_The Catholic Church is one of the largest and most influential religions in the world today. It’s membership is numbered in the multiple millions. It has built thousands of institutions – hospitals, nursing facilities, hospices, schools and on and on. It’s so vast and so intricate that no one person can comprehend the whole story.

Today’s gospel takes us back to the very beginning of that story, a story told so casually that it’s easy to overlook its overwhelming importance.
Two men were introduced to Jesus by the Baptist. It wasn’t a formal or even a personal introduction. They were simply standing together and as Jesus walked by John said: “Look, there’s the Lamb of God.” It’s sort of like being at a social function when someone important walks in the room and a friend says: “Hey, Look who’s here!”

The disciples start following Jesus and an almost playful conversation follows: “What do you want?,” “Where do your live?,” “Come and see,” and “Come with me.” The two men do follow. In fact they spend the rest of the day together

For Andrew and Jesus, and most likely the other unknown man as well, probably John, the author of this Gospel, that casual, almost accidental visit, was the beginning of a friendship that would last a lifetime. It was that, but it was far more than just the beginning of a friendship. It was the beginning of Christianity as we know it today.

I say that because, the first thing Andrew did, after that initial visit, was to introduce his brother Simon to Jesus, and the two of them became friends. In short order others were added to the circle. And as the circle of friends grew, so did the church. You and I are here today because we too have been added to that ever-growing circle of friends, and I believe its our friendship, with Jesus and with one another, that binds us together as church, and can make us as individuals and as church a powerful, powerful, force for good in our world.

No doubt friendship is warm and nice and comforting, but its far more than that. It is the only power on earth that can conquer the human spirit. Brute force can intimidate and exercise temporary control, but it can never conquer. Only honest, loving, self-giving friendship can invade the human heart and take possession of it.

Not only is friendship powerful, it’s non-violent. Jesus saw the truth of that 2000 years ago. He knew his people hated Roman bondage, and more than anything wanted a redeemer who would rally the troops and drive the foreigners out. But Jesus refused to play that role. He knew the futility of it. He understood that conquering force with force is a dead- end street. So instead of organizing an army, he started a movement based on friendship and love. He knew non-violent love was the only real solution to the problem of human hostility. People can live together under almost any conditions........if they are friends.

Finally, friendship is not only powerful and non-violent, it’s ethical. And by that I mean, friendship is the ultimate standard of what it means to be a truly good person. Friendship a stronger motivation to honorable living than all the laws that have been written.

Paul recognized that. In urging the people of Corinth to avoid sexual immorality, he didn’t appeal to any moral laws of God. Instead he reminded them that their bodies belonged to Christ, that Christ lived in them, that they had become one with him. In essence, he was saying: Don’t betray your nearest and dearest friend.

Paul was a great theologian. Much of what he wrote is deep and difficult to understand, but for all his brilliance, he always kept in mind what we sometimes forget: Our faith in its purest form is friendship with Jesus, and that if we want to continue Jesus’ work o building his Fathers Kingdom on earth, the place to begin is by widening our circle of friends.
In light of the violence we see in our world, that’s a powerful message.

