I read the Old Testament to figure out who he was talking about when he said we should welcome strangers. And I wrote a really wonderful book about what I found: 21 Stranger Claims in the Old Testament. I guarantee, no matter who you are or what you've read, that I say things you have never heard before. I'm not a brilliant Scripture scholar or anything like that, but I came at the text from an odd angle and saw old (ancient, actually) material in a fresh way.
That was a few months ago. What I've done now is to move from the Old Testament into the New. Do the 21 claims I made about teaching in the Old Testament show up intact in the New Testament? 18 of the 21 do; three don't.
The new book, "The Persistent Other," is available on Amazon today ($5.50, shows up in 1-2 days), or Kindle ($3, or free with Prime), in your hand in seconds.
But more: again, I was coming at the text from an odd angle, so I saw things in a fresh way. No fooling: I think that overlooking hospitality in Scripture is like overlooking salvation. It's like Easter without Christmas. There's a boatload of stuff about hospitality in the New Testament, that most Christians glide past, blind as bats.
May I show you something you may not have noticed about:
the birth narratives
the temptation in the desert
the lamb of God
the transfiguration
John's signs
washing feet
the Eucharist
the mysteries of the Rosary
the Our Father and the Hail Mary and the Salve Regina
the Magnificat, the Benedictus, and the Nunc Dimittis
May I show you, please?
The book isn't tied tight to the immigration fight, yet. This is the second part in a seven-part series:
(1) the Old Testament,
(2) the New Testament,
(3) the writing the Fathers and Doctors of the Church,
(4) three American saints who worked with immigrants,
(5) the formal teaching of the Catholic Church about immigration,
(6) the letter of the American and Mexican bishops, writing jointly in “Strangers No Longer,” and
(7) the public position and practice of American Catholics today, especially the Knights of Columbus.
In the sixth and seventh parts, I'll get to the current debate. The bishops ask us to balance the God-given right to migrate with the right and duty to protect nations. What does a just balance look like? I'll get there, but not in this volume.
Get the book! Read it, gnaw on it, review it, promote it.
And love your neighbor.
