With the future of health care reform still uncertain, faith-based groups are hoping to jump-start a movement for the "other" reform package facing Congress -- an immigration overhaul that has stalled despite President Obama's promise to push it forward this year.

In a conference call with reporters this week, representatives of a range of religious groups were joined by two members of Congress to unveil a month-long campaign that will begin by delivering thousands of postcards to Capitol Hill offices, continue with some 100 events across the country during the President's Day recess and into early March, and culminate with a large immigration reform rally in Washington on Sunday, March 21.

The goal is to use both moral suasion and practical arguments -- that immigrants bring value to the American economy and are not competition for scarce jobs -- to change a legislative dynamic that seems even more daunting than in 2007, when a promising bill co-sponsored by John McCain and Ted Kennedy and supported by President Bush died in the Senate in the face of Republican opposition.

Now Kennedy is dead, McCain is tacking right to save his political life, and the economy has tanked while Tea Party rage is on the rise. So what makes faith leaders think they can move the mountain now? They are taking a two-pronged approach: to change hearts and minds by framing the debate as a "moral imperative," and to deploy some old-fashioned political organizing and lobbying.

"What's different about this campaign is that we are really reaching out to voters and to non-immigrant communities and forming coalitions on the ground with people who are not our traditional allies," said Father Jon Pedigo, pastor of a Catholic parish in San Jose, California. "We feel that through very targeted local work we will be able to go about this" -- campaigning for immigration reform -- "in a much more determined way."

"We should not be wasting time with friends who don't need to be converted," echoed Rep. Mike Honda, a Democrat who represents California's Silicon Valley.

The interfaith coalition, which represents mainline and evangelical Protestants, Jewish groups, and the Catholic hierarchy, knows it has an uphill battle. For religious leaders, the Judeo-Christian ethic, as based in scripture, is clear: welcome the stranger, strengthen families, care for the needy, do justice to one's neighbor. And in legislative terms, that means supporting immigration reform that allows both legal and undocumented people a path to citizenship, that focuses on keeping immigrant families united, and that brings security and consistency to border enforcement.

But polls consistently show immigration reform is a relatively low priority for most Americans, and according to a survey from the Pew Hispanic Center last year, just 31 percent of Latinos said it was an "extremely important" issue for President Obama to resolve.

Jobs, education and, yes, health care reform, are higher priorities, and immigrants -- especially the 11 million undocumented immigrants estimated to be living in the United States -- are increasingly seen as threats to the economic well-being of native-born Americans, even while the number of illegal immigrants has fallen significantly in the last year.

Remember that Rep. Joe Wilson's famous "You lie!" outburst at Obama during his address on health care last September was prompted by the president's assertion that health care reform would not cover illegal immigrants, as some believed.

With those concerns in mind, the faith leaders behind the campaign, called "Together, not Torn: Families Can't Wait for Immigration Reform," frequently cite data showing that immigration actually boosts economic growth and creates jobs rather than taking them away from Americans.

Ironically, that argument is also made by pro-business and conservative groups. The libertarian Cato Institute last summer released a study claiming that legalizing the more than eight million undocumented workers in the United States would bring an added $180 billion to the U.S. economy over the next decade while simply toughening laws and tightening borders would actually hurt American households economically.

But the current political calculus does not follow the same logic as economic data.

Burned by the Senate's inability to pass a popular immigration reform bill in 2007, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will not force her members to take a politically volatile vote unless she is sure the Senate will also pass the bill. And many Republicans are already preaching from the populist gospel, calling immigration reform an "amnesty" and a "job killer."

"Allowing millions of illegal immigrants to stay and take jobs away from citizens and legal immigrants is like giving a burglar a key to the house," Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said in December after Illinois Democrat Luis Gutierrez introduced an immigration reform bill. "Those stolen jobs rightfully belong to citizens and legal immigrants. We could cut the unemployment rate in half simply by enforcing immigration laws!"

Apart from battling such perceptions, the faith leaders and House representatives on Wednesday's conference call also recognized that immigration reform is a still hostage to health care reform. The issues "are interlocked to a certain degree" said New York Democrat Yvette Clark. But she added that "we're very capable of multi-tasking," and Honda noted that since the immigration bill has already been introduced, "once we finish health care reform we'll be ready to go."

Given that South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham has bucked his party by announcing his support for immigration reform, giving him the role McCain once played, advocates are hopeful that there could be a bipartisan path to 60 votes in the Senate. But a clear message in the campaign launched this week was that senators would now have to "stand up and declare themselves" on the issue, as Honda put it. The politicians and faith leaders also want to pressure Obama to make good on his commitment to reform.

"We know this won't be an easy conversation or an easy legislative issue," said the Rev. Jennifer Kottler, spokeswoman for Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

And the problems facing religious leaders are not only in Congress, but also in their own pews.

An online survey of more than 42,000 Catholic, mainline Protestant, born-again Protestant, and Jewish voters, released at the end of December by the Center for Immigration Studies, showed that by wide margins believers say that the level of immigration is too high, that it is largely due to lax enforcement, and that immigrants take jobs away from American workers.

Those beliefs held sway even among Jewish voters, who are among the most liberal Americans, and for Catholics, whose leadership has been among the most active in promoting immigration reform, noting that the Catholic Church in the United States is a community of immigrants that is still growing thanks largely to immigration.

Evangelicals were the most conservative group polled -- which was no surprise.

Yet Galen Carey, director of Government Affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals and a participant in the conference call this week, said he believes that is changing. The board of the NAE, which represents voices across the evangelical spectrum, last October unanimously adopted a resolution strongly backing immigration reform.

