The Wall Turned into a Table: Binational Communion at La Iglesia Fronteria

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.

El Paso communion at the border

Day 1: "It is what it is"

I left snowy Seattle for cloudy and rainy San Diego on February 9th. Over this same weekend 50 Haitian refugees including one new mother and her day year old child were removed from the detention center and dropped into the streets of downtown San Diego with no money yet all knew where they could find shelter, a temporary home, Safe Harbors in the North Park neighborhood. Some I was told come with the address printed on their arms.

Haitians in San Diego? How did this happen? Why are they coming through Tijuana? In 2016 over 5,000 Haitians entered the US legally through the San Ysidro--Tijuana border crossing between Mexico and San Diego after making a 7,000 mile trek from Brazil.

Their journey began shorting after the horrific 2010 earthquake that displaced over 1.5 million people and claiming more than 200,000 lives. The story goes that Brazil had low unemployment and needed laborers to build stadiums for the Olympics so brought or enticed Haitians to go to Brazil and work as construction workers. The workers were allowed to stay and work for a few years until a new more conservative government came to power and employment rates went up. Without work they migrated from Brazil to the border where they sought to enter the US legally with "humanitarian visas" which would allow them to enter and stay with Temporary Protected Status.

The Haitian community all knew the famous Gospel musician Rev. Jean Elise Durandisse who had sought asylum for political persecution and was welcomed by Pastor Bill as part of Christ's family.  Rev. Jean now has a small but vibrant church at Christ Ministry Center where Safe Harbors is located. Thus, the Haitian community knew that they would be welcome no matter what time of day or night.

Rev. Jean Elise Durandisse

The well known but not publicized policy is that the detention centers try to release women and children because they know there is a network who will take care of them. So they dump them in the streets and trust everyone will fend for themselves or find the church doors open. Imagine, however, the magical thinking that a Border Patrol Agent must use to think that it is morally OK  to abandon a mother who just gave birth.  A few days ago I was told by a woman whose husband is a Border Patrol agent that they believe because California is a Sanctuary State that they must take care of these asylum seekers and refugees. Another said without sarcasm, "They can join the homeless in the streets" as if that was normal.

For those of you who don't know international humanitarian law, refugees and asylum seekers are supposed to be housed or released to homes where they have family until their cases come up. The back load is about 2 years. In other words the Federal Government has a responsibility to take care of these people. In this current anti-immigrant climate they know no one will go after them for breaking the law and equally important they know the churches and their network will take care of them and they do.

The emergency staff meeting began with a quick debriefing of who was doing what to care for the new guests. The second agenda item was an emergency of another kind. The Fire Marshall came and wrote a report with many violations which must be taken care of immediately or else they would close the building. The rest of the meeting was figuring out who was going to do what. Nobody wants the church to close including the Fire Marshall.

This meeting was followed by a strategy meeting with a PR group who have been contracted to help Safe Harbors bring in more funds to do the important work they are doing and pay for these structural changes so the building is safe and sustainable.

The day ended with a meeting of an Immigrant Rights Coalition to report on the work each group is doing and then to elect new members to their Board. I was impressed by the energy and dedication and by the diversity in the room which included women and young people in leadership positions.

It was a full day. I realized as I went to sleep in my own temporary shelter that I was glad I had chaplaincy training for how to operate in an emergency and that I had a lot to learn from those living and working in these borderlands. My sleepy whispered prayer was that God would find a way to use my  experience and gifts to strengthen and extend this important work.

Prayer for Refugees

Creator God,
open our eyes so we can see you in the eyes of our refugee

sisters and brothers, eyes downcast
for having lived so long

in the shadows of violence and dank detention cells,
eyes lifted looking for
    the Christ light in us.

Refugee God,
whose family fled to Egypt to escape Herod's genocide
unclench our fisted hearts
so we may extend our arms

    to give your welcome.

Compassionate God,
who has come to dwell among us,
open our ears to hear the cries of your children,

being pulled from their parents,
led to tent cities, 

caged
or sold into adoption
    move us beyond tears.

God of Justice,
who crosses all boundaries,
give us courage to resist,

to say NO 

to all that legislates injustice

breaks international laws

robs people of their dignity

drops them on a city side walk without

   food or family.

Give us the strength to stand 

for your inclusive love,
which knows no boundaries.
Strengthen our faith to believe,
another world is necessary
    and possible and begins with us.

Fall In, or Let Go of the Nets

Jonah 3:10; Mark 1:14-20

Saint Andrews on the Galilee 

January 21,2018

“If you become a fish in a trout stream, said his mother,

I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”

     This is my call story plain and simple. It is also one of the stories in Margaret Wise Brown’s children’s book, The Runaway Bunny which I read to my daughter Colette, religiously alternating with Brown’s other book, Good Night Moon. Both books allow for imaginative add- ons like “ Good night dust under my bed”, and “If you become a mouse, I will become a piece of cheese so I can live inside you.” These are the ones I can remember.

     God’s call is like this, both inescapable and strangely comforting. Our lectionary readings this evening are good illustrations of God’s insistent and persistent call for us. After all we have been named already as God’s Beloveds. However, I am not sure comforting is the word either Jonah or the fishermen would use to describe this call to become part of God’s redemptive plans.

     This is especially true for that reluctant prophet Jonah. In the Book of Jonah, the shortest book in the Bible, Jonah’s choice is to redeem a reviled people or drown. Jonah is remarkable among the prophets because his resistance to proclaiming the word of Lord comes from not wanting to let go of his righteous anger at the people of Nineveh because they were his enemies; they had destroyed his people He was worried that if he went to preach repentance that God might indeed forgive them. He feared he would succeed and his enemies would be saved.

