Sermon

INTRODUCTION: One of the wonderful challenges of being a minister is speaking to the same people every Sunday. And sometimes as the calendar rolls round, as it has again this year, it means speaking to the same people on the same subject. Which means I’m always on the lookout for new material.

So last Sunday, while in Dallas, I went with anticipation to this marvelous mega-church that my son and family are part of – Park Cities Baptist Church. They have beautiful facilities and incredible programming, plus the minister gave an excellent sermon – from the bible.

It seemed like everyone had a bible. There were big bibles, little bibles, leather bound bibles, book type bibles, and bibles in special carrying cases. In fact, the people followed along in their bibles as the minister preached. And if they didn’t have a bible, the bible reading for the sermon was presented on big screens, for anyone who didn’t have a bible.

As I sat there, I realized my need for new material was right in front of me: from the bible. Unlike a Baptist church, it would be brand new material for Unitarians. In fact, I thought to myself, not only will nearly everyone not have a bible with them, but it’s doubtful if anyone will. Just to confirm: Does anyone have a bible with them this morning? See what I mean! That insures that my topic – “What the bible says about the immigrants among us” – will be totally fresh! So listen carefully to what the bible says or states.

But before I read this, I want to let you know that I’ve edited it slightly, which I don’t think they do at most bible-using churches. In the same way that I reverse “men and women” in conversation to “women and men,” or refuse to read or say “man” to refer to humankind, or to say out loud the N-word to describe an African-American, so also I refuse to use demeaning terms to describe undocumented Hispanics.

By that I mean that the phrase, “illegal immigrant” indicates a crime has been committed. Something illegal is a criminal act. The truth is that to be in America without papers is a civil violation, not a criminal act. It’s like being in England on a visa and it expires but you stay on. It’s civil, not criminal. “Illegal immigrant” is demeaning to the people we are describing.

Ditto, to using the phrase, “illegal alien.” Those words are doubly offensive because not only does it criminalize those who have not committed a crime, it uses the word, “alien,” which in common parlance has come to refer to creatures from outer space, scary, inhuman.

Having said that, however, I realized when I read my guest column in yesterday’s News-Press that I had used the word “illegal” near the end. As I read it I wondered, how in the world could that have happened? I know better than that. It underscored the importance for all of us to recognize something very significant: We are part of a racist culture stretching back almost 400 years that we have to continuously work to overcome.

I would be the first to confess that I was reared in the Southwest, where aspersions about other races – especially Blacks and Mexicans – were very common. It was the lingua franca of Texas and Oklahoma.

But it’s not just the South, it’s also the rest of the nation. Witness the outrageous comments of the shock jock Don Imus regarding the women’s basketball team at Rutgers University, by referring those outstanding young women as “nappy headed ho’s.” That wasn’t in 1965 during the Civil Rights movement: It was last month!

Name any minority that has come to this land, plus the Native American majority that became an oppressed minority, and they have all been the objects of oppression – whether Black, Brown, Yellow or Red – from the predominantly White, Anglo-Saxon majority. It’s a part of the American mindset built into our culture, that to be White is to be superior.

Further, we are part of a jingoistic culture that demands we parrot America’s greatness no matter how un-great we may act. There is no greatness in the richest nation in the world not providing healthcare for all its citizens. There is no greatness in having a government, which insures that the rich will get richer and the poor poorer. There is no greatness in plunging our nation and much of the world into war on fabricated evidence. Which means, we have to intentionally go against the norms of society, both in word and deed, especially when referring to race and nationality.

That’s why as persons of faith, we have to be intentional when referring to Hispanics so that our language reflects the best of faith, namely, we do not use the word “illegal” when referring to undocumented workers. We do not use the word “alien” to refer to those here from another country. And when necessary, we will also edit the bible or any sacred scripture of any religion, to correct its mistranslation.

Now hear the Word of the Lord from Jewish scripture, with cultural editing of one word to help:

“When an immigrant <not ‘alien’> resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the immigrant. The immigrant who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the immigrant as yourself, for you were once immigrants in the land of Egypt.”[2]

Clear and simple: Faith demands that we treat those who have less opportunity than we, as we ourselves would like to be treated. Further, the imperative to love the immigrant as we love ourselves roots in Jewish self-understanding, and was re-iterated by Jesus, and later by his followers who became known as Christians.

So why then are people of professed faith sometimes prejudiced? Even those of us who take serious the biblical witness? Why do we discriminate against those of different color, or different nationality, or different sexual orientation? Why do we make value distinctions against those who are different than we are?

The Rev. Dr. Thandeka, an African American theologian, wrote an interesting book a few years back that was entitled, Learning to be White. She makes this interesting point about prejudice by referring to the American experience. She contends that not only were Africans brought to this country in chains and forced into slavery, but there were also poverty-stricken Whites who came as “indentured servants” – a euphemism for White slavery. The distinction between the two was the length of term for their “slavery”: Africans were slaves for life, but indentured Whites were slaves for a specific time period.

