The United States is a nation of immigrants -- and current demographic trends suggest that's as true today as ever. Yet judging by the contentiousness of the ongoing debate over immigration policy and the perception in some quarters that we're being overrun by a burgeoning population of illegal aliens, it's easy to forget that almost every "native-born" American has ancestors who came to these shores from somewhere else. As Congress tackles various proposals to reform immigration law and protest marches draw throngs into the streets (including half a million people in Los Angeles, according to police estimates), the disparity in our attitudes toward "outsiders" has exposed some deep fault-lines in our society. That's probably no surprise -- as one commentator noted, it "touches these nerves about how we think of ourselves as a people." In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Carter Shelley examines the plight of immigrants coming to America today, and asks us to consider as we trace the road to Calvary who should bear the weight of Jesus' cross. Steve McCutchan shares some additional thoughts on Simon of Cyrene as an "alien" in Jerusalem, and several illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon are also included.
Who Should Carry The Load?
by Carter Shelley
Our lectionary choices for Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday are extensive. Which shall one emphasize? The readings for the liturgy of the Palms (Mark 11:1-11 and Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29) express the hope of those who trust in the Lord and rejoice that God's goodness and blessings are evident in their midst. The Passion texts (Isaiah 50:4-9a; Philippians 2:5-11; and Mark 14:1--15:47) offer the good news and the painful news that obedience to God can lead to great suffering, because the will of the world and the will of God embodied in Christ Jesus are at odds with one another. Which biblical text you choose to focus on will likely depend upon what other special services and events your church has planned for Holy Week. This week we will consider the role Christians are called to play in carrying the load in Christ's name while Congress struggles to pass or defeat immigration legislation.
Should French youth be asked to work for less and with less security than adult French laborers? Should illegal aliens who earn less and labor more be expelled en masse because Americans like you and I do not want them to legally enjoy all the rights and freedoms that accompany United States citizenship? Should Simon of Cyrene -- described in Mark 15:21 as "a passer-by" -- be compelled to carry Jesus' cross once Jesus himself can no longer bear its physical weight? Who should carry the load?
 ANOTHER VIEW
by Stephen P. McCutchan
There is a curious little incident that takes place on Jesus' journey to Golgotha that might provide us a window through which we can look at the issue of immigration from a different perspective. After Jesus has been flogged and condemned, he is asked to make his journey to the hill where he would be crucified. The Roman soldiers draft a stranger, Simon of Cyrene, to carry Jesus' cross. We don't know much about Simon, though apparently the later Christian community knew him as the father of Alexander and Rufus. He may well be a diaspora Jew or he may have been a God-fearer, one who was attracted to the Jewish faith because of its ethics but who had not become a convert. In any case, he came from North Africa and was either temporarily or permanently an immigrant in the city of Jerusalem.
Simon can represent for us what today we might call a resident alien. Resident aliens are those people who live within the borders of a country but who lack the legal security that comes with citizenship. When one thinks about Judaism in the diaspora, they have frequently been resident aliens. Their long history also records the many times when the particular country in which they lived suddenly grew fearful of them and either made life for them extremely harsh, as in the biblical story in Egypt; ejected them, as happened in several countries including Spain and Britain; or tried to destroy them, as happened in Germany. Perhaps one of the reasons that a concern for the stranger among them was included in Jewish laws is because they were conscious of the memory when they had been strangers in a strange land as well.
Simon's brief mention in the gospel also reflects other aspects of the situation for the immigrant population. Notice that the Roman soldiers, who held the power in the country, had little hesitancy about drafting Simon to do their work for them. Immigrants, particularly those who lack papers that legitimize their presence, are always subject to the whim of those who hold power. Many of the immigrants in this country are paid substandard wages and work in unhealthy environments because they have no legal right to complain. In 2005 it was estimated that 7.2 million illegal immigrants were employed in the United States. They come willingly and they accept the conditions imposed on them because they are desperate and are willing to do what they have to do in order for them and their family to live. Like our country's current immigrant population, Simon of Cyrene was willing to do the work that no one else wanted to do.
