To See the Face of God: Migration Theology and The Imago Dei at the Borderlands
my god
is not waiting inside a church
or sitting above the temple’s steps
my god
is the refugee’s breath as she is running
is living in the starving child’s belly
is the heartbeat of protest
my god
does not rest between pages
written by holy men
my god
lives between the sweaty thighs
of women’s bodies sold for money
was last seen washing the homeless man’s feet
my god
is not unreachable as
they’d like you to think
my god is beating inside us infinitely
The Sun and Her Flowers, Rupi Kaur
Introduction
Migration has always been part of human history, yet the world has seen a precipitous rise in migration due to globalization, violence, war, and unstable governments- twice as many as 25 years ago.[1] For most, they have no choice but to look for a better life away from their beloved homeland: about 30-40 million migrants are undocumented, 24 million are forced to flee their home but remain inside their country, and 10 million are refugees.[2] Recently, the United States has had it’s own “immigration crisis,” with Central American migrants pouring in from the Northern Central American triangle: Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Yet, when research is done on the matter, it is easy to conclude that through civil wars, political, and economic instability, the Central American “crisis” and those migrants fleeing oppression and violence is not a new phenomenon but has continued to rise since the 1980’s.[3] Today we see Central American migrants fleeing from poverty, drought, gang violence, high homicide rates, extortion, and corrupt government agencies and institutions. As one of my Guatemalan refugee brothers, Pablo (name changed for protection), explained to me at the refugee shelter La Posada Providencia in San Bonito, Texas, “It doesn’t matter if you do something bad or if you kill someone. You have money. You pay off the judge. This is how it is. There is no law in my country.” Yet the Trump administration has continued to enforce inhumane treatment of migrants, especially those who enter “illegally,” enforcing a “zero tolerance” policy, which separated children from their parents in separate detention facilities along the border as well as chaining every migrant’s during their immigration trail. Trump has succeeded in brainwashing or reinforcing racist biases and rhetoric by continue to call these children of God names, which dehumanize them. On June 19, 2018, Trump tweeted, “Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13.” In a late May roundtable in California, Trump stated, “You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals.”[4] The word choices, “animals” and “infests” denote something less than human such as vermin, insects, or rodents. Namely, inferring that immigrants were less than human, not afforded the same rights and responsibilities that their whiter skinned American humans because of their brown skin, country of origin, and language. As The Atlantic writer David Graham put it, “The word [infests] is almost exclusively used in this context. What does one do with an infestation? Why, one exterminates it, of course.”[5] So far, Trump’s policies have matched his rhetoric, showing inhumane and immense cruelty to migrants on the Southern border.
We know this problem exists and we yearn to do something about it, but what can we as Americans truly do to curb this racism eating away at the flesh of American moral and ethical decency? How do we as American Christians reclaim our power to lift up the oppressed and marginalized as the scriptures have called us to? There are countless theological arguments, all beautiful stated and biblically sound, for why America, this nation with so much power and privilege to share, should take care of the migrant, refugee, and asylum seeker at our borders. We can start by pointing to the biblical narratives and law within scripture that prove God’s overwhelming priority for the poor and oppressed and their right to freedom. Other migration theologians point to eternal citizenship we all share in the kingdom of heaven, for this earth is only our temporary home.[6] The New Testament, as well, also calls us to love the stranger. First through the love of our neighbor in Matthew 22:39 and secondly through the stranger who we know portrays that of Jesus himself in Matthew 25:35, “And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’” Another important argument for the humane treatment of and radical welcome to our refugee siblings in Christ is that of the Imago Dei, or the Image of God, which is reflected in all of God’s people. Most migration theologians agree that in the creation story, God made us to bear God’s image, which in turn tasks us with dominion over earth and all of it’s creatures. This places us in a unique relationship with our Creator, God’s creation, and humanity. Some theologians posit that humanity is unique because we alone can communicate and interact with God, working in relationship with the Divine through God’s outpouring of love to bring God’s will to fruition on earth.[7]
Catholic Charities, McAllen, TX
As these special bearers of the image of God, we have the responsibility to not only love our fellow humans who also reflect this Divine image but to protect God’s creation, including humanity, from exploitation and suffering. This sets the bar high for how we reflect the image of God in our world, yet I would like to take this idea even further and argue that we do not just reflect the image of God, but that God fully lives within us and within others, especially those at the margins of society.
