A Mile in Their Shoes

Update

What a busy time I've been having recently! Last week I had two delegations.  One was with the University of Arizona Law School and the other with Foundry United Methodist Church of Washington D.C.  Both visits were intense and thought-provoking.  Needless to say, I'm still processing.

Things at the house are going well.  We are always on the move, figuring things out.  As a treat, we went to see Where the Wild Things are last night.  It was a good relaxer and a decent movie.  And Mike has arrived in Tucson, which has been a wonderful thing!

Just a note: the photos in this post are taken by photographer Michael Hyatt, who focuses much of his work on the U.S./Mexico Borderlands. 

A Mile in Their Shoes

Southside Presbyterian Church, where I spend most of my Sunday mornings, celebrated Migrant Sunday a few weeks ago.  The sermon and the service were so incredibly powerful for me that I wanted to share a bit of it here.  The reason that these words are so important to me is that they speak to the responsibility of human beings to care for each other; that it our human greed and our "human-ness" that are at the heart of suffering in the world.  As pastor Alison Harrington notes, "the question is no longer about God’s abandonment of the poor and suffering; it is now a question of our abandonment of one another."  What a mighty sentiment!

“A Mile in Their Shoes”

Psalm 22:1-15, 23-24 and Job 24:2-17

Southside Presbyterian Church 

October 11, 2009       

Migrant Sunday

Rev. Alison J. Harrington

            My God, my God why have you forsaken me? It seems a fitting scripture passage for Migrant Sunday--doesn’t it? It is not a far stretch to think that those who walked for days in the shoes that fill this sacred place may have cried in the words of the psalmist, in the words of the crucified Christ: My God, my God why have you forsaken me?  Dios mío, Dios mío, ¿por qué me has abandonado? Surely those whose names are written on these stones, and those who are unknown, the desconocidos must have cried out Dios mío, Dios mío, ¿por qué me has abandonado?

            The suffering of those who have risked death in order that their families might have life are profound and unfathomable. And we find ourselves falling silent at the sight of the things they left behind in their journey. The shoes that fell apart; the Bible that became too heavy, the prayer cards left as prayers themselves. There seem to be no words to express the great humanitarian tragedy that we are witnessing right here in our lands. And in light of this suffering, we can’t help but find ourselves questioning God and turning to scripture to find an answer.

            The question of innocent suffering in light of the goodness and power of God is the subject taken up in the book of Job. Surely, the words of the 22nd Psalm were often uttered by this righteous man upon whom great suffering and tragedy befalls. Last week as we began looking at the story of Job, we saw that it functions to discredit one of the ruling theologies of the day--the theology of retribution, which states that if you are a faithful and religious person, then God will bless you. If you are not a good, religious person, God will curse you, bringing suffering and calamity. The problem--as we saw last week--was the implications of this theology. The riches of the wealthy are evidence of God’s blessings, and the suffering of the poor is evidence of their sin and God’s judgment.

            Throughout the book of Job, his friends rely on this retributive theology to understand Job’s suffering, and they beg him over and over again to confess his sin before God and thereby be forgiven and perhaps find alleviation from his suffering. Job persists in his innocence and rebels against this popular theology that has God as the author of suffering. In light of his own innocent suffering, Job rejects the connection between suffering and retribution; he rejects the notion that if a person is suffering, that person must have sinned. Job throws this theology out the door and asks God over and over to explain his innocent suffering. Verse after verse, Job laments his suffering and is persistent in saying that, though he is not sinless, there is nothing that he has done to warrant his suffering. And he demands that God answer him!

            The boldness of Job’s faith that dares to question God is a good model for us today. Too often we feel as if to question God is to falter in faith. But questioning God shows great faith. It is precisely because we believe that we question. If we had no faith in a merciful and compassionate God, well to be quite honest, this world would make a lot more sense and leave us with fewer questions. But it is our faith in the merciful and compassionate God that often leads us to difficult questions in the face of our own suffering.

            I would feel safe in saying that there is no people here who have not at some time in their lives, cried out “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”  Perhaps these were the words on your lips when a diagnosis came back malignant; perhaps these were the words on your lips when a treasured relationship fell apart; perhaps these were the words on your lips when standing at the grave of a loved one. We have all had those moments when the world comes crashing in on us and we begin to fall from the weight of the sorrow and find that we have no one to lean upon, not even God. Even the rich and powerful find that no amount of money or influence can keep sorrow and heartbreak at bay. The rain does indeed fall on all of us. And in the midst of life’s rainstorms, the question becomes, “What do we do with all this rain?”

            As far as I can tell, there are two general responses to the experience of suffering. The first response is that the one who suffers becomes hardened and cruel. They attempt to alleviate their suffering by taking from others and by causing others to suffer--as if the suffering of another would somehow lessen their own. Their suffering turns their hearts to stone. And then there are those whose suffering allows them to identify with the suffering of others. Instead of turning away from others, they turn towards them and in the solidarity that is found, their suffering is often lessened because the great isolation that is the inseparable companion of suffering is conquered in solidarity. Suffering opens their hearts.

