by the Rev. Jeckonia Okoth
I speak to you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who was, is and will be forever. Amen.
The elections are over, and there is angst in the air. What is going to happen from January 20 next year? This is the question that a significant portion of the US population is grappling with.
Nobody knows what is coming next.
On one hand, one section of the population is worried. On the other hand, a significant portion is upbeat. And that is human nature.
Not everybody will be happy or sad at the same time. Our times and lives are punctuated by seasons, just like the preacher states in Ecclesiastes that there is a time for everything.
Amid the uncertainty that hangs over the air like a dark cloud, let me from the onset remind us Christians who trust in the transcending power of God that our hope is not in politicians, neither is it in fellow human beings, but as Psalm 124:8 reminds us; “Our help is in the name of the Lord who made the heaven and the earth.” In fact, Jeremiah 17:5 reminds us that the person who trusts in human beings is cursed.
We all know that immigration has been a divisive discursive agenda in this election. But let us travel back in history.
I wonder what was going in the mind of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini when she arrived in New York on March 31, 1889, accompanied by six other religious sisters. She would start one of the Church of Rome’s most influential religious orders, Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which has worked mainly with society’s most vulnerable people.
Did she see herself as an outsider coming in or as an insider coming home away from home? Let us fast-forward this: suppose someone from the Congo, or Libya or Sudan came in and wanted to start a religious order; what would be the response, and what kind of people would we see in that order?
Immigration is a global problem, together with its attendant evils like sex trafficking and slavery in our modern-day world.
Unfortunately, it became a point of rhetoric in the just concluded elections. People turned to discussing the fate of others like they would discuss the fate of rotten onions at a grocery store.
According to US immigration statistics, the percentage of immigrants in 2023 stood at 14.3 percent, closer to the historic high of 14.8 percent in 1890.
Let us pose there and do some critical thinking. Who were the immigrants in 1890, and who are their descendants? Are their descendants also immigrants, or at what point does the narrative change from immigrant to American? I have no answers, but it points to something you and I both know. Almost all of us are immigrants in one way or another.
However, the story of Saint Frances proves that immigrants also have something to offer. I wish this was as easy as it is said. The saint would be more acceptable because she came from the right part of the world and had the right physical features to fit into a colonial society of people who looked like her.
At this point, we go back to our gospel reading today, where a judge with no regard for God gets tired of a woman’s plea for righteous judgment.
In it, we see the virtue of persistence, which is never giving up.
As a follower of Jesus, I look at it differently. Over the years, history has proved to us that persistence bears fruit. America is largely divided because of persistence in undesirable ways.
The black race survived the nauseating and dehumanizing story of slavery through persistence. Every immigrant to this country has had a story of persistence, positive or negative.
Jesus, however, calls us to a different kind of persistence. A way that brings life, rather than kills.
Christ is calling us to persist in what is righteous. As we look at immigrants, as you look at me today, you have a tough call, which may be unsettling, but it is the call to persistence in rooting for godly justice.
Loving people who do not belong is a tough ask, but Jesus does not call us to what is easy. Instead, he calls us to Leviticus 19:33-34, which says: Do not mistreat foreigners living in your country, but treat them just as you treat your own citizens. Love foreigners as you love yourselves, because you were once foreigners one time in Egypt. You were once immigrants in this land.
But more often than not, we are driven by fear, the fear that, in welcome, we are engaging in a zero-sum game. Christ calls us to trust instead of the intrinsic fear that arises when faced with the unfamiliar.
In their book What Does Your Soul Love, Gem, and Alan Fadling note that Where there is trust in the loving and powerful Presence, the roots of fear wither. Growing awareness of and reliance on the reliable care of God leave no room for fear that hinders, let alone paralyzes (Fadling, 2019).
With this mindset, we need to operate as followers of Jesus. In a culture that is so fractured and fragmented, we are tempted to assume that our safety and well-being can only be found in what looks familiar and from the known.
That is why when I am seated on the bus and see people walk in and avoid me because of preconceived notions, I tend to ask what is really going on in their minds. Their actions are a subtle form of Stand Your Ground, where nobody should step into my space unless and until my culture approves it. This is the same stand-your-ground concept that fuels the fire of selfishness and apartheid, including among people who claim to follow Jesus. And for me, avoidance is one form of the concept of standing my ground.
Dr Kelly Brown Douglas avers that within stand-your-ground culture, one’s right to occupy certain land or space and even to live depends on one’s race. It is in this way that stand-your-ground culture must be understood as nothing less than the war declared by the narrative of Manifest Destiny against those bodies that most threaten America’s Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism (Douglas, 2015). Sounds familiar?
It is against this backdrop that you will hear statements like immigrants are the leading cause of crime in America. Nothing can be further from the truth because the people talking about crime here are the same people leading criminal atrocities in other parts of the world, like the Congo. It is a case of double standards if you ask me.
Sadly, even the church has forgotten God’s command to love neighbor and is now doing everything except love the neighbor.
Rev. Dwight Zscheile of Luther Seminary, in his book People of the Way, lauds the Episcopal Church for the great work it is doing to welcome those that society has pushed to the margins. However, he urges the church to live more fully genuine, mutual relationships with one another and with diverse neighbors. Dwight also gives an indictment on the church when he states, “For Episcopalians in the dominant culture and class, it has often been more comfortable to give than to receive; to use our power on behalf of the vulnerable, than to be vulnerable ourselves.” (Zscheile, 2012). As your diocesan Missioner for Multicultural Ministries, ask me what that statement means. I could write a thesis on it. And think of placing it against the backdrop of Minnesota Nice and now you get a whole potent mix of an experience that you can never find a definition for.
In the gospel story, Jesus calls us to persistence, not only in prayer but in action. If we believe that everyone is welcome, then why do we still have majority white churches in the Episcopal Church?
Today, I will use the words of Christian musician Lauren Daigle, that followers of Jesus need to stand their ground where hope can be found. Lies have and continue to be told and we as Christians must stand our ground where hope can be found. We must allow the love of Christ to lift us above the lies that only lead to hate.
Lauren sings:
Oh, O’ Lord, O’ Lord, I know You hear my cry
Your love is lifting me above all the lies
No matter what I face this I know; in time
You’ll take all that is wrong and make it right
You’ll take all that is wrong and make it right
(Daigle, 2014).
Beloved people of St. John the Evangelist, a lot is wrong and only God can help us make it right.
Our hope as humanity, which can make us love unconditionally, lies in the realization that all we have belongs to God and all people are created in God’s image and likeness, imago Dei. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made the heaven and the earth.
Amen