The Migrant (Ger) in the Bible
Firstly, that the story of the migrants is the story of God’s people. If you look closely at many of the stories of the Bible including Sarah and Abraham, Moses and the Israelites’ journey out of Egypt and wandering the desert, the Diaspora of Jews from the Promised Land, and even the beginning of Jesus’ life are all examples of stories which center around a people who have left their home and lived in a foreign land, all with the protection of God by their side. If these weren’t enough, you could include the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain, Hagar and Ishmael, Jacob and his wives and children, Joseph, Naomi and Ruth, David, Elijah, Amos, Esther, Paul, and all the apostles.[8]
In Jesus, King of Strangers, Hamilton even outlines four main themes that these stories, most specifically Sarah and Abraham’s story, point to for migration theologians. First, that the story begins with a person or family having to reside in a country that is not their home, for example, Sara and Abraham’s journey to Gerar.[9] This country has it’s own cultural norms and political hierarchies or power structure. There is also danger to the most vulnerable among them. In this story, Sarah is in danger of having to marry or have sexual relations with King Abimelek, King of Gerar. The fear of sexual force and manipulation of women and children are constant in migration stories. Every story also has the migrant using some sort of survival technique so that they can stay alive in this new world they have traveled to. Being unaware of cultural practices and laws, they rely heavily on ways that they can avoid suspicion as a foreign people. Abraham does this by calling Sarah his sister. Lastly, there is direct Divine protection from the God character, always protecting them from powerful enemies. In Sara and Abraham story, God uses a dream to threaten Abimelek and make him fear for his life if he did not do what was right and free Sarah.
The bible does not just tell stories about the Ger (migrant) but also puts forth explicit Biblical laws that forbid the mistreatment of the widow, the orphan, and the migrant. The Covenant Code (Exodus 21:1-23:33), which many later law codes comment or modify, is the oldest biblical law collection or “codes.” By far a far-reaching, extensive order of governance, these codes mention the ger twice. The law insists, “you should not oppress the ger nor abuse that person, for you were gerim in Egypt’s land. Nor should you oppress a widow or orphan. If you oppress such a person, when they cry out to [in prayer], I will certainly answer them, and I will be infuriated and kill you at sword point. Then your wives will be widows and your children orphans. [Exodus 22:20-23]”[10] This law is unique in that it doesn’t prescribe a punishment or sentence for the wrongful action. Instead, the abuse of the vulnerable will be at the hands of an angry God “who will personally assume the role of family avenger of wrong.”[11] We usually ascribe God to the role of lawgiver and enforcer, yet in this instance they personally intervene for the oppressed, those who do not have the same social support and safety net as the rest of humanity. It is obvious that the Divine has a special place in their heart for the vulnerable and will take responsibility for their safety and well-being. The code again repeats this threat: “you shall not oppress a ger because you know the ger’s life since you were gerim in Egypt’s land.”[12] In the middle of laws prohibiting bribery and influence peddling, the code spells out the absolute right of the migrant to have fairness in the court of law. The migrants rights are no less valuable than that of the Israelite and no one could deprive them of this Divinely ordained right. These codes are the first of many Biblical laws within the Old Testament including a mention of the migration from Egypt in the Ten Commandments, the Priestly Laws in Leviticus, and mention the ger 21 times in the book of Deuteronomy. Each time is a direct aim at protecting the rights of the migrant. It is no exaggeration that scripture both in narrative and in law points us to the liberation of the oppressed from a just God.
If we don’t take these markers as proof enough that the protection of the vulnerable was of utmost important to the Divine order, we can look at the birth of Jesus himself. God chose a teen mother to have a baby out of wedlock. As if this was not shameful enough in her culture, the unmarried couple journeyed to another town so that the could take part in a law it’s citizen’s must obey, the census count. Soon after the birth, Matthew recounts the angel’s appearance to Joseph, telling him to take his family and flee to Egypt to avoid King Herod’s murderous touch. The royal family fled out of fear for their life to a safer land, again the unknown land of Egypt. Would the idea of this refugee child’s family seeking safety change the hearts and minds of people who now look at a refugee’s brown skin and lock her in a cage? If Jesus Christ himself does not set the bar for humane treatment, who does?
What is the Imago Dei?
A strong argument for seeing the migrant as an equal part of humanity with the rights and responsibilities that human dignity must afford is rooting the concept of the migrant in the language of Imago Die (Image of God), very different from the social and political problems most migrants or “illegal aliens” are normally viewed. In the creation story, we see that Adam and Eve were made in the image or likeness of God. Genesis 1:26-27 states, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” What would happen if we saw each migrant person and saw within them the image of God with infinite worth and value? Would we not treat them differently? We often use this phrase, yet we do not act on it by treating all people’s equally. Are Christians responsible for allowing “different shades of human worthiness or levels of the Imago Dei in different people?”[13] What qualifiers lie on this likeness with God in humanity? What does it mean to be the bearers of Christ image?
