Author: Bruce Ray

Superior/Inferior

~ Bruce Ray ~ Leave a comment

From Pastor Ray’s sermon from the Second Sunday of Lent, March 12, 2017

It’s St. Patrick’s Day Week!  Yesterday, we turned the Chicago River Green and today there will be a big parade on the south side with lots of Irish dancing and lots of Irish drinking.  And on Friday, March 17, we’ll all officially be Irish for a day (because secretly we all wish we had been born Irish.)

My, how times have changed.  Back in the late 1800’s, being Irish was not high on anyone’s wish list—at least not being Irish in the United States.  As people from Ireland immigrated to the U.S., they were met with discrimination and racism.  Yes, racism.  Though they were white-skinned, they were considered an “inferior race.”  Cartoonists of the day depicted Irish as apes—evolutionary links just one step above the animal kingdom.  They were stereotyped as violent alcoholics by nature. The Irish were detestable to most Americans and they were treated with disdain and contempt.  Employment ads often ended with the statement, “No Irish Need Apply.” Irish immigrants were blamed for all of America’s social ills.  The Chicago Post wrote in the late 1800’s:  “The Irish fill our prisons, our poor houses…Scratch a convict or a pauper, and the chances are that you tickle the skin of an Irish Catholic. Putting them on a boat and sending them home would end crime in this country.”

Being Irish doesn’t sound like an honor.  But the Irish weren’t the only ones who were vilified.  The Chinese came to the U.S. as laborers to support the building of the Continental Railroad.  But most people were suspicious of them because of their appearance and culture. Soon, white Americans complained that there were too many of them.  They were taking jobs away from Americans.  They were a threat to the purity of the white race.  So in 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act.  It prohibited Chinese immigration for 10 years.  It was the first immigration ban based on ethnicity.  It was renewed in 1892, and became permanent in 1902.  The ban was not lifted until 1943!  Imagine being Chinese in the U.S. during those 61 years!

At the core of the Chinese ban and calls for Irish deportation was the desire to maintain white racial and cultural superiority. For over 500 years, white Europeans had the power of wealth and weapons to define their superiority and determine the destiny of those they deemed inferior.  And when power is married to a religious mandate like Manifest Destiny, all actions against the inferior races and classes are justified as God’s will.  The United States ‘belonged’ to white people as a gift from God.  One need only look at the treatment of indigenous people and the enslavement of Africans to see the superior/inferior dynamic at work. “White” doesn’t make it right.

White America is not unique.  The superior/inferior dynamic can be found in almost every culture and is as old as the Bible.  In Exodus 46:34, we get a glimpse of Egyptian superiority.  “Shepherds were detestable to the Egyptians.”  Those immigrant Israelites who tended livestock were inferior and needed to be segregated in Goshen.  In Exodus 1, a new Pharaoh rises and taps into the racist and classist attitudes. The prosperity of the immigrant Israelites is a threat to national security, and the superior Egyptians determine to do something about the “Israelite problem.”  Thanks to their political power, the Pharaoh enacts public policy to contain the problem, limiting them to occupations of manual labor (the equivalent of slavery). When that didn’t work to contain them, the Pharaoh enacts a policy of population control through infanticide performed by Hebrew Midwives.  And when that didn’t work, Pharaoh authorized “his people” (either the general public or the military) to kill all the boy babies.  Superiority that is threatened always leads to identification, segregation, oppression, suppression, and attempts at annihilation. But God rises up and delivers the inferior Israelites from Egyptian superiority!

Will we always live out the superior/inferior dynamic?  Are we to be forever caught up in this cycle where power defines superiority, where superiority (by default) identifies inferiority and  where oppression is the outcome?  Is there a way out?    The answer is—‘YES!’  And ‘YES!’ is found in the Gospel.  The gospel of Jesus Christ breaks the cycle so that words like ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ no longer apply.  Christ is all and is in all.

