1st Sunday - All People Are Welcome In God's House

Advent Sermons and Petitions

All People Are Welcome in God’s House

First Sunday of Advent (December 2, 2007)

In today’s reading, Isaiah presents us with his vision of God’s house, established on the highest mountain – a house to which all nations shall stream.  And there, God will instruct us in the divine ways so that we might walk in his path.  Isaiah envisions all human beings united in God’s house as sisters and brothers. Likewise, we Catholics believe that all human beings on the face of the earth belong to one human family under God. 

For God, there are no tongues, no skin color and no borders that separate us.  God created the earth for us to develop and share.  Unfortunately, we humans have created divisions among ourselves based on ethnicity, different religious beliefs, or differences in wealth.  In fact, we have come to think of the world as three: the First World, Second World and Third World.  And what separates the three are different degrees of wealth.  We in the United States live in the First World, the richest country on the face of the earth.  But more people live in the Third World, the poorest third of the earth’s population, than in the First and Second Worlds combined.  And they remain our brothers and sisters, and we are obliged to care for them.  If we were all to go up to the house of the Lord, we would be enlightened because, as Isaiah says, “We would walk in the light of the Lord.”  We would see as God sees; we would see all human beings as our brothers and sisters, as children of the same God.

The bishops of the United States and Mexico espoused this same vision in their 2001 joint pastoral letter “Strangers No Longer.”  This letter, which outlines the Catholic Church’s position on immigration, states:

“The Church recognizes that all goods of the earth belong to all people. When persons cannot find employment in their country of origin to support themselves and their families, they have a right to find work elsewhere in order to survive. Sovereign nations should provide ways to accommodate this right.¨ (#35)

Let us analyze the parts of this statement which are so important for our time. 

First, the Bishops recognize that “all the goods of the earth belong to all people.”  This statement is radical, it’s prophetic, and it appears out of sync with the common thinking of today’s world.  But it reflects a biblical truth found in Leviticus 25:23 which states: “Your land must not be sold on a permanent basis, because you do not own it; it belongs to God, and you are like foreigners who are allowed to make use of it.”

Indeed, this earth belongs to God and we are only entrusted to develop and care for it. God intended for us to share the fruits of this earth as we would in our own families. 

In their letter, the Bishops continue: “When persons cannot find employment in their country of origin to support themselves and their families, they have a right to find work elsewhere in order to survive.”  Here the bishops recognize the right of people to emigrate from their country to another when they have an economic need of survival.

In this same letter, the bishops state another right, which may appear to contradict the previous mentioned rights.  They state: “Sovereign nations have the right to control their borders.”  So there appears to be a conflict of rights between those with a need to emigrate in order to survive and the sovereign state to control its borders.”  How is this conflict of rights resolved?

The bishops do resolve it.  They state: “The Church recognizes the right of sovereign nations to control their territories but rejects such control merely for the purpose of acquiring additional wealth.”  So if we have the ability, the wealth, the opportunity to accommodate immigrants, then we should receive them.  We cannot exclude them just because we don’t want to share or because we want to maintain our more affluent life style.  In fact, the influx of immigrants into the United States over the last 20 years has not hurt the American economy but strengthened it and helped it to grow.  Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve stated: “The sharp rise in immigration sustained the long economic boom in the 1990s and without wages spiraling upward.”

The bishops go as far as to say: “The more powerful economic nations, which have the ability to protect and feed their residents, have a stronger obligation to accommodate migration flows.”  I think the bishops are speaking about us in the United States.  We are the most powerful economic nation and we do have the ability to protect and feed our residents, so we can mostly easily accommodate immigrants.  In fact, most immigrants, whether they arrive in the United States legally or illegally, find employment with six months.  In no time, many of them are sending money back to their families in their countries of origin.

A man who owns a large chocolate candy company in Indiana employs many immigrant workers.  He is overjoyed with their performance.  For him, they are hardworking, respectful and very family oriented.  He even commented that if he ever needed another worker, he just had to mention it to a few employees and the next they would bring a relative or friend to work who was well informed about how to behave on the job.  He said that if the government arrested and deported his workers, he would have to close his plant.  Many employers who rely on immigrant workers for their companies express the same concerns.

But what about those who enter the United States illegally?  Some people say, “How can we allow them to stay?  It is as if we are rewarding them for breaking the law.”  The reality is that people want to stand in line to enter the United States legally, but they cannot find the line.  Imagine if you were starving and each day you went to the corner where bread was distributed.  Hundreds of people are gathered there but you discover after several days that only 2 loaves of bread are given out each day.  What would you do?  You and most others would stop going to the corner to wait; you would begin to look for bread elsewhere.  And you would get it however you could in order to survive. This is what immigrants do when considering coming to the United States.

There are so few visas available for thousands of people desperate to immigrate to the United States that there is no realistic waiting line.  In their desperation, people enter illegally.  They do not cross the border because they want to leave behind their homes or family or country; they do not trudge through the desert because they want to break the law; they make tremendous sacrifices and take extraordinary risks because they want to survive.  These are the people our bishops say have a right to emigrate and the United States has an obligation to accommodate.

As we prepare for Christmas, the celebration of the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, let us recall how Mary, Joseph and Jesus had to flee into Egypt.  They were immigrants who carried no papers but only a desire to live. They had a right to live with dignity just as the immigrants do today.  Even though we do not know exactly how they were received, it appears they were not rejected, declared illegal, arrested or deported. 

Whenever we see immigrants today, let us not think of them as intruders, people who want to take advantage of us. Let us think of them as people desperate to survive, to find work to support their children, to find a better way of life.  Let us think of them as members of our family, brothers and sisters in the Lord.  They left their families and countries because they felt they had to.  Let us welcome them as Jesus welcomed foreigners.  He suffered criticism and ridicule because he reached out to the poor, the sick, women and foreigners. But he was determined to demonstrate that we are all members of the same human family.

As Isaiah said:  “Let all the nations stream to the house of our God.”

INTERCESSIONS

For our church leaders, the Pope, the bishops and priests, that they may lead our church to be the voice of the voiceless and especially for the millions of immigrants in our country.

For our political leaders, that they may adopt and implement comprehensive immigration reforms that respect the human dignity and human rights of all immigrants.

For all immigrants who desperately seek a better life, that they may not lose faith in God or God’s people.