Apparently the later Christian community was willing to honor him and his family for that act, but at the time no one stepped forward to help him bear the burden. If it had not been for the Christian community, he would have remained one more nameless body that the powers of society had used to do their work and then had discarded.
A number of people have tried to answer the question of why there was such rapid growth in the early Christian community, which began as a minority that often suffered persecution. One major thesis was the willingness of the early Christians to attend to the needs of the most vulnerable of their society. Prior to the major medical advances of modern society, the citizenry often shunned the sick and the vulnerable, in hopes that they would not become infected themselves. The elderly and unwanted infants were often abandoned as disposable burdens. Christians, in contrast, went out into the streets to attend to the sick and the weary. They went to the city dumps to rescue abandoned infants and they treated the elderly with respect. Some Presbyterian historians, in attempting to account for the phenomenal growth of the Presbyterian church in Korea, have suggested that the willingness of missionaries to stand with the disenfranchised at a critical point in that country's history may have had the same result.
While it will likely be removed from whatever final legislation gets passed, included in the early proposals was a law that would have penalized churches who provided humane care for illegal immigrants. The fact that such a prohibition was even considered may well raise the question of what the church's response should be to these immigrants within our borders. In what way should the ministry of the body of Christ be restrained by the political boundaries of the world? In a culture in which the membership in many denominations is declining, should we trust that by responding to the least of these, God will again bless our churches with growth? Keeping in mind that Christ told us that when we serve the least of these we are serving Christ, then as Simon of Cyrene bore the cross of Christ, are we also bearing Christ's cross when we seek to bear the burden of immigrants in need?
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ILLUSTRATIONS
As you drive south on Route 18 across the northernmost swath of Allegheny County, North Carolina, you'll encounter a roadside sign: "Welcome to Sparta, N.C." If your eye catches the sign, you probably won't have time to notice two drab, gray buildings that lie just beyond this welcome. Potholes mar the driveways. Empty beer cans, cigarette packs, fast-food wrappers, and even an old car battery litter the grounds. Electrical wires and television cables run in and out of windows, some with torn screens, broken glass, or crinkled black garbage bags where the glass once was. When I called about renting an apartment there for me, my wife, and two daughters, the landlady said the complex would not be suitable for us, but for the same price -- about $400 a month -- she could rent us a single-family house with a yard.
Upstairs in one of the buildings, three Christmas tree workers share a single bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. Like many of the men and teenage boys who travel far from their families to cultivate and harvest North Carolina Fraser firs -- the Cadillac of Christmas trees -- these three have found shelter, but not much hospitality. They cram into single-wide trailers or basement apartments, two or three to a bedroom and a few more in the living room, often at $50 a month per person. Consuelo Hall, a Colombian who hears the workers' stories at her popular market and taco bar, tells one eerily similar to the Advent story these workers help Americans to celebrate: A fellow Latina literally considered moving her family into a barn to escape the claustrophobia of living in the same house with a group of male farm workers.
Another woman, whom I'll call Carmen, lives in an old farmhouse with her partner and several of his male co-workers surrounded by evergreen fields. She says the house is very old, but has few complaints save for the airborne pesticides that sometimes make it hard to breathe inside. "I say my husband, 'Maybe if I asleep you can bring me to the hospital,' " she says. "I felt really bad." Because he provides the house for free, this farmer pays $6 an hour. Others pay $7 an hour for greenhorns and up to $12 for the most seasoned veterans who've worked in their fields a decade or more. A recent court decision exempts the growers from paying overtime, though workers typically put in 50 to 70 hours a week, enabling them to send money home to their families in Mexico....
The hardest work comes during the harvest season that runs through November and early December, when the trees are shipped to market. Mexican men -- and some women -- often work seventy or more hours a week, carrying hundreds of Christmas trees a day from their beds to the trucks that haul them. Some trees weigh more than 300 pounds, and even five men have trouble snaking them through the rows of tender trees waiting to be cut in subsequent years. Back and forth they walk, over hillside fields that span hundreds of yards. The hardest work comes when their bodies are the most weary. After feeding the trees through bailing machines, as the sun sets, the workers must lift them onto trailers, staggering under the weight of the heaviest trees. As the pines pile up on the flatbed trucks, the workers have to heave them higher and higher, until the packers, standing on ten-foot stacks of evergreens, start to pull on the trees while more workers push them upward from the ground....
