Borders

Urban Term has been a life-changing experience. I've grown and learned so much, and I'm not sure I've been able to process everything yet. Some of the feelings that have endured since Urban Term have been wound to the topic of immigration. During Urban Term, we drove to Tijuana, where we visited various places, including Casa del Migrantes, where priests and staff assist migrant workers moving into or being deported from the United States, and the border, which runs across the beach into the ocean.

A couple weeks later, we returned to the border--this time on its northern side--gathering in a vigil to oppose further construction of the border. I engaged in thick, sometimes tough conversations with friends in Urban Term, asking questions that I still ask today: What is wrong with the border being there? Why is the border there? What should our stance as Christians be?

I think asking these questions is important for us as Christians living in San Diego. It's easy to get caught up in the language and warfare of the political arena, and of course; this is a political issue. But something Dr. Gates emphasized was for us to engage in the conversation not as citizens of a particular nation-state, not as conservatives or liberals, but as Christians.

Every Christmas, Dr. Gates and other Christians living in the United States gather with Christians living in Mexico at the border on the beach to celebrate the arrival of Jesus into the world whose inns had no room for him. I've yet to participate, but from my understanding, food and drinks are shared between the border as a reminder that the body of Christ is not divided by human fences; Jesus is our peace, who has broken down every boundary between us, whether we are Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, Mexican or American. The body of Christ knows no borders.

It's easy for a topic as heightened as this to captivate our imaginations and language so that we begin using phrases that the world uses: "undocumented workers," "illegal immigrants," or worse, "illegals," a label I consider offensive because it removes the humanity from its subjects.

I believe Dr. Gates is right. We need to discuss and respond to immigration as Christians. That's really the only way I know how. Doing so constantly reminds me that the people coming into the United States for work are not first immigrants or workers, but people, strangers, foreigners whom God has a heart for, as written throughout Scripture in passages like Deuteronomy 10:18-19. In many cases, too, these people are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Dr. Gates has also pointed out that the border is a stark metaphor for the borders built in peoples' hearts dividing one another. Living in community for eight weeks showed me the reality of this in my own heart, as walls began to form between me and other people. It's easy, again, to see the world through the world's eyes, reinforcing the walls between all of us, including radicals, conservatives, teachers, students, border patrol officers, immigrants, friends, enemies, parents, children, police officers, criminals, men, women, to name a few.

But we must remember that Jesus is our peace, who has broken down every wall (Ephesians 2:14). This is the Jesus who healed Centurions' daughters, demon-possessed men, and old women, reasoned with rich young rulers, lawyers, and fishermen, and ate with tax collectors, zealots, prostitutes, and Pharisees together at a common table.

"So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
(2 Corinthians 5:16-21)

What would it look like for the world to be reconciled to God? If our sins would not be counted against us? If we regarded no one from a worldly point of view? And this ministry of reconciliation, could it also include reconcilation between two sides, between people who do not yet comprehend the grace God breathes into us, enabling us to love one another, even if the "other" is who the world tells us is our enemy? If we went and learned what this means: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13)? If we lived not according to judgment, but compassion? How generous is the love of God?

How generous is the love of God!