Carey added that evangelicals are learning more about biblical teachings that support care for migrants. And he and others noted that many Americans do not realize that most immigrants are Christians, and that many other immigrants become Christians when they arrive in America. As a result, evangelicals "are seeing the hand of God working through migration patterns" as they see the influx of immigrants into their churches. "So that is very much transforming our views toward immigrants here in the United States."

The goal now, said the faith leaders, is to work the "grassroots" and the "grasstops," as Father Pedigo put it -- local leaders and communities in places like Colorado and Ohio and Pennsylvania where anti-immigrant sentiment can run high -- to create "a national moral compass that sees immigrants as our brothers and sisters."

"So it's a more strategic effort, a more strategic message," Pedigo said.

Part of that strategy may also be exploiting the fact that immigration has waned significantly since the recession took hold. The Department of Homeland Security reported this week said that there were an estimated 800,000 fewer illegal immigrants in the United States in 2009 than in 2008, the biggest drop in years. That could provide another argument for fixing the immigration system now.

"You don't fix a bridge during rush hour," said Jen Smyers of Church World Service. "You fix it now, so when there is an uptick in immigration we're ready."

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By Daniel G. Groody, c.s.c.

This article first appeared in an issue of Yale Divinity School's Reflections.  With the author's permission, it was also included in the NC Council of Churches' recent study guide: "For You Were Once a Stranger."  You can order and download the study guide here.  

A few years ago I was working in Mexico at a border outreach center that offered material and pastoral support to those on the move.  Some were traveling northwards in search of better lives, and others had tried to enter the U.S. but failed and were deported back to Mexico.  One day a group of forty immigrants arrived in the center, sojourners who had hoped to reach the U.S.  It had been a long night for them – and an even longer week.  For three days they had crossed through the Arizona desert in temperatures that reach 120 degrees in the shade.  Amid the challenges of the desert terrain – their personal vulnerability to everything from heat stroke to poisonous snakes – they had braved a perilous journey and tried to make their way to the U.S., often under the cover of darkness.  They walked remote and diffuse trails that have taken the lives of thousands of immigrants – an estimated 300-500 annually since 1994. 

Why were they willing to take such risks and leave their home country?  When I asked them, some said they had relatives back home who needed medication they could not afford. Others said the $3-$5 a day they earned for a twelve-hour work day in Mexico was not enough to put much more than beans and tortillas on the table. Still others said potato chips had become a luxury they could no longer afford, and they could not stand to look their children in the eyes when they complained of hunger.

The Desert Ordeal

“We are migrating not because we want to but because we have to,” said Mario.  “My family at home depends on me. I’m already dead in Mexico, and getting to the U.S. gives us the hope of living, even though I may die.”  But now they were back on the border after a week-long ordeal. While walking through the Arizona desert, they had suddenly heard a rumbling sound on the horizon.  Then a white laser-like light cut their world in two. Within moments a border patrol helicopter surrounded them and threw the group into chaos.

“So they circled around us and then rounded us up like we were cattle,” said Maria.  “I said, no, dear God … I’ve gone through so much sacrifice to come this far … please don’t let them send us back where we came from.”

“It was an awful night,” added Gustavo.  “But the worst part was when they started playing the song, ‘La Cucaracha’ over the helicopter intercom.  I never felt so humiliated in my life, like I was the lowest form of life of earth, like I wasn’t even a human being.”

The story of Mario, Maria and Gustavo gives witness to their particular journey across the U.S.-Mexico border, but its dynamics are universal in scope.  Today there are more than 200 million people migrating around the world, or one out of every thirty-five people on the planet, which is equivalent to the population of Brazil.  Some 30-40 million of these are undocumented, 24 million are internally displaced and about 10 million are refugees.¹  For many reasons some scholars refer to these days as the “age of migration,” touching every area of human life.²  The immigration issue underscores not only conflict at geographical borders but the turbulent crossroads between national security and human insecurity, national sovereign rights and human rights, civil law and natural law, and citizenship and discipleship.³

Amid these contentious debates, much has been written about the social, political, economic, cultural dimensions of immigration.  But surprisingly very little has been written from a theological perspective, even less from the vantage point of the immigrants themselves.  Yet the theme of migration is as old as the Scriptures.  From the call of Abraham to the Exodus from Egypt, from Israel’s wandering in the desert to their experience of exile, from the holy family’s flight into Egypt to the missionary activity of the Church, the very identity of the People of God is inextricably intertwined with stories of movement, risk and hospitality.

Broken Borders: God’s Migration

But what exactly can theology offer to this complex issue of immigration?  Here I will highlight three Christian themes that touch directly on the migration debate and help us understand that crossing borders is at the heart of human life, divine revelation and Christian identity.  These three areas are the Imago Dei (the Image of God), the Verbum Dei (the Word of God) and the Missio Dei (the Mission of God).⁴

The notion of the Imago Dei emerges in the earliest pages of Scripture.  We read in the first creation account that human beings are created in God’s image and likeness (Gen 1:26-27). No text is more foundational or more significant in its implication for the immigration debate. It reveals that immigration is not just about a political “problem” but about real people. The Imago Dei is the core symbol of human dignity, the infinite worth of every human being, and the divine attributes that are part of every human life, including will, memory, emotions, understanding, and the capacity to love and enter into relationship with others. 

Listening to stories of immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as the borders between Slovakia-Ukraine, Malta-Libya, and others, I have discovered that a common denominator around the world among all who migrate is their experience of dehumanization.

I recently was speaking with a group of refugees in the Spanish-occupied territory of Ceuta on the Moroccan coast.  They took me up to the mountains to meet some people from India, who were hiding out in cardboard shacks in the mountains.  The only place available to them was a small plot of land, where they built a cardboard shack, located above an animal shelter that had hundreds of dogs, which barked all through the night.  “Even many of the animals here live better than we do here,” said one refugee, part of a group from India that was seeking work in the European Union.  “It is as if we are worth nothing to the people who live here, and if we die, it won’t matter.”