_There really are many lessons that can be drawn from today’s readings, but today I want to say a few words about the importance of journey and discovery in our lives.
What we have in our Gospel, is the story of men who set off on a journey. Like Abraham they didn’t know where they were going or exactly what they would find, but in the end, it was a journey that changed the direction of their lives - both literally and figuratively. Not only, to protect their new found King, did they literally “return home by another way,” but their encounter with that king forever changed their lives.
This is really a story about what happens to those search for and who encounter Christ. They are, from that moment on, forever changed. A line from a gospel song says it perfectly: “Today is where your book begins. The rest is still unwritten.”
It’s a sentiment expressed by Thomas Merton during Holy Week of 1949 when he made his first trip to Gethsemane, a Rapist monastery in Kentucky. During that visit he wrote in his journal: “I should tear out all the other pages of this book and all the other pages of everything else I ever wrote and begin here.” Merton had discovered, like so may other through history, that he needed to change the story of his life and take a different route. And he did. Several months later he joined the Trappists and in time, became one of the most widely read and influential voices in American Catholicism. Like the Magi, Thomas Merton had an encounter with God and it changed him.
You and I too are called, to encounter Jesus, to embrace the conversion that encounter will evoke, and, if necessary, to be willing to allow God to lead us, even to the cross, as he did Peter:
Today marks the end of the Christmas season, but before it becomes just a memory, todays feast encourages us to bring our gifts, our time, our talents, our treasure, to the Lord as the magi did, and to be open to whatever it is he might choose to do with them.
It may mean taking a totally new direction in our lives as it did for one of our parishioners, who after the pilgrimage retreat to El Salvador last year has chosen to leave government work to become a Maryknoll sister. Are we’re really willing to experience that kind of conversion? Are we willing to continue our pilgrimage through life by another route. “Today is where your book begins. The rest is still unwritten.”

_We just heard Luke’s story about the birth of Christ, but this past week I’ve been reflecting more on John’s gospel where he writes:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God....And the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”
I’ve often thought how important the truth of these verses are. Had the Word not become flesh, we could have completely controlled the “Word” with a doctrinal statement. Better yet, we could have encased it in a beautiful book and guarded it in our own Holy of Holies, seeing it not as something accessible, but something to be kept at a distance from the likes of you and me.
But that wasn’t the Word’s plan. Instead, god too the un-imanageable step of becoming flesh – flesh, just like you and me. and I say un-imagineable because we have been taught the flesh will lead to sin, not to God. We’ve all heard screaming preachers pound pulpits, and yell scary words that the flesh is nothing more than a slippery road to hell. In fact, the words “sin” and “flesh” have so often been joined together, that even on this night when we celebrate our God becoming flesh, some find it difficult to associate the word “flesh” with “grace and truth”.
That shouldn’t be surprising. Historically, outside of the documents of the Second Vatican Council, our church has always tended to focus on Jesus as Spirit, not as flesh.    While always teaching the vertical and horizontal aspects of our faith, the vertical has always been emphasized, as if there was some kind of danger in believing that God is in this world like one of us.
We see that struggle surfacing again in the new translation of our Mass texts. From what I can see, most of the horizontal has given way to the vertical. As a friend said, God has become more holy and our flesh as become more wretched.
At any rate, as I read the scriptures, I can picture God pacing the corridors of heaven burning with the hope that we would see the world as God sees it. But look what happened: God created humankind and put them in a beautiful garden, but we didn’t get it. God sent the floods as a warning. We didn’t get it. God sent prophets. We didn’t get it. God gave us laws through Moses. We didn’t’ get it. Finally, finally, God sent flesh, The Word, his own flesh, hoping we would finally get it. Think of it. Through flesh, the body of a woman, God’s own Son took on our flesh in the body of a man, and from that day on God has chosen to move into our neighborhoods and to live among us. Surely God thought, now we would get it. Now, with a love we can touch, with a life full of grace and truth living in our midst, how could w not get it?
All we had to do was to observe and listen and learn and follow the Word’s example. He touched broken bodies with healing. He fed hungry bodies. He clothed naked bodies. He blessed and hugged children’s bodies. He led oppressed, broken, rejected, hurting and lonely bodies back into community. He laughed. He grieved. He wept. And finally, He sacrificed his own boy, leaving us with the words: “This is my body, broken for you.”
Here tonight, in this place, as we reflect on the moment God took on flesh, let’s vow never to forget that our flesh, made in his image and likeness, is like his, full of grace and truth, and promise never to reject our flesh or to see it as sinful or a block to communion with God, but to see it as the precious gift it is, and to use it as he used his: doing all that we can to draw the outcast, the hurting, and the oppressed into the embrace of his loving arms. And let’s do it as he did: by rejoicing and grieving and laughing and weeping and loving and hugging and healing and forgiving, and so welcome them into the embrace our loving arms where they will experience God.
Then the Word will not have become flesh in vain.

