Maybe you were like me.
You grew up believing that most of the Bible was just too complicated to
understand. Or just too spiritual. Maybe when I got more spiritual, prayed more,
developed some kind of special knowledge, I would understand the Bible. But until then, the book seemed to be filled
with the miraculous, amazing, and other-worldly that really had me
second-guessing whether this “faith thing” would ever be something I would be
spiritually mature enough to understand.
Other people seemed certain and got it.
I was always wondering what that “special sauce” was that would help me
to get it.
Some of that changed when I realized that many of the
Biblical authors wrote with images meant to paint vivid pictures for the people
reading or listening—like graphic novels.
These authors weren’t trying to be literal. They were trying to help people of their own
time understand that time.
And I wasn’t a part of that
time so everything would, naturally, appear to be “off” for me. The Biblical writers weren’t writing for
me. What did those images, those vivid
pictures, mean for people in their time?
That helped.
But there was a second part I probably didn’t really get
until I reflected back on some of my missionary work in southern Mexico. I spent a year in southern Mexico partnering
with the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas to work with the
displaced in southern Mexico and Guatemalan refugees. Many of these refugees, indigenous Maya, had
fled their homeland to find refuge and sanctuary in different parts of the
world, some of them in the Chiapan highlands.
The people I got to know best, the small community of Zacaleu Zacualtipan, was making a life in the rain forest..
At one of our recent
Wednesday night services, I reflected back on some of my personal life as I
agreed to return to southern Mexico to accompany Guatemalan refugees who had
fled to southern Mexico back into Guatemala to struggle on behalf of their
people and their homeland.
A few days before the small community of Zacaleu
Zacualtipan led all of the Guatemalan refugees in this United Nations caravan to
the southern most city in Mexico, I was blessed to speak with Diego, a man who had been targeted
for assassination in Guatemala. When he
and his wife, Natalia, found out, they bundled up their new-born and fled over
the border into southern Mexico. Diego
and Miguel, Diego’s brother, were leaders of this small camp.
I’ll never forget the day of the first
return. Diego joyfully played his guitar
as people placed all of their life’s belongings on this United Nations bus. His wife, further up on the bus, sat
stoically looking forward, bawling her eyes out. They were returning with another
new-born. Natalia knew that her husband would
probably be assassinated when they returned.
That life perspective, that reality that you and your people are the
hunted and the pursued and the persecuted, just for being indigenous and
seeking a life, made even the most joyous moments bittersweet.
But the day before the caravan, there I was as Diego
opened up the gospel to me, helped me to understand. He told me of a grand banquet Christ had set
before the world. He knew his station in
the world. He said he was one of the
lost and forgotten, a person who had to work hard every day just to survive as
a farmer. Indeed, I had seen how this
small Mayan community had created community life in the rain forest--set up
gardens, learned how to secure potable water, and even had begun to breed
rabbits to provide regular protein for the people of Zacaleu Zacualtipan. Diego told me how he would be invited to that
banquet but that he had fears for people who were not poor, rich businessmen,
who would be invited to the banquet, where we might all share in community and
joy. No, those people who had no dirt underneath
their fingernails would turn away the invitation because they were busy
hoarding all of their wealth in another kingdom. It was Diego’s fondest wish that they might
join him at the table. “Pero, ay,
Miguel,” he said, “no lo tengo mucho esperanza.” I don’t have much hope for it. Until then, we labor for that banquet.
At a time when I thought I was helping him, a Guatemalan peasant,
a farmer who has lost his land, had laid before me a passage of Scripture, a
teaching of Jesus, translated it, in a way that finally made total sense to
me. Must have been how people heard it
the first time Jesus shared this revelation of God’s goodness.
For that is why the proclamation that “God is good,” is so
central to many communities. If people
like Diego, Natalia, and Miguel looked at the status quo, they would wonder if
God had it in for them. Why did God
intend so much evil for them? It is why
the message of angels has to begin so often with “Fear not!” because for Jewish
peasants, they must wonder if God has it in for them. If your child asked for a fish, would you
give them a snake? If your child asked
for an egg, would you give them a scorpion?
If you are persistent in asking your neighbor with a request, a need, and they finally get up to help you
out, how much more so God?
Jesus is speaking to people
who aren’t so sure God is good. They see
no evidence of that in their world. And
at the same time, Jesus is teaching them how they should be with one
another. Be good and kind to one
another, as I can assure you, God wants goodness and kindness for you.
What I imagine, with Diego teaching me, as that Scripture
opened up before me with his eyes, that Jesus is not only teaching hope to the
people in front of him but Jesus is also giving them permission to be good and
kind to each other. There is a
reciprocity there, a mutuality. We
welcome others as a way of saying this is how we would want to be
welcomed. We do not turn others away as
a wish that we would not be turned away ourselves.
As you are good and kind to
each other, know that God is good and kind to you. As God is good and kind to you, be good and
kind to each other. For those who have
been bludgeoned, wounded by the world and the status quo, the goodness of God
is a revelation. It is a reminder that
even though the wider world may have treated you with cruelty, name-calling,
and violence, this is not what God wants for you, desires for you, seeks in
reciprocity for you.
My experience with Diego, who was a teacher of Christ and
Scriptural story for me, has been one of the reasons I have worked on
immigration issues almost my entire ordained life. Whenever I preach, Natalia, Diego, and the
newborn they carted across the border who was now a young, enthusiastic boy,
Francisco, sit up in one of the front pews . . . because we know that nobody in
church is going to take those front pews.
