Valentine Michael Smith was born on Earth, raised on Mars, and returned to Earth. He never felt fully at home in either place. But his interaction with Earth, when he returned as a young adult, transformed Earth culture and impacted many lives. His most important contribution to Earth was the founding of the Church of All Worlds, which taught its members how to rise above suffering.
You may already have guessed that Valentine Michael Smith is a fictional character, the central figure in a science fiction novel called "Stranger in a Strange Land." The author of the novel, Robert Heinlein, published his story about fifty years ago to critique the America of consumerism and selfishness. He imagined what it would be like for someone to have been dropped off on Mars by astronaut parents, then raised by Martians according to their customs and standards, and finally dropped back into this world, this Earth. What might that have been like?
Well, for one thing, because water is so scarce on Mars, the sharing of a glass of water is sacred there. Merely presenting a cup of water to someone makes the two of them "water brothers." It is no idle thing to share a cup of cold water, in Valentine’s Martian value system. But on Earth that seems to matter very little.
As the novel "Stranger in a Strange Land" proceeds, Valentine finds much that happens on Earth just incomprehensible and unacceptable. He does not understand clothing, for example; he much prefers to be free of that burden, but of course finds that there is no way for him not to fit in around that issue. I expect that today, with the chill winds blowing, Valentine would be grateful that he gave in on that point.
And then there is faith. For Valentine, as for the Martians, the creed is, "Thou art God." It means that all life is sacred … plants, animals, people … all life is sacred, and so things like war or jealousy or hatred are completely incomprehensible. He cannot deal with the petty problems Earthlings pose to one another. And so Valentine creates the Church of All Worlds to teach and promote care-free living.
But wouldn’t you know it? The Church of All Worlds is attacked by another religion, the Church of the New Revelation, and is destroyed. All that Valentine can finally do is to teleport himself back to Mars and leave his friends to remedy the mess that he is leaving behind. The message of "Stranger in a Strange Land" seems to be that it is futile to bridge the gap between cultures, that to bring one’s insights and values to someone else’s world will be pointlessly painful, and that we would do better just to stay in our own little worlds and leave one another alone. A sad commentary on Earth life!
But now the title of the book, "Stranger in a Strange Land" comes from the Bible, specifically from Exodus 3:22. There you find an element in the story of Moses, who was born a Hebrew when they were enslaved in Egypt, born at a time when the fear and cruelty of Egypt had decreed the death of all the Hebrew male infants, lest they multiply and become too strong. Another sad commentary, this time on the fears that sometimes prey on immigrant people! But Moses was saved from the destruction, he was raised in the household of the king, a child of privilege; yet Moses knew who he was, and when justice demanded that he act, Moses acted in accordance with who he was – he took vengeance on an Egyptian overseer who had mistreated a Hebrew. Moses became a refugee.
So Moses, the child born in one culture and raised in another, found his way to another place, to Midian, where they took him in, where he married, and where he brought up children. And Moses summed up his experience as a Hebrew-Egyptian-Midianite in a pungent sentence, "I have been a stranger in a strange land." That’s where Heinlein got the title of his novel.
This is a theme that the Bible uses to provide us insights and offer us directions as we consider the question that has been put to me, "Why and how should American churches respond to issues facing immigrant communities?" The Bible provides both example and exhortation to move us toward an answer to that question. "Why and how should American churches respond to issues facing immigrant communities?"
I
The first and most basic answer is that God wills it! Plain and simple, clear and straightforward, God wills that we should respond to immigrants and their needs as we would to the needs of our brothers and our sisters.
Moses’ pronouncement that he has been a stranger in a strange land comes upon the heels of the hospitality extended to him in the land of Midian. There Jethro the priest, a spiritual leader, insists that his family embrace Moses. Eventually, in fact, Moses and Jethro’s daughter Zipporah marry. Here is the point: people of faith serve a God who wills hospitality.
So much so, in fact, that in later years, as Moses becomes the great lawgiver for his people, he will lay down for them rules of hospitality, and will back those rules up with a historical memory: Exodus 22:21, "You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt." Even stronger in the next chapter, Exodus 23:9, "You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt." You know the heart of an alien … I will return to that in a moment.
