Jesus the Illegal Immigrant
I recently received the church resources from JubileeUSA for Jubilee Sunday this year (April 13). I appreciate the time and effort they put into helping churches provide a biblical perspective on justice issues. The resources include theological reflections, worship songs, activities for youth and kids, and liturgies for the people. The entire resource booklet is available in pdf format here. I encourage any church leader seeking to understand more about biblical justice and encourage their congregations to act justly to check it out.
One liturgy in particular stood out to me in the raw truth of what it presented. A section in the packet focused on the issue of immigration with the idea that the root causes of immigration need to be addressed in order for any lasting solutions to be reached. Instead of continuing to promote mere punitive measures, the issues of poverty and joblessness should be our concern. Once we know the stories of immigrants we can better help them and can more readily demonstrate love for our neighbors. A congregational response reading was included in this section which drew attention to the differences between punitive responses and the real issues. The reading juxtaposes stories of familiar biblical characters and the response they would receive if they tried to immigrate to the US today. The responses are sobering. For example -
Adam and Eve: Our names are Adam and Eve. (Adam) We lied to the King of Kings and have been sent into exile to work the fields. (Eve) We are migrants forced to live off the land looking for work. (Both) Will you give us asylum?
Congregation: You have no documents. You will take our jobs. Go away…The United States welcomes only persons with proper documents. You have not been persecuted…you are only hungry and have no place to live. We are sorry, but you must go.
Abraham and Sarah: God told us to leave our homes and to travel to this the place God has shown us. Will you give us asylum?
Congregation: People who hear voices are not wanted here. You would be a drain on our medical system. We would have to pay for your health care. We are sorry, but go away, you have no legal right to be here. The United States is selective about who can come to our country.
Jesus: They call me Jesus. I come begging for help for my twelve friends. When we got off the plane, we asked for asylum. They were being persecuted in our homeland for following me. But the U.S. government officials didn’t believe us. Everyone but me is in expedited removal.. .they are all being sent back. I managed to slip away and came here to this church to ask for help.
Congregation: The United States has laws to keep terrorists out of our country. You are one of 13 Middle Eastern men. We heard about you. You meet in rented rooms, you go into the mountains for private meetings, no one knows where you get your money, and you travel by boat and meet with strangers. You are trying to organize the poor and the oppressed. The United States does not welcome Middle Eastern men, who meet in secret. You could very well be a terrorist. Expedited removal will make certain you can’t harm us. We are sorry, but you and the 12 other men will have to leave. It’s the law.
The reading concludes with a series of scripture readings, including the words of Jesus in Matthew 25 – “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ ”
It is hard to serve Jesus when we don’t take the time to get to know his story. It is hard to serve him when all we care about is punishing him for disrupting our lives. We need these reminders to love.
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Wow this is great! Thanks for sharing this…I’ve heard before that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were exiles and would probably be denied asylum to the US if their “case” were present-day, but this responsive reading is really creative.
Thanks for the thought-provoking post. Have you read National Geographic’s latest magazine article called Mexico’s Other Border? It followed some Central American immigrants on their journeys to the US. It broke my heart.
I was in a jury pool this week for a man who happens to be a Mexican immigrant. He required translation for the proceedings. I was horrified by the responses I heard from the people sitting around me.
Thank you for highlighting this reading, Julie.
It’s interesting to me that we are not called to provide safety for ourselves, but that we will find safety in God. Yet over and over again the chorus I hear from the conservative church is the desire to provide safety for ourselves. This includes passing laws which restrict immigration … we cannot serve two gods.
This was excellent –
I am always amazed to hear Christians defend their stance on immigration. The plight of the unborn is ever present – but forget the ones who are born in other places – and yet there but for the the grace of God go we. (I used to really think it a privilege that I was born in the US – but much of the time now I think it is a curse.) We had nothing to do with determining where we were born, or what circumstances we were born into.
Immigration hasn’t ever been a pressing issue for me one way or the other. Maybe it should be – I’m willing to consider it. How do the immigration laws of the US compare with the immigration laws of other countries? Do the majority of countries give immigrants a great deal more in terms of freedom to immigrate and live with the rights and benefits of a citizen of that country, than the US does? Do they place fewer restrictions on the number of immigrants? How do they treat illegal immigrants – those who cross and then live within their borders without declaring themselves and following the procedures they set out for coming into their country as an immigrant? I’ve never studied this at all and would be interested to know how America compares.
Karl – I haven’t studied it either. But most other countries don’t control the world’s trade and pass laws like NAFTA which directly led to a huge surge in illegal immigration rates as it destroyed the lives of farmers and left them no choice but to seek jobs wherever they could. To hurt someone and then punish them for seeking aid doesn’t really fit the call to love.
