(From The Cotton Patch Gospel)

The wonderful musical, The Cotton Patch Gospel, is a classic example of contextualized theology.  What was brewin’in Gainesville is that the theologian-in-overalls, Clarence Jordan, dared to visualize for us what life may have been like for Jesus had he been born in Gainesville, Georgia.  Filled with disarming satire, we are laughing at ourselves as we see the absurd blending of both the best and worst of this Southern culture colliding with the redemptive work of Jesus.  By the time we reach Holy Week in this musical, we find it totally plausible that Jesus would be scapegoated, tried, convicted and, you guessed it, lynched by the Powers.

Another song has been written that includes an unflattering reference to Gainesville.  A song from the mid-90s, the Indigo Girls wrote the following lyrics that ring with even more prophetic clarity today:

Let’s go roadblock tripping in the middle of the night up in Gainesville town
There’ll be blue lights flashing down the long dirt road when they ask me to step out
They say, “we’re looking for illegal immigrants can we check your car?”
I said, “it’s funny I think we were on the same boat back in 1694″

So what was brewing in Gainesville today?  55 pilgrims and seven miles later, what is the ending of this unfolding drama that we are witnessing?  Will it be a heart-wrenching tragedy or a soul-stirring story of redemption?  I do not know.

What I do know is it’s Holy Week, and with this pilgrimage we are seeking to connect the sufferings of the migrant Christ named Jesus with the sufferings of the migrant who is often named Jesús.  As I reflect on Scripture and the meaning of this season of Passion, I am finding too many parallels between the drama that unfolded in the days leading to the Crucifixion of Christ and the drama unfolding before our eyes as we crucify vulnerable immigrants in the State of Georgia.

Consider these similarities.

Palm Sunday reminds me of the recent demonstration at the Georgia State Capitol where thousands of immigrants and their allies waved banners instead of palm branches and spoke truth to power, hoping against hope and unsure if their results would bear fruit for the hearts that needed to be changed were so distorted by lust of power and the politics of fear.  And, yet, the shouts of Jubilee were lifted higher than the banners of love as a sign of an abiding love and a deep faith.

But as we waved our banners and proclaimed a loving alternative to fear, it seems that the Georgia legislature were playing the role of the Sanhedrin, already plotting their way to condemn Jesús and every other unauthorizable immigrant worker, church-goer, consumer, husband, wife, daughter, son, and child of God.

House Bill 87, the Arizona copy-cat bill of Georgia, was a done deal.  Religious and civil right leaders could not appeal to the moral or spiritual sense of legislators.  Even the Chamber of Commerce tried to split the Republican Party, by persuading to their sense of common “cents”.  But the forces of fear, subsidized by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the other “war on immigrants” profiteers worked their magic behind the scenes and the legislators kowtowed to immoral means for political ends and overwhelmingly passed the legislation that would enact mean the dawn of a Juan Crow era in the South, just as we remembered the 150th anniversary of a Civil War to end the legal subjugation of a group of people who were considered “illegal” to engage most institutions as equal members of society.

Walking to the North Georgia Detention Center

And so today we initiated our 50-mile pilgrimage by journeying through Gainesville, the hometown of Governor Nathan Deal.  This cannot be a simple coincidence that we can just dismiss.  House Bill 87 and the fate of thousands of loving yet marginalized immigrants await the response from Deal.  He has the authority to bless or curse a whole segment of our population.  Deal can veto a bill that he tried to wash his hands clean of or he can sign the bill into law.  Do you see the similarities?  A governor who tried to shirk his responsibility?  A mob asking him to crucify the vulnerable and innocent?

Will Governor Deal be Georgia’s Pontius Pilate?  Let us pray not.

We are people of the Resurrection.  Fatalism only believes in crucifixions but hope reminds us that Jesus really did pay it all and that, in the end, Love Wins.  Today love won as we shined a light of love in a place filled with darkness.  Today love won as we stood in silent vigil, immigrants and citizens, outside of the North Georgia Detention Center, a CCA operated, for-profit immigration detention center.  Today love won when we only received words of affirmation as we traveled down the Atlanta Highway (“lookin’ for a love get-a-way…).  Today love won.

