We've been fighting for land and our rights since the early years of mankind. Way back when we were settlers, we figured out that war got faster results than bartering. Then when a small band of English people were suffering religious and political oppression, they fled to another land to live out their new dreams of liberation. Yet their liberation came at the cost of those who were already there. Their blood, sweat, and tears became the blood, sweat, and tears of the newly displaced. I think we might have forgotten our genesis into a new life. How we react to immigration tells us a lot about how our worldview has developed in terms of entitlement. The ancient nomadic followers of God have something to impart to us on the subject of being displaced and how we might better learn to treat our foreign neighbors.
One of the big, week-long parties the ancient Jews used to hold was called Sukkot, which means "dwelling." It was a house party, but one without walls. They had a set of building instructions to make a house with a hole in the roof and no walls. Changing clothes might have been an issue!! The reason for this was to remind the desert travelers that they were not only connected to the foreign neighbors and enemies, but that they had a responsibility to care for them when in need. As one website explains:
What is the lesson, when we learn that we -- all of us -- live in a Sukkah? How do we make such a vulnerable house into a place of shalom, of peace and security and harmony and wholeness? If I treat my neighbor's pain and grief as foreign, I will end up suffering when my neighbor's pain and grief curdle into rage. But if I realize that in simple fact the walls between us are full of holes, I can reach through them in compassion and connection.
The ancient Jews weren't strangers to the feelings of being an outsider. According to the Tanakh, they had their share of what it means to be a foreigner. One of the more famous stories is that of the Hebrew people in slavery at the hand of a tyrannical Egyptian pharaoh. At this point in their story, they were the inconvenient truth, the unfortunate stranger who just happened to be around when the Egyptians colonized other lands. This is the danger of aggressively shutting our doors to the outsider: we unintentionally colonize the lands and lives of others, and in that moment they stop being human and are more of a devalued commodity that we get to sale and trade. At one point, the Jews forgot this, and their God reminds them, "You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 22:21). Here, God invites them to not become what they experienced.
This is key when responding to things like immigration. Anthony Robinson, a pastor and author, says this about immigration:
A second reason that the scriptures of Judaism and Christianity press their adherents to respect and not exploit the alien in their midst is especially pertinent to the contemporary American scene. Injustice anywhere leads inexorably to injustice everywhere. If there is a class of people without rights, without voice, without legal recourse and protection, it puts not just that group at risk. It puts an entire society at risk. It becomes a cancer that eats away at the whole social body. If a certain group can be exploited, then exploitation begins to infect the whole society. Its overall standards of justice and fair play are lowered and distorted.It is hard for us to deal with an issue like immigration because it forces us to confront the reality that at some point in history, every person used to be the immigrant. If you search the ancient scriptures you might see a common thread: "Care for the foreigner." What do you when that foreigner is the enemy? Well, Jesus helps us with that by offering the option of loving our enemies. If we love our enemies, then they no longer are our enemies. Immigration reform is necessary not because the Bible says it is, or because of my worldview. I think we need to be more open to immigration because we are all human. If you were lying in the street dying, you wouldn't say to the person helping you, "Excuse me, do you have your green card?" Why? Because it doesn't matter; the person is someone who is there to help. Compassion is the thread that sustains our humanity. The more we meet the needs of those in need, the more human we become. The less we respond to societal expectations (and even some laws), the more we agree to the idea that only certain people have value. In that regard, than all we do is perpetuate a spirit of self-indulgence.
I think one of the biggest things we struggle with as people, as a humanity, is our lack of remembrance. We forget that we once were without a home. We forget that we were once without warmth, without care. We were isolated. For you it may have been a moment, but for others it is a part of their lives. To be an immigrant is to recognize that we are in need. I think we have forgotten what it feels like to be in need, because in the West we have our fill of things to drown out the shadows in our past that remind us of our ongoing immigrant status. Sometimes we even become foreigners to who we once were.
We are a changing people. We are a changing culture. As we change, we move forward and leave things behind, and we shed old skin. If we're honest with ourselves, we realize that we are foreigners who have forgotten that we are constantly living in a new land. This new land for you might look different from that of the person sitting next to you on the train home from work. This new land might be a new job. It might be a new relationship. It might be the new territory of a broken relationship. Maybe it's the discovery of the new life that is to come. We are foreigners. I know I am using this word generously, but I do think there is truth here. The reason why it's so hard to open borders, gates, and country policies is because we are terribly afraid that we might be forced to remember our own alienation.
I am not advocating an overpopulated state of anarchy. I am not saying that we don't need laws in place. I am simply stating that we need to be more aware of how we treat the outsider, the other, and that we might need a more inclusive attitude mentally, physically, politically, and even spiritually. I am also attempting to inspire a spirit of compassion and understanding for those who might be looking for a better life that for some reason or another can't be found in their native land.