Suffice it to say that the first and most basic reason why we as church people should respond to the needs of immigrants is that God has told us to do so and has spoken of knowing the hearts of others … not just their legal standing, not just their financial concerns, not just their language, but their very hearts. And so that document that most addresses the needs of the human heart, the New Testament, is replete with commands of the same kind: Romans 12:13, for example, "Share with God’s people who are in need; practice hospitality." Or I Peter 4:9-10, "Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling." And the grand promise of Hebrews 13:1-2, "Let brotherly love continue; do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."
God’s clear command to His people is for an outreaching love, a hospitable spirit, to those who are strangers in a strange land. That’s where we start.
II
Now, while that might seem to be reason enough to resolve the question as to why American churches should respond to the needs of immigrant communities, I want to suggest that there is even more to drive us in that direction.
I want to suggest that not only is it Biblical so to respond, but that it is also a simple matter of acting out of our own history. It is a matter of affirming who we are as Americans. We are an immigrant nation. Except for those whose lineage is exclusively aboriginal, native American, we are a nation built by immigrants who depended on the hospitality of others in order to survive and to thrive. To respond today to immigrant communities is to do nothing more than to repay what we were given.
I have done some work in my own family’s history. I wonder often what it was like for Evert in den Hoeven and his wife Lisebiet Schipbower, both born in the mid-17th Century in the province of Westphalia in Germany, who migrated to Pennsylvania. Who supported them? Who showed them how to survive in this wilderness? I know that they did survive; I know that because today in Skippack Township you can see the DeHaven farm … the name got changed … and because they were my seven-times-great-grandparents, on my mother’s side. I am the descendant of German immigrants who forged a path in the wilderness, with somebody’s help..
I wonder what it was like, too, for Daniel Davault, a Hessian mercenary, who, like many of his compatriots, accepted the blandishments of a new nation that offered him land if he would leave the pay of the British and would desert to the American side during the Revolution. Daniel took up that offer and settled in Virginia, married Keziah Green, and begat, eventually, me as his great-great-grandson. I am the descendant of a political refugee given a fresh start by a welcoming nation.
I could go on. I could speak of Richard Miles, Quaker of the village of Llanfinhangel, in Wales, come to America for religious freedom. My five-times great-grandfather. Or of those Irish folks whose names I love to pronounce, my four times great-grandparents, Thomas McCool and Margaret McGraw. You can’t get much more Irish than that. All these immigrants came to this nation looking for new opportunities, seeking to escape old burdens, hoping to make new lives, and they received somebody’s hospitality here. I must offer the same to those now arriving; it is just living out our history.
III
But let’s go a little farther with that. American churches need to respond to the needs of immigrant communities not only because God wills it and not only because our history demands it, but also because it is in our own best interests to embrace the immigrant community. If we as the people of God expect to grow and to thrive, it will not happen if we close our doors and our hearts to any of God’s children. It will happen only as we become fully supportive of every nation, tribe, and kindred.
Martin Luther King famously once described Sunday morning at 11:00 am as the most segregated hour in America. He meant that largely as a critique of the tradition of separation by races, black and white, in American churches. But there is also a positive in that observation. There is something to embrace there as well.
Churches have historically been the places where immigrants have turned for something familiar, something that ties them to their identity, something that gives them a special "somebodiness." And so when the Germans came they organized Lutheran churches and Catholic churches. When the Scots came, they founded Presbyterian churches. The Greeks, the Russians, the various Orthodox communities. In more recent years Asian Christians, Hispanic Christians, and now African Christians, have created thriving churches with their own cultural stamps on them. At first glance it may seem that we are repeating the same old patterns of separation that have kept us apart from one another in this nation. But a deeper examination tells us that this is what churches have always done – to respond to the heart needs, the core needs of people, and that means helping them know who they are and embrace it.