Somethin’s brewin’ in Gainesville, wonder what it could be?
Somethin’s doin’ in Gainesville, come on down and see.

8 miles… 40 pilgrims…

This day had a divine purpose but I’m still not sure I fully comprehend all its mysteries. 

In our human plans, this day should have never taken place.  The original plan called for a leg of the pilgrimage to carry us through Cherokee County in northwest metropolitan Atlanta.  Cherokee County was originally selected because it is the home of Georgia’s most vehement, anti-immigrant legislator, Senator Chip Rogers.  Sadly, Senator Rogers has replaced “land of our pilgrim’s pride” patriotism with “land of the pilgrim’s shame” xenophobia and morally-sanctioned legislation with state-sanctioned humiliation.  But, for varied organizational purposes, the “trail of tears” leg of the pilgrimage was cancelled and today’s route was very improvisational.

It’s easy forget, when planning an event for what we expect to be over 1,000 participants, how much work goes on behind the scenes to make things go smoothly.  As we approached this day when we had no coordinating committee, it became quite obvious that this day would require miracles.

First, how many pilgrims should we plan for?  Because there was no coordinating committee that meant there had been no recruitment or local publicity.  Would the walk just be the five of us (Denise, Haven, Nash, Utsumi, and me) who made the commitment to walk the full pilgrimage route?  What if scores showed up?

Second, how would we feed an unknown number of pilgrims?  Committees on prior days had teams whose sole responsibility it was to prepare for the feeding of the multitudes.  How would God multiply our small quantity of “loaves and fish”?

Third, we had no legal permit for this day’s leg.  Would that be a problem?  Did we even need a “permit” to walk down the sidewalk?  Yes, we could’ve been a large group, but what if the hundreds of thousands of unlicenseable immigrants were to stop driving, even for one day, wouldn’t that make for full sidewalks and road shoulders?

Fourth, how would we transport folks back to Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church in Norcross once we arrived at Plaza Fiesta in Chamblee?  This would be a 12-mile walk of an unknown number of folks that we would be responsible for returning promptly and graciously to their vehicles?  What miracles would we need to accomplish this feat?

Well, God is still in the business of performing loving miracles when one’s cause is justice for the least of these.

60 pilgrims showed up, a number that exceeded my honest expectation given, again, our lack of promotion.  What happened was, we built a momentum of enthusiasm with our two other walks in Gwinnett County and folks were grasping the powerful force of the Spirit that has seemed to have been guiding us on like the blustery wind of Monday’s leg.

As for food, God multiplied Tuesday’s lunch in inexplicable ways.  The committee planned a meal on Tuesday for 200 pilgrims but 400 walked.  How, then, did the meal multiply so as to cover twice the anticipated number of pilgrims along with providing, in abundance, for today’s 60 walkers?  Simple.  Miracle.

Volunteer helps us safely walk across Jimmy Carter Boulevard in Norcross

One of our walkers “just happened” to be a concrete layer who “just happened” to have orange vests in the back of his pick-up truck for our deputized safety patrol.  Another miracle. 

Ana prays at the cross

Enjoy the photos!

Linda carries the cross

I had heard from some of the coordinators a bit of Linda’s story and I knew that it was for women like Linda that connecting our orthodoxy (“right beliefs”) with our orthopraxis (‘right practice”) was so vitally important.  The church must step forward and directly address the externalized racial oppression being imposed on immigrants from the global South because internalized oppression is taking its toll on our migrant brothers and sisters.  The church can go a long way at healing the hearts of immigrants who are humiliated and mistreated for being “aliens” and “foreigners.” Immigrants need the transformative power of the church to help restore their damaged identity as children of God.  And Linda’s vulnerability has reinforced my belief that the church must be the conscience of America on matters of immigration and the healer of immigrants’ damaged souls.

Linda is an unlicenseable driver from Mexico.  Married with three children, including a medically fragile, U.S.-born child, the worst crime Linda ever committed was driving without a license and then being the victim of an auto accident.  That’s right she is a “criminal”-victim (how’s that for an oxymoron).