In Magezi’s thorough article on migration crisis and Christian response, he outlines four specific views on the interpretation of the Imago Dei. The first view, promoted primarily by Atkinson is the physical view, in which we see God look exactly like a human being in physical appearance in the body of Christ. Through the incarnation, we see physically that God has come into a human body in order to identify with humankind. Magezi argues, however, that God, being incorporeal in nature, is Spirit and therefore this view cannot complete the scope of what it fully means to bear the image of God. De La Torre argues that since God is Spirit in nature and cannot be divided or separated, the image of God must be more than just physical:
To be created in the likeness of God refers to more than just the corporeal, especially since God as spirit has no legs, arms, feet, and so on. Humans are metaphorically like God spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physiologically. If we want to understand something about the reality of God, then it behooves us to look toward humans, who are the image or copy of the original. [14]
Magezi bases his second interpretation as the moral, rational, and spiritual view, based in Calvin’s foundational status of the doctrine of creation. Calvin posits that we were created in the perfect image of God, but the fall in Genesis 3 marred that perfect reflection, yet Jesus came to restore this image in his crucifixion. His death restores us bearers of the image of Christ and refers to it as “spiritual regeneration.” As we are morally restored, we can love as God loved and continually try to restore humanity to this perfect image of God. Rationally, God has given us self-awareness or self-consciousness so that we can operate as God’s person in the world. This interpretation is based H. Richard Niebuhr’s Relational-Responsibility model, putting the primacy of the relational at the forefront of the ethical decision making process. De La Torre argues that unlike all of creation, humanity was live in right relationship to our neighbor, the earth (our temporary “foreign” land), and our self. He argues that to bear the image of God we must be in right relationship to others, for “if God is love, whose very essence expresses concern for others, then to be created in the image of God means that humans are product of love expressed as being for others. Being for others becomes possible as we become conscious of others. But when we cut ourselves off from the vast majority of humanity, which happens to be marginalized and disenfranchised, refusing to hear their cry or see their condition, we cease being for others” and therefore cease bearing the image of God. Thirdly, Magezi details the relational model. Also focusing on right relationship, this view sees the overall narrative arch of God and God’s people and the bearers of God’s image a humanity, which is God’s counterpart at work in the world. In this view, he asserts that humans are the only earthly creatures that have this special relationship with God, possibly because we have the ability to communicate, interact and listen, to God. Therefore the image of God in humanity should be understood as the transformation into the likeness of Christ, from God through the Spirit.[15] This transformation of perfect love is reflected in Jesus perfect relationship with God the Father, in perfect union, just as we should strive to reflect this “relationship of loving communion” with each other.[16]
Lastly, the author presents the functional view of the image of God, in which humanity is the “visible representatives of the invisible God (the creator) in subduing the earth.”[17] In this interpretation, the uniqueness of humanity bearing the image of God is based in the procreation of humanity over the earth and the dominance over the earth’s creation.[18] This dominion over the earth has even been linked to dominion of humanity over the world through New Eastern materials, which linked the image of God with royal language, naming Pharaoh as having the image of God. This view argues that only humanity has the task of ruling over the earth, giving God a reason to imprint their likeness on the human creature in their place.
Seeing the Imago Dei
Whatever your definition or interpretation of the Imago Dei, I had a personal experience in which I finally understood who and what it meant to see the image of God reflected in another. I came to this realization after my first trip down to the border to work with South American migrants and observe immigration hearings for the ACLU under the ports and courts program with Texas Impact.
We arrived there on the third day and were already worn down from the days of work. Not just physical labor but emotional and spiritual work. Our normal world-view was slowly being shattered, piece-by-piece, the paradigm shifts happening with brut force. With every project, a little line cracked across my privileged soul. As we casually walked in to the Catholic Charities building, a place that somehow clothed and fed these Texas refugees right out of detention, we saw telling signs of great use. In the poorest city in America, Brownsville was a town that had long been in crisis, and charities like this one did the hard work of trying to help a population, which wants to remain unseen.
As the hustle and bustle of the busy volunteers swirled around us, our guide gave our group a run down of the place. We were each assigned to different volunteer duties within the charity. I was assigned to shoe duty. The volunteer guide lead us into a small room that was filled to the brim with all types of mismatched shoes, piled one over the other, in clumped hills of rubber and cloth. As we began to sort the shoes into piles, we saw that what we thought were new and shiny shoes, were instead cheaply made shoes, and that they were already falling apart. So my job quickly became trying to find the best possible shoes and moving them to the front of the piles.