A devout Catholic, Carmen begins to cry as she considers the parallels between her life and the biblical story. Not only did she cross the desert for new life in a land of plenty, but once there, she bore heavy trees on her back, just like the man whose birthday we celebrate at Christmas. As she tells of carrying 200 Christmas trees a day across a distance as long as a large shopping plaza, her thoughts turn toward the sad irony of the immigrant experience: Mexicans are willing to do the backbreaking work that no else wants to do and on which American society depends, yet their illegal status makes them outsiders who live in fear.
"Latin people come here for (do)ing the hard work," she says. "It's very hard work, too hard work."
-- J. James DeConto, "Carrying the Crosses of Christmas," Sojomail, December 1, 2004
***
Americans have long had a troubled, contradictory relationship with immigrants. We famously say that we are immigrants, indeed a "land of immigrants," and just as famously render them "them." While Liberty opens her arms to the tired, poor, and huddled masses, we also greet the immigrant with ethnic slurs and sweatshop wages, with savage and simplistic representations on our movie and TV screens. We are immigrants who despise immigrants. To enact hospitality in this context is a radical act: it automatically erases the border between us and them. To open one's door to the stranger is to recognize that he no longer is one.
The nativist reacts against the immigrant with prosaic notions of "law and order." José has broken the law by crossing the river without the proper documents. María breaks the law by baby-sitting for money under the table. (The nativist has little to say about the natives who also break the law by hiring illegal aliens; he gains nothing politically by implicating himself in the crime.) But immigration codes are very human laws, born of economic and political realities -- laws that blind us from perceiving the migrants for who they really are.
This notion of the foreigner as an economic mercenary has no relation whatsoever to the way migrants regard themselves. Ask Mexicans why they cross the Rio Grande and they will invariably say, "to seek a better life." They do not mean only material gain. Migrants travel through space and time, and are transformed by their encounter with the newness of the landscape, beginning with language. They are changed by their encounter with their other, with us.
Anyone who has grown up with more than one culture knows that to switch between languages is more than a matter of grammar and accent; meaning itself shifts, sometimes subtly, sometimes profoundly. To travel from one country to another, one language to another, is a journey of both spirit and flesh. The migrants sense this. In America, they are among our most fervently religious communities. In the barrio storefront church, they meditate on and give meaning to their passage - their sacrifice, their yearning for the transcendent, their crossing of the river.
-- Rubén Martínez, "The Kindness of Strangers," New York Times, December 24, 2004
***
Fulton Oursler once told a story about the impact of an act of hospitality: not only on the one who received it, but also the one who offered it.
Late one cold and rainy night, an elderly couple arrived at the front desk of a small hotel in Philadelphia, asking for a room. The hotel was full; there were three different conventions in town that weekend. Yet the manager didn't want to send an elderly couple out into the night. "Would you be willing to sleep in my room?" he asked. "I'm working all night anyway, and I won't get to bed until morning." The grateful couple accepted his offer and got a good night's sleep.
As they said their farewells the next morning, the elderly man said, "You are the kind of manager who should be the boss of the best hotel in the United States. Maybe someday I'll build one for you!" Thinking the old man was joking, the manager laughed.
But he wasn't joking. Several years later, the young manager received in the mail a round-trip ticket to New York, along with an invitation to join the couple there for the weekend. When he arrived, he found a chauffeur-driven car waiting for him at the station. The car took him to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, where a new hotel had just been built of reddish stone, "with turrets and watchtowers, like a castle from fairyland cleaving the New York sky."
Waiting to greet him at the curb was the same elderly man to whom he had offered his own room years before. "This is the hotel I have built for you to manage," the man said. The hotel was the Waldorf-Astoria, and the young Philadelphian, George C. Boldt, did become its first manager. The old man he had helped on that stormy night was William Waldorf Astor.
***
It is no use saying that we are born two thousand years too late to give room to Christ. Nor will those who live at the end of the world have been born too late. Christ is always with us, always asking for room in our hearts.
