Walk this way

When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove Jesus out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way. (Luke 4:28-30)

This was the first time Jesus faced a hostile crowd. But he wasn’t surprised. He expected it, and it didn’t stop him from being himself.

It shouldn’t stop us, either. More on this in a moment.

My mind and heart travel to far away places when I hear of immigration enforcement agents scoping out schools, workplaces and churches, looking for people living in this country without documentation.

I’ve seen and heard why people cross borders without proper papers. The outward reasons are obvious—war, famine, civil unrest, violence, economic deprivation, hopelessness. But the deeper reasons are only two-fold … fear and hope.

Countless stories repeated these themes in several languages as I reported on church efforts to shelter, feed and provide safety for refugees and displaced persons. I have no doubt I would have done the same thing they did, if I had been in their shoes, even though many of those I saw had no shoes.

No border between me and safety, food or hope for my family would have deterred me. More than merely the instinct for self-preservation and comfort, this is what love does. It is what love requires.

Remembering those reporting trips, sitting in refugee camps, listening to hundreds of stories, walking in 100-degree heat or huddling low as freezing rain beat on tent flaps, I met human souls who wanted and needed and hoped for the same things I did, and who could not imagine having a small portion of what I could take for granted.

There were no documented or undocumented on those brutal roads and mud-thick mountainsides. There were only human souls, made in the image of Christ—the love he is, the deep self within them, hungering for shelter.

And here lies what most disturbs me about the callous immigration policy being pursued by the new administration. There is a profound inability, or perhaps a determined unwillingness, to see the humanity of those who came to the United States wanting only an opportunity to live and work in peace.

Spiritually blind, the pain of families ripped asunder by the deportation of an undocumented parent does not seem to matter, nor the destruction of young souls torn from the only country and language they have ever known.

That the United states has long needed a sustainable and rational border and immigration policy is obvious. But as one who calls Jesus, Lord, the apparent refusal to see and consider the faces and hearts of human beings is unconscionable.

For followers of Jesus, mercy and compassion are not options. They are the way of Jesus, never to be ignored—overriding every other consideration or commitment to party, politics, class or convenience.  

This is what is so striking to me about Jesus when he was roughed-up and thrown out of town for suggesting his townspeople had no greater claim to the graces and mercies of God than those foreigners they didn’t much like.

He didn’t argue with them, but passed through and went on his way, bringing healing and mercy, welcome and release to the poor, the blind, the forgotten and the fearful.

That’s his way, a way that met with hostility often enough. He was not surprised. He wasn’t shocked, nor did he get distracted. He just kept walking the way of mercy. So should we.

It is impossible to say what this means in any particular situation. At the very least, we must call, agitate and insist on compassion for human souls. Perhaps we can start by knowing our neighbors, asking congregations and agencies serving the strangers and aliens among us what they need.