This piece was originally a sermon delivered by the Rev. Brant Copeland on May 8, 2011, concerning the text, Luke 24:13-35. Rev. Copeland is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Tallahassee, Florida.
You’ll have to forgive me if this sermon is even more incoherent than usual. I’ve just returned from a journey, you see, and I’m still a bit out of breath. It wasn’t a long trip, but it was full of surprises. My heart is still burning with the revelation of what I saw and heard, and I’m still not quite sure what to make of it all.
I’ve been to Emmaus, you see. It’s just down the road – south on Adams till you come to a great tall building called the Capitol (with an “O” not an “A”), or as my travel companions call it, “El Capitolio.” I saw Jesus down there. That’s right. Jesus. The same Jesus who was crucified and buried not so long ago. You might have thought he was dead and gone. Many people do. But it’s not true. He was there.
Of course, this not the first time people have been to Emmaus and discovered Jesus, alive and at work. Luke says it happened to a couple of disciples on Easter Sunday afternoon. We don’t know both of their names. We just know the name of one: Cleopas. (That’s short for “Cleopatrus,” which means “son of a renowned father.” That must have been a hard name to live up to.)
Anyway, Cleopas and his friend were on their way to Emmaus and they were feeling mighty low. They had pinned their hopes and dreams on Jesus, you see, and he hat gotten himself arrested and tried and sentenced to death on the cross. Cleopas and his friend, apparently, had witnessed the execution. I doubt that they were talking about that, however.
My guess is, they were talking about how disappointed they were, and how scared. When you pin all your hopes and dreams on a person and that person gets pinned to a cross – well, it makes you feel like never trusting anyone or anything again. Not God, not the Bible. Nothing. It makes you feel like giving up.
That’s how I’ve been feeling lately. Perhaps it’s the same for you. I’ve been feeling like the world is an insane asylum and the inmates are in charge. Leaders don’t seem to look at the big picture. They enact laws that ignore the past and jeopardize the future. They turn 30 years of environmental legislation on its head. They talk about the need for jobs but put thousands of teachers and state workers out of work.
That’s why I was going to Emmaus. Emmaus seems to be the place where you go when you’ve given up – on leaders, on civil authorities, maybe even on God. Surely if God were paying attention, Jesus wouldn’t be dead, the world wouldn’t be in such a mess, and the inmates wouldn’t be in charge.
So these two disciples are on their way to Emmaus and this stranger pulls up alongside them and joined the conversation. “What’s up?” he wants to know. “¿Qué pasa?”
“What rock have this guy been living under?” Cleopas thought, but was too polite to say. They told him about Jesus, and how he was a prophet, mighty in deed and word, and how they were sure he was the one whom God has sent to put everything right again.
“But now he’s dead and buried. Not only that, some ditzy women in our group claim that his tomb is empty and some angels told them he’s alive. But you know women. Emotional. Hysterical. We didn’t take them seriously.”
The stranger was pretty rude. He called them foolish and dim witted. “It’s all in the scriptures,” he said, and went on to explain to them what why Jesus had died and how, despite evidence to the contrary, God was in all this from the start.
Before they knew it, there were in Emmaus at the house where they planned to spend the night. They invited the stranger to stay with them, and even asked him to say grace over the meal. So he took the bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave to them . . . and their eyes were opened and they recognized him. It wasn’t a stranger at all. It was Jesus.
What the women told them is true. Jesus is alive. He had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Well, as I said, I’ve just gotten back from Emmaus myself, down there by El Capitolio. Let me tell you, it’s true. Jesus is alive.
It was the last day of the legislative session and so far as I could tell, nobody was looking for Jesus except the folks I was with. They had brown skin, most of them, and the most beautiful children you’ve ever seen. They and their companions have been down at El Capitolio for almost every day of the last three weeks – testifying, telling their stories, and most important of all, praying.
You should hear these people pray. The evangelicals scrunch up their eyes and hold up their hands. The Roman Catholics kneel and make the sign of the cross. I’ve never heard such praying.
