When a Stranger Appears at Your Door©
Reverend Janet Parsons
October 21, 2018

It occurred to me recently that I am the descendant of migrant workers. And of course, many of us in this country could think of ourselves that way as well, as most of our ancestors came to this country seeking opportunity and economic advancement – in other, plainer language – hoping simply for a job.

My mother’s family actually traveled back and forth, however, based on economic conditions. My grandfather, with his 8th grade education, would move the family here in good economic times to work as a carpenter and painter. When times were hard, during the Depression, or the time that he badly broke his leg and couldn’t work, they would return home to the family farm. It was taken for granted that they could travel back and forth, with roots in one country and wings in another. And so I would define them as migrant workers.

Of course, they were from Canada, from Nova Scotia, with their green eyes and light brown hair, their pale skin, and excellent command of English. And so they blended in, and I don’t think anyone ever questioned their right to come to the United States when it suited them, and to leave when it was necessary. I have Canadian first cousins and American first cousins, and second cousins still farming on the family place in Wallace Bay, Nova Scotia.

As the immigration debate churns, I cannot help but think of the contrast between the way that my family was treated, the way that a place was made for them, no questions asked, and the way that people today from Mexico and Central and South America are treated. And I think we all know why there is that contrast; that wide gulf in compassion and empathy and welcome that is extended to one group and not to another. The difference would not be based on education attainment, or family size. No, I think we all know that the difference in welcome is based on skin color and on language.

And when I consider my privilege, as a European American in this society, I have to start with that: that my people, poor as they were at times, were made welcome.

The issue of immigration is not a new one. We as a nation have struggled with this issue since the 19th century, resisting successive waves of immigrants, from Ireland, Italy, China, to name just a few, and as we moved into the 20th and 21st centuries, from Latin America. Our response has always been cyclical: sometimes accepting, sometimes angry and hostile. We at times are easily threatened. We can be easily exploited by those who seek political advantage by creating scapegoats, by fanning the flames of fear and hatred.

Perhaps it has been worse than it is today, but in my limited frame of reference, this is about as bad as it can get, or certainly worse than it should ever be. A President gaining political power by insisting on building a wall across the southern border, whipping his followers into a frenzy of chanting “Build the Wall! Build the Wall!” A federal agency, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, gaining in strength and power, arresting undocumented immigrants at their hearings, gaining a budget increase of over $1 billion in fiscal 2018, and diverting funds from other divisions of the Department of Homeland Security, including funds from FEMA earmarked for hurricane relief. This agency, ICE, detaining on average 43,000 immigrants each day, and increasingly targeting immigrants with no criminal records. (Washington Post) And of course, as we began to see this summer, a government separating young children from their parents at the border, and detaining them separately. The national and international outcry forced the Administration to say that they would reunite the families, and stop separating children, but this practice has continued, quietly, on a smaller scale, and not all children have been reunited with their families.

The nation, and the world, were riveted by this spectacle back in June and July. In early July the local interfaith clergy group, Associated Clergy of Cape Ann, held a 24-hour fast and two vigils down on Stacy Boulevard. I saw a number of you in attendance; it was good to gather together, and to see how many people care.

We were appalled by this spectacle, outraged at our country taking other people’s children from them, trying to figure out how to respond. And because of the 24-hour news cycle, and a never-ending sequence of other spectacles, also unbelievable, our attention and anger is inevitably pulled away from the cruelty of our current immigration policies. It has been pulled away, as it tends to be pulled away from gun violence, and school shootings, and voter suppression, and homelessness and hunger, and all the many ways that justice is not served in our country here in 2018.

This month we are reflecting on the topic of Sanctuary in our services: sanctuary for our souls and our bodies, sanctuary created by our communities. And so we return to the topic of welcoming this morning: welcoming the stranger, offering sanctuary for those who are fleeing poverty and violence in their homelands. How is the health of our democracy: our national sanctuary?

As religious people, descendants of people of the Book, we are called to hospitality. Perhaps the most ancient expression of this demand is in the Torah, the Hebrew Bible, a command to the Israelites found in 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…” Christians, true Christians, turn to these words in the Gospel of Matthew: “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…” And in Islam, the Qu’ran advises: “Those who believed, and emigrated, and struggled in God’s cause with their possessions and their persons, and those who provided shelter and support – these are allies of one another…(if) they ask you for help in religion, you must come to their aid.”

This morning’s poet, the Palestinian-American Naomi Shahib Nye, used more contemporary words: “When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is…”

But instead of following these ancient and modern injunctions, expressed across religious traditions and across time, we see today the systematic tightening of our borders, the ever-increasing limits on our welcome, the outright rejection of people in need. People seeking political asylum from the threat of gang violence, kidnapping, and extortion in their homelands are treated with suspicion. I was reading an article online about the conditions of immigrants arriving at the borders, and what drove them to make the arduous and often dangerous trip to the Mexican border. At the end of the article there was a comment from an American reader who called the asylum-seekers cowards for not staying in their home countries and fighting back. How easy it is for people like us to say.

This is what we have come to: too often, we choose cruelty over kindness. Too often, we scapegoat the victims, rejecting any claim that lives may be at stake if people are not allowed to immigrate. We withhold any compassion or empathy. There is a refusal by many Americans to see, to believe, to imagine themselves in a similar situation, to wonder what they themselves would do for their children. The truth is, most of us cannot imagine it. It brings to mind the poem by the Somali Poet Warsan Shire, who wrote, “No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark…no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.” (Warsan Shire, “Home”)

We have chosen cruelty over kindness. We have chosen fear over compassion. We have chosen to ignore the humanity of other people; people who are like us in so many ways, if we would just allow ourselves to see. People who want better and safer lives for their children. People who love their pet cats.

In choosing cruelty, in dehumanizing people of color, people from Latin America in particular, we ultimately dehumanize ourselves. We become less. Think about the language we hear, the words referring to immigrants: that they ‘infest’ us, that they are animals. This is a deliberate attempt to keep us from seeing immigrants as people as deserving as we are of compassion and sanctuary. But using this type of language diminishes us, too. As our humanity diminishes, it becomes easier and easier to sit by while our culture of compassion, of welcome, of sanctuary, erodes until our country can become an unrecognizable and hostile place to live. We become less than we were, both as individuals and as a country. If we believe, as we say we do, that we are connected to one another, part of the web of all existence, then we cannot help but be injured by cruelty to other people.

Where does it stop? Where do we decide to dig in, to take a stand, to say, “This is not who we are?”

As you know, there is an election coming up in two weeks. This feels like a critical place and time to draw a line: to act as though our country depends upon what we do. Often in a state such as Massachusetts we don’t think we need to vote. This time we do – to send a message that we are here and that we care: that we are paying attention. This is our big chance, and there is a lot we can do.

Consider working to strengthen your democracy; our national sanctuary. Help to get out the vote. Donate to candidates in tight races elsewhere.

After the election, think about working to help immigrants – locally we can get involved in Essex County Community Organizing – ECCO. Support immigrant rights. Find a way to be a sanctuary for vulnerable people. Offer to sponsor asylum seekers, to help them get away from detention centers. Help support other churches who are acting as sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants.

When we talked about sanctuary a couple of weeks ago, we named sanctuaries as ‘places of refuge’. We talked about how a sanctuary does not have to be a physical place. How can you create sanctuary in the midst of a time filled with harsh and violent rhetoric, and the repression of people’s rights? How will you respond when a stranger appears at your door?

“Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.”

May it be so.
Amen.