_In 2008 Pope Benedict wrote: “Violence, in many cases, marks the relations between persons and peoples. Poverty oppresses millions of inhabitants. Discrimination and sometimes even persecution for racial, cultural and religious reasons drive many people to flee from their own countries in order to seek refuge and protection elsewhere.”

In our first reading today, God wants something more than a fancy temple or a new church. God wants to work with us to address the issues of our world. That’s what the coming of Christ is all about. He came to create something new for us: “I will fix a place for my people.”

He wants something new for us, and that something new is made real in our gospel story about an angel speaking to a poor young woman, promising a savior who will finally “rule” over the people and lead them to something new. “Hail, full of grace!” the angel said. “The Lord is with you.” “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and he power of the Most High will overshadow you.”

God’s reign will transcend our limited personal vision just as it did Mary’s and it will bring together, the whole world, in a new kind of justice and peace.

Today scriptures speak to our human day-to-day living, and they remind us that God really does want something different for us than all the injustice, violence, economic horror, confusion and terror that holds our lives and our world in its grips today. He wants a new reign of justice and peace, simplicity and hope, and he invites us to make that reign real. It won’t happen if we don’t make it happen.

As our governments – National, State, Local - address the huge problems in our economy, what it’s doing and not doing for individuals and families, we need to work together to be sure that the values of our faith and our church’s social teaching will be included in their solution, remembering:
First, that God invites us to not forget the poor – especially those in our country, in our community, who have been living the recession for decades.
Secondly, that Jesus taught us more about wealth and possessions and greed than anything else and that he invites us to work to create an economy focused on the common good, an economy that is concerned with something more than consumer spending, the gross domestic product, and our stock portfolio, and building more barns to store our wealth so we can eat, drink, and be merry.

And finally, that God invites us to be working to create an economy that is focused on the benefit of all people no matter how poor or how wealthy they may be. Then indeed God will have a place in which He can dwell with all people in peace and justice.

Like Mary we may ask, but “how can this be?” and like her, I pray, hear the angel say to us “nothing will be impossible for God” as long as we, with Mary, respond: “May it be done to me according to your word,” understanding it can’t happen without our yes, any more than Christ’s coming could have happened, without her yes.

_ One day the abbot decided he needed to do something about the crisis his monastery was facing.  Some of the monks had left, they weren’t getting any new candidates, and the people were no longer coming for prayer and consultation as they used to.

The 7 monks that remained were getting older, more depressed about the lack of vocations, and even increasingly bitter in their relationships with one another.

The abbot had heard about a holy man, a hermit, living alone in the woods, and he decided to talk with him about the problems the abbey was having.  He told the hermit how the monastery had dwindled and diminished, and was only a skeleton of its former self.

The hermit told the abbot that he had a secret to share with him: One of the monks now living in his monastery was actually the Christ, but he was living in such a way that no one could recognize him.

Utterly amazed himself, the abbot went back to the monastery and share with the other monks what the hermit had told him.  You can imagine the consternation of those aging monks.  They looked around at each other in unbelief, each trying to figure out who could be the Christ.  Could it be brother Mark, who prays all the time?  Possible, but doubtful.  He has such a holier than thou attitude.  Maybe brother Joseph who is always read to help.  But he’s always eating and drinking.  He never fasts.  It probably wasn’t him.

The more they tried to figure out which one of them was the Christ, the more confused they became.  The only thing each of them could figure out for sure, was that any one of them, excepting himself, of course, could be the Christ.  And because they never really were sure who the Christ was, from that day on they began to treat one another with greater respect and humility, knowing that the person they are speaking to could be the very person they were trying to identify.

They began to show more respect for one another, their common life became more brotherly, their common prayer more fervent.