And neither, apparently, had anyone in El Capitolio. A seasoned lobbyist I know pulled me aside. “You know,” he said, “We’ve never seen anything like this before. We’ve never seen so many people, behaving so well, bringing their children, and telling legislators that they’re praying for them, day after day, after day. This is the most organized, disciplined, respectful group of people we’ve ever seen. Surely they’re not all Presbyterians.”
“No,” I said. “You can be sure of that.”
These came to Emmaus, to El Capitolio, to show the Legislature their faces. That in itself is an extraordinary brave thing to do, considering that many of these brothers and sisters don’t have papers to prove they are in the country legally. They wanted the politicians to see the human face of the immigration laws they were voting on.
They had a simple message: “Somos Florida.” (We are Florida), whose corollary is “No somos Arizona.” (You can figure out what that means.)
One powerful state senator, who changed his mind about voting “Yes” on the harshest version of the legislation, was asked what turned the tide for him.
“Well,” he said. “I changed my mind when I looked at that little girl.”
I know the little girl he meant. Her name is Karla Amaya and she’s from Tampa. I met her at breakfast right here in the Westminster Room, where she had spent the night, sleeping on the floor. We broke bread together, you could say. I ate a homemade tamal. She ate a bagel with grape jelly.
As it turned out, the House of Representatives never got round to voting on that anti-immigrant legislation, and it died, flatter than a tortilla.
Some say the members of the House lost their stomach for the proposed law when, day after day, they kept seeing those faces. Some say they just didn’t have the votes to pull it off this year. Some say the bill’s sponsor began to worry that he might not win his race for sheriff back home if he didn’t back off now.
I’ll tell you what my new friends say. They say it was the Holy Spirit and the prayers.
Well, on Friday afternoon, there was a small fiesta outside El Capitolio – near the dolphin fountain. We sang and celebrated and told stories, but mostly we prayed. The evangelicals prayed even more loudly. The Catholics made a shrine composed the Holy Mother, Pope John Paul, II, and Mickey Mouse.
And that’s when I saw him. Just out of the corner of my eye. He was breaking bread and blessing it and giving it to everyone who was hungry. And he was eating, too. I think it was a homemade tamal and a bagel with grape jelly.
It was Jesus. No doubt about it. He was made known in El Capitolio, in Emmaus, were hope comes to die but meets instead the risen Christ.
Low on hope this morning? Come to this Table. Unsure that God cares? Have some bread and wine. Don’t stay in Emmaus. That’s no place for Easter people.
Thinking and reflecting on God's call to the Church to faithfully follow the Migrant Christ and to love his immigrant sisters and brothers.
Showing posts with label undocumented immigrants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label undocumented immigrants. Show all posts
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
A Church for All People from the Beginning
This blog post is written by Jim Perdue. Jim is the Missionary for Immigration and Border Concerns for Desert Southwest Conference and the National Plan for Hispanic/Latino Ministry
Within the very first “Christian” message there was the commitment to include all who would answer the call and come. (Act. 2:39) All who received the presence and counsel of the Holy Spirit became part of something that would never be bordered in – the loving reign of God.
The church was not only for the children of its members, but for those against whom circumstance often built walls of exclusion. The promise first given to Abram and Sarai in Syria was now extended to “everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” A truly global religion was born.
The stranger, long championed by the psalmist and the prophetic community because of the natural tendency of many people to marginalize those who were different, suddenly became the focus of the church. Its focus shifted there because God’s promise was understood to reside there. Not many in the new church would
be “citizens” of the Roman Empire, the governing authority of that time. Instead, the church anxiously sought out and included “aliens and exiles” (1 Peter 2:11), so that a vast group that “were not a people” (2:10) became God’s people.
As a result, it quickly became unlawful to be a Christian, because they were erasing all the lines in the civil society of the empire. It would not be until around 160 C.E. that a Christian would be officially allowed to serve in the army. Fortunately for many, this had become a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy early on.