Jesus’ gospel elevates the lowly.  As James writes, “Let the one in humble circumstances rejoice in her high position.” God chooses the weak things to shame the strong.  God chooses the foolish things to shame the wise.  God chooses the despised things and the things deemed worthless to bring down the things that are held up in high esteem. God exalts the humble.  God delivers the oppressed.  God seats the lowly among the princes.  God honors the poor.  God welcomes the outcast and sinner.  God provides for the fatherless and the widow.  God welcomes the alien and the stranger. God includes the outsider in God’s family.

But Jesus’ gospel brings down those who are supposedly superior.   As James writes, “Let the high-born rejoice in their humiliation.”  And as Paul writes to the ‘superior’ Romans, “Do not think more highly of yourself than you ought, but think with sober judgment.”  To think of oneself as superior is to live in a condition of drunkedness with impaired vision, responses, and perception. Superiority is an illusion. The gospel delivers the ‘superior’ from their self-importance.  God graciously opens their eyes to their emptiness.  God delivers them into Jesus where there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, neither white nor black nor brown, neither Mexican nor Chinese nor Mexican nor Irish, neither superior nor inferior.

So, do not accept the definition of “superior” or “valuable” or “better than.”  It is a false identity.  Only God is good.  And do not accept the definition of “inferior” or “worthless” or “less than.”  It too is a false identity—for God calls what God has made “good.”  Each person bears the stamp of God’s image, but no person is God.   God has brought us all to the foot of the Christ, where the ground is level, where each one is given grace, and where we all see yourselves as we truly are.

Sisters and brothers, in Christ we can no longer view one another from a human point of view and make judgment—superior or inferior—on the basis of human values and classifications.  Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.  Let the one who is “great” become the “least” and the servant.  Let us choose to see Jesus in each immigrant face.  Let us renounce the superior/inferior label so we can receive all those for whom Christ died.  Amen.

Rana Goes to Cairo

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Rana (not her real name) was born in the U.S. to Egyptian parents, making her a U.S. Citizen.  She is Muslim, but her faith is not obvious as she chooses not to wear a hijab, the traditional head covering.  She has many relatives in Egypt and grew up spending summer vacation with them. She continues to travel to Egypt regularly, but since 9/11, her experience has become nightmarish.

No matter where she is in the line at the airport security checkpoint, Rana is “randomly” selected by TSA and Homeland Security officers for closer scrutiny.  She is questioned about her travel.  Her bags are thoroughly searched.  She is patted down multiple times.  On several occasions, she has even been strip-searched.  Rana is convinced she is targeted, not randomly selected, because of her middle and last names–names associated with Islam–and because of her regular travel to Cairo.

Rana is never at ease arriving into or departing from the U.S.  Despite having a U.S. passport, she is treated as if the U.S. is not her home.  Rana recently married and would like to introduce her husband to her extended Egyptian family.  While Egypt is not listed in the Executive Order limiting travel from majority Muslim nations, Rana isn’t sure she wants to take the risk in these times of heightened suspicion and fear.

On this Sunday, feast on love of neighbor that refuses to presume malevolence or assign guilt and that instead delivers from fear.

Day 10 – Stranger Love

~ Bruce Ray ~ 1 Comment

Genesis 46:26-34

All the persons belonging to Jacob who came into Egypt, who were his own offspring, not including the wives of his sons, were sixty-six persons in all. The children of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two; all the persons of the house of Jacob who came into Egypt were seventy.

Israel [Jacob] sent Judah ahead to Joseph to lead the way before him into Goshen. When they came to the land of Goshen, Joseph made ready his chariot and went up to meet his father Israel in Goshen. He presented himself to him, fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. Israel said to Joseph, “I can die now, having seen for myself that you are still alive.” Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household, “I will go up and tell Pharaoh, and will say to him, ‘My brothers and my father’s household, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me. The men are shepherds, for they have been keepers of livestock; and they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have.’ When Pharaoh calls you, and says, ‘What is your occupation?’ you shall say, ‘Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our ancestors’—in order that you may settle in the land of Goshen, because all shepherds are abhorrent to the Egyptians.”

