Flickr Creative Commons<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\nLast night President Obama announced a new approach to immigration in which the government will go after \u201cfelons, not families. Criminals, not children. Gang members, not a mom who\u2019s working hard to provide for her kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, my Facebook feed is predictably filling up with outrage. It\u2019s the same sort of outrage\u00a0(and often from the same people) I hear whenever a new state legalizes same-sex marriage or whenever a bakery doesn\u2019t want to bake a particular cake or whenever a wedding chapel doesn\u2019t want to perform a certain kind of wedding.<\/p>\n
But\u00a0there is something conspicuously missing in the outrage over immigration.<\/p>\n
Biblical values<\/em>.<\/p>\nWhenever same-sex marriage is being discussed, folks in the Church are quick and emphatic to point to biblical values to defend their opposition. The Bible says it and that settles it, or at least that\u2019s what we\u2019re told.<\/p>\n
Curiously, many of these same folks who oppose same-sex marriage on biblical grounds are also on the attack against immigrants coming across our southern border. Calls are made for walls\u00a0to be\u00a0built, vigilantes\u00a0with guns rush to \u201csecure\u201d the border, and angry rants\u00a0fills the internet and talk radio and cable news over jobs and benefits that are supposedly being stolen from hard working Americans.<\/p>\n
But unlike the debates\u00a0over same-sex marriage, there is conspicuously no appeal to biblical values in all of this outrage from folks who are quick to point out there faith in virtually every other political debate.<\/p>\n
Which is interesting, because the Bible has far more to say about how we treat foreigners living among us than it does about same-sex marriage. In fact, the Bible is unequivocally clear about how the people of God are to treat our immigrant neighbors.<\/p>\n
In Exodus 23, God says,<\/p>\n
You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And in Leviticus 19, we read,<\/p>\n
When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nIn Deuteronomy 10, we hear this description of God along with\u00a0a call to go and do likewise,<\/p>\n
For the\u00a0Lord<\/span>\u00a0your God is God of gods\u00a0and Lord of lords,\u00a0the great God, mighty and awesome,\u00a0who shows no partiality\u00a0and accepts no bribes.\u00a0<\/span>He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow,\u00a0and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>And you are to love\u00a0those who are foreigners,\u00a0for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThen once more in Deuteronmy 24, we find these commands,<\/p>\n
Do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless\u00a0of justice,\u00a0or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Remember that you were slaves in Egypt\u00a0and the\u00a0Lord<\/span>\u00a0your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this.\u00a0<\/span>When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it.\u00a0Leave it for the foreigner,\u00a0the fatherless and the widow,\u00a0so that the\u00a0Lord<\/span>\u00a0your God may bless\u00a0you in all the work of your hands.\u00a0<\/span>When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time.Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow.\u00a0<\/span>When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nWhen we get to the New Testament, we find Jesus repeatedly and defiantly fellowshipping with the unwanted foreigners of his day \u2013 the Samaritans. As you might recall, he goes so far as to use them in a parable to contrast their goodness with that of the native born children of Israel.<\/p>\n
And then he calls his native born listeners\u00a0to go and likewise. Not likewise like the native born folks. Likewise like the foreigners they despised<\/em>.<\/p>\nIn the pastoral epistles, Paul tells us in Ephesians 2 and Colossians 3 and again in Galatians 3, that in Christ, the borders that divided us are no more. For nationality and immigrant status are irrelevant in the kingdom of God.<\/p>\n
What is perhaps most critical for us to catch\u00a0today in all of this biblical immigration talk is what\u2019s missing from the\u00a0call to love and serve the aliens among us. Nowhere in the Bible is\u00a0there is any\u00a0mention anywhere of legal status. In other words, there is no exemption in our call to love and serve our immigrant neighbors just because they couldn\u2019t afford\u00a0a Green Card.<\/p>\n
Which is why for the Church, the legal standing of our immigrant neighbors is irrelevant. If anything, it is those forced into the shadows that need the love of the church the most. Not the abstract emotion that lives only in our minds and certainly not the false love that appears in name only but is incarnated through acts of hate and ostracizing. What our immigrant brothers and sisters need from the church \u2013 regardless of how they entered the country \u2013 is unconditional love embodied in concrete acts of Christlike justice.<\/p>\n
While politicians debate in Washington about how best to reform our broken immigration system, our responsibility as the Church isn\u2019t to add fuel the fires of political debate. It\u2019s to feed\u00a0the hungry, clothe the naked, quench the thirst of the parched, care for the sick, and comfort those in prison.<\/p>\n
That is our response to illegal immigration.<\/p>\n
These are our biblical values.<\/p>\n
Which is why I\u00a0have to imagine that for those outside the Church \u2013 whether immigrant or native born \u2013 our constant appeals to biblical values must look dubious at best and malicious at worst.<\/p>\n
Because\u00a0while we are quick to appeal to biblical values in order to marginalize others, when that same Bible calls us to love those folks we want to marginalize, all of our talk about biblical values suddenly and conspicuously ceases.
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Credit: Icars, Flickr Creative Commons) Last night President Obama announced a new approach to immigration in which the government will go after \u201cfelons, not families. Criminals, not children. Gang members, not a mom who\u2019s working hard to provide for her kids.\u201d Today, my Facebook feed is predictably filling up with outrage. It\u2019s the same sort […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3437,"featured_media":13280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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(Credit: Icars, Flickr Creative Commons<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n