Slowly people began to take notice of the new spirit in the monastery and began coming back for retreats and spiritual direction.  The word spread, and candidates began to show up and the monastery began to grow, not only in numbers,

but in zeal and holiness as well.  And all of this because a holy man of God had drawn their attention to the truth that Christ was living in their midst as one of them.

In today’s gospel John the Baptist tried to announce that same powerful message to those who were so anxiously waiting for the coming of the Messiah:  “Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me;  I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”

Their certainty about how the Messiah was to come, and what he was going to do, made it impossible for them to recognize him.  They were sure he would suddenly descend from heaven in his divine power and majesty, and he would establish his reign by destroying the enemies of Israel.  So, when finally Jesus came, born of a woman like every other person, they just couldn’t recognize him.  He was too ordinary;  too unimpressive, just like Juan Diego, when he went to the Bishop in Mexico City, to tell him the Virgin wanted a Church built on a rocky hill called Tepeyac ,near a poor village
of conquered Indians,  a place without power or wealth.  He just couldn’t take that poor, disenfranchised, despised Indian seriously.  It was a joke to believe the Mother of God would appear to him!

Are we any different?  It’s easy for to listen to and imagine the Virgin Mary appearing to those we deem to be important.

How about the people who fry our burgers, pick up our garbage, empty our septic tanks or cross our borders.  Do we listen to them?  Do we recognize Christ in them?  Do we recognize Christ in each other?

After 2000 years we’re not much better at recognizing Christ in the ordinary men and women around us. Things like their unimpressive attitudes, habits, appearances, lack of education, and legal documents make it difficult in not impossible.

Advent is a time for us to hear and respond to John’s message of repentance.  And we need to listen and respond.  It’s the only way we will recognize the Christ in our midst today, now, at this very minute, and, that awareness will make an enormous difference in our lives both as individuals, and in the various communitiesin which we live and pray and work and play.

  The truth John proclaimed to his own people he also proclaims to us:  “Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; 

_There are two points I want to make today.

The first comes from our Old Testament reading and is captured in the saying: “Feel is not Real”. A good example is a golfer who may feel he is swinging the club, gripping the club or flexing his body in a certain way, but a video reveals he may not actually be doing so. The awareness that his, feel is not real, can be a prelude to learning a new and better game. If you’re ever feeling far from God, either he’s abandoned you or you left him, the same phrase applies: Feel is not real. God is never far from you. You can break his heart, but you can’t make him stop loving you. You simply can’t sin big enough to overwhelm his greater ability to love you and to forgive you. When you turn you back on Him he is still there. Turn around and he’ll still be facing you and loving you......even if you feel he’s not.

At least that’s the message of our first reading. Israel had come to believe that because of their sin, God had abandoned them, and they believed if they did hear from God, the message would be one of punishment. But instead as we see in this section of Isaiah, that God responded with a soothing song of comfort! Comfort, O comfort my people says your God.

It’s like God was tying yellow ribbons around every tree, or spray-painting “Please come home, all is forgiven,” on the highway overpass coming into the city. And, in case we miss the ribbons or the overpass sign, God sent his son Jesus to tell us in person.

The second point is that despite the depth of God’s love for us, we don’t have to accept it. Just as we have freedom to stray from God, we also have the freedom to continue to stay away. Even when Isaiah offered the Israelites in Babylon, a powerful word of comfort and invitation to return, many still chose to stay in Babylon rather than return to the promised land.
That may seem incredible, but its really not. Most of the exiles had been born in Babylon. The land of Israel was only a memory of their parents. It was easier for them to cling to what they knew than to venture out as Abraham did into an unknown land, an unknown future.
But we can’t judge them too harshly. How many of us cling to what we know, to familiar habits, or places, or jobs, or relationships, or beliefs, – or whatever, simply because they’re familiar. Even if these things are keeping us from allowing God to really enter into our lives, we cling to them because they’re comfortable.
And that’s why the Baptist’s message of a repentance that leads to the forgiveness of sin is so important. To hear it and to respond to it, is like responding to a video of who we really are, and being loved into a whole new way of living. John knew that sin was... the feel that wasn’t real, and that unless we recognize, admit, and repent of our sin, we’ll never leave Babylon. We’re going to stay where we’re comfortable.
And then, rather than really experiencing God’s love and presence in our lives, it will be as though he never came at all, and the feast we’re preparing to celebrate, will never be more than a nice story.

