Jesus was an Illegal Immigrant

Last updated on: May 9, 2013 at 6:20 am by Faithful Democrats

Jesus was an Illegal Immigrant 2013-05-09T06:20:41-06:00 Faithful Democrats

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The logic
of the political credo of Jesus' day would have demanded that Joseph, as a law breaker,

should have surrendered Jesus to Herod for execution as an infant.

Sunday School for preschoolers in the Churches of Christ in
the 60s was pretty cool. In between the
Kool-Aid and the cookies our teachers told us the basic stories of the Bible
aided either by handouts with pictures of dramatic biblical scenes painted in
romantic nineteenth century style or by "flannel graph" technology which
consisted of paper cut out figures of the biblical characters being stuck on a
felt board at the appropriate time in the narrative. The paintings made a huge impression on me and
I can still see the artists' renditions of Cain and Abel, Samson and Delilah,
not to mention Goliath or Moses and the Ten Commandments in my mind's eye. Once we learned to read, these dramatic
reenactments ceased and we had to fill out tedious workbooks, but that is a
blog entry for another day. One of the
most powerful images from that era was the story from Matthew's gospel about
Joseph being told in a dream by an angel to flee with Mary and Jesus to Egypt
to escape the death sentence issued by King Herod. Later, of course, Joseph was told he could
safely return to Palestine, but all
of this was illegal since it violated Herod's decree.

Fast forward about forty years and I found myself teaching
an adult Sunday School class and the topic of illegal immigration came
up as we
were considering one of the multitude of passages calling for God's
people to
love aliens and sojourners because God had taken mercy on us when our
ancestors
were such themselves. ("And you are to
love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in
Egypt." Deuteronomy 10:18-19). A class member declared that
all undocumented
immigrants in this country should be sent home since they were
lawbreakers. No biblical argument to the
contrary would move this person off this thesis.

It struck me as very ironic that this class member would
affirm the orthodox Christian belief of Jesus as the Son of God, yet the logic
of the political credo would have demanded that Joseph, as a law breaker,
should have surrendered Jesus to Herod for execution as an infant. No cross, no teaching, no ministry, just
infanticide should have been Jesus' fate on earth.

I am convinced Matthew included the flight to Egypt
by Jesus and his family to show that Jesus' own story was part of the ancient
story of Israel. They, too, fled to Egypt,
suffered persecution, were redeemed by God, and then were empowered to live
lives in solidarity with sojourners and aliens wherever they encountered
them. Likewise disciples of Jesus throughout
history pick up the same ministry of solidarity with displaced people. Jesus was an illegal alien and that ought to
shape how we enter the current debate. But
too often political ideology clouds good theology. In the current debate over immigration policy
it distresses me to no end that so many of my fellow church goers ignore this
fundamental tenet that should be central to our identity. Instead as theological amnesiacs we insist on
a secular law and order ideology over a biblical mandate.

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