The Neolithic Revolution was the moment when we went from being nomadic travelers who hunted and took only what we needed to farming settlers who began learning what it looked like to transform the act of consuming into consumerism. Consumerism tends to lead to entitlement. The spirit of entitlement then leads to preservation. Then preservation has the potential to lead to things like war, to preserve what is ours at all costs.
What if that has sneaked in and somehow whispered words of treason? That this land is my land rather than our land. That what is mine should stay mine at the cost of alienating others, even to the point of intentional abuse, even if it really isn't mine. Our control of things tends to only be an illusion.
The moment we realize that the world was not made just for us is the moment we begin to redeem the pieces of our own humanity. The moment we invite the foreigner is the moment we come to accept the foreigner in us. The moment we accept that to be human means to treat other humans with respect, compassion, hope and integrity is the moment that we all come together and defiantly proclaim that they world can be a better place.
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Lisa Sharon Harper: A Christian Response to Arizona's Government-Sponsored Evil
Too many people have bled and died and paid severe costs for us to trample on their sacrifices with unjust laws like SB1070. We have come too far for this!
Just two weeks ago, Governor Brewer received an award from the Arizona Interfaith Movement for her work in promoting the "Golden Rule." But by signing the recent anti-immigration bill, I believe she now must give it back.
Brad Hirschfield: A Hebrew Bible-Based Immigration Policy
What seems clear from scripture is that loose borders or barriers to entry are only reasonable if accompanied by quite strict rules about participation once having arrived in the new community.
So you're right, the abuse of foreigners is blatantly against scriptural morality.
But, here's another question. According to Torah, how were foreigners subject to the Mosaic Law? At once we see they were granted forms of grace (Leviticus 19 includes a law where Grain would be left in fields for the poor and foreigners). But we also see that they were excluded from some points of the Mosaic Law. For instance, interest could be charged to foreigners but not to Israelites. Furthermore, while foreigners were forbidden from partaking in the passover meal, they were required to remove all leaven from their dwelling.
So in the ML we see examples of Foreigners both of protected and unprotected and not under the law and under the law.
How do you choose which examples to build your paradigm from?
A long time now, I've held a firm conception of "what is mine" My space, my home & property, my village (patri'tha), my country and this earth. Well, I say to you, we are caretakers to each of these. Not to be owned, simply cared for and watched over. Gently as we go about this ritual of sweet existance ~ life.
They are not the same thing.
I may have falsely assumed the thrust of this article concerned the illegal alien issue in general and the new AZ law in particular. If not, I stand 'straightened out'. Thanks.
But, if you see a Biblical imperative to aid and abet an illegal activity, I strongly believe you have mis-read the Scriptures. Having compassion in a personal way has nothing to do with the legal status of an 'immigrant'.
This is the way to greet all people on their travels through life and to leave people feeling better when we pass on our way. This side-lining of immigrants through-out the land has been around since before Christ and we called them Pharisees or similar as by giving any race of people a label we make anyone entering into our land a foreigner or by the time they migrate they become our modern day immigrant.
It is about time that that anyone entering the so-called foreign land or Britain, America, Germany or similar should be treated just as " A Foreigner In A Foreign Land" but with care and compassion of just that "Suddok" and maybe then we can remove the walls between racism and acceptance of someone different to ourselves.
We need to remember that all people that left Egypt a so-called foreign land to the Israelites as the Egyptians had side-lined the inhabitants and made them foreigners in a foreign land, so God took them to the Promised Land to make Suddok for all.
The Story is just beginning and we still have a lot to learn about ourselves first and this will allow us to understand others in a better and more consistent way.
And the operative word is "invite". Those I invite to my home can come and stay. But if some one breaks in, camps out in the living room, I have the right and obligation to myself and my family to ask them to leave. Not only that, I have the right to demand for them to show me anything that entitles them to be there, if they have it.
If a policeman mans a traffic check to verify licenses, and I cannot produce one, can I say I am being discriminated against by that officer because he found out I had no license and gave me a ticket , but those with licenses didn't get one?. We see no problem with that kind of verification, why a problem with verification to check conformity with immigration laws.
Or is it simply because some want the illegals here no matter what.
Thus, illegal immigration must stop utterly and completely, no matter if it is possible, no matter how much money it costs, no matter the cost to the illegals.
Moses said he was a stranger in a strange land and was taken in, but when Ezra the scribe returned from exile by oredered the repudiation of all foreign wives.
I've watched parts of clips on youtube of a speech given by Meir Kahane, founder of the JDL, who cited biblical and extrabiblical sources and commentaries to say that the alien is not welcome in the promised land, should not be allowed to dwell there, or even to travel through the land without restriction.