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Deuteronomy 10:12-22
12 So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only
to fear the Lord your
God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the
commandments of the Lord your
God[a] and
his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being. 14 Although
heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth with all that is in it, 15 yet
the Lord set his heart
in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them,
out of all the peoples, as it is today. 16 Circumcise,
then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer. 17 For
the Lord your God is God
of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not
partial and takes no bribe, 18 who executes justice
for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food
and clothing. 19 You shall also love the stranger,
for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. 20 You
shall fear the Lord your
God; him alone you shall worship; to him you shall hold fast, and by his name
you shall swear. 21 He is your praise; he is your
God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes
have seen. 22 Your ancestors went down to Egypt
seventy persons; and now the Lord your
God has made you as numerous as the stars in heaven.
About two and
a half years ago, Omar and I were driving through the Mexican countryside on
our way to one of our favorite lodges just outside the little town of Apizaco
in Central Mexico. It was late in the
afternoon on Halloween and we had been taking in all the festivities of the
last few days leading up to the Day of the Dead. It had been raining and the
day had cooled off and, we decided to make a stop at the Tlaxcala migrant
shelter before heading to our cabin. We had placed a Lutheran young adult to
work in this shelter as volunteer.
The shelter,
called Sagrada Familia or Holy Family Shelter was in the spacious back
courtyard of the Holy Family Parish which conveniently butted up to the train
tracks where the train called the beast passed by. Migrants from Central
America rode the train as it barreled north across Mexico. Sagrada Familia offered migrants a hot meal
and a safe place to stay for the night. Sometimes the crowd was rough, sometimes
people were injured or sick, occasionally there were children in the shelter who
had been riding atop the train with their parents.
That
afternoon, we pulled up chairs in the courtyard to sit with a group of four or
five young men in their early 20s who were traveling north from Honduras. The group was very tan and worn from being
outdoors for a couple of weeks. Omar
immediately slipped into “Honduran Spanish” with so much slang that there were
moments I could barely follow. Everyone
was laughing and sharing stories as the sun began to set. The group of men was from a village on the
northern coast of Honduras. I knew the
area because the Honduran Lutheran church that I worked with after college had
done ministry with farmers who picked fruit in that region for Dole and
Chiquita. It was a region with a lot of
poverty.
The guys in
the shelter that afternoon had grown up together. Think of your best friends from elementary
school or your kids’ best group of friends.
12 or 14 years earlier these men had been those elementary school
besties and now they were traveling north conscious that there was safety in
numbers, conscious that they would look out for each other and help each other
to jump on the moving train as it rushed past, conscious that they would find
food together and protect each other together on the journey.
That evening,
we were sitting in the circle with our twins, Isabella and Aiden, who would
have been about 7 months old. I don’t
remember which of the two I was holding, but one of the young men asked me how
old they were. And I told him, about
seven months.
Ah, he said. I have a baby the same age at home. Really!?
I asked surprised. He nodded. She is
the reason I left, this young papa told me. We sat there for a few more
minutes. I was holding one of the twins
on my lap, cradling their head in my two hands. And I looked at the young man. Do you wanted to hold him? I asked. He held
Aiden or Isa only for a heartbroken moment—but you could tell he knew how to
hold a baby.
Before we
left, we prayed for the group of friends. We prayed that God would have mercy
on their lives and protect them. That night I cried. While I thanked God for my babies in my arms I
asked why this man did not have his
baby in his arms.
There are all
kinds of systemic, economic and political answers to that question as to why he
left his home in Honduras, but I’m not going to go into them. I’m not going to
go into how we are supposed to treat vulnerable members of our society, including
immigrants. Suffice to say that the bible is cut and dry, and clear.[i] There are more verses about caring for the
poor, the widows and the strangers than on any other topic in all of Jewish
law. It is non-negotiable. Be compassionate towards immigrants. Christianity
101.
And yet, we
can’t seem to get there as a society. I don’t know about you, but there are
moments where I open the paper online and see photos of children and adults in
cages in immigration detention, or I listen to the radio and hear the crowd
chanting “lock her up” about an immigrant member of congress, or Omar and I
hear of undocumented people in our extended community who have had “the talk”
with their children that goes something like this: if mommy does not come home
from work today, here is where the emergency money is, here is the family
member you call. I see stories of a
toddler and her Papi drowned trying to cross the RioBravo. And I am heartbroken. The tragedy of it feels almost
insurmountable. How long, Oh, Lord?!
