Torch, Spring/Summer 2012

T o understand my response to immigration, you need to understand a little more about me. I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas (I had the boots to prove it), and raised in Laredo, just across the border from Mexico. When we were young, my friends and I would swim across the river to play with the Mexicans on the other side. When we skipped school to go watch movies, we’d cross the border into Nueva Laredo so we wouldn’t get caught. I spent an important part of my life living on the border, and I can’t see the Mexicans I played with as anything other than cousins and friends. Another stream that flows into my life is The Navigators. I came to Christ through that organization, and to this day I bleed the Gospel and the Great Commission. In college, I studied social work — justice and compassion run very deeply in me. And then I went to Dallas Theological Seminary for both a master’s degree and a doctorate in ministry. I am convinced that justice and compassion go hand in hand with the teachings of the Bible. A Compassionate Example Nothing is more instructive to me than seeing how Jesus demonstrated justice and compassion. John 4:7–40 helps us understand His theological point of view as He ministers to the Samaritan woman at the well. “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” she said. At that time, everyone knew Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God.” Earlier in the chapter, Jesus told his disciples on their way to Galilee that he had to go through Samaria (verse 4). And this is where He intentionally began breaking every cultural rule. He’d sent the disciples into town to buy food, so He alone was waiting at the well to speak with this woman — a Samaritan ... a sinner. When the disciples returned, they seemed annoyed that Jesus was talking to her. In verse 35, Jesus rebuked them saying, “Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.” A Divine Call Are we any better than the disciples? Do we have a point of view that causes us to overlook people? There are several reasons — theological, sociological, cultural — why the disciples couldn’t see what Jesus saw. One key consideration was geography. Samaria was in their promised land. “ We are the chosen people, and they’re on our land.” Beyond that, God had instructed His people to be separate from the cultures around them that worshipped other gods. Spring-Summer 2012 | TORCH 5