Wow. What a day this has been. What an incredible amount of energy and inspiration. I have listened to so many stories, heard so many testimonies, and learned so much. I have heard people talk about how they have been personally affected by immigration laws. I have heard about the root causes of migration. I have learned about Obama's less than stellar track record so far when it comes to policies in Latin America. I have learned about the challenges of refugee resettlement in this country. But perhaps most importantly, I have met so many people whose commitment to the issue of justice in immigration reform just completely humbles and inspires me. I am humbled to hear about the incredible work they do day in and day out-- tirelessly pursuing justice in the face of so many obstacles. And I am inspired to do better in my own commitment to justice. I am inspired to renew my commitment to justice advocacy in our churches, and I am reminded why it is I am going through the arduous process of ordination-- a process which so often makes me want to bury my head in the sand. But the people I have met today remind why I got on this crazy train to begin with. They inspire me to take my head out of the sand, stand up straight, and just get on with it. Because that's what needs to be done.
Early in the day, one of the speakers put it this way. He said that the push for comprehensive immigration reform is not simply about fixing a broken system. It's not just about reforming an ineffective law. It is nothing short of "fixing our nation's soul." I suppose that may seem hyperbolic to some. But after a day of hearing story upon story of families torn apart and children left without parents, after hearing about international aid that goes towards guns and helicopters rather than human development and infrastructure, and after hearing about our unwillingness as a country to take in those whose very lives are threatened in their home countries because of mere technicalities, I have to agree with this speaker's assessment. The United States sets the rules of the game, and we set the rules so that massive numbers of people cannot survive, let alone thrive, in their home countries. Yet when they arrive at our borders we shoot them, we imprison them, we deport them.
We are in a moral desert in this country. Immigration policy is one symptom of that. Unlike some other social issues that might be ambiguous in terms of biblical precedent, the bible is very clear about how we are to treat "aliens" in our midst. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the Israelites are instructed to care for the stranger and the foreigner, and to remember that they themselves were once living as slaves in a foreign land. If we, as God's people, refuse to listen to the cry of the poor, our own cries will not be heard (Proverbs 21:15). The book of Hebrews in the New Testament tells that when we welcome a stranger, we may be entertaining an angel without knowing it (Hebrews 13:2). Jesus himself told his followers that what we do for the "least of these" we do for him. I'm not sure that anyone can really argue that those who cross the border out of the sheer desperation of poverty don't fit the Bible's description of "the least of these."
So the bible is clear. Let me be clear as well. Having compassion for illegal immigrants does not mean that we don't have compassion for the poor who are American citizens. Showing decency towards one group of human beings does not suggest that we neglect or put down others. We are called to imitate God's compassion, which is limitless and not confined to borders. Our compassion towards the poor of this country is not diminished if we also show compassion to immigrants. The good news of the bible is that there is enough love and compassion for all God's people. And thank God for that.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Ecumenical Advocacy Days: Day One
I'm currently in Washington DC for a ecumenical conference on immigration reform. The opening worship service was incredibly inspiring and refreshing, and it was also sobering. One of the more memorable lines for me came during the opening of worship when the person giving the welcome noted that right now is a challenging time for many churches financially. He said that churches have a choice right now. They can become isolated and insular, scared of becoming obsolete and desperately trying to protect their own resources. Or, they can work together with other churches and other denominations to do the good work of peace and reconciliation in a broken world. Bridge-building work, as I like to call it. More and more, I am convinced that bridge-building must be the work of the church if it is to survive and remain relevant as we enter into the 21st century.
As the weekend continues, I look forward to learning more about immigration reform. I was struck, as I heard the testimonies of those who have seen the detrimental effects of our country's current immigration policies, by how much this idea of bridge-building is important as we think about our relationships with our neighbors in other countries. Do we build bridges of partnership and fellowship? Or do we build walls and fences made to keep people out? Do we work to keep families together as they struggle to provide for one another, or do we rip them apart; leaving children with no parents because their mother or father had the audacity to try and earn enough money to provide them with a better life? These are questions of justice that go beyond nationalism or patriotism. We must be concerned for all within the human family, not just those who can claim the label "American." Furthermore, if it is our country's bad policies which have forced our neighbors from the south to cross our borders simply to make enough money to survive, well, can we really call it justice to send them back into poverty?