Recognizing the sacredness of the life of every potential heir to God’s promise, the church would have remembered the words of the psalmist in a new context: “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his faithful ones.” (Ps. 116:15) This would have referred to the suffering masses the church desperately tried to reach, as well as to those Christians giving up their lives to the legal weapons of a persecutor state.
We tend to forget how far the love of God has been willing to go to erase the lines of separation that the world feels comfortable with, and uncomfortable with their elimination.
Undocumented immigrants, including the many Christian ones, are being increasingly, lawfully singled out for “removal” from our land. Each week, the Secure Communities program of our federal government adds thousands of new local law enforcement and governmental hands to the process of tracking down and removing them. What this has come to mean is that silence on the part of those who believe that some sort of immigration reform is needed is increasingly becoming tacit support of those for whom the ultimate solution is the removal of them all.
But lest we loose sight of the texts for this week, we ask the question “How should we (the church) treat people who are under constant threat of deportation?” Is there a place for them in the church? They have broken a law. But, is there a place for them in the church? They may be gone tomorrow. Which of us could that not be said? If tomorrow I’m discovered to suffer from a terminal illness, will the church choose to “not get involved”? And yet, undocumented immigrants suffer daily from a terminal status.
Later in his life, Peter would continue to grow in the universality of God’s promise and love; and he would increasingly counsel the church to live by that kind of love. The good news in the texts for this week promises to all within the church, citizen and immigrant, a quality of life that is eternal – that makes whatever suffering that befalls us bearable because we bear it together.
“Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth, so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.” (1 Peter 1:22) Regardless of debates, political strategies, or fears, this is something we can grow into together. It’s what we are all meant to be.
Within the very first “Christian” message there was the commitment to include all who would answer the call and come. (Act. 2:39) All who received the presence and counsel of the Holy Spirit became part of something that would never be bordered in – the loving reign of God.
The church was not only for the children of its members, but for those against whom circumstance often built walls of exclusion. The promise first given to Abram and Sarai in Syria was now extended to “everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” A truly global religion was born.
The stranger, long championed by the psalmist and the prophetic community because of the natural tendency of many people to marginalize those who were different, suddenly became the focus of the church. Its focus shifted there because God’s promise was understood to reside there. Not many in the new church would
be “citizens” of the Roman Empire, the governing authority of that time. Instead, the church anxiously sought out and included “aliens and exiles” (1 Peter 2:11), so that a vast group that “were not a people” (2:10) became God’s people.
As a result, it quickly became unlawful to be a Christian, because they were erasing all the lines in the civil society of the empire. It would not be until around 160 C.E. that a Christian would be officially allowed to serve in the army. Fortunately for many, this had become a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy early on.
Recognizing the sacredness of the life of every potential heir to God’s promise, the church would have remembered the words of the psalmist in a new context: “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his faithful ones.” (Ps. 116:15) This would have referred to the suffering masses the church desperately tried to reach, as well as to those Christians giving up their lives to the legal weapons of a persecutor state.
We tend to forget how far the love of God has been willing to go to erase the lines of separation that the world feels comfortable with, and uncomfortable with their elimination.
Undocumented immigrants, including the many Christian ones, are being increasingly, lawfully singled out for “removal” from our land. Each week, the Secure Communities program of our federal government adds thousands of new local law enforcement and governmental hands to the process of tracking down and removing them. What this has come to mean is that silence on the part of those who believe that some sort of immigration reform is needed is increasingly becoming tacit support of those for whom the ultimate solution is the removal of them all.
But lest we loose sight of the texts for this week, we ask the question “How should we (the church) treat people who are under constant threat of deportation?” Is there a place for them in the church? They have broken a law. But, is there a place for them in the church? They may be gone tomorrow. Which of us could that not be said? If tomorrow I’m discovered to suffer from a terminal illness, will the church choose to “not get involved”? And yet, undocumented immigrants suffer daily from a terminal status.