But now it is with the voice of our contemporaries that He speaks, with the eyes of store clerks, factory workers, and children that he gazes; with the hands of office workers, slum dwellers, and suburban housewives that He gives. It is with the feet of soldiers and tramps that He walks, and with the heart of anyone in need that He longs for shelter. And giving shelter or food to anyone who asks for it, or needs it, is giving it to Christ...
If we hadn't got Christ's own words for it, it would seem raving lunacy to believe that if I offer a bed and food and hospitality to some man or woman or child, my guest is Christ. There is nothing to show it, perhaps. There are no halos already glowing round their heads -- at least none that human eyes can see.
So we are not born too late. We can serve Christ by seeing him and serving him in friends and strangers, in everyone we come in contact with.
-- Dorothy Day, Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas (Plough Publishing House, 2001)
***
"You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long."
Psalm 23 is a song that pilgrims sang on their way to the temple in Jerusalem where they celebrated their God as a homemaker. If you allow the details of this portrait of the house to play upon your imagination, you can hear the bustle in the kitchen and the banging of pots and pans. You can see God scurrying around the table and putting the goblets, plates, and cutlery in the proper order. You can smell the bread in the oven and the meat over the fire. You can feel the fragrant oil streaming down your hair and face as God wipes away the sweat and grime of travel.
In John 14, Jesus speaks of returning to the house of God and preparing a place for his followers:
"In my Father's house there are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?"
Jesus gives us a remarkable picture in these verses of a heaven not fixed and changeless, but under construction. Heaven is not exactly what we have imagined it to be: a place of singing, harp-playing, and quiet contemplation. It is a hive of activity as room after room is added to the big house in anticipation of all who are coming. If you allow the details of this portrait to play upon your imagination, you can almost hear the thump of lumber upon lumber, the squeal of the saw, and the ringing of the hammer. You can almost smell the musk of freshly-cut wood and see the wooden stakes marking the placement of the stone foundation. In the house of God, Jesus is a carpenter once again.
-- Thomas A. Boogaart, "Preparing the House of God: A Theme in Four Movements," in Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought, November 1999, pp. 16-17
***
There are so many people who live alone, crushed by their loneliness. It is obvious that too much solitude can drive people off the rails, to depression or alcoholism... there are so many who are looking for a family and a meaning to their lives. In the years to come, we are going to need so many small communities which welcome lost and lonely people, offering them a family and a sense of belonging. At other times, Christians who wanted to follow Jesus opened hospitals and schools. Now that there are so many of these, Christians must commit themselves to the new communities of welcome, to live with people who have no other family and to show them that they are loved.
-- Jean Vanier, Community and Growth: Our Pilgrimage Together (Paulist Press, 1989)
***
There are some notable examples of people who decided that the poor should not carry all the burden but that Christians should be involved in easing their troubles.
Mother Teresa:
On the happy occasion of your forthcoming birthday, I join all the Missionaries of Charity in thanking Almighty God for the witness of your religious consecration and your untiring service to the poorest of the poor. As a pledge of strength and joy in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I gladly impart my Apostolic Blessing.
-- Pope John Paul II, April 22, 1996
At the end of our lives, we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, or how many great things we have done. We will be judged by "I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless and you took me in." Hungry not only for bread -- but hungry for love. Naked not only for clothing -- but naked of human dignity and respect. Homeless not only for want of a room of bricks -- but homeless because of rejection. This is Christ in distressing disguise.
-- Mother Teresa
* * * * *
St. Francis of Assisi:
Though St. Francis of Assisi had a good education and became part of his father's business, he also had a somewhat misspent youth as a street brawler and sometime soldier. Captured during a conflict between Assisi and Perugia, he spent over a year as a prisoner of war. During this time he had a conversion experience, including a reported message from Christ calling him to leave this worldly life. Upon release, Francis began taking his religion seriously.
He took the Gospels as the rule of his life, Jesus Christ as his literal example. He dressed in rough clothes, begged for his sustenance, and preached purity and peace. His family disapproved and his father disinherited him; Francis formally renounced his wealth and inheritance. He visited hospitals, served the sick, preached in the streets, and took all men and women as siblings. He began to attract followers in 1209, and with papal blessing, founded the Franciscans based on a simple statement by Jesus: "Leave all and follow me." In 1212 Clare of Assisi became his spiritual student, which led to the founding of the Poor Clares.
