My Dutch forebears came to the U. S. in the first half of
the 1700's. Were they escaping crowding, the encroachment of the sea, or were
they just restless adventurers? Who knows, maybe they were tired of their
relatives and wanted to put a sea between them. At any rate, they became an
integral part of the American Revolution, sheltering Washington's troops on the
Van Doren farm over a harsh winter and helping him deceive the British into
thinking that the Revolutionary Army had a lot more troops than they really had.
As the account goes, the troops marched single file through a valley on my forebear's
land where they could be seen by the British and around a hill where they could
not be seen, then back into the valley again so what was a relatively short line
of troops appeared to be nearly endless.
My Irish ancestors came to escape the potato famine in
Ireland, and were most likely part of the Irish ghetto in New York until one of
them moved west and then some others followed, as is often the case with
immigrants, including my great grandmother's family. My English grandmother's
family most likely came to seek their fortune in a new land. My German
ancestors came just four generations ago and spoke primarily German. What drew
them to the U. S. is unclear. Why my Swiss grandfather's family came is also
unclear. Why would one emigrate from the beauty of Switzerland to settle in
Lima, Ohio!
My wife's Armenian grandfather, Megerdich Godosian, (this
is my transliteration from hearing it; whether accurate or not, I do not know) as
a teenager, fled the Armenian Massacre in Turkey around 1917. This was during
the forced march where he witnessed the death of his father and brother. His
future wife fled the Massacre as well after months of smuggling bread that she
stole from the Turkish family she worked for and taking it back into what had
become an Armenian ghetto. They settled in the Armenian section of a crowded
city, Detroit, around 1920 and became citizens. Megerdich, Michael he was
called in the U.S., was employed as a sweeper in the Ford plants. Through
frugality he managed to provide for his family and put a couple of his children
through college. He died a month short of his100th birthday having never
learned English. His long-life no doubt due to all that yogurt he made and ate!
The woman who cuts my hair is one of the 750,000
Vietnamese resettled in the U. S., many of them in West Michigan. One family
was helped to escape as Saigon was falling by David Moore, a member of Plymouth
Church who died a few years ago. He got the family out by lying that the mother
of the family was his wife. They came seeking refuge with only the clothes on
their back. One of the sons of that family is now a prominent scientific
researcher in the U. S.
Virtually all of the members of the Chin Baptist Church,
that we sponsor and that meets here every Sunday afternoon, were teenage
refugees. They left family, slipping into the jungle, hiding from government
officials, and eventually crossing the border to International Red Cross camps.
They emigrated to many countries, some to the U.S.
Roberto's family lived in abject poverty in Tegucigalpa,
Honduras, in an area under control of the MS-13 gang. (I have been to
Tegucigalpa, and it was a scary place 25 years ago.) That gang, like the other
major gang in Honduras, (M-18), got its start in the U. S. when hundreds of
imprisoned gang members were deported to Honduras and replicated their
activities there. They grew rapidly and thrived due to a dysfunctional government,
often corrupt police force, poverty, and an insatiable U. S. demand for illegal
drugs. Roberto's brother was recruited as a drug runner for the gang, and was
soon killed. Roberto would either do the same, or flee. His parents, desperate
not to lose another son to death, allowed him to go. Having passed through Honduras
by foot, hitch hiking, and hopping the back of busses and trains, he finally
hopped the Mexican train called "The Beast." He was beaten, robbed of what
little he had, and nearly dehydrated to death. He made it to the U.S. border
where he turned himself in as do the overwhelming majority of children who make
it that far. He is one of the 57,000 who arrived over the last nine months.
That, by the way, is 1/14th the number of Vietnamese who came to the
U.S. following the fall of Saigon.
Why deal with this in a sermon in the waning days of
summer when what we would really like to hear is a reassuring sermon about
God's sustaining presence in our lives, complete, of course, with a few
entertaining anecdotes and a couple of good one-liners?
It's because this is the elephant in the U. S. living
room. It is because our Christian calling, let alone our humanitarian
sensitivities, call us to care and to try to get to the truth of what is going
on and why. It is because this is about Children and about the message we send
our children. It is to seek to discern what individual and national response we
ought to advocate.