Later in his life, Peter would continue to grow in the universality of God’s promise and love; and he would increasingly counsel the church to live by that kind of love. The good news in the texts for this week promises to all within the church, citizen and immigrant, a quality of life that is eternal – that makes whatever suffering that befalls us bearable because we bear it together.
“Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth, so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.” (1 Peter 1:22) Regardless of debates, political strategies, or fears, this is something we can grow into together. It’s what we are all meant to be.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Undocumented and Unafraid: No Tenemos Miedo
A post by Rev. Yvette Schock
One day in Tucson last summer, as I wove a path through the crowds at a demonstration against SB1070, a young woman approached and held out to me a sign from the stack she had clasped under her arm. On the front was a brightly colored image of another young woman holding a sign that read in bold, block letters, “UNDOCUMENTED, UNAFRAID: NO TENEMOS MIEDO.” I stopped walking, seized by a moment of indecision—I am not an undocumented immigrant, and I do not have to fear the things an undocumented immigrant might, so, I wondered, what did it mean for me to carry this image and these words? Could it be a declaration of solidarity and support for families and students refusing to live in the shadows, and a denunciation of an economic system that requires the existence of an underclass and of a society and political leaders who accept it? Did it honor the courage of immigrant advocates, or was it just a shadow gesture made by someone who risked very little by showing up at a demonstration, in contrast to those who risked a great deal? My moment of indecision didn’t last long; I decided not to overthink it (I’m often guilty of this), held the sign high, and joined in the chanting and singing of the crowd.
But the sign came home from Tucson with me; it sits propped against the wall opposite my desk, and I have had months to reflect on the significance of its message—how it speaks within the context of these times, and what it demands of me in particular. I have begun to reads its words as the kind of defiant, hopeful, confident, David-confronting-Goliath statement of faith we hear again and again in the Psalms. In the face of all kinds of dangers and anxieties, the Psalmists often declared their trust in God and their defiance of any human who might harm them using these words, or something very like them:
In God I trust and am not afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?
(Psalm 56:4)
It’s not just the Psalmists: very, very often in Scripture, when messengers from God arrive to bring comfort, hope and challenge to people in all kinds of precarious situations, they usually begin the same way: “Do not be afraid.” Maybe it’s because coming face-to-face all of a sudden with a messenger from God is a startling experience, or maybe it’s because God’s messengers so often appear to people with plenty of reason to be afraid, but I think it might also be because of what fear does to us. Fear causes us to shrink, to turn inward, to turn away from God and from others. When God’s messengers arrive, it’s usually not only to comfort and reassure, but also to challenge and move us to action. People who are shrinking in fear are in no state to hear God’s promises, to joyfully dive into the powerful current of God’s vision of life and abundance for our world and allow that current to redirect their lives, to answer God’s call to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.
And so, when God’s messengers appear in the stories of our faith, they send up a flare for us: they prepare their listeners (and us, the readers) to hear and receive the promise and challenge that is coming next by reminding them (and us): Do not be afraid. God appears to Abram, elderly and childless, and declares: “Do not be afraid…Look up at the sky and count the stars…so shall your offspring be” (Genesis 15). When Abram’s wife, Sarai, sends her slave, Hagar and her son (by Abram) into the desert to die, God hears their cries and promises: “Hagar, do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” (Genesis 21) God speaks through the prophet Isaiah, saying to the Hebrew people in exile, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west” (Isaiah 43:5). The angel Gabriel appears to Mary to declare, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.” (Luke 1:30-32)
Fear, it seems, has no part in God’s vision of justice and wholeness for our world, nor in God’s way of working in the world. But fear has it uses for those who would wield it as their tool—human history is littered with far too many stories about political leaders stirring up fear of a particular group of people to distract from a problem the leader may not be able to address, to disguise their own shortcomings or corruption, to maintain their positions of power. Perhaps this is another reason why “Do not be afraid” is the refrain that begins each telling of God’s promises—to point out the universe of difference between God’s order and the order of empires.
