Emma Lazarus died of cancer in 1887. You may not know who she is but at least a part of a poem she wrote will be familiar to you. Lazarus wrote “The New Colossus” as a fund raising effort for the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. In 1903 a plaque of this sonnet was placed on the inner walls of the pedestal.

The part of the sonnet that is most familiar goes like this. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore; Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

A lot of people did just that. In fact, I would guess that a good percentage of people here today had ancestors who came here looking for a better life, and may have passed through the Ellis Island Immigration Station, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. It is estimated that as many as 100 million Americans can trace their ancestry back through Ellis Island.

We like Lazarus’ poem because it feels right. We are for the underdog and it seems right to take the “wretched refuse” and become the greatest nation in the world. We like the sentiment, it’s just not our policy; At least not anymore.

When I was a missionary I had to go around and speak at churches to raise support. Every now and then I would find myself in an uncomfortable position as the conversation would become racially biased. It would irritate me because our denomination actually has a history of fighting against slavery decades before the civil war.

Unfortunately things like the threat of terrorism and the threat of losing our jobs seems to have increased the fear, or at least the intolerance, of foreigners. I wonder if that doesn’t lead to a lack of passion for foreign missions. That would be a shame (as well as disobedient) because we are commanded to go to the ends of the earth.

It is time we resume our position as a beacon of hope to the world.

© 2006-2008 Zanesville United Brethren Church