There are already indications that
one of the key issues of the upcoming election season will be the
issue of immigration. On Palm Sunday 2006, Rev. Eric Folkerth,
pastor of Northaven United Methodist Church, preached on the
Megamarch for immigrant rights, drawing connections between Jesus'
march into Jerusalem and the call to all Christians to welcome the
stranger.
Today, we remember
Palm Sunday, the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem. To get the full
effect of this moment, you have to remember that, for the most part,
Jesus’ ministry takes place in rural Galilee. But now his epic
journey has led him to the heart and soul of Jewish culture:
Jerusalem. And it has led him there—at least according the some of
the Gospel accounts—on Passover weekend. The Passover was one of the
highest and holiest religious festivals of the year. Jewish Pilgrims
would come from all over—not just from all over Israel, but
literally from all over the world—back to Jerusalem on this special
day.
And so, with the
subplot of this great festival in the background, Jesus rides into
Jerusalem on the back of a colt. And as he travels into the city,
adoring people spread their cloaks on the road. The Gospel tells us
other folks cut off the branches from trees and place them on the
road. This, by the way, is where we get the idea to call this day
“Palm Sunday.” The text never actually says that it was palm tree
branches being spread, but over the years that’s what the tradition
assumes. And that’s where the name of the day comes from.
So, all these folks
appear out of nowhere to spread their cloaks and branches on the
road, and Jesus rides in this great parade. And as he passes, they
say:
“Hosanna,
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the
coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
Most scholars tend
to believe this was not a rich and wealthy crowd. In fact, most tend
to believe that this Palm Sunday crowd was a relatively rag tag
bunch of mostly poor and marginalized folks. This is corroborated
somewhat by looking at who DOESN’T like this Palm Sunday parade. In
the Gospel of Luke, the story says that some of the Pharisees in the
crowd—the religious elite of that day—tell Jesus to make the crowd
be quiet. So you might make the assumption that if the elites are
nervous about this Palm Sunday parade, that the folks IN the
parade—the people lining the parade route—are probably the poor,
marginalized and disenfranchised.
From the
perspective of the religious elites, a big social protest, a huge
social disturbance one the same weekend as the Passover wouldn’t sit
well with the authorities. It might rock the boat. It might get out
of hand. It might spin out of control. The last thing the religious
elite of that day wanted was a large crowd of mostly poor folks,
shouting out “Hosanna.”
Elizabeth Morris
Downie is an Episcopal priest living in Fenton, Michigan. She has
been a longtime social activist, and she has an interesting
perspective on the Palm Sunday crowds. She writes this:
“Those crowds
turned out because they sensed somehow that the realm of oppression,
cruelty and poverty which was all they had ever known was being
overturned. Something new was at hand, not yet fully visible, still
vulnerable, but clearly calling them to life. This new realm called
so strongly that they dared to cry out, dared to be seen in public
in such a procession, dared to acknowledge this Jesus as blessed,
coming in the name of the Lord.”
And then, Reverend
Downie asks a question for our time. She notes:
“Our Palm Sunday
observances all too often are inwardly focused, speaking only or
chiefly to those who come into our church buildings. Where are our
rag-tag processions? Where are our cries of acclamation, and -- most
importantly -- our cries of protest and outrage...What are we doing
to uncover the coming kingdom, present but not yet realized? When
was the last time you marched in protest?”
This passage struck
me powerfully this week, not only because today is Palm Sunday, but
also because of what will happen about an hour and a half from now.
About an hour and a half from now, it’s expected that thousands of
people will converge on the streets of downtown Dallas for what may
be the largest civil rights protest in the history of our city. On
THIS Sunday—of ALL Sundays—when we commemorate the Palm Sunday
parade of the poor, people of all races and economic status will
gather downtown to protest against wrongheaded immigration
proposals.
Karl Barth once
said that we must preach with the Bible in one hand, and the
newspaper in the other. And today, dear friends, that’s easy.
Because today’s Bible story is about a parade of people seeking
freedom and new life. And today’s parade downtown will be about
people seeking freedom and new life.
I should tell you
that I plan to be down there today, and I know that others of you
are also planning to go. As soon as we say our benediction, I’m
going to change into my “Romero” t-shirt, and head downtown.
The intensity of
this debate has waned the past few days, since the compromise bill
on immigration died in the Senate. But, dear friends, do we
really think this issue is going to go away?!
Although the bill
has died, those who support the bill are still quite living. And
they might well introduce something like it again. So, let me speak
to one provision of the bill that was most controversial, and would
directly affect the church. The bill out of the House would have
made it a felony to give aid to an immigrant who was here illegally.
That House bill specifically referenced churches and clergy,
and said that they too would be subject to a felony should they aid
illegal immigrants.
Imagine what this
would mean for our friends over at North Dallas Shared Ministry!
Imagine how much THEY might be in jeopardy each day! Or imagine what
might happen to our church staff, should they aid someone who walks
in off the street for assistance?! Would we go to jail for this? For
doing what we believe God calls us to do in helping out the poor and
disenfranchised?! Outrageous!
Outrageous....and
anti-Christian. That’s right. You heard me say it...anti-Christian.
I dare anyone to point out the Scripture where Jesus tells us to
only help those from your home country. In fact, several times in
the Gospels, the local folks get really angry at Jesus precisely
BECAUSE he tells them to help those who are from foreign lands!!