* * *
Albert Schweitzer:
Born in 1875 near Strasbourg in Alsace, Germany (now part of France), Albert Schweitzer has been called the greatest Christian of his time. He based his personal philosophy on a "reverence for life" and on a deep commitment to serve humanity through thought and action. For his many years of humanitarian efforts, Schweitzer was awarded the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize.
By the time he was 21 Schweitzer had decided on the course for his life. For nine years he would dedicate himself to the study of science, music, and theology. Then he would devote the rest of his life to serving humanity directly. Before he was 30 he was a respected writer on theology, an accomplished organist, and an authority on the life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach.
In 1904 Schweitzer was inspired to become a medical missionary after reading an evangelical paper regarding the needs of medical missions. He studied medicine from 1905 to 1913 at the University of Strasbourg. He also raised money to establish a hospital in French Equatorial Africa. He founded a hospital there in 1913. Over the years built a large hospital that served thousands of Africans. Schweitzer used his $33,000 Nobel Prize to expand the hospital and to build a leper colony. In 1955 Queen Elizabeth II awarded Schweitzer the Order of Merit, Britain's highest civilian honor. |
THE WORD
Regardless of whether you are basing your sermon upon Mark 11:1-11 or focusing more on Mark 14:1--15:47, you can still address the question "Who should carry the load?" Mark 11:1-11 offers the traditional Palm Sunday perspective by recounting the celebration and hope placed upon Jesus by his palm-waving followers and fans. With cries of "Hosanna!" (God save us) and allusions to Zechariah 9:9, Jesus' followers hope he will be their political and spiritual liberator, a king (like David) ruling in God's name over God's people. Jesus plays into this assumption to some extent through his instructions to the disciples to go into the village and bring back a colt because "the Lord has need of it." While Zechariah 9:9 and 14:1 are referenced directly in Matthew and John's account of this event, the author of Mark assumes the reader will pick up on these messianic associations. This distinction is significant, because Mark is the Gospel in which Jesus keeps his Messiahship a secret from the general populace. Consequently, it would be out of character for Jesus to explicitly advertise his Lordship in chapter 11. Thus, it is only Jesus' immediate followers who spread their garments and leafy palms on the road and accompany Jesus, crying "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed be the kingdom of our father David that is coming! Hosanna in the highest!" Verses 1-10 offer the events we celebrate on Palm Sunday. Verse 11, in contrast, seems both an anomaly and an anticlimax. Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, enters the Temple, has a look around -- and then, taking his disciples with him, he leaves Jerusalem for Bethany.
Despite that fact that Jesus' identity as Messiah and final confrontation with the Jewish religious leaders is postponed, both the declaration that Jesus is the one "who comes in the name of the Lord" and the anticipation that "the kingdom of our father David" will be reinstated reveal the hopes and dreams of Jesus' followers. Palm Sunday celebrates the hopes of Jesus' disciples and sharpens the contrast between those worldly ambitions and the harsh messianic reality of rejection, suffering, and death that lie ahead in Mark 14:1--15:47. The hopes of Palm Sunday are those of the disciples, not of Jesus. They want freedom from foreign rule and oppression by Rome. They want freedom from corrupt, colluding rulers like Herod. They want freedom from hunger, disease, and poverty -- foes which Jesus the miracle worker has already proven he can overcome. They want freedom from the strictures and censorship of the Pharisees and Sadducees, who tell them they are unclean and unworthy of God's attention and care. Who will carry the burden of the disciples' hopes and dreams? Jesus will carry that load, but the way he will carry it and the way he will later invite them to share this burden, post-resurrection, transforms their earthly dreams and ambitions into something far greater and more selfless.
