger
Immigration, especially illegal immigration, raises difficult questions—of law, security, and belonging. But Christians can’t consider these matters apart from Scripture and the life of Christ. At the heart of our faith is the command to love God and neighbour, and Christ, in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, defines our neighbour not by proximity or kinship but by need.
In his Sermon on the Mount, Christ blesses the poor, calls us to love our enemies, and instructs us to turn the other cheek (Mt. 5.3-6, 5.39-44). These teachings aren’t easy to apply, especially in situations as complex as immigration, yet they draw us toward seeing the stranger as a neighbour to love, not a threat to manage. Regardless of politics, Christians are called to seek the good of others in love—even those who oppose or persecute them. Our own redemption compels us toward compassion, not fear.
The theme of welcoming the stranger is woven throughout Scripture. “You shall love the stranger, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt” (Dt. 10.19) establishes the basic principle. This command is rooted in memory and humility, recalling that the Israelites were formed as a people amid their own migration to the Promised Land. Leviticus 19.34 affirms this, calling us to treat aliens as native-born and love them as ourselves. Paul, in Ephesians 2, expands this vision: through Christ, the alien and the native, once at war, are now being reconciled into one commonwealth. These words stand against any inclination to divide people into categories of worth. To be a Christian is to bring strangers into the compass of our love by making them neighbours.
In fact, the Christian life itself, as Scripture and tradition teach, is a one of migrancy and exile—a sojourn in a foreign land. Thus, 1 Peter 2.11 refers to Christians as “aliens and exiles” in the world and our earthly lives as a “time of exile” (1 Pe. 1.17). This became a favourite motif of the Early Church. For example, the 2nd-century Letter to Diognetus says of Christians that
they dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers.
Likewise, John Chrysostom called Christians “strangers and sojourners” who “live in a foreign land.” Finally, Augustine compares the Christian life explicitly with Israel in the wilderness: “This world is to all the faithful who are seeking their homeland what the desert was to the people of Israel. They were indeed wandering the whole time and in search of their homeland…” In fact, our word “parochial” comes from the Greek word paroikia, which means a migrant or alien. The heart of Christian identity is a pilgrimage, a recognition that our only true country is with God, and all else is but a wilderness, a place of exile.
Justice, Mercy, and the Economy
The command to love our neighbours and treat the alien as native-born applies to both sides of the immigration debate. Many crossing borders illegally are fleeing violence, poverty, or environmental collapse—often caused by our own affluence and greed (16% of the world’s population consumes 74% of its resources). The vast majority aren’t seeking to break laws, but to survive. These migrants include families escaping war, individuals seeking work, and communities displaced by disasters. But, instead of finding refuge, many become part of a vast pool of cheap labour, enduring conditions most of us would find intolerable.
This isn’t just an economic issue; it’s a moral one. Our system puts profit before people, treating workers as tools rather than human beings. But scripture is clear: “You shall have one law for the alien and for the citizen: for I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 24:22). That’s a direct challenge to any system that benefits from immigrants’ labour while denying them their basic human dignity. Zechariah 7:9-10 also calls us to:
administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.
These commands aren’t just about being kind in words, but acting justly toward those in need, including immigrants.
Christianity doesn’t let us put legal or economic concerns above human need (though it also doesn’t free us from those concerns). It calls us to see past the surface of immigration debates to the deeper causes of suffering. When someone is in need, there’s only one Christian response—to be a neighbour. Turning away isn’t just a failure of kindness; it’s a failure of faith.
Chrysostom put it plainly: “Beasts do not drive out beasts, yet man shuts out man. Wild beasts and animals consider food which the earth supplies to be common to all… and man, who ought to think nothing human foreign to himself, fights against his own.” Nature doesn’t draw the lines we do. The divide between those who profit and those who suffer is one we’ve built ourselves, and it should trouble us just as much as open hostility toward immigrants. Justice and mercy demand more than words—they demand action.
Having said that, much of the resistance to immigration, particularly illegal immigration, is rooted in a reasonable and rational fear of its consequences. People worry about economic strain, cultural change, or threats to security and social cohesion. These fears are not baseless. History is replete with examples of countries, empires, and even civilisations overthrown by mass migration (though in terms of spreading of the Gospel, this isn’t always a bad thing). Christians must weigh these concerns against the deeply Christian demands of hospitality. Hebrews 13.1 exhorts us: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
Hospitality is not just about welcoming the stranger; it’s about building relationships and sharing the burdens of life. Such hospitality was once a hallmark of Christianity. When we resist the stranger out of fear or self-defence, we close not only our doors to others, but also our hearts to the possibilities of grace. '“Strangers and aliens” may challenge us, but they may also bless us. They remind us of our dependence on one another and of the shared humanity that transcends borders and laws. They also serve as a reminder that we recognise our neighbours in their need rather than by their relationship with us—even when that comes at a high personal cost, as Lot recognised in Genesis 19 (the basis for Hebrews 13).
Living as Citizens of God’s Kingdom
The question of immigration is not just about policies or laws, but about how we choose to live. Do we see strangers as threats or neighbours to love? Do we hoard what we have, or trust in God’s abundant grace, knowing that serving the least is serving Christ (Mt. 25.40) and that “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9.7)?
The Sermon on the Mount calls us to be peacemakers, to hunger for righteousness, and to love without limits. These commands are hard, but they show that love is not a resource to budget, but a gift that grows through giving. “The one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Cor. 9.6). Or as Aquinas put it more succinctly, “Love increases in the soul as it is exercised.”
To love our neighbour is not an abstract principle; it is a daily practice, a tending of the common life that binds us together. Love is not a treasure to hoard but a soil in which kindness and justice take root. If our hearts and our communities are to flourish, they must be well-fertilized with a faith rooted in Scripture and the patient work of God’s people.
Where does all this leave us? Not with easy answers, but with a task. The fields of our imagination, our desires, and our politics must be tilled and prepared, that they might yield good fruit. So, when we look upon the stranger, may it be with open eyes and open hands. For in their need, we may glimpse the face of God.