Clearly there is a part of me that sympathizes with
people who are worried about our social service systems being overwhelmed by
people from the outside. I can relate to the fear that if we provide
safe-haven, we will open the floodgates, just encouraging more refugees. I
especially feel for land owners along the border caught in the middle of their
own private property rights, illegal trespassing, and confronting sometimes
desperate refugees or ruthless traffickers. I can relate to worries about jobs
being taken away by illegal immigrants or worries about them taking funds from
social programs that should go to citizens.
But are those worries based in reality? Are they the truth?
Generally, I think not. One of the principle tenets of our faith is that the
truth is not a commodity to be manipulated. Rather, it is a reality to ground
us in looking at ourselves and, in this case, our nation under God. The truth
sets us free from our prejudices and from following other gods. And the truth
is that it is a lot easier to scapegoat and to place the blame on others,
especially the most vulnerable, than it is to confront the truth. It is a lot
easier to blame immigrants for taking money away from poor and jobless
citizens, than it is to blame those who control the budget - our state and
national legislators. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "Everyone is entitled to
their own opinion, but not to their own facts."
Of course, such a situation as the Children on the Border
is rife with misunderstanding and ripe to be spun for political gain. What are
the facts in relation to some of the things we have been hearing?
1. From
what I understand, there is a need for the work that immigrants, undocumented
and otherwise, perform in the U. S. They
do jobs that otherwise go unfilled, that U. S. citizens won't do. One
close-to-home example is that a few years ago when spring came so early, much
of, I believe it was the asparagus crop, in the Grant area was not harvested
because the migrant workers (most of whom are immigrants, some of whom, no
doubt, are undocumented) had not yet made their way to that area. There were
very few locals who had both the will and the ability to do that back-breaking
work. Also, from what I understand, the amount of money put into the U.S.
economy through taxes and spending by undocumented workers far exceeds the
amount spent on them. They are, in fact, among the most exploited people on U.S.
soil.
2. The
truth is that this is not an invasion, contrary to Texas Congressman Louie
Gohmert's comparison of it to the D-Day invasion. But as one of our more astute
social prophets and oft times theologians, Jon Stewart, put it, "...generally, an
enemy invasion force is not particularly dangerous until it can reach and open
its own cereal."
3. The
truth is that this is not a lapse in
U. S. security. While 57,000 children arriving in 9 months is certainly more
than usual, overall border crossings are down dramatically. In 2000 some 1.6
million people were apprehended and returned or deported by the Border Patrol.
In the late 2,000's that number was just a quarter of that. And, it is
important to note that these children are turning themselves in at the border.
4. The
truth is that these kids are not spreading disease, contrary to Congressman
Phil Gingrey's letter to the Center for Disease Control suggesting that these
children may carry, among other things, the Ebola virus. Of course, this has
been thoroughly debunked, but that doesn't prevent it from being used and
spoken of as "fact." Whereas in truth, the Ebola virus has not been reported
outside of Africa, the only two people admitted into the U.S. contracted the
disease in Africa, and they are white, adult, U.S. citizens! Also, the first
step after these children turn themselves in at the border is health screening.
Any children with contagious diseases are quarantined and treated.