According to Dr. Thandeka, indentured Whites and enslaved Africans had many things in common: their slavery, they were poor, they had no privileges. Which meant it was in their best interests to team together with each other to fight for their rights and freedoms.

But she said, one of the things that happened is that the Whites in power realized they could not let that alliance between Blacks and indentured Whites be sustained, and so they passed a series of laws giving poor Whites minor privileges over the ones which Blacks had. The result is that some of the most vicious racism in the South traditionally came from what we used to call “poor White trash,” who really were the closest in economic deprivation to poor Blacks.

It is a part of the continuing myth played out in capitalist countries such as ours, for the rich to convince the poor their interests lie with the rich, and not with the oppressed of another race or nationality. There is nothing inherently wrong with the U.S. Senate being 100% populated by millionaires and multi-millionaires. But it is not an accident that the Congress of the United States and the multi-multi millionaire president and vice-president we now have, passed legislation giving the richest in the land tax breaks, and all the while telling the rest of us who aren’t millionaires, that it was for our own good. So when you see those on the bottom united against each other rather than with each other, know why: It’s in the interests of those in power.

Just in case you have trouble with that, let me give you an example from that most sacred practice of democracy, voting. Across America during the last six years, there was a huge effort to make it more difficult to vote, especially for the elderly and working poor. The myth perpetuated by those in power was that “Photo IDs” were needed to protect the integrity of the ballot box. The truth is, that requiring photo IDS makes it more difficult for those who don’t drive to be able to vote, that is, the elderly, and the working poor, many of whom depend upon public transportation. Actually, the intent of requiring photo IDs is to limit the vote of those on the bottom rung of society, who might vote for the less rich party. Why? Why would any American politician not want people to vote? Think for just a moment:

Can you imagine how many more poor people and working people could vote if Election Day were on Saturday or Sunday instead of on Tuesdays? Or better yet, what if the polls were open the entire weekend, Friday through Sunday, Friday from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to midnight, and Sunday, from 7 to 7? What would happen to the current Establishment, if the 47 million working poor in America then went to the polls on Election Day? Can you imagine the changes that would occur if the 45 million without health insurance went to the polls and voted their outrage? Can you imagine what women could do, what African Americans could do, what immigrants could do, if everyone voted? The rich might still be in power, but they would not get there by piling on the oppressed, especially the immigrant oppressed.

1. So on this day after Cinco de Mayo – Spanish for the fifth of May – people of faith are called upon to reaffirm their commitment to the least among us. People like the Immokalee workers who pick our tomatoes and harvest our oranges; people who clean our houses, tend our children, and care for our lawns. They too want a better future, they too have a name, and they too have a right to respect and appreciation.

2. Remember: That what it means to be people of faith is that we self-consciously go against the natural inclination to identify with our own self-interests, our own kind, our own little world, us four and no more. It means we refuse to tolerate prejudice against undocumented workers while still benefiting from the fruits of their labor. It means to remember, that we once were the immigrants who are now being oppressed.

3. The call to faith has never been to support the status quo…to hit ‘em again, harder, harder…to shut the door to the starving, the hungry and the poor. No! Faith’s call has always been about affirming those with the least. It’s always been the willingness to stand up for those whom society wants to keep down. Faith has always identified with those who don’t speak the right language, who don’t come from the right country, who didn’t come in the front door.

When Moses spoke to Pharaoh, “Let my people go,” he voiced the cries of the Hebrew children who had no voice, no advocate, no spokesperson. They were strangers in a foreign land, reduced to the lowest level of labor possible. They were striving merely to survive against the growing tide of inhumanity wreaked by Pharaoh.

But when freedom came, and economic opportunity opened its doors, and their God Yahweh gave the law to Moses, built into the very fabric of that sacred Law was one undeniable fundamental fact:

Remember the stranger, the immigrant among you. Remember that you were once strangers and immigrants in a foreign land.

The travesty of those who want to punish undocumented workers, especially the Mexicans and Hispanics who came from the South, is it acts as though we have no debts or obligations to the past…to a time when our mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, great grand mother and great grandfathers, crossed the waters and borders north and south, east and west, to come to the promise of this great land. Because they persevered, we today enjoy the benefits of freedom and economic prosperity.

The major prophets of religion, whether Muhammad or Moses or Jesus or the Buddha, their central message was that it is not greed that makes a nation and a people or one person great; rather, it’s the degree to which they are willing to share the benefits they enjoy.

Now with your participation, I would like to conduct this poll. Would you mind standing if one of these categories fits your immigrant heritage?

We honor you and them today. Let us always be proud of our immigrants, both in the past, the present and the future. Amen and Blessed be.

[1] Given Sunday, May 06, 2007, at All Faiths Unitarian Congregation, Ft. Myers, Florida, meeting at the Crestwell School, 1901 Park Meadows, Ft. Myers, FL, by the Rev. Dr. Wayne Robinson, minister.

[2] The Book of Leviticus 19:33-35.