Love UndocumentedSample

As a child, I listened to a sermon illustration in which someone travels between heaven and hell. This supernatural commuter stops for lunch in hell’s dining hall, where hordes of people push in around long tables for bowls of soup. The problem is that everyone has a spoon tied to their hand that is twice the length of their arm. So while they can scoop the soup, no one can transfer the food from their spoon to their mouth. There is shouting and complaining and general gnashing of teeth. Then our tour guide beams out of the netherworld and pops into heaven’s mess hall, where, as it turns out, everyone also has soup and the same giant spoons strapped to their arms. But the traveler immediately notices that chaos is absent and that everyone is enjoying their meal. As it turns out, they are each feeding the person across from themselves. In doing so, all are fed.

We are familiar with the shouting and complaining and gnashing of teeth. We’re living in the midst of it every day. And immigration is most certainly a topic that brings tension and anger bubbling to the surface. It’s a complicated, multifaceted issue that affects people from all over the world and in every corner of the United States. We are tempted to draw thick lines around what is “ours” or who is “in.” But God has invited us into a larger story. It’s a story of redemption and restoration, of being rescued from our own selfish absorption and ambition. It’s a story in which we don’t have to strive to be the hero. We can trust God’s Word that our needs are known and will be added unto us as we seek God’s kingdom. 

U.S. citizens, undocumented immigrants, legal permanent residents, documented immigrants: we are all welcome in the kingdom family of God. As we live in this broken world, we pray together, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). We can pick up our ridiculously long spoons and serve each other, setting aside our own fears and self-interests. Living in the absence of fear and the saturation of love is a witness to a different way of life that can only have been inspired by Jesus’ example. Together we can catch glimpses of God’s kingdom here on earth.