For here on either
side of the wall are God’s children
and no man-made
border can obliterate that fact.
Rev. Dr. martin
Luther King, Jr.
standing at the Berlin Wall, September 1964
I lived for five years in a place that pilgrims from all
over the world come to visit. I have said prayers at all the Stations of the
Cross on the Via Dolorosa, always stopping at Station 8 to pray extra hard for
the women of Jerusalem still weeping for their children. I have looked over
Jerusalem, like Jesus, and wept for those who still do not know the ways of
peace. I have sipped from the well in Nabulus where the Samaritan woman engaged
Jesus in scandalous conversation and was given living water from the
priest/caretaker when I explained this was my ordination story.
I lived in this
place all call holy and I called home. I also preached and presided at the
Lord’s table in Jerusalem and on the Sea of Galilee feeding hungry pilgrims
from afar, local Palestinian Christians from the neighborhood, and ex-pats from
around the world. I understand why people go on pilgrimage---a chance to feel,
touch, the mystery of God’s presence. I believe we are all sojourners here too.
So, of course I needed to make the pilgrimage to Friendship Park
on my first Sunday in San Diego, to participate in the world’s only binational
communion service. Friendship Park is the historic border meeting at the
western edge of the US-Mexico border where friends and families from both
nations have met for generations. The park is the place where the drama of
family separation and family reunion continues to take place as new families
are separated daily. It is the place where lovers used to exchange notes or
send kisses, where baby pictures were exchanged, where cries of despair mixed
easily with cries of joy as fingers tried to reach out. It is a station on the
Via Dolorosa, a place that marks suffering.
Since November 2011 it has also become the place where
people on both sides come together on Sundays to share communion with their
families and friends, sisters and brothers in Christ on the Tijuana side. For
almost 10 years, La Iglesia Fronteriza, The Border Church has gathered to
witness to God’s love that knows no boundaries, because nothing can separate or
break up God’s family.
“Neither God nor
God’s people will be limited by national boundaries.
Somehow, mysteriously
the US Mexico border wall is turned into the
table of the Lord, a
table at which all are welcome.”
Rev. Dr. John
Fantestil
On the American side Rev. Dr. John Fanestil from First
United Methodist Church shares the Gospel message, and words of institution in
English and Spanish with Latino ministers on the Tijuana side adding their own
prayers and music.
I was looking forward to attending or participating in
communion at such a holy site in such a time as this at ground zero of the
immigration/refugee crisis. The
situation is not an emergency requiring troops or the national guard, but it is
a humanitarian crisis made by our unjust political and economic policies that
have driven people from their homes to seek food to put on the table. The
theological irony or coincidence is not lost on me; I am coming to break bread
at table for a people who fled so they could put bread on their tables; I am
coming to break open the body of Christ for a people broken by an immigration
system that does not honor their dignity as whole human beings deserving
dignity and freedom.
As a person who also lived with another separation barrier,
the Annexation or Apartheid Wall, another militarized border which separates
families, and which is the model for this border wall now completed in San
Diego, I wanted to go and pray, plead and weep that God help us to break down
all these dividing walls of separation and hostility---- here and there.
But the forecast called for rain, so the service was moved
indoors to an office space near the border entry and exit, in the chaparral
neighborhood of Tijuana. The plan was for Pastor John and I to cross the border
and worship with those on the Mexican side of Border Church, to be together
physically not just spiritually---to share sacramental presence in each other’s
eyes.
When we arrived at the California side of the border, I was
shocked to see an outlet mall. I looked at the sign listing the shops and
laughed when I saw “Justice” under “Armanni.” A store named Justice? Can you
buy or sell justice? The capitalist system at its best making a mockery of
everything I thought.
I had never crossed this border before and didn’t know what
to expect. My past traumatic experiences
of crossing in and out of Israel made me anxious as I nervously checked out the
border security eyeing people coming in. It reminded me of the way the Israeli
soldiers look at you as you enter the West Bank. They don’t really care if you
enter. They care when you leave and try to come back through, when you cross
back into Israel. Same here.
As soon as we crossed, I felt a sigh of relief, the same
sigh because I was safe and also because Tijuana looked like Bethlehem, looked
like home---run down buildings, garbage in the streets, people selling things
except there were no taxi drivers trying to hussle you for an expensive ride.
And like any tourist town there was a big red sign proudly calling out,
“Mexico.”
Pastor John explained that this was the place that people
seeking asylum would come early in the morning to line up to get on the list to
have their asylum cases first heard. If they could prove “a credible threat”,
then they would either be taken into detention (and maybe separated from their
family) or sent back to the mean streets of Tijuana to wait for their hearing. At this hour of the day, it was just a welcome
sign to Mexico. If you were leaving it was the sign that marked your acceptance,
your life moving forward. It was also the sign that marked your denial or the
beginning of your journey back to a known threatening place.
Breathe in the damp air, Loren, exhale the pain of these
disturbing facts.
We entered the cluttered make shift office and were
immediately welcomed with more love than I have experienced in a long time. The
welcome brought forth my few words of Spanish. “Mucho gusto” to hands held out.
“Mi nombre es Pastora Lorena McGrail. Yo trabajo con l’eglisa en el otro lado,
Safe Harbors.” Roberto immediately took my hand and said in perfect English, “Welcome
Pastora Lorena, you are most welcome. You work with one of our sister
organizations.”
Two things happened in this short interchange. I was renamed
and anointed. I am now Pastora Lorena a title I never had in my five years in
Palestine because women ministers don’t exist. Second, the recognition of my
new ministerial role by a faithful Mexican leader was an affirmation that God
had indeed sent me.
While waiting for the service to begin, I noted that the
handmade cross had a red banner across the top with the words, “God is Bueno”
written in English and in gold. God is good not God is love. And I realized
this is a theological message for me, maybe even a challenge. Good? How do you
worship a God that is good when so many bad things are happening? I get God’s
inclusive love, a love which will accompany us through thick and thin but good?
Then I remembered the line from the hymn,” Goodness is stronger than evil.”
Yes, we need a God that will triumph in the end. This is a big day for me. I
have been renamed, anointed and now must open to another spiritual truth---God
is good.
Pastor John read the Beatitudes and shared a message of how
we are all part of God’s kingdom no matter our legal status or labels or
hateful things they say. We can never be separated from God. After the message,
Roberto asked us, John and I, to stand in the center and celebrate the
eucharist. The tortilla looking host had a cross on it. My job was to assist in
distributing the bread. I remembered that after the Gaza Offensive of 2014 I
couldn’t break the bread for over a month. I couldn’t break the body of Christ
after seeing so many broken bodies blown to bits. Now I was tearing apart small
pieces to feed the over 40 people with one loaf.
I tore off the pieces and placed them in out stretched cupped
hands lingering just a moment after saying, “The body of Christ broken open for
you.” Tears came and went as I made my way around the circle taking in the
holiness of this shared communion, the sorrow and the joy mixing. We celebrate
this feast because God is indeed loving and good.
Sacramental presence is what Pastor John calls this
communion on the borderlands, this coming together around a shared meal as the family
of Christ. The meal reminds us to whom we belong. It is for this reason I am rethinking
the theology of welcoming the neighbor or stranger. We are the body of Christ,
one family. I feel the birth pangs of a new theology growing which begins here
with this reality and knows and claims God is Bueno.
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| El Paso communion at the border |