The insults they endure are not just a direct assault on their pride but on their very existence.  Their vulnerability and sense of meaninglessness weigh heavily on them; they often feel that the most difficult part of being an immigrant is to be no one to anyone.  The Imago Dei brings to the forefront the human costs embedded in the immigration equation, and it challenges a society more oriented towards profit than people to accept that the economy should be made for people and not people for the economy.  It is a reminder that the moral health of an economy is measured by how well the most vulnerable are faring.⁵  The Imago Dei insists that we see immigrants not as problems to be solved but people to be healed and empowered.

Crossing Borders: Jesus the Refugee

The second theological notion that is central to the immigration debate is the Verbum Dei. It declares that God in Jesus crosses the divide that exists between divine life and human life.  In the incarnation God migrates to the human race and, as Karl Barth notes, makes his way into the “far country.”⁶  This far country is one of human discord and disorder, a place of division and dissension, a territory marked by death and the demeaning treatment of human beings.

The Gospel of Matthew says God in Jesus not only takes on human flesh and migrates into our world but actually becomes a refugee himself when he and his family flee political persecution and escape into Egypt (Matt 2:13-15).  The divine takes on not just any human narrative but that of the most vulnerable among us.  This movement toward the human race takes place not on the strength of any human initiative or human accomplishment but through divine gratuity.  Walking the way of the cross, overcoming the forces of death that threaten human life, Jesus gives hope to all who go through the agony of economic injustice, family separation, cultural uprootedness, and even a premature and painful death.  Certainly migrants who cross the deserts in search of more dignified lives see in the Jesus story their own story: he opens up a reason to hope despite the most hopeless of circumstances.

What impresses me most in speaking to migrants in the midst of their arduous journey is their ability to believe in God even in the most godless of situations. They speak about trusting in God even after all has been taken away, and they affirm God’s goodness even when their lot has been marked by such suffering and pain.

Beyond Borders: Civilization of Love

A third notion from theology that gives us a different way of understanding immigration is the Missio Dei.  The mission of the Church is to proclaim a God of life and make our world more human by building up, in Pope Paul VI’s words, the “civilization of love.”  In imitation of Jesus, it seeks to make real the practice of table fellowship.  The significance of Jesus’ table fellowship with sinners and social outcasts is that he crosses over the human borders that divide one human being from another.  If the incarnation is about God crossing over the divine-human divide, the mission of the Church is to cross the human-human divide.  It is fundamentally a mission of reconciliation, a realization that the borders that define countries may have some proximate value but are not ultimately those that define the body of Christ.

One of the most remarkable ritual expressions of this unity takes place each year near El Paso, Texas.  In the dry, rugged, sun-scorched terrain where many immigrants lose their lives, bishops, priests, and lay people come together annually to celebrate the Eucharist. Like at other liturgies, they pray and worship together.  Unlike other liturgies, a sixteen-foot high iron fence divides this community in half, with one side in Mexico and the other in the U.S.  Amid a desert of death and a culture of fear, this Eucharist is not just a tool for activism or social reform but a testimony of God’s universal, undivided, and unrestricted love for all people. It speaks of the gift and challenge of Christian faith and the call to feed the world’s hunger for peace, justice and reconciliation.  In uniting people beyond the political constructions that divide us, it gives tangible expression to the moral demands of the Kingdom of God, the ethical possibilities of global solidarity, and the Christian vision of a journey of hope.

Immigration is arguably the most challenging issue of the new century, but this need not blind us to the core issues that lie at the heart of every one of us.  How we respond to those most in need says more about who we are individually and collectively than it does about those on the move.  Theology supplies a way of thinking about migration that keeps the human issues at the center of the debate and reminds us that our own existence as a pilgrim people is migratory in nature.

Theology offers not just more information but a new imagination, one that reflects at its core what it means to be human before God and to live together in community.  In seeking to overcome all that divides us in order to reconcile us in all our relationships, Christian discipleship reminds us that the more difficult walls to cross are the ones that exist in the hearts of each of us. Unable to cross this divide by ourselves, Christian faith rests ultimately in the one who migrated from heaven to earth, and through his death and resurrection, passed over from death to life.  From a Christian perspective, the ones who are truly alienated are those who have so disconnected themselves from their neighbor in need that they fail to see in the eyes of the stranger a mirror of themselves, the image of Christ (Matt 25:31-46), and the call to human solidarity.

Footnotes:

¹ For more on these statistics, see the website for the International Organization for Migration, http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/pid/254.

² Stephen Castles and Mark J. Miller, The Age Of Migration: International Population Movements In The Modern World (London: The Guilford Press, 2003).

³ Daniel G. Groody and Gioacchino Campese, eds., A Promised Land, A Perilous Journey: Theological Perspectives on Migration (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008).

⁴ This article is drawn in part from a longer essay that will appear in Theological Studies in 2009.

⁵ These themes are particularly brought out in Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy, Washington, D.C: National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1986.

⁶ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.1, “The Doctrine of Reconciliation,” trans. G. W. Bromiley, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (London: T&T Clark International, 1956/2004), 157-210.

By Rev. Ken Sehested, Circle of Mercy (Asheville, NC)

This reflection was offered to a group of 29 clergy and religious leaders at All Souls Cathedral in Asheville, NC on September 3, 2009 as part of a statewide series of clergy breakfasts on immigration issues.

