For many years Palm Sunday has been a day of support for a just and humane response to refugees. The joining of the date and the cause go together. Both are about hope. Both test that hope and call us to live with hope against hope.
This year refugees evoke little public sympathy or political interest. In many nations they are seen as competitors for support, housing, employment and education in a fragile economy. In response to refugees many nations have imitated Australia in refusing them entry, detaining them or despatching them to inhospitable nations.
This year, just two weeks before Palm Sunday, when innocent people are fleeing bombing by Australian allies in Lebanon and Iran, the Australian Government hurried legislation through parliament to allow the removal, exempt from judicial review, of the right of people with an Australian visa and long connections to us to land in Australia. Once we committed ourselves to offer protection to refugees. Now we are concerned only to be protected from them.
In such a brutal, selfish and inhospitable world, to hope and pray that refugees will be treated with decency as human beings certainly demands hope against hope. In the Christian story, which we at Jesuit Social Services we draw our inspiration from many religious and other sources, including the Christian story. In it, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday demanded a similar hope against hope. It acted out his claim to represent God and his trust that through him God would save the world. The Romans read this in political terms and feared an uprising. The Jewish authorities regarded Jesus as fraudulent in his claim to represent God and also feared the likely Roman reprisals. Authorities on both sides had a common interest: to crush any hope of an uprising by destroying its source. Later in the week they did so by having his humanity and credibility flogged, nailed and stripped out from him, and with it died his disciples’ hope. And yet, by Easter Sunday morning, hope had against all hope been rekindled by rumours of his rising from the dead.
In a world where people fleeing from conflict in other towns routinely found city gates shut against them, Jesus’ followers welcomed and fed them. Where hope against hope is strong, whatever its sources, such stories of a practical love that scorns harsh laws will always be told. The unique value of each human being and the respect due to them is non-negotiable.
The week leading to Easter is a time for us to open our hearts to refugees who have settled in Australia, and especially those from Gaza, the Ukraine, Sudan, Iran and other nations where war rages. It is also a time to support people in Australia who seek protection from persecution and to demand review of the harsh laws that turn away and punish them. It is a time to entertain hope against hope.
