THOSE THAT BREAK THE LAW OF GOD WILL NEVER WIN !
Third Week in the Time of the Kingdom (See video of service at https://youtu.be/lremkUBAFk0
First, let’s give thanks for the success of our attorney Chris Bergin in getting a last minute stay through his appeal to the seventh circuit of the Federal Court, preventing the deportation of Miguel Perez. We were running around all day on Wednesday, trying for last minute interventions. We also prayed – and asked others to pray with us. Our attorney did good work in getting this unusual stay from the court – but prayer is powerful. We should learn however that prayer works best when we have done everything we know how to do: that is when God acts!
Second let’s give thanks for the work of our sisters and brothers in Waukegan, the ministry of our church in Waukegan, who have rescued and helped to unite those caught in the tragedy of that truck that killed 10 people again with their families. We give thanks for the courage and perseverance and faith of our sister and brother Julie and Salvador that brought her safely to the border and back with a little child. And we give thanks for that little church that the Lord is growing every week. They are celebrating that rescue and that victory of faith even as we gather here today.
Let me also report that after the meeting we held here last Saturday, letting the people know the threat to DACA and TPS that is coming in September, Congressman Gutierrez drafted legislation that would protect DACA recipients and, in less than 24 hours, got over 111 sponsors and the full support of the leadership of the Democratic Party. It is a testament to his leadership, the urgency of the situation but also to the steady progress we have made in our movement over the last 20 years. I want to talk more about that progress today and what it means for us.
I also have to report that Trump is launching a new assault on the undocumented. He is disguising this attack as an attack on one of the larger Salvadoran gangs. In fact, the new guidelines reveal that ICE is going after anyone who entered the country illegally – no matter how long ago, no matter their families or their U.S. citizen children. We should be clear that there has already been a 150% increase in the arrest and deportation of people with no criminal records! Trump is asking Congress for funding to hire ten thousand more agents. Trump spoke to a law enforcement rally telling them “We need to have a rougher, tougher gang than the illegals – and we need to treat them roughly” – forgetting about their rights.
Trump’s failure to pass a repeal and replacement of ObamaCare left him looking for a scapegoat to mobilize his base of support. That scapegoat is us – not gangs, not criminals, but families and our next generation - and he is planning to come full force at the undocumented families and the dreamers in this country to keep his political base strong.
We are organizing. A plan of action is forming and gaining force across the country. We are much stronger than anyone knows and Trump’s racist political movement is beginning to fall apart. Still, as always, it is our faith which shows us the way and gives us the courage to move forward. In our faith journey this year we are in Kingdom time, the time when we seek the kingdom in our hearts and in each other, the time when we focus all of our efforts on making the Kingdom of God known through our faithfulness and through our actions. It is a time of repentance – so that we are more reconciled with God – but it also a time of building our resistance and our defense among the people.
In the scripture today, James, the brother of the Lord, is writing again to the communities of faith and resistance scattered throughout the Roman Empire. He has told them to welcome adversity with persistence, telling them persistence will perfect them in the ways of the Kingdom. And he has told them that they must put their faith into action, into deeds – or it will not be real or powerful. Now, today, he addresses the “sin of favoritism”.
He speaks first to the common people. He reminds them how often they favor the rich or famous over their own poor people and he reminds them how wrong that is. “Is it not the rich that are taking you to court?” he asks. “Why do you show them favoritism?” And then he says what we must concentrate on today, “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.”
You see, in “the law that gives you freedom”, freedom from sin and even from death, there is no place to show favoritism of one person over another because of their wealth or their position or their race or the place that they come from. James reminds the community that they must eliminate this kind of favoritism from their relations with each other and from the people they are seeking to organize.
We should be clear that there is a difference between “individual sin” and “institutional sin”. Individual sin is something that all of us or any of us can fall into. We can seek forgiveness, the forgiveness that Christ offered, repent, change our ways and put this sin behind us. We can treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ and feel the power and love of the Kingdom rise amongst us.
Institutional sin is something else. When the Government of the United States practices racism and discrimination against millions of people, that is institutional sin. What Donald Trump is doing, what Homeland Security is doing, that is institutional sin. When you force people to come to this country, use them as cheap labor and then fail to respect the families they form here and the children that are born here, when you want to drive them from this country to make America White Again, then you violate the law of God, the prefect law that gives freedom – and there is no forgiveness for this kind of sin. No when a nation’s leaders take this course they commit an unforgiveable sin and they must be resisted and replaced.