 

 

My assignment is to do a Bible study relevant to the intense conversation underway in our nation over the question of immigration. Others will offer social analysis and practical strategies. But I should mention three presumptions I bring.

First, I believe we have a powerful witness to bear from our Scriptures, one that is surprisingly relevant. It’s not more information that we need. We don’t so much need to be convinced as to be convicted.

Second, while I believe we have some unique sources of conviction, that doesn’t mean we have privileged insight or expertise when it comes to shaping specific policies. For that we need to come to the table with other people of faith and conscience to forge workable policy options that take into consideration what has happened in the past and what is happening now as leverage for what could happen in the future.

Third, our analysis must be informed by an intelligent reading of the economic realities shaping immigration policies and patterns. I firmly believe there is a kind of economic magnetism at work: a negative force, characterized by desperation (particularly in Latin America), shoving migrants across the border. And a positive force drawing them here: A lot of people make a lot of money employing migrants. In fact, people like you and I need to count the cost: Our standard of living depends on cheap labor. We, too, are implicated in this system.

Several years ago, to supplement my income, I began a new career as a stonemason. I was paid $10.00 an hour doing very strenuous work. After a year, my boss laid me off, saying he could hire a Mexican for $8.00 an hour. “Nothing personal,” he said, “just business.” But in biblical terms, nothing is just business. In the long run, the only sustainable business is just business.

Some of you may recall hearing the story of Manuel Jesus Cordova [note 1]. He was in the news a couple years ago.  While sneaking across the border from Mexico, Cordova happened to find a 9-year-old boy, Christopher Buchleitner of Rimrock, Az,, alone and injured in the desert. As it happens, Christopher and his mom had been in a single-car accident when their van went over a cliff on a remote road in southern Arizona. His mother had been killed, and Christopher went looking for help. Cordova gave the boy his sweater and some chocolate and built a fire to warm the boy. It was that fire that drew the attention of the border patrol. Authorities say Christopher would likely have died had Cordova not stopped to protect him.

Cordova was honored for the rescue by U.S. and Mexican officials at a border crossing station. Then he was arrested by federal agents and returned to Mexico.

I mention that story not to romanticize those who enter the U.S. without legal sanction. No doubt that within the ranks of immigrants—whether legal or illegal, documented or undocumented—there are the same proportion of saints and scoundrels as are already here. I mention his name—Manuel Jesus Cordova—as a reminder that each immigrant has a name and a story. They’re not simply statistics.

By the way, Beatriz Lopez, the Mexican consul general for Nogales, had this stunningly prophetic insight in her comments to the press about this incident: “The desert has a way of rearranging priorities.”

I have four brief points to consider for this Bible study.

1)  There is a stunning amount of material in the Bible about “immigrants,” and all of it underscores the special attention that God commands on their behalf. In Scripture the commonly used words are “strangers” and “aliens.”

• “You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:19).
• Among Job’s complaints was this assertion of holiness: “I was a father to the needy, and I championed the cause of the stranger” (29:16).
• “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field. . . ; you shall leave them for the poor and for the alien” (Lev. 23:22)
• The prophet Malachi explicitly links refusal to “fear” the Lord with the mistreatment of marginalized people: “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. . . . Those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan [two other classes of uniquely vulnerable people in ancient Middle Eastern cultures], against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts” (3:5, italics added).
• Jesus included “strangers” among those whose fate was tied up with his own: “. . . for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matt. 25:35).
• Even the Apostle Paul echoes this persistent theme throughout the Bible: “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God...” (Eph. 2:17-22).

2)  The holiness of God is attested by just relations within the earth. The story of the Hebrew people’s escape from Pharaoh’s brickyards is so familiar to us that we forget that it’s hardly a “religious” story at all. Rather, it is an ancient civil rights movement, a rebellion against empire, a stunning escape from slavery. The very memory of this liberation movement is asserted as the rationale for obeying the commands of Yahweh God: “Thus God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” This is the preamble to the Ten Commandments and all the law of Torah. It begins with: “You shall have no other God before me,” and ends with a prohibition against covetousness, which is to say, against hoarding life’s provisions. Over and over again in Scripture idolatry and exploitation are paired as frequently as are “fear of the Lord” and doing justice.

“Having no other God” is finally played out by refusing monopoly and exploitive economic practices—something which later gets spelled out in the “Jubilee” laws, describing the year of the Lord’s favor as a time that slaves be freed, debts be canceled and land be returned to original owners. The great prophet Isaiah returned to this “jubilee” theme several times, as did Jesus when, in his inaugural sermon, he spoke of his mission “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:19).

3)  To understand who these “strangers” are, we need to know a little more about the practice of slavery in Egypt. Among the many unfortunate distortions of Scripture caused by Hollywood movie-makers is the notion that those Egyptian pyramids were built by legions of slaves—the kinds of slaves that used to be imported to the U.S. from Africa for sale as chattel property. There simply is no historical evidence for this. There are no records of markets in Egypt for the buying and selling of slaves. Nor were Egyptian slaves primarily like “indentured servants” who worked for a period of time as servants to pay off a debt. Maybe the closest analogy is that slaves in Egypt were something like serfs in medieval Europe: a more or less permanent underclass who, merely because of the accident of birth and family history, were destined by economic and social sanctions to live at the very edge of material existence. Rulers’ domination was by divine right—much the way, currently, the “free hand of the market” is considered self-evident and unassailable. (Whether theistic or not, “God made it that way.”)

You remember the story of Joseph’s clan who came voluntarily into Egypt to avoid starvation. In other words, they were very much like the majority of modern immigrants fleeing lives of desperate poverty.