If NAFTA was repealed, would US immigration policy be ok?
I’m not sure I would agree that all immigration-limiting laws equate to punishing someone for seeking aid. I’d have to see the specific law, and the people and circumstances to whom it applied. What do you mean when you speak of punitive immigration laws? Deportation of illegal immigrants? Denial of federal and state benefits to illegal immigrants that would be available to them if they had immigrated legally? Or something more? Is denying aid the same as punishing someone for seeking it? What limitations on immigration are ok? Any? Or should the US accept all immigrants who want to come here, without limitation of any sort?
What would it look like, practically, if the US did away with restrictions on immigration? I’m in favor of helping alleviate poverty and joblessness both in the US and abroad. But I haven’t seen enough to convince me (maybe I just haven’t looked into it enough) that this isn’t another instance of “both, and” rather than “either, or.” As in, both keep reasonable immigration restrictions in place AND help other countries with their problems, enact trade laws that are fair, etc.
Good post. In the UK where \i live there are also many people seeking asylum from Africa and the Middle East. The Church should see this as a gift horse as they would normally have to spend thousands of pounds and many years training a missionary ( learning the Culture, language etc) to be effective in the country they go to. They will then think it is a success if the missionary becomes integrated and accepted by that country after say 3 or 4 years.
Immigrants including asylum seekers come to the UK and want to learn our language, our culture and develop friendships etc. If the Church is open to it, reaching them with the gospel can become the most effective missionary programme ever. WE should see them as as a Godsend in order that they will hear the message that Christian, worth his salt, wants to tell.
What more does the Church want.
andrew – I do wonder at the message the church sends of “we don’t want you in our country, but you had better let us into your country to convert you to our religion (or else we will cry persecution)”.
karl – you’re right, this isn’t an either/or situation. I am not for no standards whatsoever. I think immigration needs reform and I think we need to seriously question why we are treating the symptoms and not fixing the problems. We need to take responsibility for our worldwide actions instead of just seeing immigrants as evil people out to steal our jobs. Fining them, splitting families, jailing them, and yes sending them back into horrific conditions are all punitive. when we jail women who have been trafficked here as sex slaves because they don’t have any documents and then ship them back (broken and “unclean”) to where they came from are we even beginning to show love?
Well, why not. I mean, we must have the jobs for them or they wouldn’t be coming here in the first place. And if everyone who came were let in legally, then we’d be able to prevent them from being exploited by employers and they’d be paying taxes into the system. Not to mention that globalization experts like Fareed Zakaria have pointed out that one of the main thing keeping the American economy strong despite declining birthrates has been immigration. I.e. more people are actually good for the economy.
So, why not let them come?
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Mike, the quote from NY Harbor was in my mind as I typed that post.
You ask why not let them come, and it’s a good question that I’m not equipped to answer, since I haven’t studied the issue much. But I’m not convinced that a fully open door policy on immigration would be good in the long run either for the American poor, or for the flood of international-poor immigrants who would come. I think you have to have some sort of restrictions. More people may be good for the economy, but surely as with any such proposition, it is only true within certain limits. Too much of a good thing can become a bad thing.
Hi…I’m also a recent lurker-first time poster. I just read an artical in the Economist that addressed some of these questions. I don’t claim to be smart enough to get all of it, but it seemed to be a good place to start on looking at the long term benefits of a more open immigration policy:
http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10286197
I haven’t studied the economic side of it much either Karl. I’m just thinking out loud. The plus side of open immigration is that we can help so many of the “huddled masses” by sharing the wealth and opportunities of this nation, and if it actually ends up helping the rest of us too in the bargain, so much the better.
My trouble is that such people are coming, for the most part, from supposedly Christian countries. What is the responsibility of Christianity to help keep families together and not have to leave everything they know in order to just find enough money to eat.
That’s the scandal for me. America has been placed in a terrible situation, and there needs to be renewal within those countries.
Irish immigration halted, and then reversed, as the economy there grew and policies were developed to help those in poverty find jobs within their own area. That to me seems the most Christian thing.
Of course, we have a responsibility to those who are in need. But if we truly believe in a holistic Christianity, and the idea that America is not in fact the chosen land of God, then we have to also start really putting pressure on those countries who are willingly encouraging their own poor into great struggles.
These are not people wanting to come to America for the great restaurants or the beautiful scenery. They are desperate. And that desperation is caused by the policies of those who, in very many cases, affirm Christianity as their religion.
It’s a shame.
Jesus, remember, had some strong words for those who persecuted his followers. Jerusalem was not excused. Nor should those places that cause misery and heartache.
I wanted to comment and thank the author, good stuff