There's a lot of material between Mark 11:1 and the beginning of the end for Jesus as recounted in Mark 14:1--15:47. The question "Who will carry the load?" can be asked at many points along the way. Who will carry the load for sinners like the woman who anoints Jesus' body with oil? Who will carry the load at the Last Supper when what is at stake means life or death? Who will carry the load when the one who bears it needs companionship in the garden of Gethsemane? Who will carry the load when the cross is too heavy for the beaten and half-dead Jesus to carry it all the way to Golgotha? Who will carry the load when the one who was to carry it dies?
THE WORLD
The first time I ever drove my five-year-old stepson to his Montessori school, he said to me as we passed the local chicken plant that "[name removed] hires illegal aliens." Since he had been privy to many dinner-table discussions about justice and exploitation, such a precocious conversation topic was not unusual for him. While he didn't cognitively "get" all of the ramifications, he did understand that illegal aliens were often overworked, underpaid, and badly treated. It was another eight years before the federal government called this particular employer to task for hiring illegal aliens and threatened to jail the local factory executives and fine the company. The way these events were recounted in the local newspaper was laughable, because the charges were treated as if it was "news" to the citizens of Wilkes County. Obviously it wasn't -- preschool children, children, teenagers, and adults all had known about it for years.
The debate over how to deal with illegal aliens living and working in the United States has not only been at the forefront of the news in recent weeks; it has been an ongoing concern for years. Native-born Americans have been divided in their views. Should all illegal aliens be arrested and deported? Should helping organizations like the church be criminalized if we assist illegal aliens? Should a huge, insurmountable wall be built between Mexico and the American states that share its border, in order to prevent the further influx of illegal aliens into our country and workforce? Should all illegal aliens currently living in the United States be given legal status? In a nation where almost all of us can trace our family origins back to some other continent and country, why are we even debating this question?
As the peaceful protest marches of the past week have demonstrated, our national values of free speech and the right to assemble are being put to good use by legal citizens, newer Hispanic citizens, and their legal and illegal immigrant counterparts. Thousands marched in Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York to oppose Congress' consideration of stringent and severe new measures against illegal aliens currently living in the United States. Moreover, these well-organized, nonviolent marches demonstrate the participants' shared desire to have their presence and contributions to American life recognized and legitimized.
With the division between the U.S. House and Senate over new national immigration legislation this past week, there are many excellent resources available in newspapers, on broadcast media (radio and television), and online to help you explore the question "Who will carry the load?" The immediate homiletical "load" concerns the assimilation or ejection of illegal immigrants. The point is hardly moot. The New York Times reports that census data shows that in 1970 there were 9.6 million Hispanic immigrants to the United States. Between 1999 and 2000 the number jumped from 19.8 million to 31.1 million, with an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants here illegally in 2006.
Concerns expressed by various American citizens include:
1) Fear that American citizens in need of jobs remain unemployed because illegal Hispanic laborers can be paid much less, allowing companies to earn much greater profits.
2) Fear that the machismo culture of Hispanic families threatens the progress American women have made politically, economically, and personally thanks to the women's movement and civil rights legislation.
3) Fear that the Catholic faith of the majority of Hispanic immigrants poses a threat to the primary place Protestantism holds in the United States.
4) Fear that their rapidly growing population due to legal and illegal immigration and high birth rates ultimately will alter the balance of power and political leadership currently held by Euro-American descendants.
These fears and issues have been encountered many times before in American history. The plantation fields of the South attained their riches through the blood and sweat of slave labor captured and imported from Africa. The great transatlantic railroad was built primarily with male laborers from Asia who were not allowed to bring their wives and children with them to the United States. The Irish in New York City that slaved away in factories or as house servants were despised and viewed as hardly human by other Americans who traced their ancestry back to England or Scotland. Each new population in turn was economically exploited for the comfort and prosperity of those whose claims to citizenship predated their own, if not by centuries, at least by generations. Thus, our nation has a history of semi-welcoming new immigrant populations so long as they are willing to carry the hard-labor load and make our own lives more comfortable and affordable.
