The majority of Sundays in my life I've proclaimed those words with the whole congregation of First Lutheran Church, Norfolk as part of the order of confession and forgiveness that most ELCA churches begin their liturgy with. Its one of those churchy phrases or proclamations that I've said so many times I didn't ever consciously have to memorize it, but its forever seared in my memory. Even now as I read it, I hear it with sing-songy intonation, I hear it as it is recited in plenary.
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Our YAGM group slowly gets out of the 15 passenger white van. We watch as members from our host organization, Agua para La Vida, fill giant cisterns of water hoping to lessen the number of migrants who die of thirst trying to cross through the crippling heat of the Sonora desert. We slowly make our way toward the border wall, that has extended undeterred 20 miles into the desert from where we last encountered it in Douglas. We walk exposed in an dried up river bed in the middle of the day without fear of the Border Patrol agents watching from the other side or the cartels watching in the hills behind us. We walk fearlessly because of small navy blue booklets that sit in our backpacks in the van. Small navy blue booklets that make all the difference. As we walked closer to the wall, my heart beats faster, my stomach drops, and my palms sweat. Sin, as I've grown to understand it this year, are the forces that alienate us from one another. The arbitrary distinctions, social systems, and political forces that aim to classify us, separate us, anger us, and pit us against one another. The forces that actively break down the beauty and fullness of the Kin-dom of God. I reached out and touched sin in its truest and most blatant form that day.
"...we confess that we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves."
Ran through my head over and over again as we walked back to the van. As we passed by fresh foot prints and food wrappers. Evidence of the brave souls waiting until sundown to continue their trek northward in search of hope, asylum, peace, opportunity. We drove back through Agua Prieta, to the official USA Port of Entry, presented our small navy blue booklets and passed without question or alarm. As we pulled away I felt more and more captive, in the midst of all my freedom I felt so very captive.
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Our YAGM group slowly gets out of the 15 passenger white van (this time in a McDonald's parking lot). We approach a group of about 30 who will also be participating in this week's non-denominational and public vigil. We each grab 3 white crosses. These crosses have the names of migrants who have perished in Cochise County, Arizona in the past 15 years. When the information was available, their birth and death dates are also listed. Many have "no identificado" written where their name should be honored. We begin at sundown, just as hermanos y hermanas in the hills that surround us prepare their crossing.
One by one, each name is called out proudly, loudly, angrily, con tristeza y con esperanza. The group responds, yelling in unison "presente." They are present. They are human, they are more than numbers, they are more than statistics calling for a more militarized border. They are mothers, fathers, sisters, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, friends. They are present.
In proclaiming their presence, we also proclaimed our commitment to being present. We proclaimed the holy and healing power of presence. We stood in defiance to the structural sin that works to divide us. We fought that captivity.
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We cannot fight that captivity to sin if we do not first confess it. If we do not first look critically at the institutions in which we live. If we do not acknowledge that oppressive systems exist and we (people of the global north) benefit from that oppression.
"...we confess we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves."
When we join our voices together and acknowledge the broken systems and the sin in our world, we can begin the work of liberation and grace. The work of accompaniment and solidarity. The work of listening and the work of a holy and healing presence with one another.
