The
Way of Love, the Destination of Newness
One of
the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He
realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments,
which is the most important?” Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is
this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you
must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind,
and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as
yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.” The teacher of
religious law replied, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying
that there is only one God and no other. And I know it is important to love him
with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my
neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all of the burnt
offerings and sacrifices required in the law.” Realizing how much the man understood,
Jesus said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” And after that,
no one dared to ask him any more questions Mark 12:28-34
The caravan is coming! Have you heard? Thousands of people
from Honduras are about to invade our country. Mixed in this caravan from Latin
America are violent gang members and Arab terrorists who want to cross our
borders and destroy us. At least that’s I heard this week -- the news hyped
from the current administration as the country’s mid-term election day
approaches.
It’s no mistake that the word caravan is used to describe
this group. The word caravan conjures up a group of desert travelers on camels
in the Arabian Peninsula or in North Africa. If the word caravan is repeated
enough, maybe it will lodge in our psyche and link these travelling invaders
with our fears of Arab terrorists. We will reject the migrants sight unseen. We
will thank the 7000 to 15000 military troops being sent to the border to turn the
caravan away, or maybe even kill them.
I don’t know who all is in the group of 7000 migrants. The Washington Post reported a recent
assessment by the US Army, which stated that perhaps only 20% of the group will
actually reach our southern border. If the military’s assessment
is accurate, it would mean the United States is positioning five soldiers for
every one caravan member expected to arrive. The bigger threat, according the
report, is not the migrant caravan, but the unregulated militia members
self-deploying on the border in so-called support of U.S. Customs and Border
Protection.
The caravan is coming! Have you heard? I wonder what would
happen if we shifted the metaphor. Instead of “unknown middle easterners” and
“hardened fighters” in a caravan, what if we referred to the Honduran refugees
as pilgrims – those who roam for home. Pilgrims are people on a journey to a
fresh beginning. Pilgrims travel to the destination of newness.
Those of you who listen to me regularly know I am about to
spout some Liberal lines about love, compassion and acceptance. So here it goes
… I’ve found myself journeying to a position where I want to go. I don’t think
compassion or border liberalism is enough. I wonder if our faith calls on us to
abolish all borders, to bail the barbed wire, to confiscate the chain-link
fences, to close the checkpoints, and to welcome the pilgrims. I know it’s not
logical. It’s not practical. It might mean endangering our lifestyle as
American people. I wish I could formulate a compromise where we can have tight
borders AND welcome people who journey for a fresh beginning. But I can’t make
it work. My understanding of the Biblical message and my faith have we
wondering about something preposterous and outrageous. I think immigration laws
and border control are the ultimate in human greed and maybe even
self-idolatry. Much of the American-Mexican border we spend so much time and
money defending was originally founded as a state of Mexico. We took it by violent
force in the Mexican War of 1846. And yet somehow, we are arrogant enough to
think it is ours. We’re scared of what will happen if others come in, so we
defend the border. We’re told we might lose our wealth and our life style might
decline if we welcome the caravan. Maybe it will. I have no idea.
I do know that God has no borders. Love has no borders. God
does not build walls to defend God’s Self and keep people away. My
understanding of the Biblical message and my faith clearly lay out our job description
to welcome the stranger because we are all pilgrims, travelers, wanderers, and
foreigners in strange lands. My understanding of the Biblical message and my
faith clearly define our primary obligation, which is to love God with all my
heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as
myself.
Did you know Jesus had a border control policy? We read about
it in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. The writer gives us a
glimpse of a new reality when the oppression of the Empire is finally overturned,
and God governs in the fulness of God’s glory.
Then I saw a new heaven and a
new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea
was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God
out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud
shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He
will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or
sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” And the one
sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” -- Revelation 21:1-5
Yes, the city has gates and walls, but the gates are always
open. They don’t need to be shut out, because there is no night, no shadow, no
evil, no tears. The doors are always open. God’s capital city is the destination
of ultimate joy. It’s not some future home on a cloud. Getting there is a
journey. A process. We get there with the day-by-day set of choices we make. Over
time, each step lead us closer to ultimate joy.
The caravan is coming! Its destination is ultimate joy. It’s
a great multitude that no one can number, from every nation, from all tribes
and peoples and languages, heading for a better country. When the caravan
arrives, it will not be stopped by homeland security. All people are welcomed gladly.
A caravan is coming! Way up ahead, is that Abraham and Sarah?
Moses, Miriam and Aaron? And there are Isaiah and Jeremiah, Elijah and John the
Baptizer (you can pick him out by his weird clothing). There’s Mary, the mother
of Jesus. Mary Magdalene. Peter. Paul. John. Thomas. Oh, wait! There’s more
coming after them: Augustine and Athanasius, Francis and Ignatius, Hildegard
and Julian, Joan and Theresa. And can that be Oscar Romero and Mother Theresa?
Dorothy Day, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Daniel Barragan? Martin Luther and
Fannie Lou Hamer?
A caravan is coming! It’s full of travelers we don’t
recognize. Some of them don’t even seem to be Christians. There are those who
were not famous, but they were faithful. There even some lost travelers who
joined in. They all travel to the destination of ultimate joy.
A caravan is coming! Just ahead, we see our dearly departed
loved ones. Those who taught us how to love and be loved. Those who worked to
raise their families and serve the needs of others. Those who made the world
more loving and more compassionate, in ways big and small. They march on in the
spirit of life and love. We sense the impact of their lives, and we are
grateful.
A caravan is coming! You are in it. So am I. We are pilgrim
people passing through this land. One of the things I hear a lot is a lament
like, “I don’t recognize our country anymore. This is not the America I know.” It’s
true. We are strangers and exiles here in this world. We trudge through the
darkness on our way to God’s country. If we feel out of place, it’s because we
are out of place. We live in a brutal fallen world, after all.
I long for the day when border control is no longer needed --
when all the hard work we put into welcoming a new heaven and a new earth are
finally a reality. In this country, I reluctantly recognize that there must be
policies and laws in place. The government obviously has a responsibility to
protect its people. But for us pilgrims, for us wanderers, for us travelers, our
duty is to love and respect any and everyone who is part of humanity, migrants
included. Our personal responsibility is to show hospitality. No matter what
our political views are, our summons is to love. Love God. Love neighbor. Love
strangers, foreigners, aliens, immigrants, and out-of-towners. It’s how we love
our neighbor in a world that’s not our ultimate home.
Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.
com/world/national-security/army-assessment-of-migrant-caravans-undermines-trumps-rhetoric/2018/11/02/78b9d82a-dec0-11e8-b3f0-62607289efee_story.html?utm_term=.c70a68f2e3d7
http://simplybelief. com/what-does-the-bible-say-about-illegal-immigration/
http://www.ucc.
org/justice/immigration/worship/JStinsonSermon.html
http://www.freerepublic.
com/focus/f-bloggers/3702478/posts
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