Meeting Jesus at the Border

Meeting Jesus at the Border

January 11, 2026

Minister: Rev. JT Smiedendorf

Readings:  Leviticus 19:33-34, Surah 4:36, Upanishad 1.11.2

Download a printable PDF of this sermon here.

CENTRAL FOCUS:

 There is a Divine Call to show compassion and hospitality to the stranger.

 

“When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

 

These are the words of our ancient tradition.

May the Living Word of God in Scripture be alive within us, among us, and beyond us.

 

It was just a hill above the road. Nondescript, really.

But that’s not what the people of the Catholic Church in Nogales, Sonora in Mexico saw. They saw possibilities. They saw possibilities because they heard a Divine call to minister to those cast out, to those in need, to those on a journey, to other human beings. So they cut into that hill and built a roof and created a shelter—a shelter with bathrooms and a kitchen and places to sit down and eat. They did that because this hill was just about two football fields from the US border crossing at Nogales, Arizona. That’s where many people who are deported from the United States are dropped off, just south of the US border. So that’s where they put the Kino Border Initiative building.

And that’s where I met Jesus.

Jesus had been working in Issaquah, Washington. He went out one day to catch the bus. His ID was called into question, the police were called, and then he was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Like lots of undocumented migrant workers who are arrested and charged with a crime of illegal entry, after serving his two months in detention, Jesus was deported to a border town, Nogales, Sonora, and dumped off a bus.

He, like all the others who had been deported, was let off the bus with little more than the clothes on his back. When apprehended, most detainees have to forfeit all of their belongings, and these rarely catch up to them later. Even if they have worked for the one dollar a day in detention in what is often a private prison, the debit card they are issued as payment at the end of their trip cannot be cashed in Mexico where they are dropped off.

Caring people knew all of this and that’s why they bought that small patch of a hill and created the Kino Border Initiative ministry and building. Each morning, deported migrants in need line up outside, then enter the shelter when it opens. They sit at long benches and tables. They are welcomed and oriented. Then they are taught in fun role-playing fashion about their human rights. Jesus and the others laughed and seemed to enjoy the experience of being welcomed in and watching the role plays. Then, perhaps most importantly, a priest gave a message of encouragement. He kept telling them that no person is illegal, no person is illegal, no person is illegal. He said to them, “You are not illegal.”

The priest was preaching the spiritual wisdom needed, the good news that heals and uplifts, that message that, amidst de-humanizing rhetoric and treatment, helped re-humanize these people.

After our group helped feed these men and women, we set out donated clothes for distribution while others tended to medical needs, especially swollen and injured feet, and still others had art therapy time. This ‘after eating time’ was when we had a chance to talk with people. That’s when I met Jesus. After all he had been through with apprehension, detention, and deportation, even being threatened by the drug cartels in the crossing, Jesus said he would be going back to Washington to work.

I heard the same story of return from a taxi mechanic who had been living in Phoenix where his wife and two kids lived. He, too, would rest a little and then go back to his family. Who wouldn’t do what was necessary to stay with their loved ones? Even stay in sanctuary for 15 months like Rosa who stayed inside the Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson until her case was finally settled and she went home to be with her two young children and husband.

This all happened during a Border Immersion and Collaboration trip I took almost ten years ago that was sponsored by the United Church of Christ and Church World Service. The national UCC and Church World Service pay the salary of Rev. Noel Anderson who set up the border trip and who lobbies nationally for more humane, more just policies on immigration.

Indeed, this morning’s reading reminds us that treatment of the stranger, of the alien, of the one who shows up at the door matters in our tradition. And not just our tradition…

In the Quran of Islam, Surah 4:36 it says…

“… and do good unto your parents, and near of kin, and unto orphans, and the needy, and the neighbor from among your own people, and the neighbor who is a stranger, and the friend by your side, the wayfarer, and your servant.”

In the Taitiriya Upanishad of Hinduism 1.11.2 it says…

“Let a person never turn away a stranger from his house, that is the rule. Therefore one should, by all means, acquire much food, for good people say to the stranger: ‘There is enough food for you.’”

