Safety, risk and the refugee crisis

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Peace, safety, serenity
It gets complicated. Or does it? The voices are many and loud urging Canada to take in more refugees from Syria, and to do it quickly. Meanwhile, other voices are cautioning that this mass migration is a perfect opportunity, for instance, for ISIS to infiltrate Western countries for the purpose of terrorizing us. How can we both take in many refugees quickly and ensure that they're truly refugees and not hiding in the migration population with sinister purposes in mind?

There's an old saying that no good deed ever goes unpunished. As an MCC volunteer in Europe, I facilitated the relocation of a refugee family from Hungary to Canada under the sponsorship of a Mennonite congregation. Despite the best efforts of the congregation to welcome and settle the family, it was very soon clear that the church and MCC were being used; the family disappeared shortly after arrival and turned up in a Hungarian expat community in Toronto. 

All involved felt the sting of good intentions and actions going unrewarded.

Problem is, the failures in the aiding of refugees can form a handy excuse for inaction when real crises impact real people as in Syria and Iraq at this time. And failures there will be. Resettlement into an unfamiliar culture with languages that sound like gibberish, with winters that are so unbelievably cold and without the comfort and support of a familiar faith community has to be risky no matter how generous sponsors may be. Such a refugee surge as we're currently seeing is bound to include a few reprobates as well; our Canadian population obviously includes a percentage of ne'er-do-wells and worse; why should the Syrian population not be similar in this regard?

But the Christian gospel in whose light much of our population has been raised is obviously not about avoiding risk, quite the contrary. Extending love, even to enemies, is not only an imperative in the gospels but is a winning strategy—to put it crassly. Although in our world today, that message is largely “not on,” for those who profess a faith in the trans-formative power of generosity, the way is made clear: hospitality is not withheld just because there's a risk involved. Love is a way of life.

ISIS will not be defeated militarily; there is a chance though that love will soften and begin to break the evil that inhabits that organization. And if some of their number should happen to slip in through the refugee program and should happen to successfully carry out a terror attack, those for whom safety trumps hospitality will have cause to say, “we told you so.” 

But some will understand that hospitality isn't withdrawn even when accompanied by uncertainty and risk.

Love has, after all, been known to end in gory crucifixion.

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