American sailor Joshua Aviles is stationed on the USS Lincoln – the ship that has broken the record for longest time at sea, with a crew that has been deployed for over 9 months in service to our country. It is there that Aviles received the information that his father Luis Manuel Aviles was arrested by ICE. Luis has a job and a social security card, pays taxes, and is in the process of getting his Green Card. He was running errands when he was taken into custody during a racially targeted traffic stop in Florida.
In July, ICE arrested nearly 50,000 people. That is roughly 1,600 arrests every single day of the month. These are not criminals or violent offenders. They are just immigrants trying to make a life worth living here in our country. They are targeted based on their skin color and accents. Our Supreme Court has said that is fine. When one of them is killed, nothing happens. Families are systematically and routinely separated. Detained children are given court dates without parental involvement or counsel. This is happening every day in our country.
Do you believe in Jesus?
I do.
Maybe that seems like a non sequitur. It is not. Every single thing I said/wrote above has implications for those of us who call ourselves Christian. We claim to follow a man who himself was an immigrant and refugee, someone who was targeted by the state, whose arrest and inhumane treatment was considered legal, whose death had zero ramifications for those who were responsible. If we believe in Jesus it should shape the way we understand what is happening to our immigrant siblings today.
Maybe. But should I be talking about this? I’m a priest. Should this be what we talk about in our religious conversations? Shouldn’t I stick to prayer and personal spirituality? Shouldn’t I stay in my lane?
My lane is Jesus. And when Jesus spoke, he spoke consistently and routinely about how we treat others. His prayers were that people be cared for, that they would be tended to, that they would have enough, that they would see each other as belonging.
Remember, don’t ever forget – ever – that Jesus told a story about a final judgment of humans and the whole thing came down to how they treated each other: I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me, Jesus said – and when the people said, when did we ever do any of those things for you, he said, “Just as you did it for the least of my siblings, you did it for me.” And then he turned to others and said you did none of these things for me, none of them. Because you did not do them for others.
That’s Jesus.
So we should talk about the people our country is terrorizing and arresting.
And we should be mad about it. We should be angry.
It is important to allow anger to be a part of our experience of this world. It is a dirty lie that if you are faithful enough you will never be angry. Who was more faithful than Jesus? And he got angry. Our Scriptures tell us that there is no one more faithful than God. And God gets angry. When does God get angry? When we who claim to work in God’s name harm and exploit others, are indifferent to or complicit in the harm of others. “I hate, I despise your festivals,” God says, “and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies – but let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!”
Indifference to human suffering is a rejection of Jesus himself. Anger is sometimes a righteous response.
How do I know my anger is righteous, and not just a justification for my own prejudices?
That is an ongoing question and not easily or perfectly answerable. I am reminded of Anne Lamott’s words that if God hates all the same people I hate, it’s likely I’m making God in my own image. I’m also reminded that, while I am connected to God, I am not God. So much damage has been done in this world in God’s name. So much human hatred has been misattributed as divine anger. So many of my own Christian siblings are directly responsible for and supportive of the dehumanizing campaign of terror that is being waged against the immigrants in our country.
So we do have to be careful with our anger, careful in what we ascribe to God and what we acknowledge belongs just to us.
But I do want to say this: Even as I do not know perfectly what of my anger is of God and what is my own, I do know that I am angry. And whether the anger I feel is divinely justified or not – my experience of anger should cause me to pause and reflect: Why am I angry? No, but what about what is happening angers me so? Anger is a lot of things, but one of the things it is is an invitation into discernment about what really matters to me, where my heart is. It is also an invitation to explore what I’m afraid of, what I’m worried about, what lies beneath the initial and powerful rush of feelings.
I have to admit, I’m not just angry for the sake of the millions of people being terrorized by our government right now: I realize that I’m angry because I’m scared about what this all says about us, about our story, about our character. I’m angry at least a little because I’m scared of what it says about me. About my comfort and my complicity in this system. After all, what have I done to stop it? And what can I do? Can I make a difference? Shall I just swap complicit indifference for overwhelmed impotence?
It is very possible that what I am going to say next will seem lame and ineffectual. So let me just name that first. I’m going with my church on a pilgrimage to the Border of the US and Mexico. I understand that this is not an act of protest or a radical wrench in the evil system. I know that this is not something that will change the world. But I believe it will change me. I believe it will help me see Christ more fully in people and places I have all too easily ignored. And I don’t believe that that is nothing.
I do not know what it will lead me to do. I do know that if all it leads me to do is feel big feelings, it won’t be enough. If action does not follow, I have not been transformed.
One of the most well-known lines from the book of Isaiah goes like this: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
This is often quoted as a way of saying that we cannot understand God because God’s thoughts and ways are not like ours – so it must be a mystery! But we only treat the text that way because we ignore what comes right after it. Isaiah immediately goes on to speak in God’s voice saying, “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
Isaiah isn’t saying God is so different from us that we can’t possibly understand what God wants: Isaiah is saying that God is so different from us because God’s words take root and cause results. God is different from us because God’s words aren’t just pretty – they are effectual. The word that leaves my mouth will not return empty. It will accomplish something. It will succeed. God’s words lead to action. God’s words bring life and love, abundance and mercy.
It is not enough for me to be angry. It is not enough for me to visit a place of the sacred sojourn of my immigrant siblings. My anger will only be righteous when it stirs me to act wholeheartedly for the love and justice for which God made me – for which God made the whole world.
