Sermon: US/Mexico Border

The world was heartbroken this week, to see the photograph of two drowned migrants at the US/Mexico border. Perhaps you saw the photograph too. “Face down in the water, the bodies of a man and his little daughter [both who had drowned], were amidst flattened reeds on the banks of the Rio Grande.” “The graphic image of the bodies [were] of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Martinez and his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, …this powerful photograph circulated across the world,” reported CBC news. (1)

Further, we heard more news this week about the conditions of children, teenagers, and toddlers who are in detention at that same border. Detention, apparently, is a polite word for jail and for cages. Children being held in cages. CBC reported the words of Holly Cooper, who co-directs an Immigration Law Clinic and represents detained youth. She said, “In my 22 years of doing visits with children in detention, I have never heard of this level of inhumanity.”

This shameful situation and this tragic photo represents the humanitarian crisis that is happening now at the US/Mexico border. To me, it represents the sins of injustice, the sin of the powerful over the powerless. Allow me to read to you from A Song of Faith which is a faith statement from the United Church of Canada:

Song of Faith, The United Church of Canada

“This brokenness in human life and community

is an outcome of sin.

Sin is not only personal

but accumulates

to become habitual and systemic forms

of injustice, violence, and hatred.

We are all touched by this brokenness. […]

We sing lament and repentance.”

“We sing of God’s good news lived out,

a church with purpose:

faith nurtured and hearts comforted,

gifts shared for the good of all,

resistance to the forces that exploit and marginalize,

fierce love in the face of violence,

human dignity defended,

members of a community held and inspired by God,

corrected and comforted,

instrument of the loving Spirit of Christ,

creation’s mending.

We sing of God’s mission.”

Today our scripture offers us opportunities to prayerfully consider God’s mission and discipleship and justice, in Christ’s Way. Let’s explore together:

Jesus the Refugee

I don’t know if you’ve seen or read Christian arguments for welcoming refugees, that often say “Jesus was a refugee.” I always thought “Jesus was a refugee” was referring to when Jesus was just a baby. Do you remember how just after Jesus was born, King Herod called for all male babies to be killed throughout the land. So, Joseph and Mary and Jesus fled to Egypt to avoid Herod’s violence and death. Unwelcome in their own home, they fled for their safety, they fled for their lives. They were refugees.

Today’s scripture from Luke, tells us of another time that Jesus was rejected, was not received, because of ethnic and religious differences. This time as an adult. Jesus and his followers were walking the many days journey on foot from Galillee to Jerusalem, which meant going through Samaria. But the Samaritans didn’t receive him because of a long-standing religious and ethnic tension. In their mind, Jesus was looking toward Jerusalem instead of looking toward Samaria as a religous centre. Jesus was rejected as an ethnic and religious outsider.

Question for Reflection

Have you ever experienced the feeling of being an outsider? Do you experience that outsider feeling, today? That feeling of being locked out and not able to find the secret key that would let you in? It feels aweful, doesn’t it. I can only imagine what that feels like when one is living in desperate situations. In those moments, what does it mean to us to have hope that the door could be opened? Freedom. Safety. Acceptance. Opportunity. True welcome. Visionary hospitality.

Hospitality

These days I’m reading a book on Christian perspectives of hospitality, called Just Hospitality: God’s Welcome in a World of Difference. What’s fascinating about this book is that it explores what hospitality means more deeply as followers of Jesus. Not just welcoming others into the house we already built. But working as ongoing partners with newcomers in our midst, to build a home where respect and equity can live together for all.

The author encourages us to listen, to do a little discipleship homework to listen for the power component in our welcome, and to work from there. Her question is: Who is the ‘welcom-er’ and who are the ones being welcomed? What is the power balance in that relationship? Who has more voice, who has more sway, whose comfort is being prioritized? This prayerful homework helps us understand politically complex situations in faith-filled ways toward insiders, outsiders and those stuck in between.

As Luke tells us:

As they were going along the road, someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

The Son of Man, is forever an outsider, forever a migrant with nowhere to lay his head. The Son of Man is forever with the migrant, no matter where they are in their journey. God shows us how our collective power as the body of Christ can be used to uplift the relatively powerless, to uplift the migrant, to uplift the outsider, to uplift the detainee.

And I don’t just mean to spiritually uplift people, although that’s great too. I mean uplift the needs of the people, uplift their priorities, their voices, that are as important and essential to the conversation as the voices of the powerful. We have heard from the news to the White House about the Child Detention Centres, but I wonder how the conversation woudl shift if we gave a microphone to the migrant children themselves, and families who wait for them.

We can help things be less one-sided by demanding to hear the voice of the powerless. Giving “priority to the outsider” is, this authors says, a Spirit-infused starting point for working toward overcoming injustice.

And I see a parallel with Jesus: when we begin to see through Christ’s eyes and follow his lead, we begin to see from the outsider’s perspective and to follow their lead. “Truly I tell you,” Jesus tells us, “Just as you did it to one of the least of these… you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). As church, it is time to model how to listen with respect and compassion, and model how to respond (from Just Hospitality, page 46). Together we can challenge the imbalance of power by speaking up against injustice. And together we can join with our siblings-in-Christ in their pilgrimage toward freedom and justice and peace.

Sometimes, something needs to be different. Now is the time. /Our Song of Faith inspires us: Let us love fiercely to defend human dignity. By being a courageous and outspoken church, we can make a difference. Amen.

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This sermon was written for Wesley United Church (Montreal)

Scripture: Luke 9:51-62

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FOOTNOTES:

(1) “A wrenching photo captured the horror for migrants at the U.S. border. Dn’t bet on it changing minds.” on CBC. (June 29, 2019). Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/will-migrant-photo-salvadoran-father-daughter-change-minds-1.5191462

Image: ABC News. Source: https://abcnews.go.com/International/told-mother-migrant-man-drowned-alongside-daughter-southern/story?id=64018919