Tomorrow we celebrate
Columbus Day. And a part of me wants to celebrate: the European discovery of the New World. Particularly,
I want to celebrate Columbus, sailing into the unknown – believing what to many of that time was the unbelievable: that
the world was round, that you could sail past the edge of the horizon and not … fall off. We laugh now, but it was a real concern. A concern not only
for our physical safety, but our spiritual safety.
Many of us take
the “round” world so for granted that we forget that many fundamentalists
of the time saw belief in a round world (and it was a belief as no one had yet circumnavigated the globe and there weren’t
any satellite photos) belief in a round world was blasphemous. Galileo suffered
imprisonment and humiliation for his showing that the earth goes around the sun, and not vice-versa. For some, if the earth was round – well, really sort of pear shaped, but let’s not go there
right now – if the earth was round, the implications were devastating. How
could heaven be up and hell below if the earth was round? Remember that 1492
was not only the date Columbus “sailed the ocean blue.” It’s
also the date of the Spanish Inquisition. Heresy was punishable by death. So yes, three cheers for that bold Italian, Christopher Columbus.
And yet another
part of me does not want to celebrate:
the European invasion of the New World. The idea that Europeans were bringing
Jesus to a godless land, and therefore had the right to do whatever they wished to whomever they wished. And to stick a flag in the soil and “claim this land,” already occupied thank you very much,
in the name of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain.
How then should we observe
Columbus Day? As with so many questions that stare back at us when we look at
them, there’s no one right answer. Indeed, one of the things that I hope
we might ponder this morning is: What do we do when both sides are right?
We love to draw
lines in the sand. “They’re right.” “They’re wrong.” Or more personally, “We’re
right. They’re wrong.” We
do it everywhere. As we well know, we do it within our spiritual paths. It does make life simpler. But I don’t
think it helps.
I must admit I have a
bias. I hear anti-Hispanic rhetoric, and it is not just to be found in Arizona,
and I cringe. It has happened so many times before, in so many places.
You’re not one of
us. You’re not welcome here. Who
the “us” is changes daily. Who the “you” are changes
daily. But the sickness that makes it possible remains … sometimes dormant. But always there. Lurking in the darkness
… in some dark corner of our minds and hearts that perhaps we’ve never shed light upon and therefore may not even
know is there.
Today we seek to honor,
or at the least acknowledge the breadth and profundity of the Native American culture that European culture dismissed so nonchalantly. But more than that, we seek to learn from it if we can.
And I wonder, if you wonder,
this day before Columbus Day, when Christopher Columbus arrived in the New World, did he have a green card? Did those intrepid founders of Jamestown have a valid visa? Did
those who sought to fashion a “New England” out of an “Old America” come with work permits?
A person’s home
is his or her castle they say. But of course, when you have a castle, the question
becomes, when do you raise the drawbridge? Who is welcome? Who is not? All too often, “we” are welcome; “they”
are not.
This has happened, over
and over. Irish and Italians, particularly since most were Catholic, have been
the subject of virulent anti-immigrant prejudice, and discrimination. We tend to think of the Ku Klux Klan as anti-black,
and it was, and is. But it was also virulently anti-Catholic. And indeed, this “them-izing” of Catholics in this country goes back to the battle over the
Constitution. Ratification. Should
the Constitution be adopted? We think of it now as the foundation of our country;
but at the time it was hotly debated. Many believe it’s the 1st
Amendment that guarantees freedom of religion. But it was Article Six, Section
III, in the body of the Constitution, that was so controversial. It prohibited
any religious test for holding office.
People argued against
adopting the Constitution because, “Roman Catholics, papists and pagans” would not be barred from holding office. Another statement sounds like it might have been spoken last week, but it comes from
the 1780’s as a reason to vote against the Constitution. “A person cannot be a good man without being a good Christian.”
But, of course, as Columbus
Day shows us, it’s not just about religion. In 1924 Congress passed the
Immigration Act, which outlawed all Asian immigration and instituted national origin quotas for all immigrants: favoring,
not surprisingly, Northern Europeans.
This act was put to deadly
use when, during World War II, Jews trying desperately to get exit visas from Germany to escape Hitler’s gas chambers
were refused. Too many Jews already in the U.S..
There was a limit on Jewish immigration. No exceptions. This while immigration from England, as example, continued full throttle and exceptions made when the numbers
swelled.
Whose country is
it, anyway? The Immigration Act of 1924 was not abolished until 1965. But still, today, as we well know, immigration reform is bottled up.
And the current them is no longer “Jews” or “Catholics”
or “Asians.” It’s “Hispanics.”
This is “our country”
people scream at rallies. And many shout “We want our country back.”