            I hadn’t been in Tucson for more than a couple weeks when we became aware of a man named Martín who had found a dead body as he was crossing the desert. Instead of forgetting about this desconcocido and just looking after himself, Martín was determined to help authorities reclaim this body. After many conversations with lawyers and the sheriff’s department--and after getting promises that he would be returned safely to the church--Martin went off with the sheriff’s department to help them find the body. Martín risked involvement with law enforcement and possible deportation so that the man he found would not be forgotten--so that the man’s family might know what had happened. Martín undoubtably suffered as he crossed the desert, but his heart was open to someone who was unknown and would have been forgotten had it not been for Martín’s compassion.

            In our reading this morning, Job’s heart is also open to the poor when he realizes that he is not alone in his suffering. In the midst of his suffering, Job sees the suffering of the poor and, as Gustavo Gutiérrez writes, “The question he asks of God ceases to be a purely personal one and takes concrete form in the suffering of the poor of this world” (31). And as soon as Job is able to look beyond his own suffering, his view on the world shifts, and his questions begin to change.  In the passage that we have read this morning, we see Job’s fundamental shift--no longer is God the one who makes the poor suffer; rather, the rich are the ones who take the food out of the mouth of the hungry, who take the land from the farmers, who prey upon the poor. Gustavo Gutiérrez points out that in the verses that we have read this morning, “the poverty described is not the result of destiny or inexplicable causes; those responsible for it are named without pity. Job is describing a state of affairs caused by the wickedness of those who exploit and rob the poor. In many instances, therefore, the suffering of the innocent points clearly to guilty parties.” (33).

            And so far from the suffering of the poor being caused by their own wickedness, the suffering of the poor is caused by the wickedness of the rich. And so in a few short chapters what was once a theological question of why does God allow, or even cause, bad things to happen to good people, the question now becomes a political, social and economic question about the relationship between the poor and the rich. This shift from seeing suffering as a religious problem to a socio-economic problem implicates humanity in new ways.

            Before when it was a question of how can God allow this suffering to happen, we could sit back and ruminate on the question and posit different theological and philosophical answers. Now, seeing suffering as a result of human relations, we are forced to ask not how can God allow this to happen, but how can we allow this to happen. The question is no longer about God’s abandonment of the poor and suffering; it is now a question of our abandonment of one another.  Job realizes that his questions have been the wrong questions--it is not God who abandons the suffering; it is we who abandon the suffering.

             As we face the vast suffering that is before us, we do well to remember that during his earthly ministry, Jesus did not walk around asking, “why, God, why?” Jesus did everything in his power to alleviate suffering and to show compassion. He was too busy healing broken people and broken communities to engage in theological debates about God and human suffering. As we sit here amongst these shoes from our migrant brothers and sisters, we realize that any sort of philosophizing on their suffering is a scandal to the gospel and the question of our abandonment of them is unavoidable and difficult.

            In the story of Job, we see that abandonment can be countered by solidarity with others who suffer. But to have true solidarity, we must understand that we too suffer. If we attempt to have solidarity with those who suffer and assume that we are somehow immune to pain and excluded from suffering because of the color of our skin, the neighborhood we live in, or our citizenship, we risk being condescending.  But if we understand that indeed rain falls on us as well, we will understand that we are not so different than they are.

            I am not suggesting that we should attempt the dangerous path that migrants walk. But rather we need to see ourselves as migrants as well. We all have had moments and times of great sorrow and suffering. For some of us that has been physical pain, but all of have experienced the suffering of broken lives and dreams. These blisters are on our hearts. We need to realized that we are all migrants, trying the best we can to move from sorrow to joy, from grief to consolation, from a feeling of being exiled to a feeling of homecoming. Our suffering is not the same as those who walk the desert, but until we see that we too wander in search of something better--that we too are searching for life--our attempts at solidarity will risk being patronizing. We are no better than those who walk our desert; we are the same. 

            Our border policies that push migrants into dangerous lands and use the reality and threat of death as a deterrent do not just effect our brothers and sisters to the South, they effect us as well. We are all divided by the border wall. When social workers and community developers approached the Australian aboriginal community of Lilla Watson, she said this now famous quote, “If you have come to help me you are wasting my time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us struggle together.” In these days, when we are increasingly realizing that the border wall seems more and more like the walls of our own prison cell, we realize that our liberation is indeed bound with those on the other side of the wall.

            The rain falls on us all. The question is what are we going to do in the midst of this present rainstorm? In the midst of his suffering, Job sang out, “I know that my redeemer lives.” This faith helped him carry on. It is this faith that gave him this vision of a world with no suffering. In the same way, our faith helps us to know what to do in the midst of this storm; in the same way, our faith allows us to see a world with no border walls. And so in this great rainstorm that is falling upon us all, may our faith be like water jugs left in the desert; may our solidarity be like bandages on blistered feet; may our love be an unstoppable force that will not rest until Border Patrol is armed only with water and apologies. Amen. 

In the next few days, I will hopefully be able to reflect more on my experiences within the past week.  I hope that everyone is doing well and enjoying the changing of the seasons or whatever weather you have.  (I'm currently in the 80's with way too much sun!) Thinking of everyone often!