It’s important to also remember than the origins of the “Hebrew” people were not primarily racial or ethnic. Biblical scholars believe the biblical term “Hebrew” is an alternate rendering of the word “habirû.” “Habirû” was the sociological designation for outsiders, people with no claim on the land—vagrants and vagabonds, the hoi polloi—people who at various times were merely an inconvenience, possibly a worry, and occasionally an overt threat to ruling authorities [note 2].

The word “Hebrew” comes from a root word meaning “to cross over.” Thus, the Hebrew is one who crosses borders, who have no social power and no legal claim on resources or status, whose desperate efforts of sheer survival push them to ignore the boundaries of assigned bounty [note 3]. (And some of them, like some of us, just long for expanded consumer options.)

Recall Joseph’s story. Captured by a trade caravan after being left for dead by his brothers, Joseph was sold into bondage but then, remarkably, managed to rise through the ranks to become a key political operative in Pharaoh’s court. He became an insider. Recall how the text reads when his brothers come begging: “[The household servants] served [Joseph] by himself, and [his brothers] by themselves, because the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination to the Egyptians” (Gen. 43:32). Joseph had been co-opted, had become a part of the power elite. We know about that, don’t we?

4)  Theologian Douglas Meeks has suggested that much of Scripture—and particularly these teachings about care of strangers—depicts God through the metaphor of “homemaker" [note 4].  I like this image a lot. Think of it: God as the one who makes a home for strangers and aliens. A God who takes a nameless and homeless people and gives them an identity and a place to call their own. A God who provides hospitality and welcome to those who find no room in the inn. A God who jumps into action at the sound of groaning slaves—not because of some special moral quality or devotional purity, but simply because they cry out. A God who undermines empires, who feeds the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty-handed. A God who befriends the unworthy, the unwashed, the untouchable, a God who eats with “trashy” folk. A God who turns enemies into friends—and who invites us into the fray.

“Once you were no people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10).

This—I am suggesting—this is our story, this is our song. Such is the praise we raise all the day long.

 

Footnotes:

1 Associated Press story in the Asheville Citizen-Times, Wednesday, 5 December 2007.
2 Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation and Obedience: From Faithful Reading to Faithful Living, p. 291. 
3 Ibid, p. 292-293. 
4 God the Economist: The Doctrine of God and Political Economy, cited by Ibid, pp.298-299.

By Rev. Dr. Sam Roberson, General Presbyter/Stated Clerk, Presbytery of Charlotte

This reflection was offered to a group of 36 ministers in Charlotte, NC on July 14, 2009, as part of a statewide series of clergy breakfasts on immigration issues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let me do a very un-Presbyterian thing by beginning with some random observations and comments and working my way back to the Bible….as you know, we Presbyterians usually go the other way….

1) A couple of week’s ago-mid-June in Doorn, Utrecht, The Netherlands, the World Council of Churches sponsored an international conference: Break Down the Walls-End Racism and Racial Discrimination.

One of the Conference’s strongest statements proclaimed:

We believe this is a kairos moment for committed action by the churches and beyond, it’s God’s special time, a time of crisis and opportunity. We believe that this is a moment where we are invited by God to commit ourselves to be instruments of change in the church and the wider society. We believe God is calling members of the church to action with and on behalf of the marginalized, the poor and the many who face exclusion. We believe that in answering this call, we have the faith and the resources to make a difference in the global community in which we reside…..

The global economic crisis, climate change, and systemic exclusion-generating desperation and increased migration are the elements that form a three-legged stool creating a need and an opportunity for change.

2) Whether you ask the evangelist Billy Graham or had asked the late liberal lion William Sloan Coffin or any number of wise observers of American Christianity….if you ask the question: what has gone wrong with the American church the past two generations? The answer: The American church got rich and traded the options of wealth for the content of the gospel. In the recent economic “collapse,” it has been our largest and richest churches that have experienced the highest anxiety and angst over budget challenges and limitations. Our 28 African-American churches, most of whom have always lived on the economic edge, have hardly noticed that business is anything other than usual. Remember that wealth requires a servant class, so there is motivation on the part of the affluent to make sure that there is a servant class in the culture.

3) Last year, more than 1300 clergy and laypersons in the Presbytery of Charlotte (a regional governing body of the PCUSA with 134 churches and 40,000 members) answered an extensive questionnaire related to the mission and ministry of our Presbytery….in a forced choice section where the respondent was to choose 3 out of 11 areas of priority for the Presbytery’s future…..less than 25% chose the selection titled “Promoting multicultural ministries and activities.” In another forced choice section involving what’s important to our congregations: Social Justice ranked dead last out of 12 choices….being considered very important by only 22% of the responders. The Presbytery of Charlotte is investing approximately $200,000/year in Latino ministry. It’s perhaps the only truly prophetic ministry that we are doing; however, our commitment is not in sync with the stated priorities of our clergy and elders.

4) The average Presbyterian is 59 years old living somewhere in a cornfield just Southeast of Cincinnati, Ohio. Only the Episcopalians and The Society of Friends have higher average ages than Presbyterians. Presbyterians will relearn, reclaim, and relive the gospel, or we will go the way of the grange and the Masonic lodge.

5) The story of the economic exploitation of groups of people is as old as the people of Israel being mostly welcomed into Egypt to build pyramids and palaces prior to their subjugation and oppression. In our country, Native Americans were displaced for economic development, Asians were brought in to build the railroads, Africans were enslaved to work the plantations, Western European immigrants were mostly welcomed to work America’s industrial revolution, and Latinos of all kinds have been undergirding American agriculture for multiple generations.