It is an ancient and ongoing human struggle of what to do with the OTHER—the one who is different in place of origin or appearance or language or custom. The not-so-secret wisdom of our and many other religious traditions is that, at some level, there really is no such thing as an “other.” We all are of one life web, all of the same origin. “God made from one blood” is the line from one of the songs in the United Church of Christ New Century hymnal. We treat the so-called other as we would like to be treated. We treat them as us, because at a deep spiritual level they are us.

The Hebrews were reminded of this human oneness by the oft repeated Biblical phrase, “You too were once aliens.” Our lineage of faith includes stories like Abram being called by God to move, the family of Jacob who moved due to drought to Egypt for food, the family of Jesus who fled persecution by Herod. Excepting perhaps First Nation peoples, we all are from somewhere else in our lineage. My lineages hail from Prussia and England and other parts of Europe as far as I know. What about you?

Sitting in the shelter with those migrants was a powerful and immediate reminder. Like the mural on the shelter wall, all sit at God’s table. We are one. We are ALL human. Talking to Jesus was as simple a spiritual teaching as was needed. There is no “other,” only human beings with human needs to work, to be with loved ones, to find a decent, safe place to live.

While it is normal for people and countries to have boundaries and borders, the compulsion to build bigger border walls and to urgently deport undocumented persons in this country seems less about a pressing need than about a general anxiety about life and change. Humans have often reacted to change with anxiety and fear, by projecting those anxieties and fears onto those who are different in custom and appearance and language. We then seek illusory forms of unified purity and conformity. Economic anxiety, general anxiety about change and the future, plus racism, all contribute. It’s as if we say to ourselves, “If we could just control or get rid of or separate ourselves from ‘them,’ things will be better. We can be great again.”

This reactive separation and scapegoating is a failure of spiritual imagination, a hardening of the heart, and as we heard in the biblical teaching, an unfaithful choice.

In the violence perpetrated by ICE agents, we can see that King Herod is alive in the world, still seeking to curb anxiety with domination. Renee Good’s death is tragic proof of that.

Two days ago, as I attended, with clergy colleagues, a press conference at the site of the recent killing of Renee Good, I noticed a helicopter watching us from above. It reminded me of the ever-present helicopters that hovered above Standing Rock when Allison and I were there in 2016.

At Standing Rock, I learned a key lesson in defending what matters most (what can be called spiritual warriorship): King Herod’s forces of empire want us to play their game of threat, aggression, and domination. It works for King Herod if our resistance matches the tactics and the energetic frequency of empire. The empire knows it will always win that game because it is well equipped, well-funded, and a master at the power-over way of being.

We cannot resist the power of King Herod that way. Instead, I pray that we will faithfully follow the lead of the great spiritual warriors like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King who knew that we must have the focus, discipline, and wisdom to serve and defend what matters most in a different way. We must hold a different frequency of energy and use different tactics. Dr. King said,

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness;

only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate;

only Love can do that.”

In the face of this darkness and danger, we are called to hold a fierce love, an unshakable calm, and a bright light as we defend what is sacred and life-giving.

King Herod travels the road of inhumanity, of othering and enemy making because of his inner fear and anxiety. We must travel another road where we refuse to make enemies even as we engage in sacred resistance to those who would make enemies. In her last moments of life, Renee Good said to the ICE officer, “I’m not mad at you.” She was showing us the way. As I have preached here, people are not problems, problems are problems. The ways of King Herod, domination and dehumanization, are indeed grave problems for Life and justice. These ways must always be resisted and transformed. Renee Good was resisting the ways of Herod with another way, another energy. She is our spiritual teacher today.

On this Immigrant Justice Sunday and every day, we are called to remember that migration is a part of human living. Meeting Jesus at the border taught me that. On this Immigrant Justice Sunday and every day, we are called to remember that our sacred resistance to the dehumanization and violence of King Herod is to maintain our own inner peace and light and love so that we can remain fully human and see all others as human. No matter what may come.

AMEN.