When we talk
about any number of issues in our nation right now, many of us feel a sense of
futility and fatigue. A nagging feeling that
it doesn’t make a difference what we do or say.
We throw some money at this organization or that one and does it really
help?
Rabbi Harold
Kushner tells of a Jewish legend where “after Moses received the original set of
the Ten Commandments from God atop Mt. Sinai, he began to climb down the
mountain to deliver them to the people.” Because Moses was old, the climb down
was hard but he persevered because he was inspired. Halfway down the mountain, when
he saw the Israelites dancing around the Golden Calf, the writing disappeared
from the tablets. How could he ever make a difference in the lives of his people who were
so off track? Overcome by futility, the
tablets turned into these two massive stones that were too heavy bear. He fumbled and the stones fell and broke into
pieces. And he stood there, watching the
scene below.[ii]
I cannot
stand before you this morning and say that I have the answers or that I can see
a clear way out of this. I can say that I grieve our wounds and our sin. And I can say that the danger is that we
stand there, with all the best of intentions fallen from our hands like heavy
stones that have smashed into pieces at our feet, because it all seems so
insurmountable.
Paralyzed, we
remember that one of Moses’ most famous lines was “let my people go” but the
second half of that line is God saying “let my people go, in order that they
might serve me.” Sometimes we are so
trapped by a sense of distance from the issues and trapped by a heart-wrenching futility that
we cannot even serve God.
The legend
about Moses goes on to say that God had to summon him back up the mountain and
work with him to make a second set of tablets and restore his purpose. You see, Moses was a visionary. Today, we
would call him a social justice warrior. Not only did he teach us to care for
vulnerable people, but he also challenged the Israelites (and by extension us) to
strive to become a certain kind of
society. A society where the gap between the richest and the poorest wasn’t too
great to overcome. A society where no one would feel, as Kushner says, “hopelessly
left behind” or “immune from [her] neighbor’s pain.”[iii]
The well off during Moses’ time, Kushner
writes, might not have appreciated being told that sharing their resources [and
their time and their selves] with the less fortunate was an obligation, not a
matter of charity. But Moses understood that those laws were meant to benefit
the donor as much as the recipient…Moses’ concern was for the well-being of all
the Israelites, not only some.”
Jesus, a
deeply devout Jew held this belief of compassionate love for the neighbor central
in his heart. Story after story shows
him honing in on the vulnerable like a magnet.
And person by person Jesus transformed the world.
If we really
hold this belief of powerful compassion at the core of who we are, how are we
getting close to the vulnerable people in our world? Where are we taking a hard look at the walls
of class and race that isolate us?
I had a hard
and humbling moment where I asked myself this question in a Baskin Robins off
my beaten path a few days ago surrounded by a whole lot of vulnerable people and
feeling embarrassingly uncomfortable and judgmental. Instead of interacting, I hid in the corner with
my kids looking at cakes while they ate their ice cream, shielded by a kind
group of Mariachi musicians where no one could ask me for anything. It was not my most pastoral moment.
If we really,
deeply cherish this fundamental Christian value of loving those on the margins,
how are we pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone to connect with people who
live on the edge? It is everything from volunteering once a
month with the night ministry to taking an extra minute or two to talk with the
person who busses your table at the restaurant.
It is intentionally patronizing the immigrant run business—especially
the tamale stands. It is taking to the
immigrant parent at the playground while your kids play. It is volunteering to support the immigrant
community. It is financially supporting justice movements.
Yes, we are
brokenhearted and fatigued with the news. Some of us are angry. And all of us
are called. I have faith that the God who was
before the beginning of time, who is
in the midst of the pain, rage, injustice and futility, and who will be until the ends of the ages is alive
and present and working through the body of Christ, present in us. May we
summon up the strength of soul to walk on in love and build the kingdom of God.
One person at a time.
[i]
Jewish law writes that “you shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as
you’d treat a native person and love them as you love yourself. (Lev 19:34, ex.
23:9, Lev. 19:34).
[ii] Kushner,
“Overcoming life’s disappointments”
[iii]
Kushner, “Overcoming life’s disappointments” 32-22