Now to the Bible:

It is somewhat ironic that Europe, which has largely turned its worshipping congregations into museums, should be taking the lead, along with some Christian leaders from marginalized countries, in the linking of the Biblical message to racial and social injustices of all kinds. On the other hand, it is not so surprising. The disconnect between daily life in Europe and the gospel of Jesus Christ is so established…in the dead “established churches”…. that pastors and theologians have the luxury of focusing on the gospel rather than spending countless hours coaxing folks to pot-luck suppers and other church programs. In marginalized countries, Christianity often shares the religious stage with many other world religions, so it is important to know what you as a Christian believe and stand for…..

The American Church still maintains the semblance of attention to the Biblical message while making sure that it doesn’t mess much with the daily lives and beliefs of its parishioners. American Christians are roughly divided into two camps; those who believe the Bible is fundamentally true in every aspect and those who honor and value the bible text as God’s word to them, as long as they can retain their individual capacity to interpret it as they want to…..

In a society such as ours where church and bible are still enmeshed with the culture and politics of our land in so many ways, it is hard to allow the deeper truths of the gospel to penetrate the veneer of our comfortable relationship to Christianity. Fundamentalists prefer citing the Bible regarding homosexuality although the ratio of biblical passages about homosexuality when compared to the number of biblical passages about immigrants, strangers, and sojourners is about 50 to 1. On the other hand, those who would disdain fundamentalists and their anti-homosexual emphasis are not known to overemphasize the biblical passages related to immigrants, strangers, and sojourners. I don’t want to know how many sermons have been preached in the pulpits of the Presbytery of Charlotte on the bible and immigration.

Recently, at the conference in the Netherlands that I referenced earlier, Dr. Samuel Kobia, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches said that the Bible is the “ultimate immigration handbook.”

Dr. Kobia noted that the biblical texts describe a large number of voluntary and forced migrations, and in many cases, these migrations caused the people of the Bible to develop responses of hospitality and concern for those who suffer, rather than assailing them with hostility and rejection.

The seminal text is Exodus 22: 21: You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. They had come from slavery in Egypt. They knew what it is like to be exploited and taken advantage of. Now that they had land and a modicum of wealth, they shouldn’t forget that it had not always been that way.

In the New Testament, the theme of welcome and hospitality to the stranger is picked up in Hebrews: Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some have entertained angels unaware.

However, I believe the root of the relationship between the Bible and Immigration grows right from the heart of Jesus Christ and the compelling witness of his life and teachings…

The Good Samaritan-Who is your neighbor? Man beaten and side-stepped by all except the marginal one.

How about a Samaritan woman and mid-day meeting with a Jewish man at a well?

How about the Canaanite woman’s persistence in response to an unresponsive Jesus, willingly humiliating herself as a dog…aren’t the dogs due the crumbs under the table? She humiliated herself, so as not to have to go back home to see her daughter suffer. I believe she transformed Jesus as she drew him into understanding her pain and suffering, and the injustice of her life.

Finally, it is the incarnation itself that binds the Bible to the immigrant.

Again, citing a powerful statement from the Netherlands Conference:

In a world groaning in the pain of brokenness, exploitation, and fragmentation of the wounded and outcast humanity, God demonstrates the divine love by accompanying humanity in this time and place. Integral to creation, God created human beings, all different with equal rights and responsibilities in the household of God. Human beings being interdependent manifest the divine presence. The African understanding of Ubuntu calls us to be fully human in direct connection with the other. The other person is not a stranger. He or she is not apart from us. I am because you are. We cannot be without the other. We belong together.

What a marvelous African way to describe our oneness and commonality in Christian baptism.

In summary, we Christians continue to use the Bible for our purposes over God’s purposes. The message is ancient and true. God came into this world to save sinners and to reconcile all people to God through the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Let us be brave and bold to proclaim that God is on the side of all who suffer injustice and are rejected, oppressed, and persecuted as they pursue the life of dignity and integrity to which all people are called by God.

 

A reflection on 1-year anniversary
By Jim Perdue Burke

A year ago, 45 people in Sioux City, Iowa, gathered at a hastily organized prayer service. We gathered to be in solidarity with 389 people, mostly Guatemalans, who had been rounded up by U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Postville, Iowa, on May 12. Postville is about 300 miles from Sioux City, but the shock wave from the raid reached our community pretty quickly.

Our decision was to make the most effective demonstration that could be made against human injustice and prejudice: to worship the God of justice and righteousness and to remember those who were now in danger of being forgotten.

Our little worship service didn’t make very good print news, and only one of four local television stations came. But that service provided one powerful religious moment for the ecumenical community gathered there out of love and concern for the lives of 400 persons we had never met before, and now most likely never would.

Since that time, most of those arrested have been floating around “somewhere” in a network of privately operated prisons that sell their services to ICE. Being private rather than government institutions, personnel in those prisons are not bound to the same standards of fairness and restraint as government employees. So we really don’t know what is happening to them. A recent academic study of that system has called it an American gulag.

But the 60 or so moms who were left behind under house arrest also tell a story of the incredible callousness and insensitivity of the U.S. government. Those moms wear ankle bracelets, which means they are literally confined to their houses. Most of their spouses are somewhere in the gulag or out of the country. Thus, it is impossible for them to work to support themselves, or to go anywhere else.

As a result, they either receive local charity, or they would starve. This is particularly scary because the main income source in the small town of Postville is now gone, and the community has been in a shambles for almost a year because of the raid.

The heroic work of the St. Bridget’s Roman Catholic Parish, with support from various other local, state and national churches and groups, has barely kept those Guatemalan moms and their children alive. This year-long response has become the means by which the church has cleaned up what should be described as an immigration superfund site.

Postville should be pasted like a mirror before the eyes of a nation and its churches.

