Make no mistake: the Gospel is political.
Politics refers to “the affairs of the city” and “influencing other people on a civic or individual level.”
Throughout his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus is political. He influences people to live into the Kingdom of Heaven. For Jesus, Heaven is not essentially some place off in the distance where you go after you die. No, Heaven is a way of life to be lived right here, right now. We see this clearly in the prayer he taught his disciples:
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
When Jesus entered Jerusalem riding a donkey on Palm Sunday, he was performing a political act. But it was a political act unlike any other.
Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the closest American prelate to Pope Francis, took nine other bishops to the Mexican-American border for three days of listening to the stories of people who are suffering from America’s horribly broken immigration system. The bishops celebrated a dramatic mass with hundreds of Mexicans, taking communion through slats in the security fence, and laid a wreath at the border commemorating the estimated 6000 people who have died trying to cross.
“We can no longer tolerate the suffering caused by a broken system,” the Cardinal said. “The suffering and death must end.”
When asked how important immigration reform now is to the Catholic Church, O’Malley replied, “It’s another pro-life issue.”
Indeed it is.
Washington, D.C.—The national “Fast for Families Across America” bus tour campaign ended their journey yesterday in front of the U.S. Capitol building on the National Mall where hundreds gathered in support.
The buses, which returned to Washington after covering more than 90 congressional districts during a seven week tour, joined a female immigration advocacy group, We Belong Together—Women for Commonsense Immigration Reform, whose members have been fasting and praying for the House to pass reform that’s needed to keep their families together.
At 5 a.m. on a Friday last August, 20-year-old Joshua Jank’s condition was worsening. Nurses at his hospice home in Fort Wayne, Ind. told his mother to gather anyone who wanted to say a last goodbye.
“Josh spiraled downward very quickly,” Brenda Jank told Sojourners. “In less than two weeks he went from being at home without oxygen to being in the hospice house. He just hit it – a perfect storm.”
It was in the midst of that perfect storm that a movement was born.
“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain the resurrection of the dead.” Philippians 3:10-11
Harsh winters make us more deeply appreciative of spring. Last week, after a particularly intense winter, it finally reached 60 degrees in New York. I, for one, celebrated heartily. Spring is a reminder that winter is not interminable and flowers will bloom again. Almost exactly one year ago, the Senate released a bipartisan bill on immigration reform. Many Christian leaders celebrated the possibility that finally the nearly 11 million men, women, and children would be afforded the opportunity to integrate into this great country. In addition, in January the GOP released a set of principles that set the tone for the genuine possibility for immigration reform. There was a growing consensus that this is the year for immigration reform. Then the news started to change and many prognosticators said, “Immigration reform is dead.”
It is into this public eulogy of immigration reform that the Christian message of Lent and Easter can breathe new life.