5. The
truth is that these Children are not from
Mexico. While some 23% of children showing up at the border are Mexican, they
are not taken in by the Border Patrol unless they can either claim asylum or
pass a trafficking inspection. Otherwise they are sent back using expedited
removal or other means. These kids are seeking refuge like many from other
parts of the world before them. They come from Guatemala, Honduras, and El
Salvador, known as "The Northern Triangle." Honduras has the highest murder
rate in the world, El Salvador 4th, and Guatemala 5th. A
contributing factor to those countries problems (but clearly far from the only
one) is a U.S. foreign policy that used them as chess pieces in a game of
international supremacy. Also, they have been exploited by U.S. corporations
and the gangs are responding to an insatiable U.S. demand for illegal drugs. I
have read about some recent U.S. efforts seeking to deal with the root of the problem
in those countries that seem to be having some success. The United Church of
Christ, through our Common Global Ministries Board, has missionaries there
seeking to deal with those root problems and to provide education and
alternatives to the gangs for young people. They are missionaries like Don and
Maryjane Westra who risk their lives serving with the Christian Commission of Development
based in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
6. You
have also heard claims that by taking these children, the law is being broken
and the constitution subverted. The truth is that the Trafficking Victims
Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, which passed the U. S. House and
Senate unanimously and was signed into law by President George W. Bush, is the
law of the land. It mandates that these children cannot be immediately
deported. They must be afforded due process, have their basic needs met, and be
held humanely by the department of Health and Human Services until the courts
release them to a suitable family member or the Unaccompanied Refugee Minor
program. Department of Homeland Security sources say that more than 80% of
these children will find homes in the U.S., either with family or foster homes.
Many are willing to foster them, maybe some right here.
Trying to discern and stand by the truth is basic to our
Christian tradition and so is our understanding of God's call through the law
and prophets of our Jewish forebears and Lord Jesus Christ.
No, this Christian stuff isn't easy.
It isn't easy because it means that our faith perspective
is the primary lens through which we see the world. Our faith perspective is
the lens by which we seek to discern what we are to do. That is, what God would
have us do. Yes, we need to use historical data and social analysis to seek the
way ahead. And I will, grudgingly, admit that there is room for different
perspectives than mine. But there is not room for perspectives driven by prejudice,
scape-goating, or deliberate falsehood.
Our Hebrew forebears had, as a matter of law, the
principle of welcoming the alien. That is stated in many places in the Hebrew
Scripture including this morning's text from Leviticus. Now admittedly, we
don't use a lot of Leviticus because it contains the Holiness Code - all those
picky detailed laws basically about not eating shellfish, mixing meat and
dairy, as well as a couple passages that purport to be against same-sex sexual
relations. But I take my lead from Jesus in what to take from Leviticus. The
only passage that Jesus quotes in the Christian Scriptures from Leviticus has
much the same sentiment as our text this morning. It is, "You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor
as yourself." Welcome and protection of the alien is seen as a central tenet of
the prophets as well. The alien was included among the most vulnerable ones,
along with the widow and the orphan. This morning's text from Jeremiah echoes
this. In fact, for the prophets, the society faithful to God is the one that
does not oppress the alien, the
orphan or the widow. It seems to me, by that standard, the children at the
border are doubly included. They are not only aliens, but also actually, or
effectively, orphans.
When Jesus said, "Suffer the little children come unto
me," he certainly did not mean that in the modern use of the word "suffer!" However,
that seems to be how many are taking it in relation to these and so many
children! What Jesus really meant, of course, as reflected in more modern
translations, is quite the opposite. He means to welcome, to protect, and to
include them in the just and peaceable realm. You would think that those who seek
to follow Christ, and especially those who want to claim this as a "Christian
Nation" would do what Jesus did.
It is not only in our Judeo Christian DNA, but in our U.S.
DNA, to accept the refugee. That has been the case from our religious forebears
- both the Separatist Congregationalists and the German Evangelicals and the
German Reformed, to victims of the Irish famine, to the children of Jewish
parents who made the gut-wrenching decision to send them to the U. S. and other
countries in the desperate hope that they might survive. It has been the case for
Dutch immigrants to Grand Rapids just two generations ago and to the Vietnamese
boat people.
I am eternally grateful that my forebears were not turned
away at the border but, rather, were able to contribute to this country. I am
exceedingly grateful that my wife's grandparents, fleeing for their lives, were
not turned away at the border. And that yours weren't either. And that these
children won't be either. Praise and thanks be to God.
Amen.
(Resources for this sermon include "Top Ten Things to
Know about the Situation of Children on the Border, distributed by Action of
Greater Lansing, MI UNITED and fully footnoted, and "Children on the Run"
written by Maryjane Westra, who serves, as does her husband, Don, with the
Christian Commission for Development in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Don's
appointment is supported in part by Our
Church's Wider Mission.)