What’s driving continuous waves of migrates at our southern border – what’s the motivator, the power, or the physical dynamics pushing this serge…
…it is NOT US policy (Title 42 or otherwise),
…it is NOT Republicans or Democrats,
…it is NOT criminal import/export of drugs/weapons/sex trafficked (these are capitalizing on the serge),
…it is NOT a covert effort to skew voting populations one way or another,
…it is NOT lazy foreigners trying to get free stuff.
What’s driving continuous waves of migrates at our southern border…
…it is desperation, hunger, fear, and crisis fueled peoples “yearning to breathe free” – I pray that our nation that has so much wealth, capabilities, and resources will get over our layers of self-induced misinformation and noise…
…to see the people,
…to see the children,
…to see the families,
…to see the humans who are so tired, poor, abused, unhoused, and threatened – they are scratching and crawling forward for any chance for freedom, safety, liberty, or a flicker of hope for basic human rights – their effort, in the face of their plight is so much more than what many of us will ever do for ourselves for so much less – seriously, who are we to turn our backs on them?
Yes! Of course, there are smugglers, criminals, drugs, weapons, and sex traffickers laced in this humanitarian crisis – we should not be appalled – we all know every aspect of our fat and happy nation is dripping with crime, corruption, and abuse of wealth/resources – just look at both major political parties (at the local-state-federal levels), industry, insider financial investing/markets, profit margins, govt contracting, etc., etc. – we cannot deny our nation has always been rich with wicked vines ripe with motives that fuel the criminal behavior we claim migrates are bringing.
Let’s be honest with ourselves, as we rage against these migrates – not all, but most of us were born here with a free ticket for most every American ride – and to be very clear, most of my readers are pretty well off – meaning, we’ve worked – we’ve built a life – we’ve paid our dues – but we paid at a rate of citizenship status in a nation which automatically provided a position, economy, and condition custom built for our flavor of existence (how very lucky for us) – one might even say, we got a ‘discount rate’ compared to what most of the world has to do to get where we are today.
Now don’t freak out – don’t get emotional – remember, all we had to do was be born here – most of us did not have to: walk thousands of miles with our lives/children on our backs – go hungry for days, or weeks – experience sustained threats against our lives, and the lives of our families – flee to avoid abuse, unemployment, corruption, kidnapping, gang violence, etc – leave our families, friends and homes behind – endure harsh continuous months/years of physical, emotional, and psychological suffering – to say the least.
I don’t make this point to deny any of us the existence we’ve carved out – good on us for making a place for ourselves and our families in this world (Hooray!) – I make the point because the two playing fields (us verses the migrants) are so horrifically different, unlevel, contrasting that it begs for us to have some degree of compassion – maybe provide a little care – or allow a bit of unearned grace – perhaps pitch in anything to help…
Which reminds me… isn’t that what our well-funded affluent religions teach us?
Take care America, as our panicked efforts to restrict, inhibit, withhold the luxuries and amenities of this great land come to a head in the face of a humanitarian crisis – because the world is watching – the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” are watching – the “have nots” are watching – God is watching.
Who are we to be so tightfisted with so much that we did not (really) earn?
This is not a political issue…
This is a human issue.
Kevin's Thoughts 
Great post.
I couldn’t help but recall this famous dialog from the past:
John: Are those real diamonds Claire?
Claire: Shut up.
John: I bet they are. Did you work for the money for those earrings?
Claire: Shut your mouth.
John: Or did your daddy buy those for you?
Claire: [shouts] SHUT UP!
John: I’ll bet he bought those for you. I bet those were a Christmas gift. Right? You know what I got for Christmas?
My grandparents stormed the beaches at Normandy and didn’t stop resetting the clock and the bank balance until they had dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. My grandparents who grew up with feet of clay in the Great Depression, put a deposit down on American prosperity that has lasted for almost five generations. But honestly, we began digging into our line of credit a couple generations back. The credit rating is still good on paper, but it takes blood, American blood, to deposit enough to get us flush again.
We are all heirs of those diamond earrings. None of us alive today worked for the money for our earrings. But we prance around like self-made people in the land of opportunity, teasing the rest of the world with our blessings and then not sharing them.
Yes, there are smugglers and criminals. Yes, we have that problem home-grown too. We are not really any better than the desperate people trying to overwhelm the natives. Oh, wait. That was us!
WWJD???
For SOME of us, that question (or some questions very much like that) is the real path to a true answer.
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Kevin, the following remarks are copied from a comment I left in a discussion over at Fat Beggars. After publishing them, I couldn’t help but think how they also address today’s headlines, at least for a church consumption.
Probably this is overkill, but I figured I would share with you and your readers too.
Here’s the comment:
RC: CHAPTER 4 (ORGANIZATION & GUIDANCE) | Fat Beggars School of Prophets (wordpress.com)
Agent X · Just now
Okay, I’ve let this post rock along a few days now, and it seems the discussion has come to a stop. Perhaps I am only discussing with myself at this point, but maybe, maybe, maybe someone else is peeking in here (or will eventually), and further discussion by me might connect somewhere meaningfully for some future analysis.
No?
Well, let’s put this message in a bottle and float it out there. It was in God’s hands already when I got here; I may as well trust it still is now and will be later too.
So…
I wrote an unpublished book (still in progress anyway) about God’s Hospitality. By studying hospitality biblically, I found it everywhere in the Bible!
Now… that is one of those things that really could just be my imagination. Right? Yes. I could be having a major case of confirmation biasitis. That is entirely possible. But you know what? It’s also possible you and everyone else reading here are having your own bias blinding you from seeing what I have seen there.