Did you catch that last line?  “Shepherds are abhorrent to the Egyptians.”  Beneath that phrase are long-standing and long-accepted beliefs about class and ethnicity.  Egyptians are superior.  Even though Jacob’s family was welcomed by Pharaoh, the immigrants were viewed as inferior by the general public due to their occupation and they were physically segregated. An undercurrent of suspicion and mistrust of the ethnic outsider existed within the culture that the next Pharaoh was able to exploit to oppress and enslave Jacob’s descendants.

White supremacy is REAL!  For at least the past 500+ years, white Western Europeans have assumed their superiority over all other people.  The results have been the genocide of indigenous tribes, the enslavement of Africans, the subjugation of people groups through expansionist foreign policy, and ethnic cleansing.  Not surprisingly then, white supremacy has also shaped immigration and naturalization policy in the U.S. over the past 225+ years.  Here are some highlights that reflect the white supremacy narrative:

The 1790 Naturalization Act allowed only free white persons of moral character who had resided in the U.S. for 2 years to become citizens.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first law that was specifically designed to ban immigration by a specific ethnic group.  Passage was motivated in part around concerns for maintaining white racial purity. It was not repealed until 1943.

The Immigration Act of 1917 was overwhelmingly approved despite the veto of President Woodrow Wilson.  Playing to nativist sentiments, the law expanded the immigration ban to include people within a specified longitudinal/latitudinal grid that included Afghanistan, the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, and the Polynesian Islands.

The Immigration Act of 1924 drastically cut the number of immigrants allowed into the country annually, curtailed immigration from southern and Eastern Europe and specifically prohibited anarchists, pacifists, members of “radical” labor unions, and homosexuals.

Maybe denying access to the United States is more “American” than we would like to believe.

Follow the entire history of immigration law HERE.

Questions for Reflection

What do you think motivates the creation of a narrative of superiority or inferiority?

Often feelings of superiority based on race or ethnicity are so engrained in us that we do not recognize it in our actions.  If you are white, how could you become more aware of your attitudes and actions based in supremacy or so you can change them?   If you are a person of color, how does the narrative of white supremacy shape your self-understanding and behavior?

Day 9 – Stranger Love

~ Bruce Ray ~ 4 Comments

Psalm 72:1-4

Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son.
May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.
May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness.
May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor. 

Psalm 72 is a coronation Psalm, likely read/sung/prayed at Solomon’s inauguration and at coronations of subsequent kings.  It is a prayer that asks God to endow the newly anointed political leader with justice (mishpat) and righteousness (zedekah), Hebrew terms that describe God’s desired state of affairs (mishpat) and being in full harmony with God’s will (zedekah).  As James Howell, pastor of Myers Park United Methodist Church in Charlotte, NC, observes: “the king is measured, not by hordes of chariots or the gold in the treasury, but by whether the cause of the poor was defended, whether the needy were delivered.”  1

The people pray for a ruler who will enact policies that will result in abundance for everyone–not just the few, and who will put into place protections for those who are vulnerable to abuse by those with power.  THIS is a ruler who shows (s)he possesses God’s justice and God’s righteousness.  Having this kind of political leader would indeed be like “refreshing showers that water the earth.”  Psalm 72:6

Questions For Reflection

In our opinion, who (besides Jesus) has come closest to embodying this kind of political leader?  What actions and/or policies did that person enact that match God’s justice and righteousness?

As citizens of a democracy that get to select our leaders, do you think we should use Psalm 72 to evaluate them as candidates?  Why or why not?

