The Strangers Amongst Us | Katie Rice ‘27
“‘When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God.’” – Leviticus 19:33–34
While attending the CCDA Conference as a Perkins Fellow, I sat in a room full of church andnonprofit leaders, pondering this verse in a workshop called Dreamers in the Kingdom: Peace and Belonging for Undocumented Immigrants.
Because I grew up in a church where immigration was rarely discussed from the pulpit, I was shocked that any Christian practitioner would openly declare their stance on how the Church should interact with immigrants. Since I study global studies and Spanish, I was more than intrigued. I listened, captivated, as Carla Garcia shared her story for the first time. She described growing up in Mexico with parents who worked multiple jobs, yet still struggled to earn enough to support their family. She recalled leaving much of this family and moving to Kansas, trying to assimilate in a country that looked down on her culture and her language. She emphasized the responsibility she felt as a young girl to translate for her parents, protecting her family by explaining legal documents and bills. Finally, tears rolled down her face as she recounted the pain of discovering she was undocumented at the age of 16, grappling with the hardships that undoubtedly lay ahead of her. Although migration has never been easy, today the risks are far greater.
Carla’s story is one thread in a much larger narrative, one that details tense relations between the Global North and the Global South, one that I seek to understand in my coursework. In a class called Mass Migration and Global Development, my professor continually drew our attention to how Latin American migrants are often forced to leave their countries, and how their labor is essential to U.S. economic prosperity. Yet these people, who do some of the most menial and backbreaking work in our society, go unnoticed in our communities. Our eyes glance past them in the streets, and we avoid interacting with anyone whose English isn’t perfect. As a volunteer with the International Rescue Committee teaching English to refugees, I have seen this discomfort upclose– in others, and in myself. But I believe that we do not fully live out God’s command in Leviticus to love the strangers among us, a command that echoes throughout Scripture. In a moment when many immigrant communities live with fear and uncertainty, the Church has not always risen to meet its calling.
The Perkins Fellows spent the fall semester reading Geography of Grace by Joel Van Dyke and Kris Rocke. Powerfully, this book makes the claim that movements for justice have historically been most effective when tied to the grounding power and love of the Church. Think of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement in the United States, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s striking resistance in the face of Nazi Germany. Jesus called the Church to undertake biblical justice by loving our neighbors and seeking justice for the oppressed, a call which was no different 2000 years ago than it is today. It may not be our job to adjudicate the law, but the Church has been commissioned to care for the vulnerable, advocate for systemic change, and promote restorative practices.
Through my studies and my time as a Perkins Fellow, I have come to believe that God calls the church to extend love and belonging to our immigrant neighbors. We are not in charge of hashing out immigration policy, but we are responsible for how we respond to those in our midst. In Matthew 25, Jesus reminds us that what we do to the least of these, we do to him. Let us then move towards the strangers around us, recalling that Jesus himself was often an outsider who was invited in.