Each one of us has to decide for ourselves what this matter and movement
are to us. It may be the call of our lifetimes. My own point of
reference is that first picture we all remember of Earth from outer space.
No boundaries, no borders, no barriers – but just this fragile and
beautiful “pale blue dot” dangling there for all to embrace and cherish.
My own questions this day include, How big is my world, my Earth?How big is
my human family? How complex and diverse? How expansive and
inclusive? And above all, what kind of world do I hope for my
children? My grandchildren? The next seven generations?
For me this is not about laws and flags, markets and borders, so much as it
is about what kind of world? What kind of family? Religiously
speaking, how big is my God?
At the Methodist Church on First Street where I work – and where we
intend to serve and to witness to all persons equally, regardless of
immigration status -- just because all are persons, children of God, sisters
and brothers to one another – there is on exhibit through May 15 a huge
wooden sculpture entitled “Renewal & Remembrance: Blessed Are the
Peacemakers.” It pays tribute to some 17 persons of many nations and
to the countless and nameless of all through the centuries standing for
justice and peace – even at the cost of their own lives. The artist
preached the Palm Sunday message yesterday, of Jesus weeping over the city,
and wondering why we do not know, why we cannot, or will not learn “the
things that make for peace?” He named these things as justice,
non-violence, and love.
As he evoked memories of these nonviolent
servants and witnesses to all humanity, it dawned on me that immigrants of this
world – exiles, refugees, strangers and sojourners anywhere – and especially the
so-called “undocumented workers” in the U. S. – are making historic non-violent
revolution!
Immigrants are changing the very face and body,
the appearance and the reality, of the whole of life in this nation – of all
that we are as a people and as a culture. Richard Rodriquez has called it “the
browning of America.” And it dawned on me as well that some in positions of
power see these changes for the deep and lasting challenges they are to all of
our old ways of seeing and doing – and it’s literally shaking their vested
interests to the core! Where a few make it to the top and everybody else exists
to support them – like the huge base of the pyramid.
Folksinger Charlie King has a song with the
chorus – “Our work is more than our job, and our life is more than our work!” I
am here to refuse to see my brothers and sisters as reduced to the jobs they do,
all of us do – crucial as our jobs may be, and much as we cannot do without such
workers and much as we take them for granted. I am here to say rather, each
child of God, each member of the human family, is entitled not only to a job,
but also to the work of their lives, a vocation, a gift and a calling that comes
from our very creation! A sense of justice for the whole person that each of us
is made to be! And each of us is entitled not only to a job and a work but also
to a life! To a whole life – with open relationships, with community, with
culture! Not only a job, not only a justice, but also a joy! The chance to be
glad just for being alive!
Let me preach just a moment now – occupational
hazard! There’s a place in the 32nd chapter of Genesis where Jacob
brings his family to the border, the river, the Jabbok – on their way for Jacob
to be reconciled with his brother Esau – whose birthright Jacob stole – and we
know a lot of people today with stolen birthrights! Can I get a witness? Jacob
ends up wrestling all night with a border guard – really a border god – for we
know today many people see God as a Border Guard! As One whose only purpose in
being God is to keep some (really a few) of God’s children apart from and
fearful of the rest of God’s children! So this border god tries to keep Jacob
in his place, to keep him from crossing over into a land where he might become
reconciled and restored to right relations again!
Jacob just knew as a child of God he was
entitled – to job, to justice, to joy! To relationship and to community! Are
we looking for a never-ending future of fear and separation? Or are we
willing to embrace an immediate opportunity for trust and for community?
Out of the shadows and into the full light of day for us all?
Sisters and brothers, how big is our God, our
Creator, and our sense of creation today? How big is our world? Our nation?
Our family? Our very own life? Border gods try to keep us all little and
lost. They don’t want us exploring our common world and discovering our common
humanity. They don’t want us learning, growing, even changing – in ourselves
and in our relations with one another. They don’t want us practicing the things
that make for peace – justice, nonviolence, and love.
Bill Moyers (for whom I would vote for president
in a heartbeat! On any party or no party at all!) says we have to test the
“truth claims” of these “border gods” who would keep us apart and afraid. We
have to trust our own experience, insight, reason and faith. Bill Moyers says,
“To cross over to freedom you have to show the bogus gods at the border that you
have a mind of your own.” And a heart! And a hope and a dream! For a world, a
nation, a family, a life where we all belong! “Nosotros tambien tenemos un
sueno!” We have a dream as well! We have a dream again! Thank you, thank you,
thank you! Amen.
