The Good News is... protection and care of the vulnerable -- Deut. 24:17-22, Matt. 19:13-15 (5th Sunday of Lent)
- Scott Clark
- 4 days ago
- 11 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
Artwork: "Fuera ICE " by Nicolette Faison,
used with copyright permission
A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org
Our theme this Lent is Tell Me Something Good. We have been focusing each week on the core Good News of God’s love for us and for the whole world in Jesus Christ. And so we have said:
· The Good News is... God loves everyone. At Christ’s table, everyone is welcome – even those whom the world has kept at the margins – especially those who need to be welcomed the most. Whoever you are, there is a place for you here.[1]
· The Good News is... sufficiency and abundance for everyone, remember, as Jesus fed 5,000 weary folks, after a long, dry, dusty day, all of them feasting together in the green grass – and as God includes us in the joy of feeding the hungry.
· The Good News is... lavish love – God’s lavish love for the world, and ours for God and for each other. Remember: In response to God’s expansive love and forgiveness, the woman washing Jesus’ feet with her tears, and the aroma of perfume filling the room. Lavish love.[2]
· Again and again, the Good News of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ... takes us by surprise – as Jesus rejects the power-over of the world – every bit of cruelty and oppression – and points us to the world as it ought to be.[3]
All this Good News – it is ours to live out and to share in a world that has forgotten the values that matter most – in a world where the Herods still rage – in a world where so many people hurt. With all this Good News, God creates, and commands, and impels an ethic and a moral order that centers the protection, care, and well-being of the most vulnerable. That is how all this Good News comes to life. That is the insistent imperative that pulses across the whole of Scripture. The Good News is... protection and care of the vulnerable. That is how we are to center our lives. That is the world we are called to create and inhabit. Thanks be to God.
The Hebrew Scriptures have a very specific way of expressing that imperative – again and again. It’s there in this morning’s scripture from Deuteronomy.[4] As God creates a community, and frees them from slavery, and brings them home from exile, and corrects them along the way – God sets as the standard for their communal life (and for the legitimacy of their leaders) the care of the stranger/the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow. “The immigrant, the orphan, and the widow” – It is a set phrase, a refrain across Scripture, God’s shorthand for the vulnerable in the midst of community. What matters most, God says, again and again, is how you care for the vulnerable – the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow.
Across the Hebrew Scriptures, God creates and commands a world that centers the well-being of the vulnerable:[5]
· Zechariah 7:9-10 – Do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the immigrant or the poor.
· Isaiah 1:16-17 – Learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
That ethic is reflected again and again in more specific commands -- like this morning’s Scripture – about how we should live our everyday lives, always with concern for the vulnerable.
When you are harvesting your wheat,
leave some for the immigrant, the widow, and the orphan
When you are harvesting your olives,
leave some for the immigrant, the widow, and the orphan
When you are harvesting your grapes,
leave some for the immigrant, the widow, and the orphan
It’s not just what God commands, it’s who God is.[6] The people sing that in their psalms. Psalm 146: God watches over the immigrant; God upholds the orphan and the widow.
It’s who God is, and it is who God has created us to be:
· Deuteronomy 10 – God defends the cause of the orphan and the widow, and loves the immigrant in your midst – giving them food and clothing. And you are to love the immigrant, for you yourselves were refugees in Egypt.
It’s imperative not only for individuals, but for the community as a whole, for kings and for nations:[7]
· Jeremiah 22:2-5 – Do what is just and right. Do no wrong or violence to the immigrant, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood... For if you do not obey these commands, your house will become a desolation.
God is clear. Communities thrive only when they are protecting and caring for the vulnerable. Failing to care for the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow is the reason regimes are rejected and fall.
Across Scripture, God centers the protection and care of the vulnerable – the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow. It is at the heart of the Good News. So I thought we’d do the same this morning, and center –think some about the protection and care of the vulnerable – think some about that core commitment of God’s love and about how our culture may have drifted from those core values, and what we might do.
We’ve said before that Scripture is from beginning to end the story of people on the move – of immigrants, refugees, and displaced people. I won’t go through the whole list, but we’re talking – Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar; Jacob, and all his sons and daughters; the people freed from slavery, wandering in the wilderness; the people taken to exile in Babylon, and their descendants sojourning back to a home they don’t know; and Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, refugees from Herod’s wrath. Scripture from beginning to end.
