No Lasting City

Let us then go to [Jesus] who is outside the camp and bear the [hardships] he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. – Hebrews 13:13-14 (NRSV) 

In a recent essay about immigration, Lydia Polgreen noted that perhaps no force in human history is more powerful than the longing for home. Which is why for millennia the most fearsome punishment you could inflict on someone was not confinement, but exile.  

To be forced to leave your place to live among strangers was akin to death. For millions of people forced from home by war, violence, climate change, and poverty, it still is. 

No one immigrated to a new place wanting to dislodge or displace those already living there. If those who arrived due to forced displacement wanted anything, it was to go home someday. Most couldn’t. They settled down and made a good life. But even after generations, visions of home still ache in the soul. 

Many Americans believe that if we build walls against people on the move, deport them to unlivable places, consign them to prisons far from any home they ever knew, our home will stay “ours,” stable and secure.  

But Scripture affirms this most bracing thing: Here on earth, we have no continuing place. There’s no lasting city, not for anyone. None of us will ever be home until we meet in God. We’re deluding ourselves if we think otherwise. 

Jesus had no such illusions. He was a man outside the camp, a stranger warded off and defended against by hard borders of fear.  

The author of Hebrews says we should go to him, share his exile, feel his ache; and then—with every refugee, immigrant, and exile—turn towards that home that exists fully and finally only in the welcoming heart of God.  

Prayer
For immigrants, exiles, and refugees, we pray; and for ourselves, exiled from our own humanity by fear. Have mercy on us, change us, bring us home to you.

About the Author
Mary Luti is a long time seminary educator and pastor, author of Teresa of Avila’s Way and numerous articles, and founding member of The Daughters of Abraham, a national network of interfaith women’s book groups.