I mean, if N.T. Wright finds EMPIRE under every biblical rock, then everyone and their dog sees it too, but if Richard Horsley saw it first AND taught Wright to see it, then no one noticed it when Horsley pointed it out, but it doesn’t mean Horsley was just seeing his own desired conclusions there.
Well, it doesn’t mean a lot of things, really. But it does at least punch a hole in the wall that separates me and my conclusions from your acceptance. I really could be right, and since I find it all IN THE BIBLE, it is worth your consideration.
Okay, enough of THAT.
Let me connect some of that biblical hospitality to Highfield’s assertions, because I think if we visit this juncture in the paths being explored carefully, we will find a lot more steam for both Highfield’s assertions and praxis AND for mine too which will surely prove far more satisfying to those wishing to be in THE CHURCH.
Where to start… hmmm…
Let’s start with the first adam and the last – Jesus.
God creates a world for the adam and places him in the garden. Adam was provided earth-making hospitality by God in the beginning. Food was provided, there was water, and everything was good.
All that may seem a little too simple, but let it sit there on the stage as a backdrop for now and see if it doesn’t resonate as a picture of hospitality by the end of the drama.
Meanwhile, God shapes the man of the dirt and blows his Spirit into the man’s nostrils. We have a sort of overlapping hospitality – or hospitality dancing with hospitality. God’s own spirit takes up residence in the adam.
Fastforward to the birth of Jesus, the last adam, the man in whom God’s Spirit dwells perfectly. He comes into the world welcomed by a young virgin risking herself to be his temple during gestation, but the world outside has literally no room at the inn. The last adam, the One given dominion and rule over all creation, is afforded the scraps of hospitality upon his birth in the creation HE made and in which he hosts the adam(s). He gets a feed trough to sleep in!
Now… let me get all technical for a quick sec. It turns out the biblical GREEK word(s) from which we get our word “hospitality” is PHILOXENIA. If we break it down in English parts, the word would translate as “friend/lover of strangers” or something very close to that.
Jesus, the last adam, comes into his world as a Stranger. And the friendship/love you show him, if you show it at all, is the opening of your home (the personal space in which you live your life) to him. Closing Jesus out of that space is inhospitable. It is unloving/unfriendly.
If those people in Bethlehem had known exactly WHO it was being born in their midst, they would have welcomed him with far more love than their scraps – or the amenities of animals. If the people of Bethlehem had known what the astrologers from the east, normally called magi, had known, they would have spared no expense hosting him and giving him their best gifts. But, it turns out, God is a Stranger to his own people, and he has been at least since he stopped by Abe and Sarah’s place in Genesis 18, where these nice people hosted the Angels unaware.
So, it turns out that to truly LOVE God, you gotta host strangers! How can you love God and hate your brother who you can see? On the road to Emmaus, the downtrodden disciples meet a Stranger they don’t recognize, but when they host him at their place and break the bread with him, their eyes are opened, and they see HIM for WHO he really is!
Got all this?
We are covering a lot of Bible now and looking at hospitality specifically. But I have skipped A LOT just to simplify this.
We are now beginning to uncover a special Bible phenom related to hospitality which is the apocalypse of hospitality – the revelation of God. Be sure to show hospitality to strangers, says the writer of Hebrews, for some have entertained angels unaware. And that’s right. That is exactly what happened to Abe and Sarah! It happened at Emmaus too, except that in that case the Last Adam chose to open their eyes and reveal himself, and THAT has more case study in the Bible than the other way.
Going back to the book of Exodus, Moe takes the elders up on the mountain and they eat with and see God there! In the book of Judges, Manoah and his wife host God in their home and at first don’t realize what they’ve done, but when God is revealed to them, Manoah freaks out because he knows that rule in the Bible about how no one sees God and lives!
So, let’s take stock of how much Bible we’ve covered here so far in this quick survey of biblical hospitality: Genesis, Exodus, Judges, Luke, Hebrews… and we are skipping over a lot still.
So, Jesus begins sending out his apostles and/or disciples on mission – the 12 and/or the 72, depending on which gospel account you are looking at. They are going to proclaim his gospel message of repentance for the kingdom of God is near, perhaps heal a few people, and cast out some demons. These preachers are ready to go, but Jesus suddenly stops their preparations saying, TAKE NOTHING WITH YOU, NO MONEY, NO BAGGAGE, NO extras, but rather when you get to a village stay with the people who welcome you and eat what they provide.
Hmmm…
Seek the hospitality of those to whom you are sent!
This salvation I am sending you to preach will be revealed IN THE BREAKING OF BREAD IN THE HOMES OF THOSE WHO HOST YOU.
Are you still with me?
This gathering/assembly at the table in the home of the people to whom I send you is where the salvation of God is going to be revealed and where it is going to take root and connect. APOCALYPSE.
Let’s go loop Acts into this now. How many synagogues host the message of Jesus? Some, maybe. Most not so much. But how many gentile HOMES host the missionaries of Jesus and accept the revelation that unfolds there?
LOTS of them.
I have now taken you on a short blast through a LOT of Bible where we find house church being the stage upon which the world is changed. Not some megachurch building complex, but people’s personal homes where they and their families reside, where they risk hospitality with STRANGERS who are also angels (messengers from God) and where they then SEE GOD, because they have loved him as God loves them.
NOW, let’s talk about a biblical pattern for church. Now let’s listen to Highfield strip away so much pretense and find a rich juncture between these ideas.
Someone please talk to me NOW.
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