Word to the Wise
Monday, August 13, 2007 - Nineteenth Monday in Ordinary Time
[Deuteronomy 10:12-22 and Matthew 17:22-27]For the Lord, your God, is the God of gods, the Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who has no favorites, accepts no bribes; who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and befriends the alien,feeding and clothing him. So you too must befriend the alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt!
Franklin Roosevelt once startled and offended mightily the Daughters of the American Revolution by addressing them as "My fellow immigrants!" How easily we forget history! Moses reminds the "Chosen People" that they must "befriend the alien, feeding and clothing him." The reason is that they were once "aliens" in the land of Egypt! Hmmmm....how many of us born in the United States would consider ourselves "aliens?" Aren't those kinds of people the ones who come here from "foreign lands?" Where exactly DID our ancestors come from? England, Holland, Spain, France, Canada, Mexico, Africa, Syria, Japan, China, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Vietnam, Philippines.......? It must be remembered the "citizenship" is a legal/political concept, not a moral one. Human dignity is not a matter of citizenship. Nowadays, the Statue of Liberty, which welcomed so many to this nation with her torch lifted high seems instead to be holding high a "No Vacancy" sign! Deuteronomy reminds us of our roots in faith. It is the value of the human person that must determine how he/she/they are to be treated, not their "citizenship." Our nation has many laws forbidding various kinds of discrimination on the basis of race, age, gender, sexual orientation - yet we know that these forms of discrimination continue to exist on the private level and, when people think they can get away with it, in the public area as well. We create "aliens" to hate and exclude. Our immigration laws are a scandal and the recent failure of our Congress to reform them reflects the long way we have yet to travel as a nation to respect "the alien." The sad, sad history of our nation's treatment of American indigenous peoples and African Americans (to name but two egregious examples) shows that human dignity seems to be no protection against a frightened and prejudiced "majority." (Ask yourself about the various "English only" laws that some states have attempted to pass in this day and age!). It's an emotionally charged topic and perhaps we should ask ourselves why it is so. It may reveal a side of us that needs redemption yet in the "land of the free and the home of the brave." Are we systematically and consistently ignoring the Lord's own command? AMEN
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