Jesus, Power & Migrants

Migrant Caravan

The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin (Psalm 146:9 nrsv).

Like many I have been watching America’s leaders freak out over the “threat” of migrants seeking asylum in the US; a country that is, in fact, dominated by migrants. And worse, the most outspoken against them, besides the president and his soulless GOP caravan, has been Christians and Christian leaders. This reminded me that if we are going to follow Jesus we should be extra careful not to follow the powerful especially given that power and affluence so often becomes its own condition of pathology. And, we tend to forget that this stands against the God revealed in the Bible because God always lives on the side of the dispossessed. Consider this:

• ·         In the Genesis narrative, God goes with Adam and Eve out of Eden and into exile.
• ·         Later God partners with Abraham by calling him to be an expat (though he was most probably one of the many already disinherited i.e. Habiru).  
• ·         God calls Moses away from Pharaoh’s security.
• ·         God establishes laws among Israel that created fidelity and a neighborly economy against the surrounding predatory economies (see Sinai Covenant and Leviticus).
• ·         After not listening to God and subsequently being overthrown by Syrian and Babylonian empires, God goes with Israel back into exile (see the exilic prophets).
• ·         Then the picture of God culminates with Jesus. Jesus arrives during a time when Israel’s exile has become subject to Hasmonean Dynasties and Roman occupation. But he does not cozy up to religious or political power, but lives among the homeless on the margins making the last and least the first who get to inherit God’s Kingdom. Then Jesus dies the death of one leading an insurrection against power.

Red Sea Migrant Caravan

The point is that God makes home and shalom with those who know they cannot make and name themselves. In God we have identity, we have origin, but apart from God we are left to try to know ourselves as our own origin and thus interpret ourselves in a way that steals and redefines God’s likeness as creator and judge without ever mirroring God at all. But Jesus is the icon of God and the one who reclaims our origin and identity in God’s likeness, but he is NOT found among the powerful. He, once again, is among the hungry, the thirsty, the migrant, the naked, the sick and the prisoner (Matt. 25:35-40).

If you are a Christian, then Jesus is the one you follow. Therefore our participation in politics (if at all) should always be towards bettering the situation of those for which power notoriously shits on. But, woe to you who oppose asylum seekers, and woe to the nationalists who protect myths of security and greatness; who promote “me first” slogans and make their own name great. It is another false image that will go the way of every major has-been empire, and in the mean time you only set yourself against God.