    So because he thought he could escape God (like the runaway bunny) he ran to Joppa (Jaffa) and bought a ticket on a boat to Tarshish ( a city in Spain), as far away as possible from Nineveh (modern day Mosul in Iraq). He thought God was limited to his tribe, his land, and wouldn’t find him.

     Once on board the ship, a big storm blew up frightening all the passengers. They believed that it came because the gods were punishing them for someone’s sin. Jonah confessed he was the one running from his God so he told them to dump him into the violent sea.

    Once in the sea God swallowed him in the guise of a big fish which now most think of as a whale. Jonah was inside the whale for three days until he finally faced the fact there was no escape from God; then he began to sing to God. Three days in the belly of the beast makes Jonah an archetype for Jesus which is one of the reasons Christians love the story of Jonah; this plus the fact that he willingly sacrificed himself by throwing himself overboard.

      Once Jonah repented for running away, the great fish (God?) spit him out. Then God called him a second time to go and preach repentance---our lesson today. This time Jonah obeyed God’s orders and wandered around the evil city of Nineveh repeating, “In 40 days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” And to Jonah’s surprise and dismay, the people listened and turned toward God. They put on sackcloth and fasted, and most importantly had a change of heart.

     Instead of rejoicing, Jonah clung to his fear, to his anger and bitterness, to his prophetic indignity, to his hatred of his enemies. From the beginning to the end, he still couldn’t let go. He didn’t seem to have learned anything from his drowning in the sea nor his three days in the tomb of the whale’s belly.

     Thus far in our story, it is Nineveh, the imperial capital of Assyria, who exercises the freedom of repentance. As theologian Bill Wylie-Kellermann says, “They match the solidarity of sin in violence with the solidarity of freedom in repentance. Here is an ironic tale bigger than the whale. Of course the final freedom is God’s---who also repents of anger in judgment.” We have a God who can repent.

     I would like to interject here an interesting fact, a piece of good news. This year in Nineveh, Mosul, Iraq, Muslims and Christians celebrated Christmas at St. Paul’s Church because IS had finally been driven out. The Muslims helped the Christians rebuild their church in time for the Christmas holidays.

They celebrated their liberation and freedom to worship again by doing it together. Is this not the true sign of Jonah’s blessing? God’s inclusive love made manifest in God’s restored community?

     Back to the story.  Jonah struggled with his call to participate in God’s call for mercy and forgiveness. He struggled to accept a God that lives beyond borders and the land of his tribe; one who chooses to forgive and love even the enemies of his chosen people. Jonah is dumped in the sea to learn a lesson about the nature of God’s universal love and the eternal back and forth relationship between repentance, forgiveness, and love.

    It’s easy to make fun of this reluctant prophet who holds onto his anger like a lifejacket. But are we any different?

     Most of us are prepared to denounce governments who pass laws that protect the rich and rob the poor but are we ready to sacrifice our financial privileges to help create a more equitable economic or social system?

     We might be prepared to denounce companies who profit from other people’s oppression, who are breaking international laws, but are we willing to do without their products? Are we willing to sacrifice? Be banned for our beliefs?

     It’s easy to point out the inhumanity of building a wall that separates families and farmers from their vineyards, and which allows others to steal land that doesn’t belong to them, but are we willing to build bridges between people so all can live together? Like Jonah, are we ready to let go of our indignation and allow repentance and change to really happen?

     I love the story of the Runaway Bunny and Jonah because I think we are all a little afraid of God’s call. And I think we are also strangely comforted that no matter what happens to us including drowning, God will shape shift to find us and hold us even in the belly of a whale. And most importantly, God will give us a second chance.

    This story of Call is so different on the surface from the call of the disciples on the Sea of Galilee, not far from here in Capernaum. In Mark’s Gospel story, the fishermen immediately drop their nets and follow Jesus without a moment’s hesitation. Unlike Jonah holding onto his righteous anger, these exploited fishermen from Capernaum have nothing to lose and everything to gain by joining a movement of resistance. Yes, resistance. This is what Jesus was calling them to do when he says I will make you fish for people. It doesn’t mean to save souls. Jesus knew the prophetic literature of his day and sought to employ it anew. He was summoning these marginalized workers to join him in “Catching some big fish” to restore God’s kin-dom. The fishermen had to drop all their nets---business as usual and the debt systems that enslaved them. They had to cut off everything that tied them to life under Roman Occupation. Letting go was their repentance.

    The call to discipleship, like the prophetic call, demands immediacy. It demands we stop and turn around, lose everything and risk going in a new direction. This is the scandalous freedom of answering the call.

     I invite you this evening in this lovely restored chapel on the Sea of Galilee to ponder for a moment what new direction God might be calling you to follow? I invite you to reflect on what forces might be holding you back from moving forward? What righteous attitudes do you need to let go of in order to participate in God’s economy of grace?

    Just like your baptism, I invite you to fall into the waters of life whether you know how to swim or not. I invite you to allow yourself to drown in God’s all encompassing  turbulent love, to even allow yourself to be swallowed up. I invite you to let go of all those tangled nets and say yes to God’s redemptive plan. Answering this call will cost you everything.

     I leave you with Jonah’s Blessing from Jan L. Richardson:

It comes as a small surprise

that you would turn your back

on this blessing

that you would run

far from the direction

in which it calls.

That you would try

to put an ocean

between yourself

and what it asks.

Something in you knows

this blessing could

swallow you whole

no matter which way

you turn.

Hard to believe, then,

that every line of this blessing

swims in grace----

grace that in the end,

even you

will find hard to fathom

so swiftly does it come

and with such completeness

encompassing all

it finds.