Postville should be pasted like a mirror before the eyes of a nation and its churches: people and institutions that need to see the real results of their wishes somehow to punish “illegal” people, as they are called, without really knowing what they are wishing for. The suffering of these Guatemalans indicts every fiber of our nation’s political and cultural being.

Back in Sioux City, we’re going to do two things this year. First, we’ll have another service of remembrance and ongoing support for those who continue to be locked up in a purgatory of paperwork and indecision. In our worship service, we’ll light those 389 candles representing each still-shattered life. Before God, we will express shame and guilt on behalf of a government that may have changed political parties, but that still has not expressed remorse or done penance for its actions.

We’ll have that worship service on May 13 because some of us want to be in Postville on the 12th.

I, for one, feel called to be there. I am convinced that those who still stand among the ruins of what was once a vibrant Guatemalan and white Iowan community in Postville need to see all of the kind faces that they can.

They need just a moment in which they can proclaim their sense of dignity.

They need a palpable witness of a Christian “body” with another vision for the U.S.’s future, one that includes their future as well.

They need just a moment in which they can proclaim their sense of dignity, and can know that others are there to walk humbly with them, or as much as they can.

I hope that others throughout The United Methodist Church and other religious and non-profit groups will take a moment to offer a prayer on May 12 for what we have done together as a nation. Intentionally or not, we all gave permission for it to happen.

Spiritually, we are all now damaged goods. Humanly, we all have a lot of recovering with which to still become involved.

Jim Perdue Burke is a General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) missionary, also commissioned by the National Plan for Hispanic/Latino Ministries of The United Methodist Church. He is assigned by the National Plan to work with the Hispanic community in Sioux City, in the Northwest District of the Iowa Conference, where he has worked with both local and statewide immigration networks in Iowa and Nebraska.

This article originally appeared here.

By Ismael Ruiz Millan
This reflection was offered to a group of 35 ministers in Greenville, NC on May 19, 2009.

Millan (second from left) speaks with clergy in Greenville, NC

Without any doubt the immigration issue is a very sensitive issue at the present time. Consequently, it is not uncommon to see how some people take the easy way out concerning this issue, namely, to ignore it. I do not have that luxury. I am an immigrant myself, and it would be very disingenuous to ignore it. Therefore, I cannot help but to say thank you so much because the fact that you are here is evidence that you are not ignoring such an important issue. Moreover, if you are here you’re in some way reflecting Jesus’ example of confronting difficult issues.

Here, I will share how God’s power has been very real in my life as an immigrant as well as in the lives of the people at the church I currently serve: Unidos por Cristo United Methodist Church (near Greenville, NC). My hope and prayer is that at the end of the day you would see this issue from a different perspective, not from the perspective of our limited humanness, but from the perspective of the infinite power of Jesus our Lord, in whom all things are possible.

The main reason we, Latinos and Latinas, come to this country is to pursue the so-called “American Dream.” This “American Dream” entails, for the most part, escaping from poverty and lack of opportunities. Also, it means finding the way to provide a better life and future for our families. In my case, I came to this country wanting to learn English and work to save money, go back to Mexico, and get a better job and get married—it was a temporary thing. However, this is my sixth year here. Most people come here with the same idea, thinking that their time in the U.S. is only temporary. Many of them leave their children and families in their home countries because they plan on returning soon. However, what is originally a temporary thing often becomes indefinite. Once people realize they will never have the possibilities they have here, they postpone their return. At Unidos por Cristo, there are parents who have not seen their children and families for years. Furthermore, in many of the trailer park communities surrounding our church you will find several groups of men living alone because they had to leave their families behind.

In my case, what postponed my return to Mexico was God’s call. I came to this country pursuing my own “American Dream,” but I found something better, the divine dream. Now, my passion is to help others to find their divine dream. I really think it is worthy to make a confession. I am blessed because I could come here with a tourist visa. In other words, I did not have to risk my life walking through the dessert or crossing the Rio Grande river. However, I had to become “illegal” in order to get a job, and when God called me I experienced in a very real way the magnitude of God’s grace—God saw my potential for ministry over my immigration status or illegality.

Since then, my focus in ministering in Unidos por Cristo has been to offer the same grace I received from God, the same grace you have received too. As Jesus did to me, I have tried to do to others: I have seen first their potential over their sin and over their immigration status. One of the arguments today is that undocumented immigrants do not deserve education, health services, or any kind of benefits from this country. Interestingly, I have witnessed in Unidos por Cristo how God has given wisdom, healing, and the benefits of God’s grace to all.

For example, there is a young man who arrived to Unidos por Cristo not knowing how to read well, not knowing anything about Jesus, about Scripture, and about Christian life. Today, he reads better because he has practiced with Scripture and he has also begun participating actively in church. God saw his potential for ministry over his immigration status.

A woman who came to Unidos por Cristo with a lot of misconceptions about who God is. She is sixty and I remember one time she told me she never had communion because she was told she was not worthy enough to do it. When I explained her that she was worthy and that she could have communion, she started to cry, and eventually she testified how real was God’s grace in her life at that moment. In the eyes of U.S. immigration law she is seen as undeserving, but in God’s eyes she deserved everything—God did not see her immigration status over her need.

Another man used to be very shy and did not want to be very involved with church activities, today he plays in our praise group, he sings, and he has expressed his willingness to even preach the Gospel. His life has been transformed in a tremendous way. God saw his potential over his immigration status.

One of the best lessons I have learned about what real faith is was when there were rumors that several “road blocks” were going to go up across the state in order to catch undocumented immigrants. I decided to still meet at church for a time of prayer. I thought my wife and I were going to be the only ones attending. I was wrong. The people came showing me what it meant to really see with the eyes of faith. They came knowing they were risking a lot, but they also knew that the One on their side was bigger than the forces against them.

