As you’ve heard me say, we are spending the month of July looking at “Migration Stories” in the book of Genesis. We started last week, looking at God’s call to Abram (later, Abraham) that started with the command to “Go from your country, your kindred, and your father’s house.” That simple beginning shows the enormous costs of migration – unrooting oneself from those places, customs, and relationships that give us our identity and security. It may be hard for those of us with cell phones and international means of communicating to feel the intensity of this moment. Migration begins with leaving. Leaving it all behind. And that is true whether one migrates willingly, like my Welsh ancestors coming to the US, or forcibly, like victims of war, or someone escaping domestic violence.
Over the last week, many of you have reminded me of how present migration is in our own lifetimes. After worship someone introduced herself to me as a “second-generation immigrant.” Others remembered how St. Mark was heavily involved in resettling refugees from Viet Nam, a part of the migration story of Vu Tran that I mentioned in my sermon. Another person remembered the experiences of those who fled the dust bowl in Oklahoma and found it challenging to be accepted in other states, such as California. And last weekend, Bobbi Dauderman joined a group from one of our sister presbyteries that traveled down to the border to engage in “accompaniment” with migrants. If you want to learn more about this calling, you can watch John Fanestil’s remarkable presentation on it here. Migration has always been a part of human existence, initiated by any number of factors. And making a home, being in one’s place, having a rooting in culture, language, and space has also been a value. Let’s explore for a moment the tension between the migrant experience as the human experience and making a home as the human experience.
One worship practice that the Hebrew people had – after they had settled in the Promised Land – was to remember their migrant roots. In Deuteronomy 26, there is a litany that one would recite when presenting an offering of “first fruits” from the harvest, that began with the words remembering Abram, “My father was a wandering Aramean.” The power of this litany was to remember one’s identity, one’s history, one’s roots, which is so easy to forget over time and when one is prosperous. I suspect US policies – both national and neighborhood – toward immigrants would be kinder and more just if every European descendent began their day with the words, “My ancestors, too, came to this land with hopes for a better life.” Part of the reason we offer an occasional “Land Acknowledgment” in worship is so that we don’t forget who we are by remembering where we are.
The Christian Church also had to address the tension between being a migrant people and making a home. This conversation often took the form of how to practice a faith that is rooted in Jesus, a faithful Jew, and practice it among peoples who were not traditionally Jewish. That’s why I find Paul’s letter to the church in Rome to be such a powerful part of our faith. Here is a church, some with Jewish roots and some with Gentile (i.e. non-Jewish) roots, worshiping God and claiming Jesus Christ – a Jew condemned by his own religious leaders and executed by the Roman Empire. That church in Rome didn’t fit anywhere! Perhaps this is why Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon describe the Christian Church as “resident aliens,” never quite fitting in a world that is often shaped by violence and greed, antithetical to the Christian message.
My point is that these migrant stories in Genesis are not just historical phenomena, and they are not just part of the story of general mass migrations. They show us what is at stake when one pulls up roots, leaves the identity and security of one’s own people behind, and follows God’s call with vulnerability. That is why I find the call to Abram in Genesis 12 to be akin to Jesus’ call for his followers to “take up our cross” and leave our securities behind.
This week, we will hear a story during worship that shows how vulnerable Abram and his family were when answering God’s call. It is a maddening story, mostly because it is a true-to-life story.
See you in worship,
MD
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