Imagine if this law
had been in effect at the feeding of the five thousand. You know
that story, five thousand men—so, it was probably ten thousand
people—gathered by the shores of Galilee. They are hungry. They are
tired. It’s late in the day. And so, the Bible says, Jesus “has
compassion” on them. And through the miracle of the fish and loaves
there is enough food for all.
Odds are that,
among ten thousand folks, there were a few that were immigrants from
foreign countries. I mean, just do the math. There was no admission
gate. Folks just came out by the lake shore. Can you imagine the
scene? Just after Jesus gets done feeding these people, the
authorities arrive.
“Um...I’m sorry
Jesus...we’re going to have to take you in....you’ve just given fish
and bread to some illegal Samaritans. You have the right to remain
silent...anything you say can be used against you....”
Or, imagine that
there was a wall between Samaria and Israel. (You will remember that
one of the other provisions of the House bill was to build a wall to
separate the US and Mexico). Had there been a wall between Samaria
and Israel, there might not have ever been a “Parable of the Good
Samaritan.” And, of course, the whole POINT of that parable is to
remind us how our “neighbor” is often the person we despise. The
person from a different country and race. The person we think we
have nothing in common with.
Well, thank God the
bill has died for now. It’s not to say that we don’t need some kind
of immigration reform. But I can tell you that I believe making it a
felony to do ministry with immigrant, and building a wall are two
very bad ideas.
But beyond the bad
ideas of these proposed bills, dear friends, we must confront an
ugly truth. The ugly truth is that Latinos and Latinas are being
used in this debate as political footballs for the upcoming
election. This issue is being raised now for the same reason that
the issue of gay marriage was raised before the last election.
Because some people in our society know that spreading fear
and dividing people sells.
Many of us in this
congregation remember how painful it has been for gay and lesbian
issues to be used as political footballs over the past few years.
And so, dear friends, I call on you to consider standing with your
Latino and Latina brothers and sisters, and to stand against
their being used in the same way...for crass political aims.
Can you tell I feel
a little passionately about this? Well, I do. There’s nothing like
marrying someone named “Garcia” to help crystallize the issues for
you. It becomes about your family. It becomes the stories of people
you love most dearly in the world.
So, I want to tell
you some of my own frustration these last two weeks, and some of the
things I have heard said about Latinos and Latinas. I have heard
radio commentators encouraging us to remember that most Hispanics
are not illegal immigrants.
Which is, of
course, true. Most Hispanics aren’t immigrants of any kind. Most
Hispanics are proud and contributing members of our society, and
people of deep and abiding faith. And some of them have been here
longer than you....
Which reminds me of
a story I’ve told here before, but I’ll tell again because it fits
so well. When my spouse Dennise was in Junior High in Irving, she
had to take Texas History...as we all do...in Texas public schools.
And she came home one day and said to her Mom, “Ma, we’re learning
about the Alamo in school!”
To which her mother
said, “Oh, you had relatives that fought at the Alamo.”
So, the next day,
Dennise returned to school and gleefully told her teacher, “I had
relatives that fought at the Alamo!!!”
To which the
teacher asked her, “Which side?”
Well, Dennise had
never considered this. As an Irving girl her whole life, she’d never
thought about “which side.”
So, she went home
to ask her mother, “Ma, which side?”
To which her mother
told her, “Oh, m’ija, the side that won.”
There are Hispanic
families here in Texas that predate any and all of us....and it’s
best we not forget that.
The other things I
have heard in the past week are ugly stories about how
Latinos and Latinas do not assimilate. There are ugly things being
said about people who speak Spanish as a first language...and the
claim is being made that they’ll never learn English.
Let me say this: I
do not know a single Hispanic family where the parents do not want
their children to learn English, learn it fast, and learn it well.
In the families I know, in fact, sometimes they do not even speak
Spanish to their children, in the hopes that the children will
assimilate faster.
When my
father-in-law, Richard Sanchez Garcia, was a boy in West Dallas, he
made a mistake that he didn’t know was a mistake. He went to his
neighborhood Dallas Public School and he spoke Spanish one day. For
this grave sin, a teacher locked him in the closet for the rest of
the day. He never forgot that lesson. And when he had his own
children, he chose to not teach them Spanish at home, to the point
that they had to pick it up by osmosis....and they eventually did.
And, paradoxically,
thirty-years-later, when his own son, Richard Garcia Jr, got to
school (not knowing more than a couple hundred words in Spanish)
they took one look at his brown skin and put him in a Bilingual
Education class.
The race card is
being played here, and it’s been played here to divide us all
against each other...and we should not stand for it.
You have seen the
pictures of the young people protesting in the past weeks, skipping
school in many cases (something, by the way, I can’t condone...).
And I know what some of my white friends have been thinking. They’ve
been thinking “Look at all those unassimilated brown folks!!”
But nothing could
be farther from the truth. As Macarena Hernandez wrote in the Dallas
News last week, most of those kids are the children and
grandchildren of immigrants. They speak English quite well. They
have iPods, and they buy their clothes at The GAP. In some ways,
this fight over immigration is not even their fight. But they are,
in fact, standing up for their parents and their grandparents. They
are, in fact, living out one of our great commandments: honor thy
father and mother.
Elizabeth Downie
suggests that too often, our Palm Sunday celebrations stop at the
church door, and don’t connect with real events in the real world.
Today, on this Palm Sunday, it seems that they can’t help but
connect together. Like Karl Barth said, all we have to do is read
the Palm Sunday Bible story on our one hand, and read our
newspaper in the other.
Amen.