  1. James Howell’s commentary on Psalm 72

Day 8 – Stranger Love

~ Bruce Ray ~ 3 Comments

Psalm 82:1-4 (A Psalm of Asaph)

God presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the “gods”:
“How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?
Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

Many Biblical scholars identify the “gods” of this passage to be the political leaders of the people.  God is portrayed as the judge in the courtroom, ruling on how well the political leaders have performed their God-given duties.  They have failed miserably.  Instead of protecting, defending and rescuing those who are most vulnerable among the population (what God has charged them to do), they have sided with the “unjust and the wicked.”  While aliens and strangers (immigrants and refugees) are not specifically identified in the passage, they were often listed among those most at risk for being oppressed throughout God’s Law.

Questions for Reflection

If God were to take our national political leaders to court to determine their effectiveness in performing their God-given duties, especially in relationship to immigration law, how do you think they would measure up?

What might “upholding the cause of the oppressed” look like from a legislative perspective?

When was the last time you contacted your political leaders (representatives, senators, governor, and/or president) to hold them to account for their legislative actions toward the most vulnerable?  Find the contact information for all your legislative leaders HERE.

Day 7 – Stranger Love

~ Bruce Ray ~ 3 Comments

Exodus 23:9

“Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.”

As you may recall from Sunday school (if that was part of your childhood experience), Jacob’s family migrated to Egypt as environmental refugees due to a famine. There was food in Egypt (thanks to Joseph’s visionary leadership of the newly formed Department of Agriculture–it’s a long story). Though initially welcomed (Genesis 45:16-19), their  experience quickly turned following a change in political leadership, and Jacob’s descendants were marginalized and oppressed.  (See Exodus 1) After God delivered them from their oppression, God commanded them to use their marginalized experience as a guide in their treatment of immigrants and environmental refugees in their community.

The United States is often referred to as the “Nation of Immigrants”. Unless you are a member of an indigenous tribe or were a slave brought to this country against your will, your ancestors were immigrants or environmental refugees.  However, many people have forgotten or diminished their immigrant history and experience, leading them to use phrases like “my country” and advocate for stricter laws that marginalize and oppress new arrivals to the U.S.

Questions for Reflection

Were your ancestors immigrants? If so, why did they come to the U.S.? What stories did you hear about their experience? Were they accepted upon their arrival? What challenges did they face? What feelings might they have had?

When have you felt like a “foreigner”? Describe those feelings. What, if anything, helped to relieve those feelings?

How can you use your (or your family’s) migration experience to act more justly toward immigrants today?

For the Record

HUD Secretary Ben Carson’s statement that slaves were immigrants is totally inaccurate–yet another ‘alternative fact’.  Immigrants and environmental refugees move by choice or necessity.  African slaves were moved as human cargo without choice.

Day 6 – Stranger Love

~ Bruce Ray ~ 2 Comments

Isaiah 10:1-3

Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.
What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?

Yesterday, the president signed an Executive Order revising the travel restrictions that were struck down by the courts in January.  The new Executive Order removes the nation of Iraq from the list of 7 nations with restrictions–something those in the intelligence and military communities wanted to see, but maintains the 90-day ban on travel from the remaining six.  Refugees, on the other hand, got a mixture of good and bad news.  The good news: The new law removes the “indefinite” ban on Syrian Refugees.  The bad news: the new law reduces the total number of refugees that will be admitted (from all parts of the world) to the U.S. by 55% (50,000 refugees will be admitted in FY 2017–down from 110,000 last year).  Read the entire Executive Order HERE.

When the first Executive Order was issued in January, leaders from across the U.S. representing every faith tradition and denomination, immediately responded to the president’s action decrying the refugee ban as unjust and oppressive. The response thus far to the new order has been equally critical.   Tim Breene, CEO of World Relief, a Evangelical Christian refugee resettlement agency that works closely with the government was quoted in Christianity Today: “The issuance of a new executive order on refugees and immigrants acknowledges that there were significant problems with the first executive order that caught up green card holders and others as they tried to enter to the United States. However, this new executive order does not solve the root problems with the initial order—the cutting of refugee admissions by 55 percent and the inability for some of the world’s most vulnerable refugees to come to the United States. It is more of the same.”  Church World Services (CWS) issued a strongly worded statement condemning the rewritten order, saying, “Make no mistake: this rewritten version will have the same impact.”