CRAFTING THE MESSAGE
It has never been easy for immigrants to assimilate. Learning a new language, building a community, and adapting to a new culture are extremely difficult. The first generation rarely adapts fully to the new land, but their children and grandchildren often become indistinguishable from their peers who can trace their origins back to the Puritans, the Dutch, or the Conquistadors. Though current American citizens have had to adapt somewhat to the large influx of Latino people living in our midst, the majority of adjusting has fallen to them. English is a second language incomprehensible to some. Weather conditions and temperatures vary considerably from what many experienced in their homeland. Resentment and hostility, not welcome and hospitality, are often expressed toward them. Keeping these difficulties in mind, one might ask, "Who is to carry the load when it comes to assimilation into American culture?" Is it entirely up to the immigrating peoples to learn English and adapt to our way of life? Are American Christians called upon to share this load and meet our new residents partway?
In order to make the point that almost all of us were once immigrants, it might be instructive to begin this Sunday's sermon with a poll of the congregation: Have anyone with ancestors who were native American raise their hands. Then have those whose ancestors came from England, Scotland, Ireland, Africa, the Middle East, western Europe, eastern Europe, Asia, Australia, and so on, raise their hands. Why did our progenitors come here? It was for the same reason immigrants come today. Rich people, landed people, powerful people rarely leave their native lands. It is those unfairly burdened with a lack of land, a lack of opportunity, and a lack or life's essentials who immigrate.
The followers of Jesus want a Messiah who will carry the load for them. They want a Messiah who will free them from their lives at the periphery of religious and political life in their native land. They want a Messiah who will free them and their country from Roman domination. They want a Messiah who will improve their quality of life so they no longer bear the burdens of poverty, economic uncertainty, and hard times. One might in fact say that what Jesus' first-century disciples want isn't all that different from what Cuban, Vietnamese, Lebanese, Mexican, or Guatemalan immigrants seek in the United States today. The distinction comes in terms of load-bearing. Whereas Jesus' disciples want him to transform their world for them, the majority of American immigrants (legal and illegal) come willing to carry the bulk of the load themselves.
Who will carry the load? As Christians we are used to viewing Jesus as the one who carries the load on our behalf. Jesus is the one stooped from the weight and pain of our terrible sinfulness. Jesus is the one who stumbles and falls under the burden of the cross that will lead to our redemption. Jesus will carry the load from the house of Simon the leper, into the Temple grounds, before the chief priests and scribes, in front of Pilate, and on the road to Golgotha. Jesus carries our load.
We who call ourselves "Christians" -- Christ's followers -- are called upon to share the load that Jesus once carried alone. We are not called upon to carry it by ourselves, but we are called upon to share it. We are not called upon to carry the load alone, as Simon of Cyrene was once conscripted by Roman soldiers to carry the cross; we are called upon to share the load with each other. In this way no one Christian, no one individual, is asked to carry the burden alone. Thus, in dealing with the question of immigration in the United States today, we as Christians are called upon to share the burdens of American citizenship and its opportunities with new alien residents in our land.
How do we do this? First, by recognizing that the hopes and dreams they hold for their lives and the lives of their children are no different from the hopes and dreams we hold for our own. Second, by valuing the contributions they make to the quality of life of all Americans by their hard work. Third, by not colluding in their exploitation, by offering substandard wages ourselves or by maintaining a blind eye to employers and companies who do. Fourth, by making an effort to learn at least a little of their language rather than expecting them to master every syllable of ours, so we at least may be able to say, "Hello, how are you?" when we encounter one another in the post office or at the grocery store. Fifth, by continuing to support -- or starting to support -- local and denominational efforts to provide ministers and worship space for Hispanic churches. Sixth, by praying with and for them and their families, and asking them to pray for ours as well. Seventh, by praying and working toward a day when there will be no more "them" and "me," but only an "us" of U.S. citizens. (Resources to help you and your congregation can be found easily on the web. Steve McCutchan pointed me to one of the best: the Interfaith Worker Justice site at www.iwj.org. This site succinctly explains the various issues at stake relating to proposed legislation in Congress. It lists concrete, practical ways you and I can support humane U.S. Immigration Law reform. It also provides a bulletin insert that offers a scriptural litany reminding us that God has always championed "the orphan, the widow, and the alien," and calls upon the faithful to make sure their needs are met.)
God understood that no one human being could bear the burden of sin and hopelessness. God understood it would take divine intervention, incarnation in fact, to take on the burden of human suffering and defeat. In so doing, God understood that we can't carry the load alone. We can carry it together, so long as Christ is with us to share the burden and we are willing to share its blessings.