Our society is no exception. It is crowded with voices that aim to stir up fear in immigrant and non-immigrant communities alike—candidates for public office, governors, state representatives, county sheriffs and Members of Congress who do not hesitate to paint immigrants in our communities as enemies, criminals, threats to our country’s security and to our families’ well-being; sponsors of state legislation that aims to make life difficult for undocumented immigrants. ICE agents waiting outside of apartment buildings or trolling in grocery store parking lots, increasing numbers of deportations that begin with a routine traffic stop, the threat of immigrant parents being separated from U.S. citizen children—all of these policies and practices are stirring up fear within immigrant communities, and for some, stirring up fear is the point. Though I don’t think the Obama administration would admit this, current immigration enforcement policy, in the absence of immigration reform, is, in effect, a program of attrition through enforcement—a strategy that banks on creating fear and suffering in immigration communities.
And yet some in those very communities are refusing to turn inward, to shrink in fear. I don’t know when the phrase “Undocumented and unafraid” first came into use in the movement for just immigration reform, but one account points to youth leaders working to pass the DREAM Act as the source, which wouldn’t surprise me. A number of DREAM students walked from Florida to Washington, DC early last year, declaring all the way that they were undocumented and unafraid. I imagine them walking through counties with 287g agreements in operation, and meeting with unsympathetic law enforcement officials or Members of Congress, living the words of the Psalmists:
In God I trust and am not afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?
They refused to give power to fear, refused to be turned inward, away from their families, their communities, or God.
Perhaps these are messengers from God in our time—they do not come to us encouraging us “Do not be afraid”, but challenge us through their example, their declaration that they are unafraid.
I haven’t answered all of my own questions about the poster from the Tucson demonstration, but I have come to see it as a kind of icon—a living image that reaches out of its frame, grabs my hand, and points me to pay attention to these messengers of our time, to follow the path of the migrant Christ: the One who walks with DREAM students on the way to Washington, D.C., who lives inside apartment buildings where ICE agents wait outside, who sits with school children as they wait for their parents to come home from work, half afraid that they might not arrive; the One who calls us to reject a life shadowed by fear and to seek justice for all people.
One day in Tucson last summer, as I wove a path through the crowds at a demonstration against SB1070, a young woman approached and held out to me a sign from the stack she had clasped under her arm. On the front was a brightly colored image of another young woman holding a sign that read in bold, block letters, “UNDOCUMENTED, UNAFRAID: NO TENEMOS MIEDO.” I stopped walking, seized by a moment of indecision—I am not an undocumented immigrant, and I do not have to fear the things an undocumented immigrant might, so, I wondered, what did it mean for me to carry this image and these words? Could it be a declaration of solidarity and support for families and students refusing to live in the shadows, and a denunciation of an economic system that requires the existence of an underclass and of a society and political leaders who accept it? Did it honor the courage of immigrant advocates, or was it just a shadow gesture made by someone who risked very little by showing up at a demonstration, in contrast to those who risked a great deal? My moment of indecision didn’t last long; I decided not to overthink it (I’m often guilty of this), held the sign high, and joined in the chanting and singing of the crowd.
But the sign came home from Tucson with me; it sits propped against the wall opposite my desk, and I have had months to reflect on the significance of its message—how it speaks within the context of these times, and what it demands of me in particular. I have begun to reads its words as the kind of defiant, hopeful, confident, David-confronting-Goliath statement of faith we hear again and again in the Psalms. In the face of all kinds of dangers and anxieties, the Psalmists often declared their trust in God and their defiance of any human who might harm them using these words, or something very like them:
In God I trust and am not afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?