One afternoon, while Linda was driving, she was rear ended by a distracted but licensed driver.  The other driver was issued a ticket for following too closely but Linda found herself arrested, fingerprinted, strip searched and detained for weeks in three separate jails or detention centers in what she described as deplorable conditions.  And her children were punished by having their mother forcibly removed from their home during that absence.

Now, Linda has received a 100-day notice to remove herself from the United States of America.  Yes, she must self-deport or face even harsher consequences.

Linda shares her heartbreaking story of tragedy and resilience.

As Linda shared her story the crowd of 400 pilgrims was dead silent.  Tears welled up in Linda’s eyes but not in hers alone.  She continued to share her excruciating dilemma.  What should Linda do?  Self-deport without her children and husband?  Should all of them self-deport?  Including the U.S. citizen child?  The U.S.-born son is medically fragile and requires medical equipment the humble family would not be able to afford in Mexico.  Her husband’s earning potential is likely ten times greater in the United States and her son likely receives governmental assistance for his chronic medical condition.  Should she separate siblings from each other and the healthy children from their father? 

Linda doesn’t know what path she and her family will choose.

After Linda finished sharing her testimony, I asked every U.S. citizen in the crowd to surround Linda and to engulf her in prayers.  I specifically asked for U.S. citizens to surround her in love because our hands are not clean.  It is our government who we the people are allowing to engage in the unholy act of family separation. 

Our country was not blessed when we separated slave children from slave parents.  Our country was not blessed when we separated Native families from their land and each other.  Our country will not be blessed by separating Linda from her medically fragile American child or from the rest of her nuclear family.  And Americans must repent of our silence and complicity in such forms of oppression.

Today the Holy Spirit felt like a blistery wind that accompanied us along the entire route that took us around the county seat of Gwinnett County, Lawrenceville.  Gwinnett County would like to become the fourth county in Georgia and only the 68th law enforcement agency in the nation to participate in the 287(g) program.  Named after a section of the federal immigration law, 287(g) grants state and local enforcement the authority to investigate, detain and arrest illegal immigrants on civil and criminal grounds. 

However, a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report questioned the program’s effectiveness. GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, reported that authorities failed to determine how many of the thousands of people deported under the program were the kind of violent felons it was devised to root out.  Instead of nabbing immigrants who commit violent felonies, 287(g) is being used to deport hundreds and thousands of immigrants whose worst crime is often only driving unlicenseable.

However, even given the increased scrutiny and the misguided use of the initial intent of the program, Gwinnett Sheriff Butch Conway is determined to enter the 287(g) program.  So it was within this context that 140 of us marched right up to Sheriff Conway’s office and lifted our voices and our prayers.  It was touching to see folks kneeling in prayer facing the Sheriff’s headquarters.  It was encouraging to hear pastors and priests speak against the injustices they witness as they regularly visit jails.  So we sang, we prayed, we knelt, we cried out for the God of justice to make the government’s places of justice live up to their name.  May it be so…

As we gathered around the cross in the parking lot of a shopping center known for its day labor pools, all of us were silent as the voice over the cell phone told the 125 of us gathered there what our country’s policies did to her and her family.  Linda loved living in Gainesville until her husband was deported after being arrested for fishing (not driving) without a license.

Yes, Jesus could walk all over Georgia and never get behind the wheel of a car, but give him two loaves and a fishing pole and even He could be deported.

Linda, a U.S. citizen, told us that she and her children were internally deported to Illinois.  In fact, she wanted to drive the 14 hours it would take to be with us but Rafael, one of the Gainesville coordinators, convinced her that a phone greeting would make enough of an impact. 

It had been six months since her husband was deported.  He had found employment back in his native Mexico, but at 80 pesos a week (around $8) he was being further humiliated by his inability to provide for his family.  So Linda and her children are now technically homeless, living with extended family without knowing what their long-term plans might be.  She’s contacted an immigration attorney and is hoping against all odds that her family, now separated by politicians who claim to be the bastions of family values, will one day be able to live together in love and out of the shadows.

Below are some snapshot highlights of today’s leg of the pilgrimage: