A Message From Our Kahu
A Nation of Immigrants
I remember the first time I saw the Statue of Liberty. I was sitting in a window seat on an airplane flying from Los Angeles to New York on a cold November day nearly 40 years ago. I was on my way to a retreat center just north of the city to participate in a gathering of racial-ethnic seminarians from all across the country. I was surprised when a denominational leader who worked at my seminary asked me if I was interested in attending. I had not thought of myself as a “racial-ethnic seminarian” before that. I just thought I was a “seminarian.” However, it was an expense-paid trip to New York (my first) and an opportunity to talk to other “racial-ethnic seminarians” about their experiences, fears, and anxieties, as they anticipated working as clergy in a predominantly White denomination. Except for the Native American participant, our people had all come from other places. It was on that trip that the idea that we are a nation of immigrants really sunk in.
I have seen the Statue of Liberty many times since that trip. (Having a son living in New York City has made that possible!) In 2017 I did a boat tour of the Hudson and East Rivers: the highlight was getting right up close to Lady Liberty as our guide told us her story. It was a story of welcome to people from all over Europe, Africa, and parts of Asia. It was a story of the celebration of diversity, of the goodness of inclusion, and of sharing opportunities with others.
For the most part we have seen ourselves as a nation that welcomes immigrants from all over the world. However, that welcome has always been met with some resistance and/or outright oppression. Even from before our nation’s independence from England, every new ethnic group that has arrived in our country, regardless of the circumstances of their migration, has felt it: Africans, Jews, Italians, Irish, Chinese, Mexicans…and the list goes on! However, the animosity towards immigrants has reached new heights in recent days. Politicians and preachers alike have been warning the rest of us of the dangers inherent in the undocumented immigrants in our midst.
When it comes right down to it, people have always been migrating and people will always continue to move from one place to the next in order to seek out a better life for themselves, their children and grandchildren. Frankly, many have not sought just a better life, but life itself—just hoping to stay alive. As I read through the Bible, it is apparent that it is a collection of one migration story after another. Just think of all the people, including our biblical heroes, who moved from one place to another: Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and his family, Moses and all of the Hebrew people, Mary and Joseph, Jesus, Paul. Most of our best spiritual teachers have moved from region to region, country to country. It is no wonder that there is a long tradition in our Judeo-Christian heritage of actually loving the foreign-born people in our midst. The writer of Leviticus reminds us that this is the case because we come from people who know what it is like to be in their shoes.
The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:34)
I think most of us would agree that there needs to be reasonable immigration policies and that there need to be consequences for immigrants who commit serious crimes (just as there should be for citizens). However, there is no place in the Christian faith for hurting people, separating children from their parents, placing innocent people in cages and sending them to prisons in other countries over which we have no control—simply because they are among us “without permission.” I hope we will return to the way of loving the immigrants in our midst.
I will leave you with the words from the sonnet of Emma Lazarus engraved on the bronze plaque of the Statue of Liberty:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Aloha Nui Loa!
Kahu
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