We would do well to listen to King today. King is now revered as a hero while the recipients of his letter are remembered only for their cowardice and poor judgment.
As a person of faith, my position on immigration reform is shaped by the 92 passages in the Old Testament that speak to how we should treat “strangers and aliens.” In Leviticus 19:34, we are told to treat immigrants like our own children and love them as we love ourselves. In Exodus 12:49, we are instructed to give them equal protection under our laws.
Immigrants even show up in the Ten Commandments where God tells his children to make sure that the immigrants who live among us are granted Sabbath rest.
I’m not suggesting that current immigration policy be based on Old Testament law, but I am suggesting that one can’t read the Bible without sensing God’s compassion for immigrants. He even instituted a triennial tithe specifically for the poor, those who have been orphaned, and those who are sojourning away from the land of their birth.
Biblical support for immigrants is not limited to the Old Testament. Christ himself was a political refugee when his family fled to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath. The Apostle Paul immigrated throughout eastern Europe, Italy and perhaps to Spain, supporting himself by making tents along the way.
In one of Jesus’ most moving parables, the parable of the Good Samaritan, he is responding to questions about what it means to love our neighbors. Loving our neighbors is widely recognized as the second most important commandment in all of Scripture, second only to loving God with our whole heart. Some tried to gain a bit of wiggle room by redefining who our neighbors are. Jesus had no patience with their word games.
Jesus said that our neighbor is anyone we see who has a need, and the hero of the story turns out to be the hated Samaritan who extends love and compassion to one who does not deserve it and cannot repay the debt of kindness. Commenting on this parable, Martin Luther King said that the villains in the story were the religious leaders of the day who came along and asked, “What will happen to me if I stop and help this stranger?” The unlikely hero is the person who asked, instead, “What will happen to this stranger if I do not stop and help?”
This summer, each of us must choose whether to “pass by on the other side,” or to stop and help the strangers who live and work among us. My faith and my conscience compel me to do all that I can to urge my legislators to enact compassionate and common-sense immigration reform. It’s good for business, it’s good for national security but, most of all, it’s good for my soul.
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