There’s little doubt that the parable in today’s gospel is about our accountability to the mission entrusted to us

when we were washed in the waters of Baptism and anointed priest prophet and king and given the fullness of the Spirit in confirmation. It’s about our willingness to be risk takers in our calling to commit ourselves to revealing

Gods kingdom of truth and justice and peace.

What made the third servant in our story fail, while the others succeeded?  He said he was afraid of his master because he was demanding.  Jesus said he was lazy.

And what about us?  Which of those servants are we most like?  Do we invest the gifts God has given us in finding creative ways to make him known, or like the 3rd servant do we bury those gifts either because we’re afraid of God or because we’re just too lazy to make the effort?

We’re all familiar with the adage:  “The older you get, the more conservative you become,” which is another way of saying the less risks you’ll take.  For some that’s true, but not always.  Angelo Roncalli is a good example. Elected  Pope John XXIII at the age of 78, he was a man, who in his old age, took a tremendous risk, one that changed our church forever.

On January 6, 1959, the year I graduated from High School, just a few months after his election as Pope, John surprised the Church by announcing his plans to convene a worldwide council.  He knew it was a risk.  He knew time-honored church traditions would be shaken, old friends would be alienated, the serenity of his old age upset by controversy.

Worst of all, he knew the entire plan might fail.  He could not be absolutely sure the work of the Lord would e advanced by opening doors on liturgical change, on dialogue with Protestants and even non Christians, on religious freedom, on conscience, on the roll of the church, and so much more.

But, Pope John prayerfully decided to take that risk – and for one reason. He believed the Catholic Church, like the 3rd employee in today’s gospel had taken the priceless gift of God’s love and buried it like a treasure, and that by calling a council, that love could be re-invested and brought to the world again.

And, so at a time in his life when other people sit back, Old John, took a new risk for the kingdom of God.

He certainly was a model of the first two persons in today’s Gospel parable.

Those of us, on the other had, who model the 3rd  servant haven’t heard the call or understood it, or were afraid either of it or of God, or we’re just too lazy or selfish to make it a priority in our lives.

Somehow we manage to avoid God’s penetrating transformation of our lives. And we do that, I think,  by fitting God into our  own small preconceptions of who God is, and in the process, we whittle him down to our size. We deal with him to keep him from dealing with us.

Certainly we believe he was not just the greatest man who ever lived……… he was God.  And so,  We write countless words about him, his message, his call.  We preach about him and sing songs about him.  We honor his mother with untold number or rosaries, and his saints with one novena after another.

And the result is that we become fanatical about his birth and death and resurrection.  We turn him as I once heard, into a captured hero of casual religion.  We make him more of a VIP to be honored than a God to be listened to and understood and followed.

Like the 3rd servant we take the gift’s he has given us and we dig a hole and bury it.  We guard the status quo, and hold his gift of love in a tight circle of private religion and personal security.

Today let’s Promise God we will do everything necessary to break out of that cycle.  Let’s begin to invest in and begin to live the Scriptures, especially passages like the beatitudes and the 25th Chapter of Matthew so that we can begin to live them. Let’s begin to study and understand the teachings of our church, especially Catholic Social Teaching

so we can begin to live it.  Then, strengthened by both the Scriptures, the teachings of our Church, all that which makes us Catholic, we will open ourselves to the power of the Holy Spirit, and like Pope John and so many countless others  -  young and old we too will give the gifts of our talents, our treasure, and out time, not holding anything back,

to the work of making God know in all ways and means possible.

