Jon Huckins – Page 3 – Living and Teaching Stories Rooted in the Mission of God

Conflicted Allegiance

conflictedAllegiance This past Sunday, our community spent some time wrestling with the implications of “allegiance” in light of the 4th of July holiday. It was good, hard and so, so important.

As followers of Jesus and citizens of a nation-state, we have a dual allegiance to the kingdom of God and to the United States. Reality is, the values of the kingdom of God as were embodied in Jesus (last will be first and first will be last, love & pray for your enemy, money is the root of all evil, etc) often come in sharp contrast to the values of the United States (success = winning), keep out or kill your enemy, money is a sign of blessing, etc). There is no doubt we have a responsibly to both, BUT the question has to be, “Which has our PRIMARY allegiance?”

We have have to embrace a conflicted allegiance.

On the one hand, we need to engage the United States as participants in creating a society that leads to the flourishing of everyone. As participants in a democracy, we (thankfully!) have that option. On the other, we need to always place our primary hope and be submitted to the rule and reign of the kingdom of God…even if that runs into contrast to the values of a nation-state.

Throughout history, we have seen the implications of Christians giving their primary allegiance to a political institution over and beyond the kingdom of God and it’s not pretty. Whether Rome under Constantine, the Crusades, the Inquisition or even Manifest Destiny, we have found ways to invert our allegiance and place God’s “blessing” on our desire for power, wealth & expansion at the cost of human life.

This inverted allegiance is idolatry.

Jesus and the early church modeled this conflicted allegiance all throughout the pages of the gospels and Acts. Jesus tells is followers to “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s” not as a way to affirm Caesar’s authority, but to remind his followers that the economy of the kingdom is COMPLETELY different than the economy of the empire. Paul, as a Roman citizen, was uncompromising in his kingdom allegiance to the point of regular imprisonment (as was the case for many early followers of Jesus…our Christian story literally stands on the shoulders of the incarcerated). He didn’t reject his Roman citizenship, he leveraged it for the flourishing of those without his inherited privilege and continually gave his primary allegiance to the kingdom.

What does this mean?

When we live a conflicted allegiance, it liberates us to unapologetically give our lives to the values of the kingdom of God, while continually discerning our constructive engagement/support/participation in the United States. For our family, it means we stand with and care for the people fleeing violence on our border because that’s a mandate of the kingdom of God. AND, we leverage our influence/allegiance to the United States to help fix broken systems that are breaking our neighbors. It means we look our neighbors on the streets in the eye to honor their humanity AND we stand in city council meetings advocating for systems to support their healing.

This stuff isn’t easy, but I’m convinced it’s the necessary way to find and follow Jesus in the midst of living in a culture so partisan, political and polarized.

Today, our family will celebrate our conflicted allegiance.

The Wall, The President and The People: Let’s Have a Conversation.

chicanopark Today, President Trump will make his first visit to California since his inauguration. In fact, his motorcade is driving to the border as I type this. As we know, one of his campaign promises was to build a wall on the southern border and contractors having been submitting bids for the project ever since. There are now only eight contractors in the running to win the bid and they have each built a prototype of their wall down here on our border.

As a proud resident of San Diego – a dynamic and diverse border city – and faith leader who follows Jesus, I’m deeply saddened that the President’s visit to my city isn’t to spend time with the people, but with prototypes.

I’m not writing to stoke partisan politics. That’s not helpful, inspiring or reflective of where I put my hope and allegiance. I am writing as one who is more concerned with the well being of the people in our city than the height of a prototype.

A people who don’t see the border as a burden to bear, but a gift to embrace.

A people reflecting the beautiful diversity of our country and God’s global kingdom.

A people deeply committed to the flourishing of our communities and those within them.

A people who need to be heard and lead the way in discerning what is best of our city and bi-national reality.

We can disagree on policy, but at the very least, we have to understand the implications of our policy on real people. I have found that unless we have looked into the eyes of those impacted, it is impossible to understand.

So, President Trump, I personally invite you to come down to the borderlands with me in Tijuana and San Diego and meet the people directly impacted by the stroke of your pen. My name is Jon Huckins – Cofounding Director of Global Immersion – and one of our primary organizational initiatives involves having cross-sector leaders from around the country come to the border to see the human face of immigration and build a set of tools for how to better care of the “stranger among us,” as my sacred text (the Bible) mandates.

Wether you realize it or not, your rhetoric is dehumanizing, stokes fear and leads to a misunderstanding that compromises the safety of the people you’ve sworn to protect. Once you’ve looked into the eyes of those caught in the wake of our broken systems, heard their stories and confronted the facts on the ground, I trust your compassion will grow and your decisions will be shaped by factual reality.

You will see and experience the people and places that rarely make the headlines, but that are intimately impacted by the polarizing rhetoric and misunderstanding infecting the collective soul of our nation.

