Jesus, the "Illegal"

The Christmas season drowns us in sentimental stories we've heard too many times. We've chewed the stories over like cud until they've lost all flavor, all meaning. And yet, there are parts of the story we often miss, or miss the significance of until it's pointed out to us. Last year an essay in SMU's journal Apuntes explored the journey that Joseph and Mary took after Jesus' birth, fleeing to Egypt in order to escape Herod's murderous intent to kill the newborn king of the Jews. In almost their first act as new parents, Joseph and Mary became political refugees, immigrants, aliens in Egypt.

Now, when I hear a phrase like "They picked up a bunch of illegals and deported them," I think about Jesus. Prince of Peace, Wonderful, Counselor ... Illegal. It doesn't quite fit, does it. And yet it does. This kind of shock is exactly what the Jews of the first century experienced, trying to understand that the Messiah had come, and not on a tall white horse, not into a high priest's house, but into a barn and then on the run from political persecution.

I thought about Jesus the Illegal again this week, when along with other members of a Dallas anti-racism team I visited the office where Catholic Charities provides immigration counseling to people who want to change their documentation status by applying for a green card or for citizenship. The applicants and the counselors are up against a herculean task; the logistics required are daunting.

Many of us have opinions about immigration, particularly about people who come into the United States without the proper documentation. My own opinion is shaped by several factors. I remember as a child growing up in South Texas, when a white or green van would drive up our country road, some of the people on our farm became scarce, as cries of "la migra!" went up. I remember my father explaining to me that if one of those vans ever came up our long driveway, I was to come find him, and if no one else was home, to not let them in the house. I did not understand everything about this reality when I was a child, but I knew I loved the people who were at risk, and knew that I would do a child's best (probably under romantic illusions fed by The Diary of Anne Frank).

As an adult, my opinion is shaped by other stories. I co-pastored a church here in Dallas for several years with Esther Martinez (now Esther Vasquez), and I remember her story of having to carry proof of citizenship when she was growing up, even though she was born here. I was saddened to think this had happened in my lifetime, in my state, but the truth is it's happening again. Amid the anti-immigrant hysteria currently sweeping our state and our nation, people who were born here, and whose families have lived here for generations, are being treated suspiciously.

These human beings are treated as illegal border-crossers, even though the truth is these are a people who have been crossed by the border. In the space of a couple of decades, Mexican citizens suddenly became subject to and citizens of the Republic of Texas, and then of the United States, once it annexed Texas. Such clean apolitical words; they hide the war dead, the disputes over the location of the Texas border, the questions of land tenure and ownership. I remember, too, the pain of reading Gloria Anzaldua's language describing the border as un herida abierta, an open wound where the so-called First World of the United States scrapes against the so-called Third World of Mexico.

James Baldwin wrote of the need for white people to "do our first works over." Surely, in writing this dissertation, if it is to be an anti-racist theology, one of the first works I must do over is to understand where I come from. The "borderlands" has become a hot property, not only in the real estate market but also in theological circles, so there is no shortage of theological interpretation of borders and bordered identities. But there is something particular for me to learn, in looking at the land where I grew up, that I must know before I can write this theology. I am looking for those particulars. And they are finding me.

One other story before I close this post, a story of two texts, both from Leviticus. Many Christians, political conservatives in particular, are familiar with Leviticus 18:22: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." (The "you" here is gendered male in the Hebrew.) I'll address the homophobia and heterosexism that have derived from the "hammer texts" as we go along, but for now I just want to ask this question.

How many of us give equal weight -- and political energy -- to Leviticus 19:33-34? "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."

What would our immigration policy look like if we loved the alien as ourselves? If we remembered what God remembers, that each of us is the child of an alien people? If we remembered that that cute baby Jesus in the manger is the incarnation of the Creator of the Universe, who chose to enter into a life that would include illegal immigration?

There are no illegal human beings. Some human beings are in our neighborhoods without legal documentation. The lack of that piece of paper doesn't excuse us from God's invitation, God's commandment to love the neighbor as ourselves. I'll be thinking some more about what that means in my life.