One of my earliest memories is of a tornado roaring through my neighborhood in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I was less than four years old, but I vividly remember sitting in the linen closet cradling my infant brother, as I heard the enormous roar of wind and listened to the trees in our yard be torn from the ground like giant toothpicks and tossed on top of our house. The house was damaged, but remained intact, and we were uninjured. But only our neighbors at the end of the street had a working phone after the storm. So they went out into the devastation and invited other neighbors, including my mom, to come in and use the phone to let people know we were okay.
Well, that's what neighbors do, right? Hopefully, yes. But there's always the question of who our neighbors really are. People tend to forget that it was that question that prompted Jesus to tell one of his most famous stories, "The Parable of the Good Samaritan" (Luke 10:25-37). A lawyer asked Jesus what he had to do to receive eternal life. Jesus asks him what the law says about it. The lawyer cites two commandments, including "love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus says he's got it right. But then the lawyer wants legal clarification: "and who is my neighbor?" he asks. He wants to know exactly whom he has to love as himself and, presumably, whom he does not.
Most people tend to forget the question that prompted it, but even people with no religious background can usually tell you the basics of Jesus' response, the Good Samaritan story. "So, this guy got mugged and left for dead on the side of the road. Then two local religious leaders passed by on the other side of the road without stopping to help him. But then a Samaritan stopped, which you wouldn't have expected, since he wasn't even from around there and most people in that area hated Samaritans. And not only that, he bandaged him, took him to an inn, and told them to take care of the guy and the Samaritan would pay the bill."
At the end of story, Jesus looks at the lawyer and asks, "which of the three people on the road was a neighbor to the one who was attacked?" The lawyer sheepishly mumbles, "the one who showed mercy." And Jesus says, "go and do likewise." You asked the wrong question, Jesus is saying. It's not about who your neighbor is; it's about whether you will be a neighbor to others by showing mercy.
Well, according to the Alabama State Legislature, both Jesus and the Good Samaritan got it wrong: the Samaritan should have checked the ID of the guy in the road before helping him, because if the guy in the road was an undocumented resident, the Samaritan should have passed by on the other side, too. The new immigration law that they have passed makes it a crime to be a neighbor to undocumented residents by showing them mercy through transporting them, harboring them, or aiding them. According to that law, if the man in the road was undocumented and the Good Samaritan helped him, the Samaritan should have been arrested for transporting an undocumented resident from the road to the inn, harboring him at the inn, and providing him aid through medicine, food and shelter. Given Jesus' commandment to "go and do likewise" about the Good Samaritan, it effectively makes it a crime to be a practicing Christian (or of other faiths with similar religious requirements) in Alabama.
Thankfully, several prominent Alabama church leaders have brought a suit against the "nation's most merciless anti-immigration legislation" for just this reason. And there is news that a judge has issued a preliminary injunction blocking the most sweeping "anti-mercy" prohibitions of the law, including those that most obviously affect religious practices of compassion and care. However, that judge also upheld the rest of the legislation, which includes a range of odious definitions of who we don't have to treat as our neighbor and how we can treat them instead. And, even worse, the governor has stated that he believed the injunction will be overturned, and if it is not, he will appeal any ruling that does not uphold the entire bill.
So, during this time of legal wrangling and debate, there is still time to have a bigger moral conversation about what the right questions really are. The governor and the state legislature are focused on the lawyer's question from Scripture: "who is my neighbor?" Who do we have to treat as our neighbors, and who do we not? But I think the people of Alabama (and the rest of the country) can and must ask a different question and provide a different answer.
I believe they can and will. I believe that because when that tornado came through my neighborhood in Tuscaloosa, my neighbors down the street did not ask, "Who are our neighbors? Who is close enough to us to deserve our help, and who can we turn away?" They didn't ask to see my mom's ID. They just asked whether she wanted to use the phone to assure my father that his wife and two young children hadn't just been killed. I haven't seen or heard from them in 35 years; we moved out of state within a year of that tornado. But 35 years later, they still help define for me what it means to be a neighbor, to show mercy, to others.
And that family is much on my mind these days. Because, you see, they were the first Latino family I ever knew. I was only four years old, so I have no idea if they were documented or not, if they were immigrants or had been in this country for generations. But I know they were good neighbors, and it grieves me to think if they are still in Alabama, the state might question that any time they drive down the street, enroll their kids in school, or show up at the hospital, just because of what they look like. But there is no question in my mind about whether they are good neighbors; the only question is whether we will go and do likewise.
Follow Rev. J.C. Austin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jcaustinnyc
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Presumably the Robbers were poor because for whatever reason, be it the inability to acquire work or a dysfunctional personality, they were realizing their income via robbery. And the Beaten Man must have been well off, possibly even rich, or he would not have been a target for robbery.
Why is it automatically assumed that being poor, or under duress in some way, automatically equates to goodness? That anyone having a problem must be good and everyone else must be bad?
When the Samaritan came upon the Beaten Man lying by the side of the road did he approached the man and tell him that he must surely be a rich man to have been robbed and beaten as he has and therefore, as a rich man, he has earned what he has received? Did the Samaritan then pass by the Beaten Man and travele down the road until he found those who had beaten and robbed him and set about ministering to the needs of the Robbers? Does the bad tree produce good fruit?
Too many people want variable morality. If you claim to love your neighbor, that makes everything all right. And if you repent for those you hurt the day before you die everything is absolved because the ends justified the means. But you cannot build justice for some on the backs of injustice to others. You cannot decide that those who break the law at the expense of those who keep the law are more just without maintaining the delusion that it is good for one person to enrich themselves at the expense of another. It is impossible to maintain the covenant of the Bible by lying, cheating, and refusing to acknowledge the hurt illegal immigration does by unemploying American Workers.
Luke 20:45-47 While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, "Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely."
Leviticus 19:11 – Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not deceive one another.
Leviticus 19:15 – Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.
Leviticus 19:17 – Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.
Matthew 5:17-20 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Identity theft and fraud, bearing false witness, and coveting what your neighbor has are all considered sins. To support those who commit those sins is to share in them...
Immigrants pay their taxes spend money and contribute to the American economy just like everybody else. They are also, as his example shows, civic participants who contribute to the communities in which they live. To imply that they they are getting something for nothing is unfair. Similar statements used to be said about women workers: they were taking jobs away from men. Unemployment is high now, but immigrants, even those who exceed the quotas for their countries, are not the cause. Native-born Americans are responsible for the major problems of our economy and society.