Mary, Joseph, and the rule of law

The politicization of Christmas some years seems almost as bad as the commercialization of Christ’s birth. At a time when Democratic governors light “holiday trees” and Satanists erect displays in state capitals, on one argument we see liberals rush to embrace the Christmas story—or at least their preferred version of it. Fr. James Martin, SJ, writing for the Jesuit journal America a few years ago on Dec. 27, had a column titled, “Were Jesus, Mary and Joseph refugees? Yes.” Martin’s story received the highest praise achievable on the left: a retweet from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who reposted it with the message, “Merry Christmas everyone - here’s to a holiday filled with happiness, family, and love for all people. 🌎 (Including refugee babies in mangers + their parents.)” Many other Christian writers have taken up a similar theme over the years.

The argument goes that the Holy Family fled from Israel to Egypt after an angel told Joseph to get up and go because of Herod’s forthcoming order to slaughter all babies in Bethlehem to kill off the rumored newborn “king of the Jews” (see Matthew chapter 2). Quoting from the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees’ definition of a refugee, Martin writes, “The Holy Family, as Matthew recounts the story, was fleeing because of a ‘well-founded fear of persecution’ because of their ‘membership in a particular social group,’ in this case people with young children living in Bethlehem.” Rather than refugees, others prefer the term “asylum seekers,” but the substance remains the same: The trio fled from Israel to Egypt because of their fear of Herod’s violent rage.

Of course, Martin and AOC invoke the image of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as refugees to make a political point: If you take your Christian faith seriously, then you need to support the Democrats on immigration, the border, the wall, amnesty, Dreamers, etc. As Scot McKnight wrote for Christianity Today, “Here we find elements to consider for immigration. If Jesus was an immigrant, I wonder to myself, are we not to see Jesus in all those seeking asylum in the USA?”

The answer, of course, is that we should see Jesus in every person we meet and interact with, regardless of their citizenship. That does not mean necessarily that the government should shape its policies as though sovereign borders do not exist. Indeed, the usual response to the “Jesus was a refugee” line is to point out that He stayed entirely within the borders of the Roman Empire, and in all events His pre-Westphalian world did not feature borders and nation-states in the same sense as the modern age. Fair enough.

But I think the best answer is to remember a fact from earlier in the Christmas story: Joseph and Mary traveled to Bethlehem to comply with a governmental citizenship registration requirement. Consider the opening lines of Luke’s Christmas story: “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.”

Recall the context: Mary and Joseph were living in Nazareth. The Bible does not tell us the route they took to Bethlehem, but we can be sure it was arduous for a pregnant woman to make the 90 miles between the two towns, whether on foot or by donkey or cart. Yet Joseph and Mary undertook such a substantial journey—at such an inconvenient moment—out of respect for the rule of law and the requirements of Caesar. Our obligation to render unto Caesar, they teach us, is not only taxes but also obedience to just laws like citizenship.

Correction: Joseph and Mary traveled to Bethlehem.