We should be clear that you can’t fight fire when you are on fire. You cannot fight the sin of institutional favoritism, of racism, of mass deportation, if you practice favoritism against each other. To bring the power of Kingdom we must pay special attention to eliminating favoritism among us, to treating each person with respect, isolating no one with idle gossip, to stop pointing to the speck in our neighbor’s eye instead of taking the log out of our own eye!
Some may still not recognize the power of the Kingdom when we nurture it among ourselves and in our actions – yet many have! Yesterday, when Gutierrez presented his new bill to protect the DACA recipients, he had behind him the whole leadership of the Democratic Party, the whole Hispanic Caucus and the whole Congressional Black Caucus.
It was not always so. When we began this movement, many of those who were born here turned their back and practiced favoritism against those without papers. Mexicans called other Mexicans “Mohados”, right here in Chicago! Yes they did. But our movement opened its heart to the Kingdom, to the perfect law that gives freedom, and soon there was a great unity, not only among Mexicans, but among all Latinos, with and without papers.
In the beginning many African Americans bought the lie that the undocumented were stealing their jobs. Some African Americans stood with us but many did not. That is not the case today. Today, it is recognized by African Americans that the destruction of families they experienced, and the criminalization and incarceration of their young people, is a result of the same racism and discrimination – the same “favoritism” – that is causing the mass deportation of Latinos and the separation of our families. They stand with us now!
The Democratic Party took time to bring around. Remember our long struggle with Barack Obama. Remember the two million deportations when the Democrats held power. Yet that is changed now.
Some of us have seen the power of the Kingdom movement transform hundreds of millions of people in this country, change their hearts. It is true that a racist movement, built on lies and false promises, has seized control of this government for a time – but that time will pass and what they are trying to do will not last in the face of the unity of the resistance our movement has built.
So our faith teaches us to turn away from the practice of favoritism, to repent of it and make ourselves clean of it – so that we can continue to grow in the power and unity of the Kingdom of God that has brought us so far. Our faith teaches us that Jesus is making us “fishers of men” – as he did with the first disciples. If our hearts are pure than we have only to approach our neighbors and ask them to join us; we have only to show in our actions that we will defend our people. Kingdom time is a time of reaching out to others and building up our communities of faith and resistance. It is our time to multiply! Given the threats we are facing – and yet armed with the power and love of God’s Kingdom – we should be speaking to everyone we meet about the cause of justice for our families and our young people.
I have great faith that we can bring together millions of people in the next few months to respond to the attack that Trump and ICE are launching now, even today as we speak. To do that, all that is required is that everyone does their part in reaching out to others and bringing them into this struggle.
We face a powerful enemy, set on hurting us, on eliminating us. There will be a battle. We will probably see some defeats. Yet we should know already that their crucifixions are followed by our resurrections! You can separate a mother from her children through deportation – but that is only temporary. It is only temporary because the laws of men are not as powerful as the law of God! Wicked men can deport someone in your family but they cannot break the bond that makes a family unbreakable – and what is unbreakable will always find a way to re-unite!
That is the meaning of the resurrection! The defeats we suffer at the hands of wicked men are only temporary. Our strength against them is in our unity and the Kingdom that ties us together – but it is also in our resurrection. What they tear apart in one form will rise up again in another. If we lose one house we will come together in another house for a building is not a home, a home is made by the love of a family. If we face the cross with the courage and the faith of Jesus, then we will rise like Jesus!
The “House of Trump” is already falling apart. Like the dragon that pursued the beautiful lady and her child, he has already been defeated in heaven and thrown back to earth. Trump is already dead, a victim of his own sins, he just doesn’t know it.
Yet you are alive! And you are offered life and life abundantly even in the midst of trouble and injustice. Never be ashamed. You are the people of God. You will overcome if only you remain faithful for God is with you – and Mr. Donald Trump: YOU are the LAWBREAKER! YOU ARE BREAKING GOD’S LAW. BEWARE: Your arms are too short to box with God! Your Wall will be too short to stop Jacob’s ladder. You can never defeat or demoralize or discourage or truly separate God’s people. But beware, for the cost of the sin you are committing is eternal damnation!
The Holy Scriptures for the Third Week in the Time of the Reign of God
Matthew 4:17-20 Jesus Calls His First Disciples
From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers; Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him.
Acts 2:22-24 Peter Speaks to the People on Pentecost
“Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
James 2:1-9 Favoritism Forbidden
My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?8 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.