Progressive Christian Social Action

Parkside Church in Sacramento

Love the Immigrant as Yourself

“you shall love the immigrant as yourself…” Leviticus 19: 34

As tears flow around the country and world for immigrant children who have been separated and incarcerated by the Trump Administration, support for the president’s harsh policies among white Evangelicals continues. Even politicians and TV news anchors are visibly moved by the plight of these children and their parents, while Attorney General Jeff Sessions quotes scripture to justify these cruel immigration policies.

As a follower of Jesus, I am appalled by the deliberate distortion of scripture to justify policies that are antithetical to the love of God and neighbor.  The Bible is consistent in calling for mercy and justice for the most vulnerable people, characterized in biblical times as widows, orphans, and immigrants.  Yet the United States is enacting cruel immigration policies that violate international law.  By separating children from their parents, incarcerating them, and deporting their parents, our country has essentially left these children orphaned, many of whom may never be reunited with their families.

Consider this:  According to the infancy narrative in Matthew, the Holy Family fled into Egypt as migrants seeking safety from King Herod (Matthew 2:13-15).  How would that story have turned out if the baby Jesus had been separated from Mary and Joseph at the border?

Jesus was descended from immigrants, including Ruth (Matthew 1:5), a widow who immigrated to Israel with her (also widowed) mother-in-law Naomi.  They survived by gleaning before Ruth and Boaz married.  They were able to survive because the laws of Israel required that after the harvest landowners had to leave some the grain in the fields and grapes on the vine for immigrants and the poor (Leviticus 19:9-10).  How would the story have turned out if Ruth and Naomi had been imprisoned or deported instead?

When Jeff Sessions quotes Romans 13:1 (“Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities”) to call for us all to submit to the Trump Administration’s cruel immigration policies, he is ignoring the overall “scope and tenor” of scripture, which is mercy, justice, and love. Sessions has left out the clarifying passage in Romans 13:10 that “love is the fulfillment of the law.”

More than 600 United Methodists recently brought charges in the church against Mr. Sessions (a United Methodist) for violating church principles on child abuse, immorality, racial discrimination, and “dissemination of doctrines” contrary to those of the United Methodist Church. I am happy to support their action, regardless of how it turns out.

Many people are familiar with Jesus’ teaching to “Love your neighbor as yourself,” but not everyone realizes that Jesus was quoting those words in Leviticus 19:18, and that what follows in Leviticus 19:33-34 is a command to “love the immigrant as yourself.” Here is the full passage:

“When an immigrant resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the immigrant.  The immigrant who resides with you shall be as the citizen among you; you shall love the immigrant as yourself, for you were immigrants in the land of Egypt:  I am the Lord your God.”

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”  “Love the immigrant as yourself.” “Love is the fulfillment of the law.

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