Should we take extra oil, asked one of the bridesmaids. Why? The program has him arriving at sunset. We’ll have more than enough. But what if he’s late? I can’t believe what a negative worry-wort you are! Well maybe so, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.
We know the rest of the story.
This parable is found only in Matthew’s Gospel and Scripture Scholars believe he wanted it to serve as a warning to those Christians who believed Jesus’ return was imminent, that in fact it may not be, and they needed to be prepared for what would probably be a long wait.
That message remains as important for us today as it was for those first Christians. We’re still waiting. And because we are, our church invites us, every year at this time, to reflect on endings, our own as well as that of our world
We’re reminded that the way to prepare for any end, is not to live in anxiety and fear, or to look for elusive miracles, or to go after prophets and visionaries, but to trust in God’s promises.
We can see the difference it makes when it comes to the end of our own lives. We all know individuals, who are able to calmly and without fear contemplate their own deaths. Certainly they’re filled with the normal human fears and anxieties, and sense of loss, but deep down they experience, like Job, a deep peace because of their trust in God’s promises. And we know others, who seem to fall apart when faced with death, their lives consumed with anger and fear.
We can also see the difference it makes when it comes to contemplating the end of the world. We all know people who, rather than trusting in the Scriptures and Jesus’ promises, flock to people like Harold Camping who claims to know the exact day and time the end will come, even though he’s been wrong so many times or believe one or more of the hundreds of books – fiction and non – that also claim to know how and when the end will come rather than trust in Jesus who tells us only the Father knows. or who refuse to trust in Jesus’ promises of forgiveness and mercy and love to all who follow him, and focus only their own personal failings.
And so the question for us today, is how we are to prepare for endings – our own and that of our world. Today’s scripture tells us how we should be doing it. And it’s simple. Follow the example of the wise bridesmaids and keep our lamps filled with oil.

And we keep them filled by following Jesus’ lead. First, by becoming as familiar with the Scriptures, as Jesus was, and by allowing them to give ultimate direction to our lives. not the writings and proclamations of self-proclaimed visionaries and prophets,
And that means spending time wrestling with the meaning of passages in the Scriptures like the Beatitudes and Matthew’s description, in chapter 25, of the end of the world, and so many other passages that clearly tell us how to live as his disciple.

By reflecting on passages like the gospel of John and Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, like the story of the prodigal son and so many others that speak to God’s forgiveness, and mercy, and love to those who listen to him and follow his example.

We keep those lamps filled by taking time, as he did, to pray. We do it by engaging and persevering in lives of service and good works.
Those kinds of things will keep our lamps filled with oil, so that when the end does come – our own or that of our world – our faith, and our trust in God and his promises, not fear and dread, will dominate our lives.

We will be prepared.

For the past few weeks, we’ve heard Jesus really take on the Pharisees. In fact, their very name Pharisee has become synonymous with hypocrite. Today’s gospel is a good example. Jesus said: “Their works are performed to be seen. They preach but they do not practice.” In other words, they talked a better game than they played, and I have no doubts they did.
But before we look down our noses at those terrible Pharisees!” we need to take a good look at our own behaviors. We do the exact same thing. Some examples: We’re not unlike the father of a young boy who called his son’s school complaining: “not a day goes by that my son doesn’t come home from school using profanity, and I want to know where the hell he’s picking it up!,” or the dad who insists his kids go to Mass on Sunday while he sits in the car and reads the paper, or like one dad I knew in Baltimore who went to the bar down the street. or the parents who preach honesty but brag about the stuff they take from work, or how they got away cheating on their tax forms, or the way they overcharge or use shoddy materials at work.
I think the hypocracy in the religious and political leaders of Jesus’ day, and ours, as well you and me, comes from our wanting people to think we’re somebody we aren’t. We try to convince ourselves, and others that we are better than we really are. We look for recognition and approval in the wrong ways and in all the wrong places.
The Pharisees tried to do it by holding themselves to a strict moral code. And some of them were pretty successful at it. But it didn’t make them special. Instead, it made most of them insufferable snobs and hypocrites.It does the same to us.
So what do we do about it? Seems to me, Christ can only replace the Pharisee in us, when we finally understand what he meant when he washed his disciples feet, and what he meant when he said: the greatest among you will be the one who serves the rest; and the rest includes the richest and the poorest, the undocumented migrant or the pope himself.
May we always be servant both when we enter and when we leave this church