Catholic Charities, McAllen, TX
My privilege was already showing. I wanted them to have the best of the best because that is what they deserved, but the pickings were slim. Before I could get a system in place, there was a line. Families began to appear outside the door: anxious, nervous, not what sure to think about this weird white lady trying to help them in broken Spanish.
The first boy that came in off the bus was about five years old. His mother, not far behind, watched over him with worried anticipation. He looked into the bin of children’s shoes and smiled excitedly about the prospects. What I saw as a dirty pile of shoes, he saw as a treasure trove filled with diamonds. I asked him, “número de zapato?” When he heard the word “number,” his eyes lit up. “Seis!” He shouted as he hopped and up down. He looked at me expectantly. I told his mother it was OK to try them on first, to see if they fit. I realized that he didn’t usually have options when it came to footwear. He began to clumsily shove his feet into the shoe and tie the laces. I told him to walk around, make sure they felt ok. He looked at me like maybe I was an insane person.
I asked, “Bueno? Grande or pequeña?
Hand gestures had become a necessity when trying to communicate quickly in a foreign language.
“Bueno! Bueno!” He jumped up and down with glee. Whipping out my trusty Google Translate app, I asked him in Spanish, “Let’s try on another to make sure.”
He looked at his Mom for permission.
“Si, Si.” She nodded.
With wide eyes, he tried on a couple more and left with two pairs. You’d think I had given him the best toy on earth. He held those shoes with the pride of an Olympic champion.
Temporary beds for a few nights while in transit to their home location.
A few minutes later a girl walked in with her mother and aunt. As the adults tried on shoes, I showed her some shoes that might be in her size. When she saw children’s Keds, pink with colored flowers, her eyes lit up. She outstretched her arms and cooed, “Bonita,” with a look of adoration in her face. She gently brushed the shoe, with the same attention a 9 year old girl might give to her own Barbie’s hair. She rushed to show them to her mother with childish delight. Her mother looked at me and held up her own pair of shoes. A pair of plain white Keds and nodded to me, as if to ask if it was alright to take them. When I said, “Si, bueno!” She looked up at me, with a face so full of thanks and smiled the biggest smile—she held the shoes to her body and hugged them. It was the face of humility.
In abject poverty, just let out of a detention facility where they had taken her belt and shoelaces, she was not full of anger or impatience; she was full of grace and thanks. In that moment, I saw the face of Christ revealed in her eyes. I still knew it was her, this normal human, just the same as I, but her humility and grace made me see the Christ within her. This moment, changed me to my core.
The Imago Dei as the Universal Christ
Who would have believed me then if I told them that I would have a transformative moment in a room full of shoe buckets, yet there it happened and there I was changed. Not only did I get a glimpse of Christ’s face, I saw the Christ within me also. I saw it reflected back at me in her eyes. The mystic Carroll Houselander’s words filled my thoughts and I wondered if I might be having a similar experience.
I was in an underground train. A crowded train in which all sorts of people jostled together, workers of every description going home at the end of the day. Quite suddenly, I saw with my mind, but as vividly as a wonderful picture, Christ in them all. I come out in the street, everywhere, Christ. Indeed, through the years to come, I would have to seek Him, and usually I would find him in others, and still more in myself.[19]
In The Universal Christ, Richard Rohr says that seeing and recognizing are not the same thing.[20] For once, in this moment I truly understood that lesson. This time, Christ was revealed to me, even though he had been before me all along. The image of God was not just a likeness, or a visible representation, but a living, breathing soul looking right back at me. I just didn’t recognize the Christ before now.
God does not live in churches or chapels, but the in the aching bones of the migrant, sleeping on the hard cement, in the crying child’s scream, the heat of their forehead rising as their temperature increases, and in the face of humility from a stranger’s kindness. God has always and will always live within the migrant, the suffering, the destitute, and the vulnerable. We can only truly understand the full meaning of Imago Dei when we see that the image of God is not just reflected in these people, but God fully lives within these people, for God becomes that which she loves. “God loves things by uniting them, not by excluding them.”[21] This Universal Christ is within everywhere and everything, if we can learn to see. It is seen in the first incarnation, the creation of the world, and the second incarnation, Jesus becoming fully human and suffering on the cross to be in radical solidarity with us. Solidarity was God’s primary purpose on earth and in turn, should be the example we use to live out our ministry and our primary purpose. We cannot be just bearers of Christ’s image but we must become this Universal Christ, another name for everything in it’s fullness: the Spirit that lives within us, the Spirit that lives in the other, the grand and exceptional love we are called to live out, and “an infinite horizon that pulls us from within and pulls us forward” to create the kin-dom of heaven here on earth.[22
As the line grew smaller, it was time to head out onto the next mission project, yet the layers of gratitude that came off of these travelers stayed with me as I walked forward. They were so thankful for their new start, even if it was with the worst possible shoe salesman in the world. We did not just give them shoes, we made them feel human again. They wanted to feel like normal people after this long and arduous journey they were still on. Most of them had not reached their final destination, their family. We were a stop on their way to bigger and better things. This was the beginning of their new life. As a widow, I understand that need to feel normalcy when you are going through something traumatic. What these people were doing, fleeing their home for a safe haven, was brave. Yet they, like I did, yearned to be set free from that suffering.
