Mortal Crossing

Immigration Reflections by Pastor Mike Langer

The subtitle of a recent cover story in Hoy, Chicago's popular Spanish-language newspaper, read "Cruce Mortal" ("Mortal Crossing"). The article is about the record number of undocumented immigrants who have died in the Arizona desert. This caused me to reflect on my family's story of immigration. The truth is that I only have found documentation from my father's mother's emigration from then Austria to the U.S. through Ellis Island. When I think of the Ellis Island period of immigration, I am reminded of the stories of heroic quests into the great land of opportunity and the fortitude that these journeys required of our forebears. But there has been another thought lingering in the back of my mind: what if the U.S.'s current immigration policies had been in place at the time that my grandmother emigrated? The heroic mortal crossing of the Atlantic in the first part of the twentieth century bears striking resemblance to the mortal crossing of the Rio Grande and the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts in the early twenty-first century. The x-factor: immigration laws.

This is certainly a political issue. Legislation needs to change. But more importantly for us, this is a theological issue. The book of Leviticus is replete with regulations that had in mind explicit concern for the poor and the resident alien. God often referred to himself as the one who "brought you out of Egypt." In other words, God was responsible for Israel's emigration into the Promised Land. Most importantly, God became a resident alien when he took on humanity in Christ. He bore a mortal crossing of his own, the death and resurrection of Jesus, through which we are baptized out of slavery and into freedom and new life.

The Apostle Paul commends the people of Philippi to "do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others" (Phil. 2:3-4). As we continue to engage the issue of immigration as individuals and as a people, let us take heed to Paul's words, for they bear great value. Let us have a humble and hospitable posture towards all people, including the resident alien. For the Kingdom of God has but one form of documentation: Jesus Christ.

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