Scriptures
33 “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. 34 The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
19 You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.
Sermon
- I know there are a lot of heartbreaking issues on our minds these days—from the hurricane that ravaged 6 states to the expansion of war into Lebanon.
- It’s hard to care about everything at once, or preach about everything at once
- So I hope you will bear with me as I reflect on an issue that comes close to home for me personally: immigration
- We are now seeing the highest rate of migration around the world since World War II, with a much higher world population and new reasons why people flee their countries
- This has caused tension in every part of the world, including our southern border, and in Israel and Gaza
- I read an interview with Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, recently, where he shared some details about recent border policy changes and what’s happening on our border.
- He talked about the different reasons people migrate, from civil war and economic crises to natural disasters and drug trade violence
- He shared how sophisticated the smuggling trade has become, at the expense of migrants who pay smugglers exorbitant amounts of money
- How the internet and social media have increased the capacity for communication in both positive ways, and by spreading misinformation
- He went over the different ways we welcome immigrants and refugees, some permanently, some temporarily, which is helpful to review because there seems to be some confusion about those policies right now.
- He was most disturbed by U.S. immigration policies that are constantly changing, because they confuse migrants, making it impossible for them to gauge the true risks of migration,
- They can’t guess the odds of gaining asylum status
- or their chances of getting a green card,
- or the risks of entering the country illegally.
- This uncertainty is made worse by human traffickers preying on their confusion.
- His point was that people need to know the paths to safe migration, and which paths are not available to them, before they risk everything to flee their countries.
- Finally, he adds that it’s not just about American policy; all the affected nations in the Americas have to work together to align their policies and address the reasons why people are fleeing from one place to another.
- All this has been true for a while.
- What’s changed lately is the amplified hate messages we hear from political and thought leaders aimed toward immigrants.
- Americans have become more fearful about demographic change;
- we now know that whites will become a minority in the U.S. by 2045
- People see their communities changing;
- In rural communities, we’ve seen population loss for decades,
- and now we are seeing new colors of people moving in and starting businesses and finding work
- Some communities are seeing this kind of change as a welcome opportunity and they’re making the best of it.
- But fear of change can lead others to alarmist reactions
- Like the kind of hateful speech we hear about Haitians in Springfield
- Or worse: quarantining certain populations like the Japanese during WWII, or pogroms in Europe, or reservations
- We live on a dairy farm, and immigration policy has personally touched the people who work on our farm
- About ¾ of the farm’s 20 some employees are Latinx—many of them from the same small town in Mexico, from a few families;
- We have two farm houses we rent to farm workers, so we have learned a little more about these people from that angle
- This has made us more aware and watchful about what is happening with immigration policy.
- These workers are not seasonal employees
- Dairy workers stay year-round and require specialized training and expertise
- They need stable housing, schools and hospitals and churches, preferably where they can get bilingual services
- But our small-town hospital and school don’t always have those resources
- And its more than just inconvenient for immigrants to live in a place like Oconto county; there are emotional costs, too:
- First of all, a lot of them can’t really call themselves “immigrants” because they don’t know how long they will be able to stay here
- They come and go at different times and, as policies change, they sometimes find they can’t go home, or they can’t get back.
- Uriel, who has rented from us for 15 years, has a wife and children, and now grandchildren he has never met, in Mexico. He hasn’t seen his family in probably 20 years;
- He came to the U.S. when it was easier to get in, but his wife and children were not able to take the risk to join him
- Minerva and her partner Jesus had a baby girl last year.
- I thought that baby was their first child, but Minerva finally confessed to me she actually has a son living with her mother in Mexico.
- Sergio and Marcella came with their son Josue in the 2000’s and worked for us for several years. They got comfortable in the community and their son learned fluent English in school.
- But shortly after 9/11, Sergio missed an appointment for his green card application and the INS sent armed officers to the farm to pick him up for deportation. Marcella and Josue disappeared the next day, leaving all Josue’s toys behind in the basement.
- Gonzalo is now my husband’s co-worker; he’s in his 50’s, experienced and multi talented. He has come and gone from our family farm over the years, but the last time he went home to Mexico, he married a wonderful woman in his home town. Now he has come back, but his wife won’t follow. He’s invaluable to Charles as a co-worker, but he’s here without her.
- I share these stories because they’ve taught me that, while our immigrant neighbors are a huge benefit to our business and our community; they also take incredible risks and carry burdens and fears we don’t see;
- In many cases, they would rather be in their homelands
- People shouldn’t have to leave the places where they were born and raised if they don’t want to.
- And if they do need to migrate, and are useful and needed in their new countries, they should be able to take their families with them and settle with dignity in new places.
- The bible is full of migration stories:
- Moses and Abraham, Jesus’ parents, Ruth and Naomi and the Israelites exiled in Babylon were all migrants.
- The scriptures we just heard indicate that migration has always been going on through history and God has called us to deal with it compassionately, because we were all migrants once!
- We know from these stories that God has called, led and protected migrants through different kinds of migration
- But we also know God desires a homeland for all of us; we were not meant to be strangers and aliens forever.
- What should we do or say when we hear the anti-immigrant rhetoric we’re hearing right now? Who do we say it to?
- How can we insert some deeper truth into the conversation besides just “open borders” versus “mass deportation” (neither of which is realistic)
- Maybe we need to start by honestly considering our own fears and curiosity about the strangers in our midst and how we deal with that;
- Maybe it’s worth asking yourself how far you are willing to venture into foreign territory to meet the stranger?
- I give my husband Charles a lot of credit for studying Spanish every morning over breakfast and spending whole days with Gonzalo working in Spanish on his own farm. That has opened his world to the real stories of people he works with.
- As people of faith, we have stories about so many biblical nomads and wanderers in our tradition: I wonder what they would say to us about how to treat the stranger in our midst?
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