Psalm 23
Across traditions, we read Psalm 23 most often at funerals. The words are frequently a balm to our souls in troubled times and a comfort in our affliction. It’s one of the few passages I still hear frequently read in the King James Version because it is so universally known. Psalm 23 plays this role in our lives because it speaks to something fundamental about the character of God: sanctuary and protection.
As in many places in the Jewish Scriptures, God here is a mobile sanctuary for the Psalmist. God is a shepherd, an inherently itinerant position. God accompanies the Psalmist anywhere from green pastures and still waters to the valley of the shadow of death. And at the end of the day, God provides sanctuary for the Psalmist, a dwelling place in the house of God.
With this idea of sanctuary so central to our concept of God, it is troubling that this divine characteristic so often does not extend from ourselves to our treatment of migrants. In the aftermath of the tragedies of the Second World War and the Holocaust, there was widespread recognition that the free movement of people and humane treatment of migrants was a dire necessity. Jewish refugees died because their movement was restricted and they were denied entry to North America, the St. Louis manifest being a prime example. [1] Hannah Arendt has spoken at length about how restrictions on migrants (in her case, usually discussing Jewish migrants) have resulted in “[forcing] the status of outlaws” on people with migration restrictions essentially making people stateless and without meaningful rights. [2] Unfortunately, any commitment to not make the mistakes of pre-WWII restrictions again never extended to everyone and rapidly diminished in the decades to follow, reaching what might be a nadir in the 2020s.
Pastors need to remind their congregations that the character of God is not contingent on our fickle political commitments or our fitful displays of hospitality or hostility toward migrants. The Psalmist is welcomed into God’s sanctuary all the days of their life and God is present through all their circumstances, not just the easy ones. Christians need to maintain a commitment to the just, humane, and hospitable treatment of migrants with divine consistency. God is both endlessly transient and persistently present as sanctuary to those in need, particularly those who find themselves at the mercy of borders and states. Even in Psalm 23 we see these essential characteristics of God.
The character of God demands that we have definitions of humanity beyond nation states, that our rights, dignity, and worth persist beyond artificial borders of country and government.
[1] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/voyage-of-the-st-louis
[2] https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-refugee-question-2019-06-29
Rev. Wesley Spears-Newsome (he/they) is a pastor, organizer, and author from North Carolina.