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It is written:
Exodus 1:15-21-Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah; 16 and he said, “When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” 17 But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. 18 So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and saved the male children alive?” 19 And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them.” 20 Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. 21 And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He provided households for them.
Shiphrah and Puah are two amazing examples of heroes in the Bible. They had been ordered by the state to kill baby boys born to the Hebrews. However, they knew this was wrong, and so were willing to break immoral and unjust laws of man in order to uphold the higher moral and just laws of God. By showing their reverence for God in how they treated their fellow human beings, they were blessed by the Lord. Their courage led to the deliverance of Moses, which then led to the deliverance of the people of Israel.
Throughout the Bible, there are examples of humans being willing to stand up against the wicked and unjust dictates of man in order to obey the higher laws of God. Let’s look at one example from our modern day world that is worthy of consideration: illegal immigrants.
Many in our day and age have bought into the notion that anyone in America who does not have “proper documentation” is an immoral and wicked criminal, one who has come to our country in order to promote violence and gain wealth and power through terror and manipulation. Now, there are people here who are like that, and there are indeed immigrants who have come to America unjustly and have demonstrated that they do indeed fit into this demographic of a criminal. Acknowledging this, we must also realize that there are others who do not fit into such a stereotype. Let me share with you an example of a man by the name of Ben Daniel, who has been dealing with the subject of “illegal immigrants” for a number of years. He acknowledges quite frankly:
“While living in the college’s residence in Pacific Heights (one of the City’s posh neighborhoods) I commuted three times a week to the Mission District (one of the City’s poor and predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods) to work with refugees from Central America—almost all of whom were in the United States illegally—at an Episcopal ministry called the Good Samaritan Center. One of my jobs at the Good Samaritan Center was to help undocumented immigrants find employment and then to work with the employers to make sure they treated our clients well and paid them a decent wage. This is a responsibility I took on blithely, failing, at first, to comprehend that people tend to hire undocumented immigrants precisely because they don’t want to treat them well or provide them with a decent wage.” (Ben Daniel, Neighbor: Christian Encounters with “Illegal” Immigration, 14-15 (Kindle Edition): Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press)
Daniel is quite clear about what he has learned about this matter. Please remember that he has not gained his perspective from political propaganda and racist stereotypes by politicians eager to gain a vote: instead, what he has come to learn is from first hand personal experience. Listen to what he learned from the experience of a man named Efraín Baños. Efrain was an “illegal immigrant” from El Salvador.
Daniel notes:
“In the 1980s, El Salvador was a mess. A civil war in this tiny Central American nation had become a proxy conflict for the opposing forces of the Cold War, and by the time the family for whom we provided sanctuary came to us, the United States government was pouring out more than a million dollars a day to pay for the El Salvadoran army’s fight against communist rebels. Historians will debate and form varying opinions about the justice and efficacy of the fight against communism in El Salvador, but regardless of what one may think of the war, any but the most Machiavellian of capitalism’s true believers would condemn as immoral and ruthless the methods of warfare used by the U.S.-backed Salvadoran army. U.S.-funded-and-trained death squads carried out extrajudicial executions and “disappearances” with terrifying regularity. Torture was commonplace. The El Salvadoran military targeted civilian populations as a matter of course. From the danger and tragedy that was life in El Salvador in the mid-eighties, Efraín Baños and his two teenaged sons, René and Edwin, moved to California’s North Coast and into the care of the Mendocino Sanctuary Coalition. There was nothing legal about the presence of the Baños family in Northern California. Efraín was a wanted man in El Salvador, a criminal on the run from the law. Before leaving the family home in the El Salvadoran capital, San Salvador, Efraín had worked as a chauffeur for Archbishop Oscar Romero and, after the Archbishop’s assassination, as an ambulance driver. His “crime” was showing up with his ambulance at the site of a military attack on a civilian neighborhood in San Salvador and saving the lives of some of the army’s intended targets. Despite warnings from the military, Efraín continued to drive his ambulance. In retaliation, the military death squads murdered his wife and abducted his two boys, forcing them into a military academy to be used as cannon fodder in the civil war. Finally, Efraín left his ambulance, found and rescued his sons, and headed north with his kids. They traveled as illegal migrants through Guatemala, Mexico, and into the United States, where they remained as illegal residents of my community until obtaining the falsified documents Efraín needed to apply for amnesty under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. It is hard to imagine a morally viable reason for American Christians not to have come to the aid of the Baños family, even if such aid was given in contradiction to the laws of the United States. Had Efraín kept his family in El Salvador, his sons would have been forced to fight as child soldiers, and it is likely that Efraín himself would have been murdered by the military regime. However law-abiding and even “patriotic” it may have seemed to turn over Efraín and his boys to the border patrol, to have been complicit in the extradition of the Baños family would have been a murderous act. It would have been indefensible for those guided by a biblical ethic or by any other reasonable set of moral standards. In the end we didn’t save Efraín’s life. Many years later my high school Spanish teacher told me that Efraín was murdered in San Salvador, where he had returned after the end of the civil war, but I’m glad we gave him an extra ten years with his sons, and I feel privileged to have played a small part in his American sojourn. My experience acting as a translator for the Baños family was transformative. I translated, on and off, for the duration of my final year in high school and went to college with a healthy skepticism toward the idea that American laws are good simply because they are American laws. Regardless of the biblical mandate to be subject to “governing authorities,” and to “honor the emperor,” Christians have a strong tradition of finding it necessary sometimes to resist immoral laws. According to the biblical witness, Christians’ responsibility to break unjust laws is both literally and literarily the other side of the coin from the commandment that we obey earthly rulers.” (Ben Daniel, Neighbor: Christian Encounters with “Illegal” Immigration, 43-44 (Kindle Edition, emphasis added): Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press)
No matter what happens in our country regarding the subject of illegal immigration, let us as Christians remember not to be guided by stereotypes or propaganda. May we continue to uphold just laws, speak against unjust laws while we work for godly reform in the judicial arena. And may we listen with the heart of Christ and be guided by His Spirit through God’s holy Word.
Isaiah 1:17-Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.