Refugee Sunday Sermon Notes
by John Arthur Nunes, PhD
Sermon Notes for Proper 7
Jeremiah 20:7-13
Psalm 91:1-10 (11-16)
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:5a, 21-33
(All texts use ESV)
The Holy Spirit inspires our ministries of mercy (diakonia) among refugees and immigrants as a
way of providing care for people whose transitions render them vulnerable. Such service is a signature of Christian witness to the world (martyria). Our faith in Jesus leads us to confess Christ concretely, to borrow the phrase of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Refugee Sunday specifically affords us an appointed
time to celebrate our life together (koinonia) as a worldwide community of faith, praising the Father
for knitting us together through his love for all people. While these notes were developed with that
overall perspective in mind, there are several caveats that should be considered.
First, this material is supplemental. It does not represent a replacement to the pastor’s weekly work
of homiletical preparation and exegetical study. Nor does it constitute the core message of a Sunday
sermon. Refugee Sunday can be an occasion for a special emphasis. Its themes should be incorporated into the regular preaching of God’s Law, exposing us as broken people who are always missing
the mark and falling short of God’s glory—and, the preaching of God’s Good News, conferring salvation through Jesus Christ crucified revealed in the Scriptures and received by grace through faith.
This material, thus, identifies a few points related to refugees from the readings for the weekend of
June 21-22 (Proper 7).
Second, this material presumes that local Lutheran congregations in North America have for decades participated joyfully in intentional efforts to ease the often arduous transitions endured by
refugees. This goes far beyond any one Sunday. As pioneers in this work, the exemplary heritage of
Lutherans is noteworthy. Their stories are available in multiple resources.(1) Millions of Lutherans have
themselves experienced the ravages of exclusion, persecution and even death as alienated people.
Motivated by the pastor’s preaching on Refugee Sunday, the 75th Anniversary of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service in 2014 could represent a worthy milestone to build upon this legacy and to
seek God’s guidance to open new doors which show forth the mercy of Jesus flowing from the Word
and Sacraments.
These texts draw our attention to God’s compassion towards people, for both the physical and spiritual well-being of all persons. God is deeply concerned about both the soul and its destroyers and
the body and its murders. We believe in the “resurrection of the body.” Our God is for life, meaning
both eternal life and this life.
(1) For example examples of hospitality, advocacy, welcome and mercy conducted in local congregations, see Chapter
Seven in Stephen Paul Bouman and Ralston Deffenbaugh, “They Are Us: Lutherans and Immigration.” Minneapolis:
Augsburg Fortress, 2009.
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Refugee Sunday Sermon Notes
by John Arthur Nunes, PhD
(continued — pg.2)
Jeremiah 20:7-13
“If you see something, say something,” suggests the public service message. You do not have the
right to remain silent, urges the evangelical message, “for we cannot but speak of what we have seen
and heard” (Acts 4:20). According to our vocation, office and station in life God calls us to speak and
to act in life-giving ways on behalf of others.
The Commission on Theology and Church Relations of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod has
generated an exceptional and timely document that is recommended as helpful for preaching on
Refugee Sunday. It addresses many of the issues related to contemporary topic of people in situations of crossing geo-political borders. While not expressly dealing with refugees, “Immigrants
Among Us” is relevant to several of the overlapping questions, like who is my neighbor, what is the
role of the state and civil law, and how are Christians to act on behalf of “outsiders”? Like Jeremiah,
modern day believers often find their faith at odds with the state. Some laws seem to condone behavior which Christianity deems sinful.(2) So, while we should take seriously God’s command to obey
the authorities, on the other hand, the desire to promote the rule of law can foster an uncritical, passive, and even idolatrous attitude towards government and civil law that does not lead to a serious
consideration of a potentially unjust state of affairs.(3)
Some of the laws related to the treatment of refugees may fall into this category and call for a prophetic response, speaking out on behalf of those whose voices are stifled or unheard.
