To say that this is a busy time for hurricanes is an understatement. Harvey made landfall in Houston a week and a half ago, Irma is expected to make landfall on the southern tip of Florida tomorrow as I write, and José and Katia are being monitored closely as potential dangers. As a result, it’s also a busy time for human suffering. Many people have lost their homes in the flooding; others have been injured or killed. Like good Samaritans, many people have responded to the call, including mosques in Houston that opened their doors to displaced hurricane victims.
Unfortunately, like the priest and the Levite in the Good Samaritan story, “Christian” preacher Joel Osteen has not been so generous. Claiming flooding dangers, he first refused to open his church to displaced hurricane victims, and then when he finally did, he had the nerve to pass the collection buckets around to the very people those collections should be helping.
I say “Christian” because Christ himself had a strong rebuke for such people: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’” (Matthew 25:41-43). Jesus goes on to explain that whatever we do (or don’t do) for our neighbors, we do (or don’t do) for Him.
The message is clear: Helping our neighbors is a moral imperative.
But while Osteen has been roundly condemned by society for being such a hypocrite, many of us “Christians” have also refused kindness to victims of disasters. God does not send them as punishment; rather, He allows them to happen because they test our morality. Can we draw the right lessons from them?
I believe that there is a reason God is allowing Harvey and Irma to strike near our southern border at this moment in history: what’s happening to hurricane victims will happen to Dreamers if Trump’s plan goes through. If they are deported, they will lose their homes, their livelihoods…everything. They will have to rebuild their lives in “their country”, which will be a country they have never known. They won’t even be able to take their human connections with them. As Christians, we cannot allow such an unnatural disaster to strike our neighbors.
Many, of course, will respond with a law-and-order argument: DACA was illegal and, therefore, can’t remain. That may be true (there are valid arguments on both sides of the issue), but that’s not the important thing. As the eloquent Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin says, “there are higher laws at work.”
The Constitution prohibits corruption of blood—that is, children are not to be punished for the crimes of their parents (Art. III, sec. 3, par. 2). The Constitution itself may have only been written for U.S. citizens, but the Founding Fathers wrote it based on the inalienable rights that we are endowed with by our Creator. And God himself said the same thing: “The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity” (Ezekiel 18:20). It’s funny how the same people who argue against abortion on the grounds that children don’t deserve the punishment for their parents’ sins are quite happy to ignore that when the sin is illegal immigration.
It’s also funny how the same people who want to deport the Dreamers because “we have to respect the law” throw a fit about same-sex marriage despite it, too, being the law of the land. They themselves agree with Fr. Martin that there are higher laws at work: Leviticus 18:20 clearly states that it is an abomination for two men to sleep together.
They would do well to keep reading, because the very next chapter (verses 33 and 34 to be exact) commands that “When the foreigner resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress [him]. The foreigner who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the foreigner as yourself.”
And that is a moral law, not a ceremonial one that we can throw out after the coming of Christ. Jesus himself said that when we refuse to welcome the stranger, we refuse to welcome him. We are to be kind to immigrants. We have the right to make and enforce immigration laws, but we do not have the right to punish those who didn’t actually break our laws.
When the crowd today shouts, “Deport them! Deport them!”, the just person responds, “Why? What evil have they done?” and then does not give in under pressure. The way we treat the Dreamers is the way we treat Christ because he knows all too well the experience of being punished for crimes he didn’t commit. We do not have the right to oppress these innocent people; they shall be to us as the citizen among us.
As Obama said, they may not be Americans on paper, but they are Americans in every other way. And even if you don’t think so, we still have to treat them as our brothers and sisters, for “There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). If he had been writing today, he would have proclaimed that there is no black or white, poor or rich, immigrant or “real American,” for we are all children of the same Father.
We are all brothers and sisters. When a scholar of the law asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responded with the familiar Parable of the Good Samaritan—and told him to “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:29-37). Because each and every one of us is a child of God with infinite value, it is our social responsibility to treat our neighbors with mercy just as the Good Samaritan did.While Joel Osteen was roundly condemned for his lack of compassion, a lot of “Christians” show a reckless disregard for victims of real and metaphorical hurricanes. They promote policies that increase climate change and, thus, “natural” disasters. They make their government hostile towards immigrants and refugees who are simply trying to build better lives for themselves, just as any of us would do in their place. They fail to care for the poor, sick and downtrodden. They fail to hold a consistent life ethic from conception to natural death. In short, they fail to respect and serve the needs of their neighbor. In John Milton’s book Paradise Lost, Satan’s rallying cry was, “I will not serve.” Paradise can’t truly be regained until the end of time, but each time one of us does serve the needs of our neighbor, we get closer and closer to paradise on Earth. God is love, so the kingdom of God is a society ruled by love. Who wouldn’t want to live there?
