Christians and vulnerable people

How to work with children crossing the American southern border remains a problem to be resolved. This is not a new problem. It is as old as the human race itself. Our father Abraham took his family and their meager possessions and went out “not knowing where he was to go.” From the beginning, Abraham wanted a permanent home. He believed that God had a place for him and his family. A person has no greater question than this: Is there a place for me?

Are the people at our southern border any different from Abraham? Are they any different from my early forbearers, who were deeply religious and fleeing German militarism? Are they any different from the refugees of Iraq or Syria?

History is full of people on the move. Almost always they are poor, homeless, powerless and vulnerable.

In their vulnerable state, they develop survival skills. They form ghettos, clans and gangs. Sometimes they lie, cheat, steal and fight among themselves and with others who might be close by. Migration and immigration is an ugly business and a completely orderly system of handling immigrants is a figment of the imagination. It is a tough population with which to work.

In summary, the movement of people is never-ceasing, disorderly, even chaotic. In the process, vulnerable people will always abound.

As a Bible-oriented Christian, I read the Bible regularly and seriously. Because of privileged education and personal commitment, I have a decent grasp of the contents of the Bible. The Bible material focuses on a relatively small clan of people we call Jews, and in some sections the Bible zeroes in on one particular Jew. Jesus was from Nazareth, an obscure town in Northern Palestine. The Jews have had lots of experience in being rootless aliens. The Bible could well have a subtitle, “The Story of a Clan in Search of a Place of their Own.” When faced with the challenge of understanding the children at our southern border, I instinctively turn to the Bible and ask, “what does the Bible say?” This is what I find:

The Jews developed an extensive system of rules for the way they would carry out their lives together. The discussions of the meaning of those rules is, for the faithful Jew, an endless dialogue. When reading the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the plight of widows and orphans is an important concern. Who were these vulnerable people in the Jewish clan?

The place of women is defined in the property codes of Jewish law. Women and children did not have rights and status on their own. Their place in the community was determined by the man who owned them. Men tended to formally acquire wives, concubines and slaves, who were younger than themselves. Men did not live as long as women. What happened to women and children when their owner-husband/father died? According to the law, ownership was passed to a brother. Children were passed along with their mother. A woman had no choice. She was glad to have an owner. What happened to a woman and her children if there was no brother to take ownership? The woman was homeless and her children were orphans with no place of their own. According to the law, the widows and the orphans lived out of the tithes that were paid to the priests of the clan. If the widow had a son, her ownership, if needed, could be passed to her oldest son when he became a man.

This was a primitive version of social security within the Jewish clan. Jewish law demanded that they care for members of their clan.

During his teaching years, Jesus was often questioned about his understanding of Jewish law. In the Christian gospels, Jesus is shown to be a very adept handler of Jewish law and its interpretations. When pressed, Jesus said that all commandments could be boiled down to two: love of God and love of neighbor. When further pressed about his definition of neighbor, Jesus cut into unexplored territory. He told a story about a man who was despised and outside the membership of the Jewish clan and effectively called him his neighbor. I consider this the most important single message of the ministry of Jesus. His version of being a neighbor was more than family or clan. The Jesus version of neighbor includes every member of the human race.

Jesus lived and taught among poor people. Primarily because of poverty, Galilee, Jesus’ home territory, was loaded with widows and orphans. The gospels picture Jesus as having a large following, including many widows and their children. They were probably desperate women who adopted him as their owner. Jesus accepted them with compassion. They became members of his family.

Jesus’ teachings against the background of Jewish law are the key to Christian ethical teaching. The children at our southern borders are US. They are family. This same thing is true of every refugee in the world. The same thing is true of every human being that has been victimized, marginalized and made vulnerable. They are US.

All the laws and regulations that can be put in place will be futile in dealing with vulnerable people until we claim them as neighbors and recognize them as US.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

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