Real people.

Real stories.

Real pain.

Faith. Hope. Love.

Meet Maria. A 20-year old DACA recipient with big dreams who is making them come true by walking with the underserved of our city. With the expiration of DACA comes the expiration of her dreams, actions and presence as an active member of our community.

Meet Ingrid. A widowed mother of three who has been fleeing gang violence in Central America and now sits in a migrant shelter in Tijuana as she pleads of the US government to offer her family asylum.

Meet Hector. A United States military veteran who has since been deported and separated from his family.

Meet Dermot. A catholic priest from Ireland who regularly crosses the border to serve as the chaplain to communities in San Diego and Tijuana.

As a privileged, white, Christian, straight man, it’s easy for me to be insulated from the pain and uncertainty of my neighbors impacted by your pen. Whether I admit it or not, I have been taught to see certain people and taught not see others. Having done the personal work to confront my inherited biases, opened my heart to new relationships and leaned into my core Christian convictions, I can say with 100% certainty that we are all better with the Maria’s and Hector’s of the world on our streets, in our homes and leading our businesses, churches and non-profits.

I’m offering you the opportunity to look behind the vail of hostile rhetoric and into the eyes of women and men created in the image of God. Jesus once said that it’s in the eyes of the stranger that we see God (Matt 25). Women and men who are, everyday, making America great.

In the meantime, we’ll be in the streets, parks and pulpits telling the story of our beautifully diverse border city.

Join me?

A Few Thoughts on the Sh*thole Countries and a Response

In the midst of figuring out a road forward on DACA and comprehensive immigration reform, President Trump made a statement about countries who had the most need for support/relief in the form of the United States granting immigration status to their citizens. He called them “shithole countries.” A few thoughts:

We can’t let our political paralysis keep us from speaking up and out against hateful, racism when we hear it. Often times in the name of “not getting political” good intentioned people (who are deeply disturbed by the language coming out of the White House) remain silent. I get it. There are implications to saying stuff that may be interpreted as “political” or as jumping off the party line, but that’s no excuse to passively perpetuate hateful rhetoric and action at the expense of those on the receiving end of it. If we’re honest, that paralysis is a fear rooted in an assumption that our political allegiance is more important that our kingdom allegiance. Let’s choose the latter EVERY time. After all, the king of our kingdom came from Nazareth…a “sh*thole” town that wasn’t supposed to have anything good come from it.
There is always more to the story and we have to become students of the nuance, not the soundbites. For example, if we did a collective study on the story of these sh*tholecountries, we’d need to pay attention to the way US foreign policy and militarism is marbled into their destabilization. It’s easy to point fingers as if we aren’t part of the problem. It’s much harder to become students of conflict and ask necessary questions of our contribution or perpetuation of it. Speaking specifically of Central America, it important we remember that US policy/violence in 80’s led to refugees coming to US without support…which led to gangs…which led to their deportation back to Central America…which led to civil war…which then led to current crisis. This information isn’t hidden in a vault, we just have to be willing to dig into the discomfort.
I have four little kids who we are giving our lives to invite into the generous, compassionate, faithful and countercultural way of Jesus. Because the language and actions of our President, my very young kids are being exposed to words and realities as a pace we can’t control. Even if they don’t read the tweets or hear the interviews, it still makes it way to them at school or overhearing our adult discussion or walking down the street. On one hand, I lament that in any given moment, I can never expose my kids to the words of the President without fear of what they may hear. On the other, this is a dynamic moment in history that can be used an opportunity to form our children into a generation with tools of discernment, actions of justice and a healthy distrust of the assumed integrity of those in leadership. Rather than isolating our kiddos from our societal brokenness, let’s expose them to it in a way that invites them to be part of it’s healing. For us, it’ll start by taking our kids down to Mexico to spend some time in a migrant shelter to hang out with the beautiful, brave and heroic Central American mothers and kids on the move.
In this moment, what are creative ways we can celebrate the humanity, dignity and image of God in our sisters and brothers from Africa, Haiti and Central America? Let’s not get even by lowing ourselves to the same game of name calling, but get creative in love by building uncommon friendships and partnership across borders.

On the journey together may we go…

Women: “The Devil’s Gateway?”

Lou Jimmy Carter recently said, “Abuse of women as the primary human rights issue in the world today.”

We don’t have to look far into the global plight of women to see the truth to this statement.

He goes on to say that religion (and the misuse of it) is a major contributor in perpetuating the oppression rather than leading to liberation and healing. For those of us in the Christian tradition, we aren’t obsovled from this critique.

Influential “Church Father’s” have said things like “women’s are the devils gateway (Turtullian).” Others have argued that women don’t inherit the image of God in the same way men do. Perspectives like these have subtly built themselves into theological constructs and church structure.