I know that when it comes to immigration, there are no easy answers. But I also know that some of the answers must require a broader view of our current policies on immigration and trade. Not only that, but a truly Christian answer requires a good deal more compassion than some seem to be willing to give. In the Bible, God calls God's people again and again to welcome the stranger and alien in their midst. Many Christians in this country seem to have forgotten that call. I look forward to renewing my commitment to that call this weekend and going forward. In the words of a friend and fellow seminarian, I look forward to being one of "God's good troublemakers" in the world!
As the weekend continues, I look forward to learning more about immigration reform. I was struck, as I heard the testimonies of those who have seen the detrimental effects of our country's current immigration policies, by how much this idea of bridge-building is important as we think about our relationships with our neighbors in other countries. Do we build bridges of partnership and fellowship? Or do we build walls and fences made to keep people out? Do we work to keep families together as they struggle to provide for one another, or do we rip them apart; leaving children with no parents because their mother or father had the audacity to try and earn enough money to provide them with a better life? These are questions of justice that go beyond nationalism or patriotism. We must be concerned for all within the human family, not just those who can claim the label "American." Furthermore, if it is our country's bad policies which have forced our neighbors from the south to cross our borders simply to make enough money to survive, well, can we really call it justice to send them back into poverty?
I know that when it comes to immigration, there are no easy answers. But I also know that some of the answers must require a broader view of our current policies on immigration and trade. Not only that, but a truly Christian answer requires a good deal more compassion than some seem to be willing to give. In the Bible, God calls God's people again and again to welcome the stranger and alien in their midst. Many Christians in this country seem to have forgotten that call. I look forward to renewing my commitment to that call this weekend and going forward. In the words of a friend and fellow seminarian, I look forward to being one of "God's good troublemakers" in the world!
Monday, March 15, 2010
God's Justice
Texts: Luke 15:11-32, 2 Corinthians 5:16-20 (Fourth Sunday in Lent)
“It’s not fair,” we might find ourselves saying, after reading this morning’s parable. When we hear this story, we might think to ourselves that God is certainly loving and forgiving, but God doesn’t seem very just, and God is most definitely not fair! After all, in the parable of the prodigal son, it would seem that justice is, in fact, not done. The younger son does not get what he deserves. The older, more dutiful son, is seemingly not appreciated. It doesn’t add up, we think to ourselves. It’s not fair.
Conventional wisdom says that while this is a wonderful story about God’s unconditional love for us-- God’s offer of abundant and extravagant grace--things just don’t always work that way in the real world. Perhaps that’s because in the real world, our sense of justice and fairness is so inherently tied to getting one’s due. Those of us who consider ourselves to be good people, living decent lives, making sacrifices for those whom we love, expect that our goodness will somehow be rewarded. We expect that we will somehow be better off than the person who shirks responsibility, or hurts family and friends with selfish or self-indulgent behavior. We expect to get our due, and we expect others to get theirs. What’s more, in our competitive culture, we assume that in order for there to be winners, there must also be losers. In order for one thing to be valued, something else must be worth less. As a graduate student I know this all too well. In order for my good grade to be worth something, someone else has to get a lower one. If we all walked away with honors in all of our classes, it wouldn’t mean much— according to the competitive, sometimes even ruthless reality in which we live.
This competitive method of measuring worth is everywhere in our society, and I imagine that many of you can think of examples in your own lives when you’ve felt this way about something. And while sometimes our righteous indignation is justified— particularly when we challenge unjust laws or systems-- there are many other times when our sense of what’s fair is based more upon conventional, human notions of justice. Notions of justice that are detached from any sense of mercy, grace, or compassion. And so the question I would challenge us to think about this morning is: what if this parable, rather than somehow negating the idea that God is just, is actually asking us to expand our view of justice and fairness. What if it is asking us to make room for a little mercy, and to be a little less competitive in how we measure our worth?
