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What Must I Do? July 15, 2007 |
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Written by Jeanne Knepper
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Sunday, 15 July 2007 |
WHAT MUST I DO?
Amos 2:6-8 and 7:7-9; Psalm 82; Luke 10:25-37
July 15, 2007
“Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? “ It was an odd question, given the context in the book of Luke. Jesus had sent out 70 followers to go everywhere, healing and teaching and spreading the word about the coming of the realm of God, about the conviction that it is right here, right now, among us. The 70, who went out with some trepidation, had come back rejoicing, telling tales of crowds converted and people healed. And Jesus responded with joy, claiming that he could see Satan falling to defeat, thanking God for showing the up-coming realm of God to these innocent newcomers, not to the religious know-it-alls.
And then, there he was, one of the scribes, also called a lawyer, the religious leaders who were the experts in the law, the ones who could decide, not only what the scriptures said, but how that was to be implemented in real life, and he sought to turn the conversation in a different direction. Not, “Wow, the realm of God really is breaking in among us!” but, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Talk about me, not crowds of the poor. Tell me, what do you teach that I must do to receive God’s favor? It’s a loaded question. Answer incorrectly, Jesus, and you’re a heretic.
But of course, Jesus was a savvy man. He turned the question back to the lawyer: What does it say in the scriptures, the scribe’s known area of expertise. And the scribe responded, confidently, with the shema—love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind—and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus congratulated him: Go and do that and you will live. But the scribe was still wishing to catch Jesus out: “But who,” he asked, “who is my neighbor?”
There was a whole category of scholastic reasoning on that question. Is the neighbor the one who shares your faith? If you can’t eat with someone who isn’t of your faith, does that limit who the neighbor is? Must the neighbor be a believer? What about Samaritans, Phoenicians, Romans? Who do we include, and who are we justified in leaving out of this commandment to love? Can someone who is unclean be a neighbor?—there was wonderful room for dispute, space for a stumble into thinking that would alienate the faithful in Jesus’ crowd.
And Jesus told a story . . .
A certain man—no identifying features there, not named a Jew or a Roman, a person of faith or an unbeliever—a certain man travelled from Jerusalem to Jericho and was set upon by thieves, beaten, robbed, and left for dead.
Something that we should know when we hear this story—the word translated as “thieves” was the word used for brigands, revolutionaries, insurrectionists who lived in the rough lands along the road from Jerusalem to Jericho and supported their lives and their political dissidence by robbing and beating travelers. Do you remember that, later in the gospel, Jesus will be crucified between two “thieves”? This was a way of saying that he was crucified, by Rome, as an insurrectionist himself. Probably some of his followers were sympathetic to the “thieves” who waylaid sympathizers and collaborators with Rome on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The scribe would not have been among those sympathizers, not a chance. The story begins to separate him from the crowd. He is further separated by the next events, when first a priest and then a Levite, both leaders of the faith, see the unconscious man and pass by on the other side.
Some have argued that they did so because they were on their way to lead religious services, and touching blood or death would make them unclean, rendering them unfit to provide religious leadership. Judaism, however, was a pragmatic faith, and a humane one. The law specifically instructed the faithful, should they come upon a dead body on the road, to bury it, and should they find someone who is deeply injured, to tend to the wounds. The priest and the Levite then, did what people whose fear overwhelms their faith do—they passed by on the other side. This would have come as no surprise to the crowd, who had little sympathy for the pretentiousness of the overtly faithful who routinely collaborated with real uncleanness—with Roman overlords who bilked the people for taxes and commanded them to knuckle under to unjust requirements, all with the cooperation of the priests and scribes.
I think it’s time for a digression, to put this story in our context. And there is a totally relevant story that has taken place recently, in North Portland.
So let’s recast it: A certain mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter, pregnant woman—actually 167 people—went to work at Del Monte Fresh Produce on Tuesday, June 12, where she, he, they were set upon and arrested by armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE]agents of the US government. They were mistreated, humiliated, and handled rudely before being herded onto buses for a trip to the detention facility in Tacoma, Washington. Because being in the US without documentation is not a criminal offence—this is important to understand, as an offense, it has a status similar to a parking ticket, as opposed to the criminal nature of something like, say, driving without a license—these detainees are not entitled to receive legal representation. And yet, for this offense—again, not legally a crime—they face threats of deportation. Beyond that, however, they face unknown weeks—already—and perhaps months of detention before their cases are heard.