While the Church has often gotten it wrong, Jesus models what is right. Jesus life and message is one of liberating women into their sacred vocation as equal participants in God’s mission of reconciliation.

Further, throughout the gospels, women are continually portrayed as the ones who actually understood Jesus message while the disciples struggled to keep up. They were the first to know the good news (birth and resurrection) and the ones entrusted to share it with the world.

How might a renewed understanding of our sacred text (the Bible), Jesus life and teachings and the history of the Church help us understand women not as second class citizens in the Kingdom, but as equals who often lead us to a full understanding of God and the gospel in today’s world?

The reality is that women are the source of life in the world. They are the primary conduits of God’s continuing story of new life and rebirth. They are the one’s most in tune with the flourishing of others at their own expense rather than the ones who often pursue their own flourishing (men) at the expense of others. They are willing to bleed so others find life.

As part of their morning prayers, ancient rabbi’s (and some modern ones) would pray, “Thank God I’m not a woman.”

On this international women’s day, we pray, “THANK GOD FOR WOMEN.”

As a father of three girls and a husband to a women I’d follow to the ends of the earth, I couldn’t be more grateful. We named our youngest daughter Lou (renowned warrior) Sojourner (abolishionist who gave her life for racial equality).

May Lou (and all girls/women) live in and contribute to a world where she is free to lead us in abolishing inequality and remind us of the beauty, strength and leadership of women.

Today is “A Day Without Immigrants”

Nationwide, immigrants of every ethnicity and backstory are staying home from work, school, grocery shopping, etc to highlight the contribution of immigrants to U.S. business and culture. In the face of recent rhetoric and policy, this is a critically prophetic action taken to help us remember to SEE the humanity, dignity and image of God in EVERYONE.

Whether we realize it or not, we ALL benefit from the presence of immigrants in our neighborhoods, cities and country. For example, if you ate a vegetable or piece of fruit today, it almost certainly went through the hands of an immigrant.

A few things for us to think about today:

-Immigrants are less likely to commit a crime than the native born population.

-96% of economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal said that illegal immigration, in particular, had “been beneficial to the economy” (Undocumented Americans pay $12 billion annually to the Social Security Trust Fund & $11.64 billion annually in state and local taxes.)

-there are 37 million immigrants in the USA today (about 12% of population). 11.5 million are undocumented. 40-50% entered legally and overstayed their visa, while the rest crossed illegally (we’d be wise to listen long to the stories that led to this decision)

-The fastest growing undocumented population are Asian immigrants.

-140,000 more people have left the United States for Mexico between 2009 to 2014

MOST IMPORTANTLY

-Immigrants are our neighbors. Jesus made it clear that our priority is to love GOD and love NEIGHBOR. It’s hard to love our neighbors when we don’t know them or only hear their stories through the lens of partisan politics.

-The Hebrew word for “Stranger” or “Alien” (ger) appears in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) 92 times…consistently in relation to God’s mandate to care and love them.

-Jesus is very clear that this mandate remains when he reminds us to care for the orphans, widow’s, prisoners and “strangers”

-Unless we are Indigenous to the this plot of land, we are ALL immigrants. I’m 3rd generation from Sweden!

A STORY

One of our closest friends is an undocumented immigrant. She lives in our neighborhood and is regularly in our home. Our kids are like her kids and her kids are like our kids. Her young children are US citizens.

Every day they live in fear of their family being torn apart. Every day they live in the shadows powerless (politically) to change their future. (This recent study by Fuller Theological Seminary shows the psychological and emotional damage of this reality)

Our friend’s daughter came to our house a couple weeks ago to join us in writing letters to President Trump to encourage him and invite him to remember “the least of these” among us.

See the picture of what she wrote…

This girl has every reason to be hateful, resentful and hostile. Instead she simply asks for the stability of an education. An opportunity to contribute to the best of our society.

Friends, we CAN have a secure nation-state without compromising our higher allegiance to a Kingdom (of God) that mandates we care for the “stranger in our midst.” To do that, we must address our proximity problem that has put miles (whether geographical or idealogical) between “us” and “them.” We have to be willing to sit at the table to hear the stories, be generous in our assumptions and build a future marked by invitation rather than isolation.

May we follow this brave girl’s lead and lend platform to her voice as we follow an others-oriented God who calls us to do the same.

——

I used a bunch of sources (I know, this may lead to a fight about #alternativefacts…ugh), but here are a couple:

https://defineamerican.com/factsmatter/#undocumented-americans-pay-an-estimated-11-64-billion-in-state-and-local-taxes-a-year

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/16/515555428/a-day-without-immigrants-promises-a-national-strike-thursday

http://evangelicalimmigrationtable.com/preach/statistics/