A few years ago, I saw an episode of a documentary television show called 30 days. The main character of the episode was a man named Frank-- a Texas Minuteman whose parents had immigrated to the US legally when he was a child. As the show begins, Frank is preparing to go and live with an undocumented family for 30 days. Frank recalls how hard his own parents had worked for their citizenship, and the many sacrifices they had to make in order to achieve the American dream. Frank didn’t think anyone should be able to take a short-cut to that dream. Thus, was vehemently against any kind of amnesty for illegal immigrants. In Frank’s mind, there was a proper way to achieve citizenship. A way which required dutifully following the rules, and living by the law. Anything else just wouldn’t be fair. At one point during Frank’s 30 day stint with the family, he visited their former “home” in Mexico. It consisted of little more than four crumbling brick walls and a dirt floor, with water being supplied from a near-by well that was untreated and very likely contaminated. During his visit, something visible happens to Frank. After seeing the contaminated well from which the family got their water and the abject poverty in which they lived, he realizes that no one could be expected to live in such conditions. “Unimaginable,” he calls it. All of a sudden the old rules about what was “fair” no longer applied. Frank’s sense of justice is turned upside down by his sense of compassion. Justice was interrupted, and expanded, by grace.
Now I realize this illustration is not a one-to-one correspondence to the biblical parable. After all, the undocumented family-- while they have technically committed a crime-- have not lived licentiously or selfishly, like the younger son. They work hard and make many sacrifices for one another. They are in many ways dutiful and responsible members of the society in which they live. Frank, on the other hand, is very much like the older son in our parable. His resentment of undocumented immigrants stemmed from his notion that their legitimacy ought to be based on their willingness to play by the rules and put in the time— just like his own family did. He thought it was unfair that they should get to join in the party without going through the proper channels. That’s what he thought— until compassion intervened. Until grace happened. Frank realized that it was love which brought this family from the depths of poverty in Mexico to a more stable, if still poor, life in California. And he realized that love would have compelled him to do the exact same thing, if the situation had been reversed.
Frank’s story reminds us that sometimes, our notions of fairness are limited by our own bias and prejudice, and that sometimes we could stand to examine why it is we get so bent out of shape when we perceive that something isn’t fair. Frank’s story also reminds us that oftentimes, even when it seems to us that things aren’t fair, we don’t always know the whole story. And while it is true that sometimes the world just isn’t fair, it’s also true that we may not always know the untold struggles of the person who seems to get things that they don’t deserve. In the biblical parable, what the older son does not know is that his younger brother was willing to become a slave in order to make up for the sins of his past. He was willing to go back to his family in utter humiliation, and live out the rest of his days as a hired servant to the family he once betrayed. While it seems— from the perspective of the older son— as if the younger son is getting rewarded for bad behavior, that’s not really what’s going on in this story. The younger son is granted forgiveness and grace after he decides to face the consequences of his actions. After his heart is turned back towards his family in a moment of true repentance. The older brother, being all too human, cannot see that. But God does not see as humans see. This parable teaches us that only God can see into the deep recesses of the human heart. Therefore it is in fact God’s justice which is the truest justice of all.
In the biblical story, we don’t know what happens to the older son. Does he eventually join the party, allowing his love for his brother and happiness at his safe return to overwhelm his initial sense of unfairness? Or does he go through the rest of his life, resentful of his younger brother, never to speak to him again? We don’t know. Perhaps the story is left open-ended in order to give us the opportunity to finish it ourselves. For we often have the option, as we go through life, to remain resentful or jealous that that we were not given our due, or that someone else was given something we don’t think they deserve, or that we thought we deserved more. Or, we can allow our sense of justice to be interrupted and expanded by grace. We can join the celebration, knowing that God’s love for us is not diminished because it is so extravagantly and gratuitously poured out upon someone else. Knowing that our value is not to be determined by how much better we are than someone else. Knowing that even though we live in a competitive world, we do not have to compete for God’s love. Indeed, we cannot compete for God’s love. But what’s more, and what’s harder, is that just as we can’t compete for God’s love, so others should not have to compete for ours. Make no mistake. Most of us are much more like the older son in this story. But every so often, perhaps we can make room for a little more mercy and a lot more grace in our dealings with others.