The people of Scripture live in a desert culture – where there are mass displacements of people. It has been ever so down through history. So the command to protect and care for the refugee and the immigrant should come as no surprise. In a desert culture, the failure to extend hospitality to someone means they will likely die. It is a life and death thing. God grounds that command – to care for the immigrant – in their own experience – protect and care for the vulnerable who are on the move, for you once were slaves in Egypt, and you know what it is to be vulnerable far from your native land.
And so God commands protection and care for the stranger, the immigrant, the refugee – across the whole of Scripture. And American churches – across denominations, progressive and conservative – have a long history of taking that command seriously. I found a great timeline of that on the Church World Service website (they’re the CROP Walk folks).[8] After World War II, there were millions of displaced people around the world. Christian folks worked together across denominations – participated in refugee settlement efforts – found homes for those who had been driven from theirs by war and by the Cold War. Here in this community you welcomed Dino Misailidis and his family. In the 70s on into the 80s, there were refugee resettlement efforts on behalf of Vietnamese and South Asian refugees, for folks from Central America. For Christian folks, it hasn’t been a partisan issue – helping refugees has been the right thing to do. Like the Bible says.
So it has been all the more shocking to see a nation that claims to have Judeo-Christan values turn its back, in particular, on refugees. A couple weeks ago, I attended a refugee and immigration update on Zoom, sponsored by our denomination.[9] Since 2000, the US has admitted annually anywhere from 25 to 100 thousand refugees – under Democrat and Republican presidents – as other nations do the same.[10] In January 2025, by Executive Order, the new regime cut off all refugee admissions. This year it’s limited to 7,500 people, mainly white Afrikaaners.[11] With regard to immigration more generally, the Administration has warehoused thousands in detention centers, many without due process; deported folks without due process; deported folks to countries other than their own; jailed folks in brutal prisons like the one in El Salvador, from which they may never be released.
Well, you get the point. There is a stark contrast. Again and again, Scripture says: God defends the cause of the orphan and the widow, and loves the immigrant in your midst – giving them food and clothing. And you are to love the immigrant, for you yourselves were refugees in Egypt. Do what is just and right. Do no wrong or violence to the immigrant, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood...
Immigrants, orphans, and widows. The gospel reading this morning gives us a glimpse of Jesus’ own protection and care of children.[12] It’s that lovely moment where the disciples are trying to keep children away from Jesus, but Jesus says no, “Let the children come unto me.” We know and love this image.
It’s lovely... and it’s deep. In the world and times of the gospel, children didn’t have it easy. Children were “the first to suffer from famine, war, disease, and natural disasters.”[13] As one scholar describes it, “they were the weakest members of society... fed last, with the smallest portions.”[14]Many lived as slaves. As many as 70% would have lost a parent; 50% of children died before age 5.[15]
So when the disciples rebuke mothers for bringing their children to Jesus for healing and for a blessing, they are reinforcing the systems of the world that would keep those children marginalized and hurting.
And to that, Jesus offers a fully embodied NO. Because remember – this is Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. This is the Jesus who as a child survived a genocide. This is the Jesus who began life part of a refugee family in Egypt. To the systems of the world that protect the powerful and harm the vulnerable, Jesus says, NO. “Let the children come to me. Stop blocking them from the blessing of life, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
Who do our systems protect?
We are a nation at war. In the first days of that war, our nation bombed a girls school. A preliminary inquiry has established our responsibility– with the note that it may have been an accident based on outdated information.[16] What I want to note is the reaction of our leaders, which was at first denial, and then when it became undeniable, a shrug. Even if one supports the war, human decency requires that a nation at a minimum express regret for the killing of children. Where is our concern for the vulnerable?
It’s not just schoolchildren in other nations who are daily at risk and in need of protection. I think of the terrorist attack on that synagogue school in Michigan, and the years of gun violence directed at schoolchildren across the nation.
Who do our systems protect?
We know how to protect the powerful. Just think of all the political energy being spent on those Epstein files. There is evidence that suggests that powerful men conspired over years to traffic and harm girls. The DOJ has had little interest in investigating that. This is not a partisan thing. I have a grudging respect for Marjorie Taylor Greene – with whom I disagree on many things – but she and Representatives Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna seem to have moral clarity that harm to the vulnerable should be investigated and stopped.[17]
In our culture, who do our systems protect?
Scripture centers the vulnerable – the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow.
With widows, I think of Ruth and Naomi – women living in a patriarchal culture who have lost all their men – out in a wilderness – joining with each other to create a world where they can thrive. Scripture centers the well-being of those caught up in any system where they are harmed so that a powerful few might prosper. Scripture centers the protection and care of the vulnerable, and God implores us, “Make your world so.”