The tension and uncertainty in which families live is increasingly visible. There are few jobs, people’s drivers licenses are expiring and they cannot renew them. Most of them have children who are US citizens and do not know anything about the countries of their parents, which makes it difficult to go back. God’s power and grace keep these people walking the journey. They know God sees first their potential and need over their immigration status.

Without any doubt these stories bear witness that God’s power can overcome any human boundary, including immigration status.

Brothers and sisters, God’s power is real and can surpass any human limitation. I have witnessed that power, and so have the people of Unidos por Cristo. I encourage you to strive to see the issue of immigration through Jesus’ eyes. I encourage you to take into account in your ministries that God does not care about the immigration status of a person; God cares about their potential for ministry, about their need to experience God’s grace. If you don’t believe it, see my life, and see the lives of the people of Unidos por Cristo.

Finally, I just wanted to add that ministering with immigrants often makes one to face hard theological questions. For example, what would you do when someone asks you to pray for a relative that is coming to this country illegally? What would you do with the tithes and offerings of the people that are seen as criminals? If undocumented immigrants are considered criminals, is it right to let them be in positions of leadership? If undocumented immigrants are considered criminals, is it right to let them take communion? If undocumented immigrants are considered criminals, is it right to baptize them? If they are baptized already, should their immigration status prevent me from considering them my sisters or brothers?

I try to offer a response to these questions daily in my ministry. However, these questions are not meant to be answered only for one or few persons, they are meant to be responded by the church. Please remember, when one part of the body is hurt, the whole body is affected, we are here and we are part of the body of Christ. Please do not amputate us.

Originally from Sonora, Mexico, Ismael Ruiz Millan has lived in North Carolina since 2003. In April of 2004, he responded to God’s call by serving Unidos por Cristo UMC in Greenville, N.C.  He is also a student at Duke Divinity School.

By Dr. Maria Teresa Palmer
This reflection first appeared in the North Carolina Council of Churches lectionary-based worship resource, "Acts of Faith."

In the book of Matthew, chapter 10 highlights the importance of hospitality among the faithful. It took courage and commitment for the persecuted Christian community of the 1st century to offer hospitality to prophets and preachers, so Matthew reminds his readers that they are ministering to Jesus himself in welcoming his disciples and brothers and sisters in the faith who might come from unknown places. The verses before our focus passage give us an idea of why this might be such risky business: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the world. No, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. I came to set sons against their fathers, daughters against their mothers..." (Matthew 10:34).

As a mother, and even as a pastor, I want to forget the context and move quickly to verse 40 to talk about the joy of Christian fellowship, but this doesn't do justice to the text, especially when we read this passage in light of the topic of immigration. Offering Christian hospitality to the immigrants among us is about as controversial today as welcoming a Christian prophet was under Roman rule. I performed a marriage in the home of an Anglo middle-class family whose daughter was marrying a young Hispanic man. It was a small ceremony, due to the lack of approval of their church and family. The parents had to choose between welcoming their new son-in-law and enjoying the fellowship of their extended family and Christian community.

I know of six churches in North Carolina where the result of ministering to immigrants has cost the pastors their jobs, split the congregation, or divided families. I also have a colleague, pastor of a thriving Hispanic ministry, who has been asked to find another home for his congregation because the mother church doesn't want to "inadvertently aid illegals."

If I had not lived it through many years of ministry, I wouldn't believe that church people could behave so unwelcomingly. But of course many other groups have known this truth for decades: the church can be very un-Christ-like.

Perhaps, in some congregations, it's more a sin of omission: we don't notice the "alien" among us and forget to be hospitable. We forget to be intentional about our welcome. But the message we present to the foreign visitor is clearly conveyed by how we behave when a newcomer ventures into our congregations: We demand that they adopt our cultural norms-fill out the contact forms, keep their kids quiet and off our new carpet, learn our language and our hymns, pledge allegiance to the flag, volunteer for VBS, contribute to the capital campaign - and then maybe they can earn that glass of water.

The cup of water that Matthew asks us to offer is a dangerous thing. It assumes we have looked at our visitor and noticed his or her thirst. We are willing to be inconvenienced, to go to the well and draw the pure clean water and offer it in hospitality-which might lead us to pulling out a chair and inquiring about the rest of the family. It might lead to prayer, to phone calls, and being drawn into this person's life. It could lead to learning about his or her fears and hopes, and we might find ourselves praying with Solomon: "God, when a foreigner comes to this place because of your great name... listen to his prayer." And what then? If God responded to all those prayers, we might have to change our immigration laws, our foreign policy...

The US government, regardless of many politicians' claims to the contrary, does not hold itself to biblical standards of behavior. Leviticus 24:22 clearly calls us to have "one law for the alien and for the citizen," but our courts have said that labor protection laws do not apply to aliens. The courts interpret what is right or wrong in light of existing (and ever-changing) legislation dictated by the political climate.

The Christian church, however, is not free to decide what biblical teachings are expedient. All through the Hebrew Bible the prophets call us to treat the alien/foreigner with justice and compassion. Jesus calls us to treat foreigners with the concern and love we would show him. Throughout the New Testament we are reminded to show hospitality to the stranger, to help meet the basic needs of those who are new and needy among us: to notice their thirst, their loneliness, and their need for Christian fellowship; to respond to their arrival as if Christ himself were at our door. May God give us the courage to be the first ones to set up the welcome table and pour the water.

Dr. Palmer is the Director of the Multicultural Student Center at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, NC. She brings many years of experience in education, having been a teacher, elementary school principal, pastor, university financial aid officer, career counselor, program administrator, and State Board of Education member. Dr. Palmer has worked for many years to build strong multicultural communities.