The apostle Paul tells us in our reading this morning that through Christ, we have been transformed. We are no longer to see the world through our limited human point of view. God has given us, Paul says, the ministry of reconciliation. We are to be ambassadors of Christ in this competitive world. Therefore, the work of extravagant grace and gratuitous mercy is not just God’s work-- it is our work as well. We are the hands and feet of Christ, offering abundant mercy and gratuitous grace in the midst of this world’s all too often stingy notions of justice and fairness. We are the hands and feet of Christ, striving to imitate the wideness of God’s mercy and the broadness of God’s love.
Is it fair? Perhaps not. But that’s grace. That’s compassion. That is love.
“It’s not fair,” we might find ourselves saying, after reading this morning’s parable. When we hear this story, we might think to ourselves that God is certainly loving and forgiving, but God doesn’t seem very just, and God is most definitely not fair! After all, in the parable of the prodigal son, it would seem that justice is, in fact, not done. The younger son does not get what he deserves. The older, more dutiful son, is seemingly not appreciated. It doesn’t add up, we think to ourselves. It’s not fair.
Conventional wisdom says that while this is a wonderful story about God’s unconditional love for us-- God’s offer of abundant and extravagant grace--things just don’t always work that way in the real world. Perhaps that’s because in the real world, our sense of justice and fairness is so inherently tied to getting one’s due. Those of us who consider ourselves to be good people, living decent lives, making sacrifices for those whom we love, expect that our goodness will somehow be rewarded. We expect that we will somehow be better off than the person who shirks responsibility, or hurts family and friends with selfish or self-indulgent behavior. We expect to get our due, and we expect others to get theirs. What’s more, in our competitive culture, we assume that in order for there to be winners, there must also be losers. In order for one thing to be valued, something else must be worth less. As a graduate student I know this all too well. In order for my good grade to be worth something, someone else has to get a lower one. If we all walked away with honors in all of our classes, it wouldn’t mean much— according to the competitive, sometimes even ruthless reality in which we live.
This competitive method of measuring worth is everywhere in our society, and I imagine that many of you can think of examples in your own lives when you’ve felt this way about something. And while sometimes our righteous indignation is justified— particularly when we challenge unjust laws or systems-- there are many other times when our sense of what’s fair is based more upon conventional, human notions of justice. Notions of justice that are detached from any sense of mercy, grace, or compassion. And so the question I would challenge us to think about this morning is: what if this parable, rather than somehow negating the idea that God is just, is actually asking us to expand our view of justice and fairness. What if it is asking us to make room for a little mercy, and to be a little less competitive in how we measure our worth?
A few years ago, I saw an episode of a documentary television show called 30 days. The main character of the episode was a man named Frank-- a Texas Minuteman whose parents had immigrated to the US legally when he was a child. As the show begins, Frank is preparing to go and live with an undocumented family for 30 days. Frank recalls how hard his own parents had worked for their citizenship, and the many sacrifices they had to make in order to achieve the American dream. Frank didn’t think anyone should be able to take a short-cut to that dream. Thus, was vehemently against any kind of amnesty for illegal immigrants. In Frank’s mind, there was a proper way to achieve citizenship. A way which required dutifully following the rules, and living by the law. Anything else just wouldn’t be fair. At one point during Frank’s 30 day stint with the family, he visited their former “home” in Mexico. It consisted of little more than four crumbling brick walls and a dirt floor, with water being supplied from a near-by well that was untreated and very likely contaminated. During his visit, something visible happens to Frank. After seeing the contaminated well from which the family got their water and the abject poverty in which they lived, he realizes that no one could be expected to live in such conditions. “Unimaginable,” he calls it. All of a sudden the old rules about what was “fair” no longer applied. Frank’s sense of justice is turned upside down by his sense of compassion. Justice was interrupted, and expanded, by grace.