“Well, what of it?” some may ask. Didn’t they come here without papers, knowing that this was illegal? Doesn’t a nation have the right to protect its borders? Why should we bleed for lawbreakers?
Here are some things to consider: Reliable sources claim that 80% of the immigrants from Mexico in North Portland are here without documents. These are the people who cook our meals at North Portland restaurants, clean some of our homes, pick the crops we eat, pump the gas we put in our cars, and, yes, stand ankle-deep in cold water to prepare the bags of table-ready produce that are so convenient for us to buy and use. Moreover, someone from among the workers at Del Monte Fresh Produce had recently complained about the violations of labor safety laws—violations like electrical power cords running through the same water the men and women were standing in, like forced long hours and denied overtime, like people using sharp knives in too close quarters, violations that are crimes, by US law—and the upshot of this was an investigation of, not the company, but the workers—do you suppose that Jesus’ crowd might have wondered about that turn of events, might even have wondered, “Just who are the robbers here?”
So, here we have it, a story of confusing players and complicated political undercurrents. I preach this sermon, knowing that the membership of this congregation is spread across the spectrum of political opinions about how we should view these events. I get e-mails from some of you, one calling upon us to become a New Sanctuary Movement church, to enter into the political fray firmly on the side of the undocumented immigrants, and another worrying that illegal aliens will destroy our nation and values. I know that we are not of one mind on the politics of immigration. I know that.
But I wonder, are we of one mind about the commandment that we love our neighbor as ourselves? And, do we stand with the scribe, asking, “Just who is my neighbor anyway?” or do we walk with the Samaritan man who cleaned the victim’s wounds with his own wine and oil and then carried him to safety on his own donkey, paying for treatment and promising to return if there was more need? When we don’t agree about the politics of the event, can we still stand alongside the teachers of Clarendon Elementary School, right here in our neighborhood, who identified the 13 children whose parents had been arrested and refused to simply turn those children over to Children’s Services, choosing instead to walk them home themselves and to help them find relatives or friends who could take them in?
In the absence of a common mind about immigration reform, can we still be glad that St. Andrew Catholic Church of Northeast Portland hosted a meeting on June 17 to provide information about immigration law and support for the families of people who were taken into custody? Can we be proud that Father Dave Gutmann of Holy Cross Church asked its members to “put aside whatever political leanings you have” and to mobilize to provide support to families divided by the arrests? Can we be sympathetic to the 34 single mothers who have been released from custody, outfitted with monitoring bracelets, and now wonder how they will feed their children if they can’t work?
The Del Monte Fresh Produce raid took place on June 12, when United Methodist clergy and laity were gathered in Salem for our Annual Conference. We did not respond to the raid as an annual conference, nor were Marcia or I here to offer response from University Park UMC. However, as United Methodists, we are a part of an organization called Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. On Wednesday, June 13, EMO issued a press release condemning the raid as an “inhumane and unnecessary action which has torn apart families and caused a great deal of suffering to children and their parents.” EMO insisted that “low wage undocumented workers are not responsible for and have no power over the grand political and economic policies that have left them with few options for a decent life for themselves and their children,” and said that the raids have “added to the victimization of honest and honorable, hard-working men and women.”
EMO went on to call for an immigration bill based on five principles:
• that family be a priority in immigration law;
• that worker programs contain protections for U.S. citizens and for immigrant workers;
• that there be a process that allows undocumented workers to earn legalization;
• that due process protection for immigrants be restored; and
• that the policies respond to the economic, political, and social root causes of immigration.
Jorge Meza is a second grade teacher at Clarendon Elementary. On that awful afternoon, as word of the raid and arrests spread through the school, he tried to distract his young students by showing the movie Toy Story. It didn’t work. The children of parents who worked at Del Monte Fresh Produce would not be distracted or consoled. Meza recalled that afternoon with these words: “Seeing the terror on their faces is something I’ll never forget. When you see a kid cry, you aren’t human if you aren’t disturbed. You can’t change the world, but you do what you can.”
If you turn to the front of your bulletin, you’ll see these words, from the book of Leviticus: "When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God."
‘Who is my neighbor?” And, is my salvation bound up with his well-being, or with hers? What must I do? Jesus told a story. How will we respond?
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