8/10/14. BLOG: WE WHO ARE COLONIES OF GOD’S NEW HUMANITY ARE ALWAYS IMMIGRANTS
This may come as a surprise to some who inhabit North American churches … but those of us who belong to Jesus Christ are never primarily American citizens, though we inhabit this country with much to be thankful for. But like Daniel in Babylon, we don’t ultimately belong here. Our priorities are with the kingdom of our God, and of his Christ. That priority means that when government policy (or lack thereof) is at odds with the purpose of our calling to be God’s new humanity in Christ—we become a counter-cultural force and a voice of protest.
Not only this, but the clear teachings of the apostles is that we who belong to Christ are always sojourners and exiles here, in whatever particular country we inhabit. Or maybe, as Eugene Peterson paraphrases it: “Friends, this world is not your home, so don’t make yourself cozy in it. … Live an exemplary life among the natives so that your lives will refute their prejudices.”
What provokes this line of thought in me is our current heartbreaking crisis along the Mexican border, and all of the voices from our culture of discontent, or indifference, the naysayers, and self-centered libertarians who ignore the pathos of the whole complicated episode. We Christians often forget that we have often been illegal. In the early centuries of the Christian church one could be executed for professing Christ. It was in the midst of such a hostile culture that Christians demonstrated their alternative humanity. Many of the previous waves of immigration into this nation were because of persecution of one sort or another: political, economic, religious, etc. Our forebears were pursuing a hope of a new future, and it was often provoked by a religious quest.
So here are hundreds of thousands of real human beings from Latin America, who have lived under horrific circumstances, seeing hope in the rumors that in the United States there might be jobs, or freedom from criminal gangs ravaging your neighborhood, or stark hopelessness. Who, pray tell, should have a heart for such?
“I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
I really do not think that the people of God’s new humanity in these United States, who are always to be a people of hope and of compassion, who are always called to costly obedience … can ignore such, so long as we have any capacity to bring solution and humane responses. We cannot simply say that it is too big for me, or us, to solve. There have been some 6000 deaths along that border, many if not most by our own governmental policies. That makes the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip seem almost minor. And yet the politicians, whom we ostensibly elect, keep procrastinating out of political paralysis or procrastination.
I’m thankful for those who are, in fact, doing what they can. There is a humanitarian organization called NMD (No More Deaths), which has linked with other humanitarian agencies such as the Ark of the Covenant to provide aid camps along the border in places like Arizona. NMD volunteers provide basic human help to those who have suffered so much seeking to find some hope for their own lives and those of their families. I like that.
The highest homicide rate in Latin America is in Honduras. It is dangerous in many villages to even go out on the street. If I lived there I would be seeking escape to the United States myself. Meanwhile, we who are the colonies of God’s new humanity in Christ must not seek to escape, or look the other way at our humanitarian responsibility. We tragically tried to look the other way during the holocaust in the 1930s and 1940s. We dare not repeat that violation of our calling by Christ to welcome strangers in our midst, along with the sick and naked and imprisoned.
Have I begun to make my point?