Now I realize this illustration is not a one-to-one correspondence to the biblical parable. After all, the undocumented family-- while they have technically committed a crime-- have not lived licentiously or selfishly, like the younger son. They work hard and make many sacrifices for one another. They are in many ways dutiful and responsible members of the society in which they live. Frank, on the other hand, is very much like the older son in our parable. His resentment of undocumented immigrants stemmed from his notion that their legitimacy ought to be based on their willingness to play by the rules and put in the time— just like his own family did. He thought it was unfair that they should get to join in the party without going through the proper channels. That’s what he thought— until compassion intervened. Until grace happened. Frank realized that it was love which brought this family from the depths of poverty in Mexico to a more stable, if still poor, life in California. And he realized that love would have compelled him to do the exact same thing, if the situation had been reversed.
Frank’s story reminds us that sometimes, our notions of fairness are limited by our own bias and prejudice, and that sometimes we could stand to examine why it is we get so bent out of shape when we perceive that something isn’t fair. Frank’s story also reminds us that oftentimes, even when it seems to us that things aren’t fair, we don’t always know the whole story. And while it is true that sometimes the world just isn’t fair, it’s also true that we may not always know the untold struggles of the person who seems to get things that they don’t deserve. In the biblical parable, what the older son does not know is that his younger brother was willing to become a slave in order to make up for the sins of his past. He was willing to go back to his family in utter humiliation, and live out the rest of his days as a hired servant to the family he once betrayed. While it seems— from the perspective of the older son— as if the younger son is getting rewarded for bad behavior, that’s not really what’s going on in this story. The younger son is granted forgiveness and grace after he decides to face the consequences of his actions. After his heart is turned back towards his family in a moment of true repentance. The older brother, being all too human, cannot see that. But God does not see as humans see. This parable teaches us that only God can see into the deep recesses of the human heart. Therefore it is in fact God’s justice which is the truest justice of all.
In the biblical story, we don’t know what happens to the older son. Does he eventually join the party, allowing his love for his brother and happiness at his safe return to overwhelm his initial sense of unfairness? Or does he go through the rest of his life, resentful of his younger brother, never to speak to him again? We don’t know. Perhaps the story is left open-ended in order to give us the opportunity to finish it ourselves. For we often have the option, as we go through life, to remain resentful or jealous that that we were not given our due, or that someone else was given something we don’t think they deserve, or that we thought we deserved more. Or, we can allow our sense of justice to be interrupted and expanded by grace. We can join the celebration, knowing that God’s love for us is not diminished because it is so extravagantly and gratuitously poured out upon someone else. Knowing that our value is not to be determined by how much better we are than someone else. Knowing that even though we live in a competitive world, we do not have to compete for God’s love. Indeed, we cannot compete for God’s love. But what’s more, and what’s harder, is that just as we can’t compete for God’s love, so others should not have to compete for ours. Make no mistake. Most of us are much more like the older son in this story. But every so often, perhaps we can make room for a little more mercy and a lot more grace in our dealings with others.
The apostle Paul tells us in our reading this morning that through Christ, we have been transformed. We are no longer to see the world through our limited human point of view. God has given us, Paul says, the ministry of reconciliation. We are to be ambassadors of Christ in this competitive world. Therefore, the work of extravagant grace and gratuitous mercy is not just God’s work-- it is our work as well. We are the hands and feet of Christ, offering abundant mercy and gratuitous grace in the midst of this world’s all too often stingy notions of justice and fairness. We are the hands and feet of Christ, striving to imitate the wideness of God’s mercy and the broadness of God’s love.
Is it fair? Perhaps not. But that’s grace. That’s compassion. That is love.
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