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A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Sarah Teather, UK Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service

Good morning.

This week is Refugee Week – a joyous nationwide festival of arts, culture and educational events celebrating the lives and contributions of refugees. The theme this year provides an interesting perspective – it takes us back in history, exploring the stories of refugees welcomed throughout generations: from Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s right back to French Huguenots in the 1680s. People from many different nationalities have sought sanctuary in Britain over the centuries; their stories, struggles, gifts and innovations have been woven into the history of Britain, shaping our identity in subtle ways.

It isn’t just Britain which has been shaped in this way: the history and identity of Christianity itself is woven out of stories of migration, displacement and exile. All the first figures of the Old Testament journeyed or were forced to migrate. The New Testament too begins with a story of the Holy family fleeing to escape Herod’s clutches. The early Church was propelled outwards from Pentecost, as exiles and missionaries around the globe. And the story hasn’t ended: displacement and persecution are a wound which continues to shape the Church in many areas of the world today, forcing Christians from their homes and onto the hospitality of others to welcome and protect them.

It is not possible to unpick stories of displacement and exile from the narrative of our faith, because these stories were foundational to how our ancestors came to know God. The question then is how the stories of those forced to migrate today might shape our identity and relationship with God into the future?

Lord Jesus, you have told us that you identify with the rejected strangers of every age, help us to recognise your face in the one who knocks at our door, asking to come in.

Amen.