This “iron prophet” (Jer. 1:18) had the thankless task of preaching during a time of impending crisis.
One of the meanings in Hebrew of the name Jeremiah is “the Lord throws down.” Indeed, though
Jeremiah often seems thrown into frustrated, hesitatingly silent and down in the dumps—“I have
become a laughingstock all the day” (Jer. 20:7)—yet the Word of the Lord becomes unquenchably
uncontainable within Jeremiah. This is not due to prophet’s own virtuosity, courageousness or grit. It
is only through the “mystery of divine inspiration,”(4) through the power of the Holy Spirit who “will
teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 12:12) that he spoke. Speaking about our
faith must mean more than engaging in socially-polite Jesus jargon or courteous churchy chat. In the
prophet’s own words, the Word of the Lord became “in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in
my bones” (Jer. 20:9)
In fact, to not speak, can speak volumes in its taciturnity. To fail to act can itself constitute a sin of
omission. The Large Catechism’s explanation of the command prohibiting murder makes this point
unequivocally: “God rightly calls all persons murderers who do not offer counsel or assistance to
those in need and peril of body or life.”(5)
(2) “The LCMS has officially pointed out sin in the case of abortion, which constitutes a clear case where a moral practice
protected by civil law is contrary to God’s law (more specifically the fifth commandment).” “Immigrants Among Us”: 34
(3) “Immigrants Among Us”: 45 (4) See footnote to Jer. 20:9 in The Study Bible: 1240 (5) LC 5th Commandment, KW: 412
(Large Catechism, Explanation to the Fifth)
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Refugee Sunday Sermon Notes
by John Arthur Nunes, PhD
(continued pg.3)
Psalm 91:1-10, (11-16)
This Psalm is replete with comforting images of God’s provision of protection afforded toward those who
suffer. God’s action of mercy is made known especially on behalf of the least of these, the last on life’s
lists, the littlest ones, the “the poorest and most vulnerable neighbors among us.” As the CTCR has suggested, the “argument for the priority of love towards the neediest has to be seriously considered.”(6)
Many central figures of the Christian faith were forced to flee due to political and spiritual persecution.
Jesus, as an infant, sojourned to Egypt (Matt. 2:13-23). For ten months in 1521 and 1522, Martin Luther
himself was a sort of refugee. He certainly needed to flee for safety after his refusal to recant at the Diet
Worms. His excommunication by Pope Leo X placed his life in peril, but thanks to Frederick III, Wartburg
Castle became a physical mighty fortress for Luther. During this time of exile which he called “my Patmos,” and under the pseudonym Junker Jörg (the Knight George), and sporting longer hair and a beard,
in hiding Luther productively translated the Scriptures into the most popular German translation.
Refugees often use such situations of suffering as a context for productivity and creativity. Like Luther,
they need to evade danger, even strategically portraying themselves in “disguises.” Responding with
the compassion of Christ, we are sensitive to their predicaments of injustice and persecution, their
yearning for freedom, their being targeted because of their ethnicity or confession of faith. When we
provide refuge for refugees we are like “little Christs” toward them, or like angels discharged to protect.
The theologian, Martin Chemnitz, comments: “With one hand they (the angels) protect the believers…
and with the other they pursue and attack Satan and godless men.”(7) “Above all, the people of God are
to love the alien because this is the will of the Lord, who loves, provides for, watches over, and hears in
heaven the cry of the alien (Ps. 146:9, Dt. 24:15).”(8)
Romans 6:12-23
Due to the persistent and pernicious pressure of devil, the world and our own sinful nature life is
abridged and abbreviated for many. Sin is severe in the Lutheran tradition, even radical, that is, going
to the root (radix) of the human condition. From the catastrophe of the Fall, the wages of sin cuts deep
within all individuals, from the top of our heads to the tip of our toes. Even more, sin infects our relationships and societal structures, leaving communities torn by conflict.
The depth of sin’s cut, while pervasive and primordial, is not essential to what it means to be human.