Question for Reflection

According to PRRI, a nonprofit, nonpartisan polling organization, support for the temporary ban on Muslims has declined among all all groups except one–white Evangelical Protestants.  In February 2017, 61% favored the ban (compared to 55% in May 2016). Why do you think Evangelical Protestants continue to support the ban?

Take Action

Consider traveling to Springfield, IL, with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights on Wednesday, March 15, to push legislators at the State Capital to make Illinois a Sanctuary State.  Message the church via Facebook for information.

Day 5 – Stranger Love

~ Bruce Ray ~ 4 Comments

Leviticus 19:33-34

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

Exodus 12:49

There shall be one law for the native and for the alien who resides among you.

On April 7, 1933, the German government passed the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.  The law protected Germans first.  Non-Aryans (Jews, Romani, Africans and dissenters) were no longer permitted to work as teachers, professors, judges, or other government positions. Later, the law was amended to include the professions of lawyers, doctors, tax consultants, musicians, and notaries.  The passage of the law resulted in social exclusion–and economic destitution–for all those who were non-Aryan.  Additional restrictive laws were passed and within 8 years, Jews were required by law to wear a yellow star of David as identification and deportation to death camps quickly followed.

Laws that “alienate”, laws that define who belongs and who does not, laws that limit or deny access to community life are oppressive and unjust.  But in God’s politics, immigrants are to be treated as if they are citizens.  There is one law for both native-born and the resident alien.  God effectively erases the line between the native-born “us” and the immigrant “other”.

Questions for Reflection

Can you think of laws that have been passed in our nation’s history (recent or otherwise) that were designed to “alienate” a segment of the population?

Why do you think people–especially people of faith–would support legislation that would identify and deny immigrants and/or refugees access to full participation in community life when God has made God’s will clear?

Our current president frequently uses the phrase “America First” to define its agenda–the America First Energy Plan and America First Foreign Policy.  Many people hear echoes of the German past in the phrase.  Should people be concerned? Why or why not?

Alien

~ Bruce Ray ~ 1 Comment

From Pastor Ray’s sermon on the first Sunday of Lent, March 5, 2017

In 1974, the book, “The Spaceships of Ezekiel” hit bookstore shelves.  Written by NASA systems manager Josef Blumrich, the book hypothesized and set out to prove that the Ezekiel’s vision of the glory of God was actually a close encounter with an alien spaceship.  The book was quickly debunked by the scientific and religious community as a creative, but flawed, interpretation of Scripture that was more about cashing in on recent UFO sightings than on pursuit of science.

While some may still believe that aliens have visited this planet, when the Bible speaks of “aliens”, it is not referring to extraterrestrials.  In the Hebrew Scriptures, “aliens” were a classification of people that resided in a place that was not their original home. The words “stranger” and “foreigner” are often used synonymously or in conjunction with the word “alien.”.  Aliens are outsiders.  Aliens are people who are different.  Aliens are “other.” In our context, we use another word to describe this group.  Aliens are immigrants.  And aliens are, by virtue of their “otherness”, a vulnerable people—at risk of oppression and abuse.

While God recognizes “difference” between alien and native born, God does not advocate exclusion.  In fact, God advocates special attention and protection that leads to full inclusion and acceptance.

  • In Deuteronomy 10:17-19, God is identified as the “Defender of the alien.” God loves the stranger, providing food and clothing for them.
  • In Leviticus 19:34, God’s people are told to love the alien and stranger as themselves.
  • In Isaiah 56:6-7, God envisions the day that foreigners will enjoy full participation in the life of the community—including religious life.