I was in Covington, Kentucky, one weekend, to perform a wedding, and I took a walk around town. I came across a Catholic church; the sign said, "St. Brigid’s." I walked around the corner, and there found another Catholic church. Why would there be two Catholic churches so close to one another? The sign told me everything: "Mutter Gottes Kirche." A church for the Irish and a church for the Germans. Segregation? Yes, to a degree. Separation? Yes, in a measure. And maybe no longer all that relevant; but in their origins they had responded to the need for people not to lose themselves in this strange new world. Neither Martians nor Earthlings, alone, but needing to embrace their history. It is the way the church can grow, by acknowledging the heart languages and the ways of people and giving them a place to be before God in their own way.
One day I was visiting a church member in a nursing home. She asked me to meet her roommate and pray with her. This lady had emigrated from Russia as a child, many years before, and did not speak the Russian language any more. She was as Americanized as you can be, with the slang and the accent and everything else. But when we prayed together, she reverted to her Russian prayers, learned as a child. Her heart language. It had never left her, not when she stood before her Lord.
If we are wise, as church people, we will encourage immigrants because they will build churches and fill them and share their faith and offer their energies, and we need all of that, every bit of that. It is in our own best interests to respond to immigrant communities. And when I reflect on the unhappy reality that many American churches are now tired, declining, not reaching young people, I can only rejoice that in the immigrant churches I know of, and Salem is a prime example, there is energy, there is commitment, there is youth, and there is a forward look that the rest of us can learn from. However long or short my tenure as Interim Executive Director of the D. C. Baptist Convention may be, I want to do all I can to encourage the establishment and the growth of immigrant churches. We need you just as much as you need us.
IV
But, in conclusion, I want to return to the Bible and to the Gospel imperatives. I want to call us all to embrace the mission of the Kingdom as clearly and as fully as possible. American churches need to respond to immigrant issues not only because God commands us; not only because it is a way of being grateful for what was done for our immigrant ancestors; and not only because to embrace immigrants will revitalize our tired institutions. Above all, we must respond to the needs of immigrants because the Gospel calls us to wholeness; the Gospel is about health and wholeness.
There is a marvelous Biblical word, "shalom." "Shalom" is a Hebrew word, used even in modern Hebrew as a greeting, much as we would say, "Hello." It means much more than that, however. "Shalom" is often translated, "peace", and that’s true, but it’s more than that as well. "Shalom" means wholeness. It means health – not only physical wellness, but emotional, relational, spiritual wellness. It means salvation … not the way we sometimes think of salvation, as a one-way ticket to heaven when you die … but salvation as being reconciled to God, at harmony with others, and at peace with one’s self. Healthy, totally healthy. The Gospel is about "shalom," about finding and sharing that powerful completeness.
In fact, I don’t know why I should bother defining "shalom" to you, because the very name of your church, "Salem," is just another form of the same word. You in your very name are proclaiming the mission of the Christian church, offering wholeness and completeness, salvation and health.
And so the only way for us to be true to the Great Commission, whereby we are to go into all the world and proclaim the good news to everyone … the only way for us to do that is to be concerned about the whole person and about every person. That means health – as Dr. Adrien would tell us in a heartbeat – it means training, it means education, it means finding work, it means developing family life, it means raising children. As Christ came to redeem all of life, so we also are to be the agents of redemption for every person, under every circumstance. And if the Great Commission says we are to go into all the world, well, now the world has come to us, and we must respond.
And we are given the promise of God as reported through Jeremiah, the prophet, "Seek the shalom of the city where I have planted you, for in its shalom you will find your shalom." We cannot be faithful to our Kingdom purpose if we do not care about every aspect of the lives of immigrant peoples. To do anything less is to forfeit our right to be called the church of the living Christ.
Another vignette of family history: my wife is an immigrant. She came to this country from England when she was a teenager. Her lasting memory of the time of departure is pressing her face against the train window, as the family made their way to sail from Southampton, for in that window she saw the waving hand and the tear-stained face of her grandfather, who knew that he would never on this earth see his family again. In 1952 one did not hop on a jet to see the world! Separation, painful. She knows, therefore, the heart of an immigrant and of those left behind.
So, strangers in a strange land, we all are! Valentine Michael Smith’s invention, the Church of All Worlds, is not needed, to teach us how to survive; we already have the Church of the Savior of All Humanity. It is up to us to live out its mandate, for, as Moses told us, "you know the heart of the alien."