The following sermon was delivered by Leo Guardado at Southside Presbyterian for their Migrant Sunday service.  

The readings for the day are: Deuteronomy 34:1-12 | Matthew 22:34-40

Friends, it is an honor to be with you this morning to wrestle with a text that some scholars have termed, ‘the most enigmatic passage in the Torah.”  It is also an honor to be here to commemorate Migrant Sunday, and in that, my own journey, and all of our journeys as migrants and pilgrims in this world.
         
The reading from Deuteronomy is the last 12 verses of the 5,852 verses that comprise the Torah, the first 5 books of the Hebrew Scriptures.  These last 12 verses bring to closure the great adventure that starts with the creation story in Genesis and which continues through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and finally Deuteronomy, a book that seeks to recapitulate the whole story of Israel’s past in order to prepare it for its future—a future without it’s epic leader—Moses.

In these 12 verses, the Lord says to Moses, ““This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants’; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.’” Then Moses the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord’s command.””   For thousands of years much ink and many words have been used to try to explain why this beloved prophet of God was not allowed to cross the Jordan River into the land that had been promised.  More ink and many more words could be used today, but instead, I will focus less on why Moses died and did not cross into the Promised Land, and more on the reality that despite endless trials and sufferings, Moses lived fundamentally faithful to God and to his people until his very end. 

If we turn to the young and insecure Moses who fatefully encounters God in a burning bush while tending sheep on Mt. Horeb, we find a young man who despite all efforts to ward off his calling and vocation, nonetheless obeys God and leads the stubborn and oftentimes unfaithful Hebrew people away from their bondage in Egypt.  It is easy to read through these faithful actions as though they were simple favors Moses was doing for God.  But if we truly take time to meditate on this reluctant “yes” of Moses, we begin to understand that it would end up costing Moses every ounce of energy, every iota of patience, every day of his future life, every other hope and dream, every desire to settle down with his family, and ultimately, even his own life.  In short, Moses embarked on a journey unlike any he could have ever imagined possible, and embraced an outcome that was known only to God. 

Like Moses, every migrant who embarks on a journey from her or his own homeland and into the shadows of the wilderness, enters an unknown journey she or he can only begin to imagine, and faces an outcome known only to God. 

In October of 1991, exactly 20 years ago, my mother, age 40, and I, age 9, decided to leave our village of Canton Tobias in the mountains of Chalatenango in El Salvador in order to seek a land not necessarily of milk and honey, but at least a land where war was not going to devour yet another innocent child and mother.  It was 5 a.m. when we climbed unto a bus in our village and I said goodbye to the grandfather that I would never see again.  In the darkness of dawn I waved to my family and schoolmates whom I would soon forget.

As we entered Honduras, only a few hours drive from our village in El Salvador, I remember counting the endless palm trees along the highway and wondering if I would ever return.  Never having seen a map of the Americas, I didn’t really understanding where we were going, except that it was called “Los Estados Unidos,” and that I already knew the two words that my mother knew of “Ingles”—these two words were “I’m sorry, and Thank you.”  For the 12 or 15 of us in the group, los Estados Unidos were a kind of promised land, but one which certainly had not been promised to us since we were, after all, entering into the country uninvited.

