Welcome the Stranger

Two significant things happened on June 14. I became a grandmother for the first time! Welcome to the world, Jace Swift Braun. Because of that event, the second event came to my attention on a delayed basis: Attorney General Jeff Sessions used Romans 13 to defend a zero-tolerance policy at the border. (Scripture was also used to defend the Holocaust and Slavery, among other heinous wrongs). It is WRONG to separate families. There is not a U.S. law that requires it. Policy is behind the separations. I agree with Franklin Graham, who calls the policy disgraceful. I agree with Laura Bush, who calls it cruel and immoral. According to Rabbi Jill Zimmerman, the love and care of the stranger is the most repeated commandment in the Torah. Protect our country, but stop the evil. Jesus calls us to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit those imprisoned, welcome the stranger. He said, “When you do it to the least of these, you do it unto me. When you do not do it to the least of these, you do not do it to me.”