Proper 9(A) + Come to me + 7.6.14

(image from: foxnews.com)

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67; Psalm 45:11-18; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30)

"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."  Matthew 11:28-30

In her weekly missive to the clergy of the area, Bishop Mary Glasspool pointed out this week that Jesus’ words may also remind us of some other words, words that especially resonate this Independence Day weekend:

“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-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Emma Lazarus, 1883

These words, engraved on a plaque inside the Statue of Liberty, speak to a sense of who the US perceives itself to be as a nation. It is something I personally have experienced.

Mine is a very different immigrant story. Though born in England, I am a US citizen from birth by virtue of my mother’s US citizenship. I grew up in England until I was about ten, but I knew the US a bit from visits to my grandmother at Christmas.
When we moved to the US for increased employment opportunities for my father and mother and to be closer to my mother’s side of the family in 1990, I remember being so excited. To be in a place of so much opportunity. Though England has many benefits, my parents strongly believed they could provide me with a better education here than in the UK, since they saw that the educational system in the UK was still very male-dominated at that point. I am so proud to be citizen of this country and to have been afforded many opportunities living here—to work and live with certain freedoms many from other countries only dream about.

And having had this experience of living elsewhere, I see the US with different eyes than most born and raised here. I see times when the promise and welcome that are so core to US identity, such as this poem of welcome inscribed upon one of our national icons, are at odds with our actions.

The first time I saw this was when Prop 187 passed in 1994, just four years after I moved here. The proposition was to curb illegal immigration, but the way it was put it seemed that anyone who just looked foreign could be stopped and questioned. I imagined my father, with his British accent, being apprehended on the street, although he was a legal resident alien at the time due to the blessing of my mother’s being a citizen (he has since become a full US Citizen). It was the first time I feared unwelcome for my own family in this country that was mine by birth.

Recently, another vision of poor, huddled masses has been flashing on our radar here in Ventura County and across the Southwest. As drug and gang-related violence has escalated in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, more families are seeing fit to send their children unaccompanied to join up with other family members here in the US to at least have a chance at a life free of violence. Our government, attempting to respond humanely to these young ones, has been housing them at centers across the southwest, including our own base. These children have often witnessed incredible acts of violence against other children and young adults. They would rather be at peace in their own country, but the effects of the drug trade, one that feeds the unholy hungers of many in the US and across the world, have torn up the fabric of their national life and left them with no other sane option than to flee.

In response to this situation, our local Episcopal clergy group invited local social justice organizers to a meeting that spurred on a regional response that is still in play. We have organized to provide the kids with Spanish Bibles that they requested and other resources. But mostly our local group is focused on the needs of these children—legal, medical and spiritual needs. We are trying to take care to focus on the human scale of this issue and in whatever way we can to partner with the agency caring for these kids.

I agree that we must have rules to monitor those who would enter the country, but I agree with those in the government this past week who noted that this is truly a humanitarian situation of a different scale, and so our response needs to be different, more compassionate.

Jesus offers each of us an easy yoke, and at the same time scripture also reminds us again and again to care for the widow and the orphan. Jesus says “come to me.” So it made me sick this past week to hear of those in Murrieta trying to bar the entrance of the women and children who simply come for a place of refuge because their home has become a hell.

Bishop Mary told me something I hadn’t heard before when she quoted the poem above. She said that many people don’t know how the poem begins. She says of Emma Lazarus’ poem: “But most of us do not remember the first part of the sonnet, which is terribly important, because she names the Statue of Liberty The New Colossus, and pointedly contrasts the statue and its meaning with the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

             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 lightening, 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…”[1]

Our symbol is not the Colossus of Rhodes, which seemed so imposing in its military prowess, almost a figure to keep others out. No, ours is a symbol of welcome. We forget this sometimes in these times when we feel jobs and resources are few. That we had days when we were the port of welcome for the world. When we built a whole identity based on welcome, diversity and freedom. Yes, we need to do it differently now than we did it in the past. But we as a nation get more diverse every day, so part of examining our national identity means figuring out how we respond to those who might seek refuge in the US.
This Fourth of July driving back from celebrating with my cousins, we listened to an interview of the program “On Being” with Krista Tippett from 2013 with Phyllis Tickle and the now late Vincent Harding. She is an Episcopalian and a prolific religion writer who wrote the book The Great Emergence and he was a religion professor and elder who wrote speeches for Martin Luther King, Jr. They spoke about the state of race in America, and how we need to acknowledge that our nation began with inequality right from the start, but that we can move forward without guilt. We can repent of certain inequalities we have lived into and we can truly be a more perfect union. The takeaway quote was from Harding: “The great American experiment with building a multiracial democracy is still in the laboratory. We have got to be willing to see ourselves as part of an experiment that is actively working its way through right now. None of us knows the answer fully, as to how we do this. We stumble. We hold on to each other. We hug each other. We fight with one another in loving ways. But we keep moving and experimenting and trying to figure it out.”[2]

I think these complex questions about race and immigration are not easily worked out. We have many different strongly held opinions. But we must not forget the human faces of these issues. The pain of children who have seen more than they can bear, and our Christian duty to serve them as the widows and orphans of our time and place. We who were welcomed by Christ, must welcome others in need. We must remember that this is a great nation, and that we are still a young nation. We can do so much better. With God’s help, we can still create a more perfect union.

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[1] Mary D. Glasspool, “An Unofficial Letter from Bishop Suffragan Mary D. Glasspool, Volume IV, Number 1,” (July 4, 2014)

[2] Krista Tippett (On Being), “Transcript for Vincent Harding and Phyllis Tickle—Racial Identity in the Emerging Church and the World,” (November 28, 2013), http://www.onbeing.org/program/transcript/6058#main_content.