In the midst of our journey through the wilderness of Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, I learned for the first time in my life to live in the shadows.  As we went from country to country, in order to pass as locals, we had to pretend we were from that given place, we had to try to speak as they spoke, we had to do away with our identity in order to pass as others.  The definitive moment for this was when our coyote took all of our passports away so that if we were caught, we would have no identity that tied us down to El Salvador.  We would never see these passports again. 

26 days later, after days of walking until my body ached, after traversing various rivers, being led by the moonlight, chased by border patrol, and ultimately being dependent upon the mercy and generosity of strangers, my mother and I arrived in Los Angeles to begin a new life in the shadows of a country where I would not legally exist for another 10 years.  The 26 day journey gave way to the decade long journey of what I call the migrant psychology, a mindset that chips away at one’s self worth and dignity, especially as one hears newspapers, television, and even churches refer to one as illegal, as a criminal, as a kind of infestation or plague that is taking over the country and abusing the limited resources of this good land. 

In the same way that migrants embark on a journey from that which they know and enter into the wilderness, oftentimes by force and not by choice, when we as people of faith choose to walk with the migrant and the poor, then we too enter into that exodus journey that will take us to places we cannot begin to imagine and into an outcome that is known only to God.

Had this very church, Southside Presbyterian, back in March of 1982, on the second anniversary of Archbishop Romero’s death, not chosen to declare sanctuary for my people of El Salvador and for other central Americans who were fleeing the bloodshed of their land, you as a church may have never fully entered into that wilderness that has made you an outcast in some circles, a criminal congregation in others, and part of that “plague” that is considered unpatriotic, dirty, and not worthy of the greatness of this land.  That choice from almost 20 years ago has left an indelible mark on who you are today as a congregation. 

If any of us who works Samaritans, with No More Deaths, with Humane borders, with Derechos Humanos, with the Worker Center, or with any other organization that seeks to meet the brokenness of migrants and the poor, had not chosen to leave some of our comfort and privilege to come face to face with “the other,” we may never have entered into that wilderness that has taken us to places we could never have imagined, which has allowed us to hear stories that have cracked the shell of our hearts, that have challenged our faith, that have revealed the God who journeys with all who are at the margins, a God that in Exodus says, “I have heard their cry…I know their sufferings...and I have come down to deliver them….” 

Since October 1st 2010, to this past October 1st 2011, there have been at least 182 human remains found in the deserts south of Tucson.  These remains are only a fraction of the total number of human lives that continue to be claimed not by the natural desert or by some divine choice, but by the unnatural and inhuman fence that has been created by our inability as a country to welcome the other who knocks desperately at our country’s door. 

Whenever God knocks in disguise, we must choose whether to receive God and enter into the wilderness of our liberation, or choose the more secure path, the more comfortable vocation, the more acceptable ministry. 

As people of faith, in our commitment to the poverty of the migrant, we choose the God of the poor in whom lies our liberation.  As Archbishop Romero once wrote, “Poverty is a force of liberation ... It invites us not to fear persecution because believe me, brothers and sisters, the one who is committed to the poor must run the same fate as the poor ... And in El Salvador we know what the fate of the poor signifies--to disappear, be tortured, to be captive--and to be found dead." 

This, my friends is the fate we all face when we choose to walk with the poor, with the migrant, with those whom power excludes.  This, my friends, is the unknown outcome of our lives that we must embrace if we are to walk faithfully on that human yet divine journey that will lead us to places we may not want to go, to commitments we may feel we are not ready to make, but ultimately, to a fidelity that overcomes all of our reluctance, our insecurities, and any effort to ward off our true vocation and call to love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and to love our neighbor as ourself. 

The gospel tells us that “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” 

Maybe Moses had no need to enter the so-called Promised Land.  Maybe through his fidelity and love of God and in his love and service to his people he already dwelt in that deepest of promised lands—in God’s very self. 

As for the rest of us who continue to journey in this life long pilgrimage, let us remember in the words attributed to Archbishop Romero, that we are workers, not master builders, we are ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own. 

Amen.