It was in 2016, 150 of us from CCDA (Christian Community Development Association) walked 150 miles from Tijuana to downtown L.A. for a very well organized “camino” for immigration reform. It was a spiritual, emotional, relational and physical challenge – but a great and beautiful gift. The final day was a rally, with hundreds and hundreds of people gathered in solidarity, standing underneath the 10-story LA courthouse full of detainees. The immigrants inside this building knew why we were there; and they grabbed whatever they could find to tap loudly on the windows … it was like woodpecker voices with spoons … tapping thank you for being here, thank you for seeing us. I can still hear it, that sound … ten stories tall of windows tapping. I was one of the 20 some speakers, each given 2 min. I stood in line for my turn behind famous people, like James Lawson, who ignited the Nashville student movement which fueled the fledgling Civil Rights campaigns -- MLK often considered him the first to rise up.
Behind … University presidents, leaders of white, black and latino churches … many from evangelical spaces, theologians who were writing about justice. I prayed for days, while walking, asking the Lord what my contribution might be … all he gave me was this, ask … “where is the church”? Where is the church while our brothers and sisters are describing the horrors of their homelands, where is the church when a righteous and just word about where God stands on human rights is too political to utter, where is the church when a nursing baby or kindergarten child is separated from their family, where is the church preaching on the imago dei, on the biblical narrative … So I stood there … and spent my 2 minutes in that lament … where is the church?
This year, through this Communion of the Saints blog, we are asking that exact question to our twelve mentors. How would they answer the question: “What if the church were the church?” How did they ask it in their time, and what did they do about it? How were they within the church, outside it, a prophet to, and a lover of it, inside its fragility and even its corruption and complicity? How were they present and not silent, a member of its body, choosing prayerful worship instead of cynicism. Not a one of them walked away.
