In the United States and elsewhere in the world, there is a stony-hearted, stiff-necked and unkind view of the many facing oppression, suppression, and deportation that these migrant peoples, including children and infants, are deserving whatever the government is dishing out (no matter how that violates human rights or basic decency). And yet, immigration policy need not be so harsh, and could support peaceful ways to assist people needing to relocate. People can be treated with dignity and still offered pathways of asylum and migration for other means. How different would these policies and practices be if every time government agents, politicians, and some media saw these folks, they could bear witness to the strengths, courage, and gifts and the multitude of good reasons folks are making to seek peaceful migration? Here is one truth: if we make official migration extremely difficult and more violent when people are fleeing extreme violence and climate change for relative safety, then more pressure will come to bear on unofficial migration pathways. Repressive measures do not alleviate, remove, or solve the reasons people are fleeing. All repression does is increase the amount of fear and anxiety among the whole population, whether people are migrants or not, as authoritarianism extends itself. But authoritarianism loves the prosperity gospel as a cloak, this ideal of meritocracy as justification and cover for the repression authoritarianism exerts. Authoritarianism then claims “these people deserve this suffering,” and in fearfulness and pride and the desire not to be associated or lumped with people deserving suffering, others may harden their hearts and turn away from cruelties and violence, failing to uphold even the Golden Rule of offering to others what they themselves would appreciate receiving. Why? Because in the language of justification by merit, folks can hide from themselves, feeling assured that if they are not being punished or suppressed, it is because somehow they belong to the deserving. That’s how racism and other forms of oppression work to divide people from one another: I may not have much, but I’m better and more deserving than that awful non-person over there. That sense of virtue isn’t rooted in truth, but in delusion meant to control and divide, and results in tremendous suffering and the deaths of very innocent people doing what any of us (yes, any of us) might do in similar circumstances.
As we read our sacred texts, seeking truth and faithful practices, we need to watch for the texts of justifying stony-heartedness and a false sense of virtue. The first segment of this week’s teachings from Deuteronomy (7:12-9) reiterates standard contractual language from other Ancient Near Eastern religions from around the same era: there are virtues to be pursued and signs of failure will show up with curses, poverty, conquered governments, and ill health while signs of success will be evidenced by blessings, wealth, strong government, and good health. That is what has become called the prosperity gospel in a nut shell. Yes, there is Biblical text for that theological viewpoint, but to support it, one must override all the (multitude of) texts that are alongside, the ones calling people to humility, to an idea of the Holy as one who can’t be bribed and who cares for the oppressed, vulnerable, and suffering. That is what we have in the rest of this week’s text, from Deuteronomy 9-11:25. With Moses speaking directly in these later words, these more challenging and difficult words to live into, that is where the spiritual weight of the argument dwells.
There is, of course, good reason for this offered revision to the Ancient Near Eastern contract model of faithfulness if we consider what scholars believe, tracing much of Deuteronomy to being laid down and edited during the Babylonian Exile. An exiled people in the contract model are exiled not only from their land but from their deities, as their deities have been conquered by the new rulers. Resisting that, holding onto culture, beliefs and practices means needing to shift away from the old contract model that is delivered within a person’s lifetime to assurances that the Holy is still with the people and indeed cares for them in their oppressed and abject states and the idea that eventually things will change and their children or children’s children or children’s children’s children will make it home. That is: we resist not just for the now or for ourselves, but as caretakers of the future. Our vulnerability is also our strength and places us strongly in the peoples that the Holy loves. We resist oppression faithfully not just because it is wrong in the now or because we seek freedom and redress, but because this resistance alongside the Holy is part of how the Holy cares for the vulnerable. And when things do get better, we are encouraged to hold onto our humility and not give into the tempting interpretation that permits so much oppression to thrive that somehow we are deserving and those folks over there are not. “Know, then, that it is not for any virtue of yours that the Lord Your God is giving you this good land to possess; for you are a stiff-necked people.”
Our virtues neither bless nor protect us nor mark us as deserving any more than our failings mark us as undeserving. We may still require or benefit from encouragement to care for others, to keep our hearts soft and welcoming, to love the stranger as we love the Holy, to tend this life with reverence and wonder and curiosity and courage. After all, these practices all challenge us when we are frightened, angry or grieving or have any worldly power or well-being to risk, to put ourselves in danger, even possibly to change. When we are tempted to trade a false sense of security or a little more power at the expense of someone else who also is seeking to live a life of love, peace, justice, and well-being, these practices call us back to a better self than is easy and a more just and equitable community than is present. To be clear how undeserving the people are of any blessings, Deuteronomy offers a nice long list list of how stiff-necked the people are and Moses’ interventions ending with God affirming the covenant and giving Moses the ten commandments. Concluding in 10:12: “And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you? Only this: to revere the Lord your God, to walk only in God’s paths, to love God, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, keeping the Lord’s commandments and laws, which I enjoin upon you today, for your good.” And just in case we feel a little like defending our relationship with God exclusively, 10:17-19: “For the Lord your God is God supreme and Lord supreme, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing them with food and clothing. You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in Egypt.”
That is, faith is more than a simple contract that if I live justly, then I will never be ill and will have all the things I ever need. Faith begins in vulnerability, in exile from power, in not having enough ness, in the dignity of enduring oppression, in the middle of the long trouble, in recognizing just how weak we are and interdependent upon this web of being, one another, and this planet’s good health. Faithfulness asks us to risk loving and caring as God loves and cares: upholding the cause of the fatherless and the widow and befriending the stranger (in other words: protecting the vulnerable and practicing compassion). This might not seem so radical until you stop, review earlier, and remember just how few of the practices outlined in the ten basic commandments and in so many other areas bother to relate to people not in power or with some measure of wealth and well-being. In the middle of a text that is also telling currently disempowered people that they will someday have more power in the land over those that currently outnumber them and control the resources and livelihoods, the call to faithful practice beyond prosperity reminds folks that (1) God loves the vulnerable and doesn’t accept bribes from the powerful, so the disempowered are still part of the chosen and (2) encourages those who do have resources and maybe some power to be careful not to become full of themselves as though they somehow deserve either resources or power. What is being brought forward is a challenging faithfulness, where the people who are not advantaged by the status quo are just as and maybe more cherished, more loved, and, in the end, more important than those who have wealth, health, prestige and worldly power. Theologies supporting authoritarianism only encourage more stony-heartedness and stiff-neckedness as fear and terror rise. Faithfulness calls us in a different direction, toward embracing our vulnerabilities and aiding those who are even more vulnerable than ourselves, not only for justice and well-being right now, but to support and cultivate a future in which all of us might thrive and would, minimally with that Golden Rule mindset, want to live. Faithfulness needs vulnerability, lest we succumb to the temptation of grabbing power and holding it over others, lest we fail to remember our own vulnerabilities and those of our ancestors, lest we give authoritarianism the power for cruelty, hatred, and division that it craves.
How are we befriending the stranger and cultivating a world today reflecting the Holy who shows no favor and takes no bribe but protects the vulnerable and cares for all? Are we demanding that the vulnerable enjoy respect and the conditions for well-being? Are we insisting that it is wrong incarcerating children without due process, adequate medical care, food, emotional and spiritual support, and their families who did not hurt but who tried to love and protect them? How are we showing up, vulnerable, lives on the line for this planet, this life, and one another?