The Lutheran definition from the Formula of Concord is clear. Despite original sin, God recognizes us as
God’s own work: “For God created not only the body and soul of Adam and Eve before the fall but also
our body and soul after the fall, even though they are corrupt. God also still recognized them as his own
work, as it is written, Job 10:8 ‘Your hands fashioned and made me together all around.’”(9) Every human
life consequently possesses inherent dignity, value, worth and meaning. We ought to regard everyone
we encounter like this.
(6) “Immigrants Among Us”: 44 (7) Cited in The Lutheran Study Bible: 931 (8) “Immigrants Among Us”: 15. (9) K/W 488
FC epitome I. Concerning Original Sin.
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Refugee Sunday Sermon Notes
by John Arthur Nunes, PhD
(continued pg.4)
God’s Word creates faith and life, everlasting life with implications for the earthly lives of every human
person. God’s intention for humanity has not changed one iota. All of our lives are intended to be more
than a “deathward drift from futile birth” (Lutheran Service Book: #834, stanza one). For this beloved
creation, God sends Christ as our salvation. Luther preached it like this: “God has become a human being and our Savior and by doing so has honored human nature immeasurably more than the devil had
disgraced it though the fall.”(10)
Faith in this act of God leads us necessarily to consider ourselves now as “dead to sin and alive to God
in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). This “free gift of God” is life, zoé, which means more than biological existence, but full human flourishing leading to eternity with God. No person, including refugees—even
those who do not possess legal status—should be precluded from what God promises through Word
and Sacraments. Neither should they be denied “fair and just treatment in society.”(11)
Matthew 10:5a, 21-33
The themes of persecution, fleeing, fear, and suffering as Jesus the Master suffered redound in this text.
Refugees’ lives are often shaken by these very realities. The church of Jesus Christ has a ”divine call to
practice justice towards those who are often the victims of oppression and wrongdoing, or evil schemes
(Lev. 19:33-34, Jer. 7:5-7, Zec. 7:7-8).”(12)
Jesus, in verse 23, actually advises those who are persecuted to flee—“refugee” derives etymologically
from the past participle of the French verb to flee, réfugié. If you are persecuted in one place, “flee to
the next,” not filled with fear, but with the knowledge that Jesus himself was maligned (Matt. 10:24-25).
“Fear not!” (Matt. 10:31) is a necessary and frequent refrain in the Scriptures. God knows that people
who fear outsiders, the other, xenophobes, behave (sometimes deliberately) in ways that induce fear
in those who are different. “Fear not, I love you to death,” Jesus is saying to each of us from the cross,
“I love you with my dying breath.” We are weak creatures who live in difficult situations but are loved
strongly by the universe’s Creator. We are, all of us, pilgrims plagued by anxiety who have received
the assurance: “Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matt. 10: 28). We are
flawed, mortally wounded by sin, death and the devil, but now “raised from the dead” through our
baptisms into the resurrected glory of Christ. We can now walk in this “newness of life” (Romans 6:4)
loving our neighbors. Because Jesus loved us to death, we do not fear the other, we love our neighbors
to life—which means we pay attention to the practical things they need to live: food, shelter, clothing,
employment, basic human rights.
Refugees—though they may be different: in attire, in cuisine, in language, in their sense of time—they
are our neighbors. They belong to the one race for which Jesus died—the human race. The biblical
data is compelling and singular. “Jesus speaks of the ‘neighbor’ in a way that transcends relationships
that include only the people of Israel—those sharing a common religion—in order to include all kinds
of people who need our help (Mt. 22:39).”(13)
(10) Luther’s Works, volume 60, page 243. (11) “Immigrants Among Us: 18 (12) “Immigrants Among Us”: 15 Mark Luther’s Works, volume 60, page 243.Mark “Immigrants Among Us: 18 Mark “Immigrants Among Us”: 15 Mark “Immigrants
Among Us”: 59 (13) “Immigrants Among Us”: 59
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