DALLAS, TX (January 10, 2001) -- For you who still wear WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) jewelry, there's a nice little dilemma in the papers.
FACT: In the early 1990s, Linda Chavez (former Reagan White House Director of Public Liaison who just withdrew from her nomination as President-elect Bush's pick for Labor Secretary) took into her home a Guatemalan woman named Marta Mercado.
FACT: Marta Mercado was in the U.S. illegally.
FACT: In the late 1970s, Mrs. Chavez also took two Vietnamese brothers into her home and helped support them for several weeks. And in the 1990s, she took in two children of a Puerto Rican woman and helped pay for their private school education.
The question for most of us is not whether Linda Chavez broke the law which bans harboring people you know to be illegal immigrants. It's a moot point now, anyway.
Come to think of it, it's not even a question of what Jesus would do.
The question is what would you and I do? And what should we do?
In Nazi-occupied Holland, it was illegal to harbor Jews. Nonetheless, Corrie ten Boom and her family took them in, as did many others. This is not at all to compare the U.S. government with that perverse regime. It is merely to provide an illustration.
Looking to the Bible, the law of Moses says, "the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who ... loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt" (Deuteronomy 10:17-19).
Put more strongly, chapter 17, verse 19 warns: "Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow."
Flipping over a notch past Malachi to the New Testament, we see that Jesus praises people who show compassion to aliens.
"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in' " (Matthew 25:34-35). Strong's Concordance says the Greek word translated "stranger" is "xenos," literally "alien."
Finally, at the risk of making this sound more like a sermon than a train of thought, one more Scripture reference might be added: "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it" (Hebrews 13:2).
Here, the word translated as "strangers" is derived from two Greek words: "philos" meaning friendly and "xenos" - implying "an alien who has found a friend."
So, would Jesus have taken in the Guatemalan woman, the Vietnamese brothers, and the Puerto Rican children?
Frankly, I don't know.
Would you? Should I?
Of course many other scriptures could be quoted about obeying God's law rather than man's, obeying our leaders for all authority comes from God, and so forth.
But there seems to be an overriding principle to it all.
"I tell you the truth," Jesus said, "the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does" (John 5:19).
Apparently, then, it's not how well we know the law. It's not even how well we know our Bibles. It's how well we know our Father, how clearly we see what he is doing at any given time, and how committed we are to doing likewise.
Like everything else for the followers of Jesus Christ, the Linda Chavez dilemma boils down to an intimacy thing. It goes beyond what Jesus would do to, "Lord, what do you want me to do right now in this situation?"
After you ask, listen until you have your answer. Then obey with a light heart.
Ron Brackin is a freelance writer and communications consultant, living in Dallas, Texas. He is the author of "Sweet Persecution," (Bethany House, 1999); spent nine years raising funds for international Christian ministries, and worked in Washington, D.C. as a broadcast journalist and congressional press secretary. Anyone interested in Ron's services can reach him via email at ronbrackin1@msn.com, fax at 972-294-2514, office phone at 972-294-2513.