This work, with people just the same as you and I, is where you find Christ. Many of us think that if you just believe hard enough, that if you study the bible, if you pray enough, you will become more spiritual or Christ- like. But there is reason James wrote, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food.” (James 2:14-15) When we listen to the oppressed, when we help the sick and dying, when we clothe those who have none, and when we feed the hungry and break bread with those scared by a powerful empire, you quickly see God’s face in their face. God’s eyes in their eyes, God’s smile in their smile. To be honest, I don’t know if I had ever seen Christ’s face before. But now I have, and I can’t go back.
**All pictures taken with permission. Many said no, and some said yes, thanks! It was a joyful experience to show them their images and talk with them as we shot. I told them in broken Spanish that I wanted to tell their story to other Americans. Many teared up when I said this. They don’t want others to have had suffered as they did. Most wanted to be photographed together as a family or wanted their children photographed. It never ceases to amaze me how shooting people can you bring you closer to them and form a bond. I only was with this girl and her father for about fifteen minutes picking out new clothing that might fit. She was so patient and sweet. I think about her often and wonder where her Dad and her are now.**
Camille, Alice. “Was Jesus a Refugee? (Glad You Asked).” U.S. Catholic 82, no. 8 (Aug. 2017): 49. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A500134637/AONE?u=txshracd2548&sid=AONE&xid=691da172.
Carvalhaes, Cláudio. “We Are All Immigrants! Imago Dei, Citizenship, and The Im/Possibility of Hospitality.” Practical Matters no. 11 (2018): 181-197.
Graham, David A. “Trump Says Democrats Want Immigrants to Infest the U.S.” The Atlantic, June 19, 2018.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/trump-immigrants-infest/563159/
Groody, Daniel G. “Crossing the divide: foundations of a theology of migration and refugees.” Theological Studied 70, no. 3 (2009): 638. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A207643238/AONE?u=txshracd2548&sid=AONE&xid=7aa925f3.
Hamilton, Mark. Jesus, King of Strangers: What the Bible Really Says About Immigration. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2019.
Houselander, Caryll. A Rocking Horse Catholic. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1955.
Magezi Vhumani and Christopher Magezi. “Migration Crisis and Christian Response: From Daniel De Groody's Image of God Theological Prism in Migration Theology to a Migration Practical Theology Ministerial Approach and Operative Ecclesiology.” HTS Teologiese Studies 74, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 48-76. https://doiorg.proxy.libraries.smu.edu/10.4102/hts.v74i1.4876.
O’Connor, Allison, Jeanne Batalova, and Jessica Bolter. “Central American Immigrants in the United States” The Online Journal of the Migration Policy Institute, August 15, 2019. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/central-american-immigrants-united-states
Rohr, Richard. The Universal Christ: how a forgotten reality can change everything we see, hope for, and believe. New York, NY: Convergent Books, 2019.
[1] Groody, 638.
[2] Groody, 638.
[3] Groody, 638.
[4] The Atlantic, “Trump Says Democrats want to infest the U.S.”
[5] The Atlantic, “Trump Says Democrats want to infest the U.S.”
[6] Carvalhaes, “We Are All Immigrants!,” 182.
[7] Magezi
[8] Camille, “Was Jesus a Refugee? (glad you asked),” 49.
[9] Genesis 20:1-5, NRSV.
[10] Hamilton, Jesus, King of Strangers, 84.
[11] Hamilton, Jesus, King of Strangers, 84.
[12] Hamilton, Jesus, King of Strangers, 85.
[13] We are all immigrants
[14] Magazi, Migration Crisis
[15] Magezi
[16] Magezi
[17] Magezi
[18] Gen. 1:28, NRSV.
[19] Houselander, A Rocking Horse Catholic, 55.
[20] Rohr, The Universal Christ, 29.
[21] Rohr, The Universal Christ, 16.
[22] Rohr, The Universal Christ, 5.