And the New Testament—Matthew’s gospel in particular—fleshes out God’s identification with the alien.   Matthew presents Jesus, whom he has identified as “Emmanuel: God with us”, as an alien.  In two instances in Jesus’ formative years, Jesus is the immigrant.  First, he becomes the refugee in Egypt when Joseph makes a nighttime escape from Bethlehem and the coming genocide of Herod.  Then, Jesus becomes the immigrant in Galilee after Joseph—out of fear for his family’s safety—settles in the backwater town of Nazareth—a place that is hardly on the map.  (See Matthew 2:13 ff)

In both cases, Jesus would have experienced of being the outsider.  In Egypt, Jesus would have experienced the “otherness” of language, religion and culture. He would have been an ethnic, cultural, and religious minority.  And his returned from Egypt only to settle in Nazareth did not enhance his résumé.  Nathanael expressed the prevailing distain for outsider Nazoreans when he asked Philip, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  Galileans were considered lower class.  They were identifiable by their accent. (Remember Peter warming himself outside the trial of Jesus and being identified by the servant girl as “one of them.”)  They were rubes, suspicious characters, not to be fully trusted.  Sound familiar?

So why is “alien” status of Jesus important?  Why does Matthew go to great pains to show us “refugee Jesus” and “immigrant Jesus” right at the start of his gospel?

Mike Angell, an Episcopal priest and blogger, writes:

“Seeing Jesus Christ as an immigrant gives us a lens through which we see his action in scripture. We see Jesus consistently including outsiders in his ministry. He reveals himself to a Samaritan Woman as the Messiah. He includes Matthew the Roman tax collector, and Simon the Zealot among his apostles. He ministers with women, children, lepers, and gentiles. Understanding Jesus as an immigrant outsider helps to articulate the Christological reasoning behind the need for the inclusion of the outsider.”

Matthew is committed to presenting Jesus as one who understands the immigrant experience and identifies himself with the alien and stranger.  And Jesus’ treatment as the outsider is fundamental to understanding his statement to the goats in Matthew 25, “I was a stranger and you did not welcome me.”  The rejection of the stranger is a rejection of Jesus.  Jesus knows the stigma of being an outsider.  Jesus knows rejection.  Conversely, when we receive the stranger and treat them with dignity and inclusion, we welcome Jesus, the immigrant.

That is why we must fast from xenophobia and fear of the outsider this Lent.  The current climate in this country is to identify the “other” and act to protect ourselves from the threat they represent to “our country”, our way of life, our religion, our security.

If we want to welcome Christ, we must defend the immigrant and the refugee.  If we want to welcome Christ, we must stand up for those who are oppressed as outsiders—people like Daniela Vargas, a 22-year-old college student who was brought to the US when she was 7.  She was detained by ICE and scheduled for deportation shortly after she spoke at an immigration rally. This, despite her protected DACA (Deferred Action for Child Alien) status.  If we want to welcome Christ, we must speak up when immigrants and refugees are targeted for harassment and discrimination—people like Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani, high-tech immigrants from India who were told “Get out of my country” before they were shot by a 51-year-old white man. Srinivas was killed.  If we want to welcome Christ, we must act up to provide a welcoming place for the refugee and the asylum seeker.  We must fast from our fear of the stranger and feast on love—the love that God has for us and the love that God has for the alien and the stranger; Love that is fleshed out in sacrifice, inclusion, and justice.

Because of love, Jesus went to the cross, where—according to the Apostle Paul—the dividing wall of hostility was dismantled and where one new humanity was formed. In this new community, there is neither Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, Barbarian or Sythian. There is no “other.” Those who were outsiders are now brought in. The alien and stranger are fully included. To rebuild the dividing walls and reject or marginalize the “other” is to deny the work of Jesus. Only by welcoming the stranger do we affirm the transformational work of Christ in and among us.

Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church.

Follow the church’s 2017 Lenten Compact, “Stranger Love: Fast For Immigrant and Refugee Justice” at www.lentencompact.wordpress.com.