Culpables

For Guadalupe Woodard, who taught me much about love, survival, and systems of oppression.

Sometimes, we accuse churches of being more about building projects than the ministry with the people for whom they are called to care. Bright spaces. Appealing architecture. Pricey additions. We at these churches have insisted that these building projects are for the people. You ask, “What people?” The people coming. The people going. The people in the pews.

It’s a Tuesday morning during the Lenten season. I sit in a pew watching a ritual and performance at 405 West Congress Street in Tucson, AZ. The building is definitely for the empire–grand, brightly lit with stained [fiber]glass with turquoise and terracotta vibrance lining the ceiling. The large oil painting of the Sonoran Desert doesn’t just function as décor, but it’s pretty propaganda that communicates, “this land is within our jurisdiction.”  We are called to rise as the robed woman entered. She came to preach this morning’s message: borders must be obeyed.

The liturgy read over and over again comes from Title 8 U.S. Code 1325. “Do you plead guilty to not entering through a designated checkpoint? Did you knowingly bring illegal aliens into the United States knowingly they were entering illegally?”

In a discussion about the Church’s inclusive welcome, I once heard Dr. Brian Bantum describe Jesus as “the one who transgresses boundaries.” I sit in this pew where there are no songs nor uplifting messages of salvation. But there must be pleas to Jesus and Our Lady to have mercy. The cries of those who need a message that Jesus came to transgress boundaries erected by colonizers, lawmakers, and political cartographers. From my seat along the back wall of the courtroom, I want to yell, “Jesus crosses boundaries for you!” This would be the melody, the invitation, and the benediction. A  message that could set captives free and bind internal wounds. 

Do they know that they are guilty of doing what Jesus has been doing for centuries? And we are guilty bystanders bearing witness as many of us proclaim through our everyday silence, "Crucify them!” What people? The ones present. The ones coming. The ones who do the people's work. Todos son culpables. All are guilty. We the people. 

* I wrote the following while sitting in a U.S. District Court. I was a member of a BorderLinks delegation of witnesses and co-learners who spent the first week of March learning about migrant justice, U.S. (im)migration policy, life in the Mexico/U.S. borderlands.