AA WANDERING ARAMEAN WAS MY ANCESTOR...@

(Preached on Sunday, February 25, 2007)

... you shall make this response before the Lord your God: AA wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.

                                                                                      -Deuteronomy 26:5

 

Two weeks before Christmas, a thousand Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents (who go by the acronym ICE), many in full riot gear, descended on meat packing plants in six communities to arrest immigrant workers suspected of identity theft.  All six plants belonged to Swift and Company C a corporation that had been particularly aggressive about checking on its workforce=s documentation to the point where a lawsuit was filed challenging the legality of their efforts and the company was made to pay a $200,000 fine for being too aggressive.  When the company learned about the ICE investigation, it offered to cooperate but was ignored.

 

This incident indicates our confusion as a nation about immigration.  On the one hand, we are a deeply faithful nation, one that was built by immigrants.  Yet many of us confuse protecting the country from terrorists with stopping illegal immigration.  We all benefit from the hard work of immigrants, which include the millions of immigrants who work in our communities but who do not possess proper documentation.  They pick our food, process our food, cook our food in restaurants, cut our grass, clean our offices, hotels and homes, build our homes and provide thousands of other valuable services in our communities.

 

At the same time, there is a mean spirit afoot in our nation.  Instead of addressing the challenges of immigration and a system that is clearly dysfunctional in its ability to manage the sizable migrations of people occurring today, immigrants are being made scapegoats.  There is a church in Phoenix that had offered its parking lot for immigrant day laborers to gather and wait for employment.  When local Minutemen learned about the congregation=s plans, they drove motorcycles around the parking lot, including on a Sunday, scaring parishioners and immigrant workers alike.

In addition to incidents such as this, many cities and states are passing mean-spirited legislation banning immigrants= access to social services, housing and drivers licenses.

 

People who work with immigrants will tell you that in almost all cases, people who migrate to the United States come for reasons of family, work or freedom C to unite with loved ones, to take up employment or to seek refuge from persecution.  As President Bush has said, the vast majority of U.S. newcomers are decent, hard-working people and good members of the community.

 

While most of us would question the appropriateness of unlawful entry into this country, let us remember two facts: First, necessity is often driving the migration C people are fleeing poverty or the prospect of living for years and years without family.  Second, the immigration system is so broken that there is often no viable way to migrate legally.

One cornerstone of U.S. immigration policy has always been family unity, but that is hard to achieve in the current system.  There are long wait times and large backlogs in processing applications C a wait of seven to ten years is not unusual.  In family time, a lot can happen in seven to ten years C a childhood passes, people are born, get married, die.  That is a lot of life to miss.  If individuals do choose to unite with their families by entering without permission, the united family often includes a mix of undocumented people, legal permanent residents and U.S. citizens.   They live in the shadows and in fear and are often exploited by employers who know they will not usually risk deportation by reporting unfair or even illegal employment practices.

 

I don=t raise all this with you because I profess to have the answers.  Our national security and our immigration system are complex matters.  But I do believe there must be a better way and I do believe that our faith tradition and history as passed down to us through the Bible suggests some broad principals that can guide our search for answers.

 

Our Biblical story recounts the migrant experience we have had as God=s people. Because of that experience it calls on us to show empathy and compassion and welcome to newcomers in our midst.  Because of our experience of being loved and our tradition of being welcomed, our basic approach to migrating people is to open our hearts and to welcome newcomers.  We don=t label our biblical ancestors as interlopers, suspect strangers or terrorists; we honor them and love them as foremothers and forefathers of our faith.

 

AA wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien.@  This reminds us how Abraham and Sarah were immigrants who left the land of their birth and became resident aliens.  Then there was Joseph, caught up in a whirlwind of family, economic and international conflicts as a detained alien whose traumatic journey ultimately gained him legal status and enabled him to feed his family back home.  Moses, a child truly left behind, became a resident alien in Egypt and the divinely appointed coyote who led a band of desperate refugees on a desert trek toward freedom.  The Israelites later spent many years living in exile, resident aliens all.  Ruth remained with Naomi as a resident alien in Israel and became the great-grandmother of their greatest king, David.  And let us not forget Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus, who fled their homeland under threat from an evil tyrant to become resident aliens in Egypt, living there until the threat back home ended with a regime change.

 

This passage from Deuteronomy tells of God=s migrant people on the verge of crossing into the land of promise.  They are given a lengthy set of instructions to help them as they settle and build their new lives in their new land.  The part we read is just a small portion of those instructions and details a practice intended to counter a new danger in the land of milk and honey C the danger that when those who had been living as aliens in foreign lands settle in this new land, they will settle for something less than the vision and hope for liberation and justice that sent them forth from slavery in Egypt in the first place.

That proved to be a valid concern: those who entered the land did eventually settle for their own well-being as a group and overlook the well-being of other dispossessed and disconnected people.

 

This religious practice was intended to prevent that from happening by having them make an offering, remember their history, and join in a truly inclusive celebration feast.  The offering was given in recognition that all is given.  Deliverance, freedom, crops, land, and life itself are counted not as inherent possessions but the gifts of God.

God alone is responsible for this people living in freedom in this land; the covenant makes it all possible.  God=s gracious work is the sole reason this people will prosper in this place.  They conclude the ritual with a celebration meal that is radically inclusive of the entire community.  Not just those making the offering or even those of the faith community, but also including Athe Levites and the aliens among you,@ that is, those who by law do not have a portion of the land.  By their actions they remember that even those at the margins of society share in the bounty of God=s grace.

 

One of the traditional passages of scripture read on the First Sunday of Lent is one of the three gospel versions of the temptation in the wilderness of Jesus at the beginning of his ministry.  The Church in its wisdom understands that at the beginning of our journey through Lent to Good Friday and Easter, the cross and the resurrection, we need to remember the dangers and difficulties of temptations we all face.