 WORSHIP RESOURCES
by Thom M. Shuman
Call To Worship
Leader: We are here to prepare ourselves for this holiest of weeks:
People: a week of journey, of betrayal;
a week of pain, of hope hidden in hearts.
Leader: We come to follow Jesus through this week, for he is the Word who sustains us.
People: We wave our palm branches in joy;
we run with the children to welcome him into our hearts.
Leader: He comes, not in power and majesty, but simply, humbly, giving himself for us.
People: Hosanna! Hosanna!
Blessed is the One who brings us the kingdom of God.
Prayer Of The Day
Creator God:
you give us days filled with parades, bands, and balloons;
you walk with us through days when we are overwhelmed
with pain, with doubt, with heartache.
We would empty ourselves so we could make room for you in our hearts.
Rider of Humility:
trusting God,
you offer your life so we may no longer fear death;
loving God,
you challenge the powers of the world;
following God,
you reveal faithfulness to us.
We would empty ourselves so we could make room for you in our hearts.
Wisdom's Tongue:
you come to us with arms full of joy, spreading it in our path;
you take us by the hand, to walk with us through this week.
We would empty ourselves so we could make room for you in our hearts.
God in Community, Holy in One,
we open our hearts to you,
as we pray as Jesus has taught us, saying,
Our Father . . .
Call To Reconciliation
Where do we hide our palm branches when the parade is over?
When do our hosannas become cries for punishment?
How do we, like those before us, turn our backs on the One
who comes to us in the name of the Lord?
As we begin Holy Week, let us admit what is true about us,
as we pray together, saying . . .
(Unison) Prayer Of Confession
Steadfast Lover:
when things go well for us, we can easily sing a chorus of hosannas;
but the words turn to ashes in mouths full of anger and bitterness.
We hide behind our palm branches,
hoping you will not see the doubts we have about what you call us to do.
We eagerly feast on your blessings,
but are reluctant to even offer crumbs to those around us.
Forgive us, Approaching God.
Now, more than ever, forgive us.
May we be as eager to lay down our fears and doubts, our sins and pride,
as we are to lay down our coats for you.
May we praise you for your victory over death,
as well as for the promise of resurrection to new life,
the promise given to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
(silent prayers may be offered)
Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: At his birth, Jesus comes bringing us hope.
Entering Jerusalem, he brings us assurance.
Walking to Calvary, he leads us to new life.
All this was for us --
so we could bend our knees before God in humility and praise.
God's steadfast love endures forever.
People: Hosanna! Hosanna!
Blessed is the One who brings us the kingdom of God! Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Pray as Jesus did
Object: none
Based on Mark 14:1--15:47
Good morning! How often do you pray? Do you pray before meals? (let them answer) Do you pray before you go to sleep at night? (let them answer) Do you think it is good to say prayers? (let them answer) Will somebody tell me about the last prayer that you prayed? Tell me what you said to God in that prayer. (let a volunteer talk about his/her prayer)
There is one thing about prayer that we all need to know. Jesus taught us something very important when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he died. At that time, he knew that he was going to suffer and die the next day. Do you think he was looking forward to that? (let them answer) No, he certainly wasn't. In fact, in his prayer he asked God if there was any way he could avoid dying like that; he would certainly like not to have to do it. But, and this is the important part, he also said to God, "... not what I want, but what you want." In other words, he asked God to save him from that awful death, but he also said that he understood that what God wanted was more important than what he wanted.
God didn't save him, because it was important for all of us that Jesus die on that cross. In order for you and me to be saved, Jesus had to die. Did Jesus go ahead and do what God wanted him to do? (let them answer) Yes, he did. Let's thank Jesus for being willing to do what God wanted instead of what he wanted.
Dear Lord Jesus: We are so glad that you were willing to do what God wanted so that all of us could be saved. Help us to pray the way you prayed, asking God for whatever we want, but always adding that what God wants is more important than what we want. Amen.
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The Immediate Word, April 9, 2006, issue.
Copyright 2006 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804. |