And I wonder. Will those who today angrily shout that this land is “ours” and immigrants who are above the
limit and therefore are here illegally should go home…are these same people ready and willing to go home and return
this land to the indigenous population from whom their ancestors took it?
“Whose country is
this, anyway?”
What fascinates me is
that the anti-immigration outbreaks that always seem to take some form of the Europeans who made a home in this land as if
no one else had ever lived here, against some new form of “them” who seem in the present moment to pose a real
or imagined threat, this is called “nativism.” How did people
who are here now, but who weren’t here three hundred years ago, who want to close the immigration door to Hispanic “newbies”
come to be call “nativist?” What makes them natives? The dictionary defines nativism as “a
policy, especially in the United States, of favoring the interests of the indigenous inhabitants of a country over those of
immigrants.” But what makes the immigrants of yesterday the natives of
today? Where do we draw the line? Can
we draw the line? Why on earth would we want to draw the line???
Whose land is this? This is an ancient question and the truth of it is, that like most questions, it keeps
coming back because we haven’t figured out an answer.
Scripture tells
us, in Psalm 24, that “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.”
The Adi Granth of Sikhism
tells us that,
“This earth is a
garden,
The Lord its gardener
Cherishing all, none neglected.”
The Shinto path tells
us, “All you under the heaven! Regard heaven as your father, earth as your
mother, and all things as your brothers and sisters.”
We might be moved to ask
that if the earth is the Lord’s and not ours, and the Lord cherishes us
all, neglecting none, and if we are all brothers and sisters, where do we get
the audacity to proclaim this country is ours, ours, not yours, and you’re not welcome?
You may recall that we
began this discussion with the perplexing question of what do we do when both sides are right?
What do we do if, as Woody Guthrie wrote, “This land is your land.”
AND “This land is my land.”?
Let’s take this
beyond our own borders.
Stay with me, if you will. Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Another breath. And let it out.
We’re going to try
a “thought experiment.” An experiment we could not possibly try in
the “real world” but can ponder within our minds.
During the 1960’s,
the Soviet Union and the United States were involved in a great Cold War. What
if it had turned briefly hot? What if, somehow, the Soviet Union managed to nuke
our political center in D.C., our financial and news center in New York, and taken over the United States? Let’s just imagine for a moment. A thought experiment.
We know from what happened
in the Soviet Union and in Cambodia with Pol Pot, that the intellectuals would have been rounded up. Let’s say anyone who had ever had even one day of college.
And all these people are not shot. They are dispersed. In small groups they are dispersed around the world: in South America, Asia, Africa, and the most rural
areas of Europe.
Let us say that they could
take one suitcase with them. And let us assume that, even though they have been
thrown out of their beloved country, they hope to go home. These displaced Americans
take with them the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They teach
it to their children. You are an American, they tell their children. This is what you stand for: this Declaration, this Constitution, these Rights. Some day you’ll be going home. Remember who you are.
But the children don’t
make it home. Neither do their children.
The Soviet Union eventually falls, but still the Americans, scattered across the world, can’t go home. But every 4th of July, ever American, no matter how poor, celebrates Independence. And at the end of every 4th of July, “Next year, may we at last go home.”
But a thousand years pass. Two thousand years. And finally, finally,
the rest of the world says, “Ok, Ok, go home!” And they go back. Clutching their Constitutions they return.
There’s just one
problem. There are people living there.
There are people who have been living their for hundreds, even thousands of years.
The returning Americans say, “This is our country.” The people
whose ancestors and families have lived there for two thousand years say, “This is our country.”
So. Whose country is it? Who is right? The people who have lived there for two thousand years, or the people who lived there two thousand years
ago and have only now been allowed to go home?
Who is right? I think they are both right.
I’m a Jew. I look at Israel and understand why Jews who have finally been allowed to return home
consider Israel theirs. So few people really understand that Israel was a nation
before Judaism was a religion.
I am also a human being. I look at Palestine and understand why Palestinians who have lived there, who parents,
grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents were born there consider Palestine theirs.
OUR “nativists”
consider that this is “their” country after living here only a generation or two.
That is nothing compared to the claim to being native that the Palestinians have.
I listen to people who
can only see the Israeli point of view, and I shake my head. I listen to people
who can only see the Palestinian point of view, and I shake my head.
What do we do when both
sides are right? This is something that as human beings we have yet to learn. And the time has come to learn it.
Whose country is
this anyway? It’s ours. All
of ours. ALL of ours.
The Reverend Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. wrote what I’d like to close with. “The question
now is, do we have the morality and courage required to live together as brothers and not be afraid?” The answer to that question will, to no small degree, determine the sort of lives our children and our
grandchildren will have.
Whose country is this,
anyway?
Amen.
