A Thanksgiving for immigrants

Editor's note: Many years ago, the Editorial Board's resident chaplain Daniel Schultz was pastor of a small country church. So when I asked him for a Thanksgiving sermon, he rummaged through his archives, finding one as applicable today as it was in 2010. Like most good sermons, it opens with a story, this one from NPR's Weekend Edition:

This week, there were pounding rains up and down the Eastern Seaboard. On Thursday, Bernice Clark was driving along Rhode Island Avenue in Washington with her great-grandson when her car was stopped dead by flooding.

Water surged into the passenger compartment. Her great-grandson, Davonte Williams, pushed open his door and leapt out. But Bernice Clark was stuck in the driver's seat. Her great-grandson tried to fight his way back to pull her out. But, as the water rose higher each second, it pulled Davonte Williams away from the car and put more pressure on the door that his frail, great-grandmother struggled to open.

"When the water was at the steering wheel," Bernice Clark told David Schultz of WAMU in Washington, "I saw all this trash that was coming in with the water, I knew that was it."

Witnesses say that a passerby, who appeared to be Hispanic, saw Davonte Williams straining to reach his great-grandmother. ...

The man stripped off his clothes and dove into the cold, grimy, churning waters.

"He came over and jumped into where we were and brought me out," says Bernice Clark. "I was alive. He saved me."

And then, the man went away. He didn't stay around to receive congratulations, or join Bernice Clark and her great-grandson for some hot soup, and receive their tearful thanks for saving their lives.

There may be several reasons why the man did not stay at the scene of the rescue. The likeliest may be that he is an illegal immigrant from Latin America who feared that police would soon show up and ask for proof of his identity...

As people in Congress debate illegal immigration, they might want to think a bit about this unidentified stranger, who may be doing backbreaking work for little money in their own backyards and apartment blocks. This man may seem invisible to many. But when he saw someone in danger and distress, he risked his life to save them. He was a hero. He was a model citizen.

Now, I know what somebody's going to ask: are you saying it's okay to come into the US illegally?

And I will answer: If "illegal immigrants" are all so terrible, why would this man stop to save a life? That is to say, if he really truly did not care about the community in America, why would he bother? Obviously, for this man at least, being a resident in this nation — legal or not — is about more than just making a quick buck.

And which do you think is worse, to be in a nation as an undocumented migrant, or to be there as a prisoner of war? Which do you think would cause you to have more care for the community around you?

I ask because it is precisely to such people that the prophet Jeremiah writes. His audience of Israelite leaders has survived a failed rebellion against the Babylonian Empire, but at the cost of being deported to their oppressors' capital city. In captivity, they ask Jeremiah for advice: is there hope for another rebellion to succeed in the near term, or should we watch and wait for another opportunity?

Jeremiah responds to their enquiries gently but firmly: settle in for the long haul, because you're not going anywhere.

Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters...Increase in number there; do not decrease.

Do something productive with your time, focus on surviving, even thriving, not breaking free. That part will come later, in God's time.

This is cautious but reasonable advice. Thirty years before, the Kingdom of Judah had tried rebellion, with the result that they were wiped from the face of the earth. It's prudent for Jeremiah to remind his readers of what happens when you start fights you can't win. But then he says something truly remarkable:

Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.

That word "prosperity" is actually shalom, peace, health, well-being, wholeness, and yes, prosperity. It's also where we get the word "Salem" from. So it's possible that Jeremiah is making a pun here: find your peace in Babylon, because if it is at peace, you will find your Salem there too. In other words, find — create — peace and prosperity in Babylon, because Jerusalem is off the table.

In short, Jeremiah tells these prisoners not only are you not coming home, not only should you make the best of a bad situation, but in fact, you should become citizens of your enemy's nation!

Christian theology teaches that the children of God are citizens of the Celestial Kingdom, and foreigners — sojourners passing through — the kingdom of this world. But God also calls those who believe to be model citizens in the here and now, to build houses and live in them, to plant gardens and enjoy them, to have families, to seek what is best for those around us, even if we are the undocumented of this world, even if we feel like prisoners and enemies of the world around us.

Because we, like the captives Jeremiah wrote to, are here for the long haul.

No matter how bleak the situation may seem at the moment, God has a plan and a purpose, and God will not rest until they are accomplished, or so the faithful believe. Their job is to give thanks that things aren't worse and to live their gratitude by seeking the peace and prosperity of whatever polity they find themselves living in. That's the path to finding not just our shalom, but our Salem, the community we were meant to be and to do.

The lesson isn't limited to believers. On a very practical, secular level, Jeremiah's advice got the Jewish people through seventy years of foreign captivity. Eventually the Babylonians let their descendants go home and start over. Out of simple thanksgiving, if nothing else, Americans ought to show the same mercy to people who save grandmothers from drowning, and the many other model citizens who seek the best for their communities in quieter but no less heroic ways.