There’s a confession of the Presbyterian Church that comes out of South Africa – the Belhar Confession – that embraces that Biblical language.[18] It says “that God, in a world full of injustice and enmity, is in a special way the God of the destitute, the poor and the wronged; that God supports the downtrodden, protects the stranger, helps orphans and widows.” The Belhar Confession affirms that Jesus always stands with the vulnerable, and that the role of the church is to stand where Jesus stands.
And that leads us to that question we always ask: What can we do?
Next Saturday, a number of us will be participating in a national protest. To be sure, there are things that we will be standing against. I want to challenge us – to challenge myself – to think about what we are standing FOR. It’s too easy to take pot shots and hurl insults at leaders with whom we disagree. It is so much more important to ask, What are the values that matter most that are getting us up on a Saturday to take to the streets? And particularly – as those who follow Jesus Christ – How can we be present in that demonstration in a way that stands for the vulnerable – for immigrant neighbors, and children, and all who are harmed by oppressive systems?
Here’s the sign I will be taking. It’s from an earlier demonstration – but the message seems worthy. “We the People.” You know me – I will be standing for the values of our Constitution. And “Support Trans Kids” – somehow they have become an easy target for the Right – I will stand with them – for their human rights and dignity.
And I have a challenge for us within our own community. What can we do here? We strive here to value and center the well-being of our children. We have a Healthy Church policy that we take very seriously. You may remember that back in November Kris Maretzki and Rev. Grace extended an invitation for folks to volunteer as a second presence in Sunday School. In our children’s programs, we are committed to there being two adults any time we are leading our children. I think we have three folks right now who serve as Second Presence – Ann, and Bill, and Kris. But when the invitation went out for volunteers, we haven’t had anyone respond. So here’s my challenge to each of us: Before you say yes to doing anything else at the church, think... just think... about whether being a Second Presence once in a while is something you might do. It’s a great gift to our children, to their parents (giving them space to worship), and to the well-being of our community as a whole – it’s one way of centering the protection and care of the vulnerable.
Since childhood, I have loved that story where Jesus says, “Let the children come to me.” As a child, I heard that as a word for me, and for all children everywhere, and that was powerful stuff. As adults, we are entrusted with that story, and we hear it with hearts that ache because we see and know what it is to be vulnerable in this world.
Imagine that moment. There Jesus sits – Jesus who as a child survived a genocide – Jesus who as a child began life in a refugee family. There that Jesus sits. And as the disciples try to send the children away, Jesus says, No, let them come unto me. And the children come forward – children living in a hard world – and Jesus blesses them, and leans toward them, and says:
I will always stand with you.
The Good News is ... God welcomes all... God's sufficiency and abundance is for everyone... God’s lavish love... and the care and protection of the vulnerable.
All that... is who we are in Jesus Christ.
May we always stand where Jesus stands.
© 2026 Scott Clark
[1] See https://www.togetherweserve.org/post/the-good-news-is-all-are-welcome-luke-15-15-24-2nd-sunday-in-lent
[3] See https://www.togetherweserve.org/post/the-good-news-is-so-good-it-catches-us-by-surprise-matthew-4-1-11-john-2-1-11-1st-sunday-in-l
[4] For background on this text, see Ronald E. Clements, “The Book of Deuteronomy,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. ii (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1998), p.387.
[5] For more on how this theme is integrated across the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures, see Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, and Advocacy (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997 (2005 ebook)).
[6] See id. p.240.
[7] See id. p.422, 614.
[8] See https://cwsglobal.org/blog/faith-in-action-how-religious-communities-have-historically-united-to-welcome-refugees/
[9] The data referenced in this paragraph comes from notes from that update, and other sources, as cited.
[10] See https://ohss.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2024-11/2024_1108_ohss_refugee_annual_flow_report_2023.pdf , p.4.
[11] See https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/us/politics/trump-refugee-admissions-white-south-africans.html
[12] For background on this text and the Gospel of Matthew, see Brian Blount, Commentary, Tell Me Something Good Lenten Resources (A Sanctified Art, 2026); M. Eugene Boring, “The Gospel of Matthew,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. viii (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995); Michael Joseph Brown, “The Gospel of Matthew” in True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary(Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008); Herman C. Waetjen, Matthew’s Theology of Fulfillment, Its Universality and It’s Ethnicity (London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017).
[13] See Brown, p.120; Blount, supra.
[14] Id.
[15] Id.
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