(Psalm 56:4)
It’s not just the Psalmists: very, very often in Scripture, when messengers from God arrive to bring comfort, hope and challenge to people in all kinds of precarious situations, they usually begin the same way: “Do not be afraid.” Maybe it’s because coming face-to-face all of a sudden with a messenger from God is a startling experience, or maybe it’s because God’s messengers so often appear to people with plenty of reason to be afraid, but I think it might also be because of what fear does to us. Fear causes us to shrink, to turn inward, to turn away from God and from others. When God’s messengers arrive, it’s usually not only to comfort and reassure, but also to challenge and move us to action. People who are shrinking in fear are in no state to hear God’s promises, to joyfully dive into the powerful current of God’s vision of life and abundance for our world and allow that current to redirect their lives, to answer God’s call to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.
And so, when God’s messengers appear in the stories of our faith, they send up a flare for us: they prepare their listeners (and us, the readers) to hear and receive the promise and challenge that is coming next by reminding them (and us): Do not be afraid. God appears to Abram, elderly and childless, and declares: “Do not be afraid…Look up at the sky and count the stars…so shall your offspring be” (Genesis 15). When Abram’s wife, Sarai, sends her slave, Hagar and her son (by Abram) into the desert to die, God hears their cries and promises: “Hagar, do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” (Genesis 21) God speaks through the prophet Isaiah, saying to the Hebrew people in exile, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west” (Isaiah 43:5). The angel Gabriel appears to Mary to declare, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.” (Luke 1:30-32)
Fear, it seems, has no part in God’s vision of justice and wholeness for our world, nor in God’s way of working in the world. But fear has it uses for those who would wield it as their tool—human history is littered with far too many stories about political leaders stirring up fear of a particular group of people to distract from a problem the leader may not be able to address, to disguise their own shortcomings or corruption, to maintain their positions of power. Perhaps this is another reason why “Do not be afraid” is the refrain that begins each telling of God’s promises—to point out the universe of difference between God’s order and the order of empires.
Our society is no exception. It is crowded with voices that aim to stir up fear in immigrant and non-immigrant communities alike—candidates for public office, governors, state representatives, county sheriffs and Members of Congress who do not hesitate to paint immigrants in our communities as enemies, criminals, threats to our country’s security and to our families’ well-being; sponsors of state legislation that aims to make life difficult for undocumented immigrants. ICE agents waiting outside of apartment buildings or trolling in grocery store parking lots, increasing numbers of deportations that begin with a routine traffic stop, the threat of immigrant parents being separated from U.S. citizen children—all of these policies and practices are stirring up fear within immigrant communities, and for some, stirring up fear is the point. Though I don’t think the Obama administration would admit this, current immigration enforcement policy, in the absence of immigration reform, is, in effect, a program of attrition through enforcement—a strategy that banks on creating fear and suffering in immigration communities.
And yet some in those very communities are refusing to turn inward, to shrink in fear. I don’t know when the phrase “Undocumented and unafraid” first came into use in the movement for just immigration reform, but one account points to youth leaders working to pass the DREAM Act as the source, which wouldn’t surprise me. A number of DREAM students walked from Florida to Washington, DC early last year, declaring all the way that they were undocumented and unafraid. I imagine them walking through counties with 287g agreements in operation, and meeting with unsympathetic law enforcement officials or Members of Congress, living the words of the Psalmists:
In God I trust and am not afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?
They refused to give power to fear, refused to be turned inward, away from their families, their communities, or God.
Perhaps these are messengers from God in our time—they do not come to us encouraging us “Do not be afraid”, but challenge us through their example, their declaration that they are unafraid.
I haven’t answered all of my own questions about the poster from the Tucson demonstration, but I have come to see it as a kind of icon—a living image that reaches out of its frame, grabs my hand, and points me to pay attention to these messengers of our time, to follow the path of the migrant Christ: the One who walks with DREAM students on the way to Washington, D.C., who lives inside apartment buildings where ICE agents wait outside, who sits with school children as they wait for their parents to come home from work, half afraid that they might not arrive; the One who calls us to reject a life shadowed by fear and to seek justice for all people.
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