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October 29, 2017

On this final Sunday of Respect Life Month for 2017, our first reading explicitly touches on another life-issue where the Church is often seen to be at variance with societal trends. The issue is that of immigration. Exodus is pretty clear: “Thus says the LORD:  ‘You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry.” Similar passages in Deuteronomy (10:19) and Leviticus (19:33-34) are just as clear-cut.

In recent weeks I’ve heard some of the most ill-informed comments made by a political figure as to why the Catholic Church is pro-immigration. I don’t usually take offence at the ill-informed, but I allowed this particular comment to get under my skin. Anyone who cares to understand the position of the Church on the question of immigration will first look to the fundamental principle that we’ve been remembering these past few columns… The dignity of the human person is the foundation of our moral approach to such questions. That dignity is God-given, in that we are fashioned after God’s own image and likeness.

Throughout history, aliens (or immigrants) have been scapegoated. It’s not a particularly “American” thing to do. It’s common throughout Europe, as well as in countries in Africa, South America and Asia. Truth told, scapegoating “foreigners” is as old as the scriptures themselves. That’s why there are so many admonishments in the scriptures against such behavior. The prophet Zechariah offers a simple summation: “Thus says the LORD of hosts: Judge with true justice, and show kindness and compassion toward each other. Do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the resident alien or the poor, do not plot evil against one another in your hearts. But they refused to listen; they stubbornly turned their backs and stopped their ears so as not to hear.” The scripture goes on to share the consequences of God’s displeasure at the stubborn willfulness of his people.

While scapegoating foreigners is common, it is never acceptable. It was shunned in the Hebrew Scriptures and it has no place in the Christian Scriptures. The great principle that Jesus promoted in how we are to treat one another is attested to in today’s gospel: “You will love the Lord your God with all your heart… You will love your neighbor as yourself.”  

That Jesus always demonstrates that how we are with and for God is how we are with and for one another is not lost on the Church. We can ask, as the scholar of the law did to Jesus’ face “Who is my neighbor?” We all know how Jesus’ response to that question unfolds. He tells the story of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:29-37). The conclusion of the story reveals that it’s not a story about the “other”, but rather, it’s a story about the disciple, and about how we “make ourselves neighbor” to the oppressed or to the foreigner. It is when we treat the “other” with mercy, that the disciple is a true neighbor.

The parable of the Good Samaritan reminds us that relationships of compassion are not about the other, but rather, they are about who we choose to be, in the world and for the world. It is the quality of our relationship with the other, by which we choose to live, that reveals the quality and nature of our relationship with God. Of course, this is only the kind of understanding that we are called to by the gospel of Jesus… there are other ‘gospels’ out there competing for our attention and our allegiance. The question with which every would-be disciple has to contend is “To which gospel do I choose to give my allegiance?”

 

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