And that family wants to know every Sunday, are you going to preach in a
way that remembers us? Are you going to
remember us? So when I am punching away
characters on my laptop and I come to that point in the sermon where I have to
decide whether I am going to offend my congregation or offend them, that photo
I still have of Francisco carrying one of the aluminum corrugated sheets from
his makeshift roof to the bus, the strap around his forehead, with a huge smile
on his face, that photo appears saying, “God is good!”
Let’s go back to the start
of the Scripture verse. Jesus is teaching
the disciples the character of God in what we have come to know as the Lord’s
Prayer. We begin with the version from
Matthew, “Our Father,” not my father, or your father, but a notice that this
prayer is about who we are collectively, in mutuality and reciprocity. The prayer recognizes we do not accept the
world as it is. Please, O God, your
kingdom come. Impose your rule, one of
reciprocity and mutuality. The second
part of the prayer asks for our daily needs, not the frills and the fluff, but
the basics. And these are commands of
God, expecting the character of God to be good and the expectation that God
wants us to have our daily needs met.
Because we know it is God’s will that our daily needs be met, it is not
by the will of God that these needs go unmet.
The will of humanity makes meeting our daily needs conditional. God’s will does not have us foregoing the
means of life.
In the next part of the
prayer, Jesus relates to his disciples the character by which they are to come
to God in prayer. We ask God to forgive
us with the very way we extend God’s forgiveness, release, and grace to the
rest of the world. In other words, if we
are to demand of God forgiveness, release, and grace, we should have the
integrity to have lived out that very same forgiveness, release, and grace in
the world. Do not come to God demanding
or asking for things that you are unwilling to give yourself!
That mutuality and
reciprocity suggests that the Lord’s Prayer is not some individual encounter
with God. The prayer recognizes that as
we come to God, we are also remembering our neighbor. Within the Lord’s Prayer is a sense that we
are all in this together.
This past week I was part of
a national call involving leaders from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim
faiths. All of those historic faiths
have as a hallmark of their deep traditions practices of asylum and
sanctuary. And they came together this
past week to warn us that state legislatures around our country are targeting
immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, to make state law that would not
allow us to practice asylum and sanctuary—two legal realities that have been
baked into governing to assure our humanity and grace and forgiveness. Two asylum seekers shared gut-wrenching
stories of how they had fled the violence of their own country to go through
the long and arduous process of applying for asylum in the United States.
We were reminded that the
anger, frustration, and pain many Americans are experiencing is being
re-directed toward immigrants and asylum seekers as easy scapegoats. Don’t let that happen, they pleaded. Heal and do not harm, they asked.
The last person to speak was
Rev. Dr. Ann Helmke, the Executive Director of Compassionate San Antonio. She spoke about how the whole city of San
Antonio had worked hard to develop and live out an ethic of reciprocity. Then . . . tragedy. Fifty-three lives were lost when a trailer
full of immigrants was left in the baking sun.
I remember thinking how two of the kids, from Guatemala, killed in that tragedy, looked like
Francisco. Rev. Dr. Helmke said that
less than 12-hours after the semi-trailer was discovered, a vigil was organized
at the site so that people could acknowledge the violence and reclaim the place
as a sacred site. The following day
advocates organized a rally and called San Antonio to look at the systems which
created this tragedy and urged transformation.
The following night after that there was a memorial mass where the Roman
Catholic Archbishop made a gentle yet strong call for all of San Antonio to be
engaged civically. Be engaged civically
as you would want others to be engaged on your behalf, he said.
Rev. Dr. Helmke then closed
with a blessing and a prayer that shared the ethic of reciprocity—a blessing
and a prayer that broke me open. I close
with that now.
May we remember the stories, the images,
the truth, the lives that we have heard today, as we hope and pray our lives
will be remembered as well
May we recognize our complicities in the
system as we sometimes so easily recognize in others
May we acknowledge that the U.S. asylum
system often treats migrants inhumanely as we hope and pray others acknowledge
and stand for us.
May we acknowledge that the migration
policies are often discriminatory remembering that we don’t want to be
discriminated against
May we have the strength to call out Title
42, as we would wish somebody would do for us
May we care for migrants across the
community as we would wish to be cared for.
May we honor and memorialize all lives
that are lost due to unjust policies as we would hope someone would honor and
memorialize our lives as well
May we pray for those who serve in
ministry, in government and are directly impacted as we would wish to be prayed
for ourselves
May we welcome others. May we stand together as we would wish to be
welcomed and we would wish that others would stand for us
May we take action today
May we choose just one thing today that
will make a difference
As we would wish that someone else would
take action and choose one step for us.
And may we begin the work of healing
through welcoming through hearts in compassion
That our elected officials center dignity
and rights and the ethic of reciprocity in their decision-making
And may we fully engage in the needs of
our new neighbors among us as we would hope and pray someone would do for us as
well. Amen.
God is good . . . all the
time. God is good . . . all the
time. What person, when their child
asked for a fish, would give them a stone?
Or when their child asked for an egg, would give them a scorpion? Or would not get up and get their neighbor
something when they persisted? God is
good . . . all the time. In full
reciprocity, may we also be good . . . and remember . . . as we would like to
be remembered. Amen.
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