Dear Immigrant Community,
I’m sorry.
I know it’s not every day you hear those words from me.
But I wanted to start there.
I’m sorry.
I have forgotten so much. I’ve forgotten that Scripture is full of stories of immigrants.
I’ve forgotten the repeated commands to extend hospitality to the stranger, show mercy to the foreigner, and ensure justice for the alien.Continue Reading →
Love is the impulse that allowed Jesus to migrate from his place of celestial power to take on the form of a third-class servant who rode an ass and withstood the insults of those who feared him. We must follow in His steps.
Silence is complicity and fear is its accomplice. May we replace silence with joyful proclamations of a blessed King who comes in the name of the Lord to infuse us with a fearless love that makes all of us cross borders of fear.Continue Reading →
Much like the related vices of pride and gossip, slander is a subtle sin. It is often committed without much forethought, and it is easier than more blatant iniquities to justify afterwards in our minds. Slander is seldom the topic of sermons, and many Christians—who could very readily explain to you what is meant […]Continue Reading →
Several months ago, I spoke at Antioch Church in Bend, Oregon on the topic of how I believe we might faithfully follow Christ as we think about the topic of immigration. After my talk, as they do every week at Antioch, we took some time for a Questions & Answers segment they call […]Continue Reading →
Around my neck hangs a rosary of wooden beads given to me by my friend Andrés the night of his departure for Mexico last November. “Ni modo, Jason,” I remember him telling me just minutes before their truck pulled away from our parking lot one last time. “Ni modo:” roughly, “No way.” It was a phrase often repeated between us. The friendship I have enjoyed with Andrés has left me with an acute awareness of the disjunction between the personal realities of friendship and family and the legislation that often works against such realities. In our friendship we feel the tension between the deep reality of a friendship forged across cultural boundaries and the borders that temporarily impose physical distance between us.Continue Reading →
We have in our country right now 12 million people who are primarily poor, vulnerable, and outside the protection of the rule of law because they are here without legal status. These are people who often had to leave their homes, their cultures and familiar surroundings to go to another country to secure food and opportunity for their families. Leaving everything behind, the foreign-born are often the most vulnerable in our society, people who often are at the mercy of others.Continue Reading →
Guest Blog by Bob Ekblad I drive across the Skagit River, and head out across the fertile farmland of Fir Island on my way to visit don Feliciano, a Mixtec farmworker who pastors a Mixtec-speaking congregation called Iglesia de Jesucristo. I pass wintering snow geese and recently harvested potato fields, stopping where cars are parked […]Continue Reading →
Tony and Janina Wasilewski were like many other newlywed couples. After a big wedding surrounded by their friends and extended family, they shifted their focus to building a life together, and eventually they had a son, Brian. They lived in suburban Chicago, where they were active members of their Catholic parish. And, like many […]Continue Reading →
Jesse was touring with His disciples Billy, Jerry and Joel. One day he sent them into Wal-Mart to get some food for their evangelistic swing. While they were gone he met an undocumented man standing at the day-laborer corner eating some tacos and looking for work.
Jesse went to him and said, “Hola, amigo, can I have one of your tacos?”Continue Reading →
The United States is changing at an unprecedented pace. According to current predictions by the US Census Bureau, by 2050 the United States will have a majority of ethnic minorities, and as soon as 2031 white, non-Hispanic children will become a minority. Continue Reading →
