This evening, I went to see “The Visitor“, about a man who once again finds passion for life while struggling with a family dealing with being undocumented immigrants in America. I won’t ruin the ending, but I will say it isn’t easy as we face the dehumanization of thousands upon thousands of people and families and it left me saying, “What do we do now?”
Most will agree that our current immigration system is broken, but many of us feel helpless to do anything to fix it. So I came home looking for answers, which I’ll share with you in a moment. But first, before I even got home, I found my hope.
After leaving my friends at the movie exit, I found I had a flat tire. Thinking it not wise to try to change it in a darkened parking lot by myself at 10:00 at night, I drove around the corner to a well-lit gas station. Just as I was jacking up my car, I heard a heavily accented voice say, “Ma’am, do you need help?”
My good Samaritan did not ask me my documentation status, my religion, my sexual orientation, or what I do for a living. He simply helped me and only asked, “Do you live here in Austin?” When I told him I did, he said, “So you won’t have far to drive home, and you’ll be okay, right?”
We read of Jesus answering a lawyer who challenged him with, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The lawyer and Jesus agreed that the answer was to love God and love our neighbors. But the lawyer wasn’t through arguing and asked, “But who is my neighbor?” Jesus’ answer was the story of the Good Samaritan. He finished by asking which of the men in the story was a neighbor to the man beaten and left for dead on the side of the road. The lawyer answered, “The one who showed him mercy”, to which Jesus responded, “Go and do the same.”
I needed mercy tonight. My brother born of another country, whether documented or not, went out of his way to show me mercy. Who is my neighbor? The one who needs mercy. I left remembering the hope that I can go and do the same.
But how? My answers to ”What do we do now?” came from www.takepart.com, a social action network where we can find facts and figures from amnesty international, an iPaper we can download to have discussion with others about the film, and groups with whom we can get involved to make a difference.
It may not seem like much. The issues are very overwhelming. But as one of my favorite seminary professors (a Filipino man who was a Jesuit Priest, studied and taught about indigenous religions in Japan, became a Zen master, fell in love with and left the priesthood to marry a German woman, and now teaches World Religions at a U.S. Protestant seminary!) often said, “Do not be overwhelmed so that you fail to act, even if you just do one thing. Write one letter. Say one prayer. Make one phone call. If we all do this, we will make a difference.”
Sounds to me like another immigrant, the apostle Paul, who wrote to the Christians in Rome, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). As people of faith, we are called to love, to hope, and to action. Paul goes on in chapter 13 to writes that it is time to wake up and to love our neighbor.
My friends, let’s wake up from our helplessness-induced apathy and take up the challenge, because we have neighbors who need mercy. So write one letter. Say one prayer. Make one phone call. But for the love of God, for the love of our neighbor, and for our own salvation, let’s DO SOMETHING!
Peace…
