St. Mary's Episcopal Church

The Reverend Jeff
April 2, 2006
Lent 5b: On the Border of the Holy (John 12: 20-33)

I have traveled outside of the United States several times. And, each time I have crossed an international border or gone through customs has been a different experience.

When we went to Niagara Falls, we stayed on the Canadian side of the border. And, crossing the Canadian border was quite easy.
Frankly, it was easier to get in and out of Canada than it is getting through the cash-only lane on the Sam Houston Tollway.

However, when I came back into the United States from Bolivia, That was a different story.

My hair was long,
I had not shaved in over a week,
I had on shorts and flip-flops.
The customs official pulled me out of the line, profiling me as a potential drug smuggler.
The search was not pleasant.
I certainly was not given a welcome embrace into the United States of America.

In the reading today from the Gospel of John,
Jesus says:
“‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.”

Jesus is lifted up from the earth on the Cross.
Jesus displays the glory of God as he draws ALL people to himself.
There is a prayer in The Book of Common Prayer,
A prayer that we say at Morning Prayer.

The prayer begins:
“Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that EVERYONE might come within the reach of your saving embrace.”

Jesus welcomes EVERYONE into his saving embrace.
For, on his Cross, Jesus draws ALL PEOPLE to himself.

As I have entered the United States,
Sometimes I have felt drawn in.
Sometimes I have felt welcomed and embraced.
But, sometimes I have not received a warm and fuzzy feeling at the border.

This country that we live in has been embroiled this last week in a legislative battle, in protests, discussions and debates about how or if we are to draw all people in.

Now, I am not a senator,
And, I am not a border agent,
And, I am not a teacher or a lawyer or a recent immigrant.
So, I do not have the answers to the problems that we face regarding immigration into the United States.

But, I am a preacher.
And Karl Barth, the great theologian of the early 20th century said this: “All a preacher needs is The Bible in one hand. And, a newspaper in the other.”

As Christians, we are not called to have simple answers to the problems of immigration in this country.
Yet, as Christians, we DO need to hear what the Spirit is saying to us, through Scripture,
Then put that Word of God into conversation with what we read about in the newspaper.
As Christians, we are called to enter the discussion, theologically.
For, as Christians, we promised at our Baptism that we would seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves.

First, as Christians, we are to realize that Jesus draws ALL people to himself, as he stretches out his arms on the hard wood of the cross so that EVERYONE might come within the reach of his saving embrace.

Then, we are to realize that Jesus has more in common with the illegal immigrants coming across our borders than he has in common with those of us who sit comfortably in these pews.

Jesus was and is a Jew.
The Hebrew people, the Jews, were chosen by God through Abraham, the father of many nations.
The Jews were then held in slavery in Egypt, forced by Pharaoh to build the great pyramids.
The Jews were then led by Moses in the Exodus from Egypt, through the Red Sea, through the wilderness, across the border and into the land of promise. The Jews were taken into Exile, taken into captivity in Babylon while Jerusalem was destroyed.
After finally being allowed back into their homeland of Judah, The Jews were occupied by Rome.
And that brings us to the time of Jesus.

Jesus was an alien, for he was not a Roman citizen.
Jesus watched as Roman soldiers and tax collectors persecuted God’s Chosen People.
And, lest we forget, God’s Chosen People have not escaped persecution since Jesus’ day.
We should never, ever, forget the horrors of the Holocaust, when our Christian brothers and sisters killed millions of God’s Chosen People.

Yes, Jesus is a Jew.
And Jesus and his people know what it is like to be a day laborer sweating under the yoke of Pharaoh.
Jesus and his people know what it is like to be a wetback from across the Red Sea.
Jesus and his people know what it is like to be exiled, occupied, alienated, marginalized and subjected to a life of crippling poverty under the cruelty of evil empires.

For, my friends, I believe that Jesus would feel more at home with the illegal immigrants waiting for work on the street corner than he would with Americans drinking a tall latte on the way to the office.

Yet, before we go drawing more lines and creating more labels, I would like to bring one more point into this conversation:

We need to realize that, in God’s world, we are ALL illegal immigrants.

God created us and gave us the beautiful Garden of Eden, But we rebelled against God and against each other.

God made a covenant, an agreement, with us and he gave us the Ten Commandments.
Yet before Moses barely had a chance to come down the mountain with the Commandments in his hand,
We were already worshiping a golden calf (Exodus 32) and the almighty dollar.

God sent us prophets and sages to reveal God’s righteous Law.
Yet, we constantly disobey God’s law of love.

God gave us this land, this earth.
God gave us this whole world, yet we have chopped it up with boundaries and borders.
Time and time again, we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
Time and time again, we have been illegal.

We pollute and destroy the Garden of Eden.
We take what is not ours.
We worship what we have created, rather than worship the Creator.

We are illegal immigrants, living on God’s planet.

Yet, when we had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death,
God, in his mercy, sent Jesus Christ...
To share our human nature,
To live and die as one of us,
To reconcile us to the God and Father of all.

He stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself..., a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.

For, when Jesus is lifted up from the earth,
He draws ALL people to himself in his saving embrace.

So then, what is our Christian response to this Jesus who is lifted up from the earth, drawing all people to himself?
What is our response, when we have promised in our Baptismal Covenant that we will seek and serve Christ in all persons loving our neighbor as ourselves?

Frank Griswold, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, has given his Christian response this week, by saying:
“I believe that the fear that has motivated recent legislation effecting immigrants could mislead us to assume that fortresses and prisons will make us secure... [and it] also denies the call of Christ to welcome the stranger as if we were receiving Him as our guest (Episcopal News Service, 3/27/06).”

What are the answers to the questions about illegal immigration in the United States?
I do not have the answers.

But, I do know that we need to think theologically, and let the Spirit speak to us through Scripture.
I do know that we need to look to Jesus, lifted high upon the cross, drawing all people to himself.

I do know that we need to remember that Jesus was despised, rejected, a day laborer, a Jew.
I do know that we need to realize that all of us are illegal, rejecting our Creator and each other, yet forgiven by the grace of God.

And, I am counting on that grace of God.

For on my dying day,
When I escape to the border of the holy,
When I swim across the river, exiled by my sins,
I am counting on seeing Jesus on the other shore, lifted up from the earth on his Cross, drawing me to himself.

I am counting on being welcomed, not by a border agent,
But by arms of love stretched out on the hard wood of the cross, bringing me into God’s saving embrace.

AMEN.