FOLLOWING JESUS, EL BUEN COYOTE:
READING PAUL WITH UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS
Bob Ekblad
( A chapter from Bob's new book, Reading the Bible with the Damned )
click above for ordering information
Reading Paul’s Epistles with people in the jail requires constant creativity. The fact that most were written from jail gives them special credibility among inmates. However, Paul’s letters present a special challenges because unlike narrative texts they lack characters, places and actions that can serve as launches for contextual readings. People’s lives must serve as the primary narrative, which can then be read in the light of Paul’s theology.
Most often I end up reading selections from Paul’s writings during group discussion of an Old Testament or Gospel story, where a question comes up that appears to be addressed by a famous passage like Romans 5:6-11, where Paul describes God’s love for sinners or Romans 7:14-8:4’s description of the difficulty doing the good one truly desires. Paul’s descriptions of the chosen as the nobodies of his day in 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 and of himself as a notorious blasphemer and all-out bad guy in 1 Timothy 1:12-17 always deeply encourage people who feel too unimportant and unworthy for God to call them to active ministry. Other popular scriptures include 1 Corinthians 13’s description of love, Galatians 5 description of the struggle between the flesh and the spirit and the Scriptures describing struggle against the principalities and powers already treated in my above presentation on Psalm 8 and praying the Psalms against enemies.
Most often I invite people to read the Epistles in rapport with a particular question coming out of pastoral counseling or a group’s struggle with a particular question. Reading Jesus as a coyote who brings us into God’s Reign against the law at no charge or presenting baptism as making us all equally “wetback” strangers and aliens are understanding coming directly out of years of working with undocumented immigrants struggling with the constant reality of deportation.
I drive my Isuzu Trouper over the bridge crossing the Skagit River from my house, and head out across the fertile farmland of Fir Island, on my way to visit don Feliciano, a Mixteco farm worker who also pastors a Mixteco-speaking congregation called Iglesia de Jesucristo. I have been thinking of this pastor and his family ever since I dropped 18 plump white chickens by their place a few months back. A local poultry farmer had called me wondering if she could get a tax receipt for donating 65 free-range hens she’d raised to sell. “No problem,” I said, and made four separate trips to ferry the chickens in cardboard boxes out to migrants living in several of the area camps. I had received chickens on many different occasions from other local farmers and always love the opportunity to give them to peasant folk who relish the opportunity slaughter birds for fresh pozole or chicken enchiladas.
People look insecure and somewhat depressed on this rainy October evening when I ferry my first two carloads of live chickens to farm workers in large migrant camp across the valley from don Felianos. The blueberry harvest had ground to a halt and people were looking for apartments or preparing to head South to California or back to Oaxaca for the winter. I feel joy as I hand out the squawking birds to the smiling women and children who line up. I am especially warmed by a six or seven year old girl who firmly clutches a struggling bird after dutifully ordering “uno para mi mama” (one for my mommy). We had carried the 18 chickens for don Feliciano’s family and parishioners into a shed beside their run-down trailer atop a forested hill in the middle of cornfields. Now I am returning in hopes of finding don Feliciano. I had heard he was having terrible headaches and wanted to encourage him.
I drive across the flats past wintering snow geese and recently harvested potato fields, taking a right onto a heavily-potholed dirt road that divided a corn from a potato field and mount the pine-forested hill to where more cars were parked beside three run-down trailers. At least 40 vans are parked alongside the road, alerting me that some sort of gathering is going on. As I walk up the dirt driveway towards don Feliciano’s trailer with my two sons, Isaac (13) and Luke 12) I notice the movement of women and children working around fires and camping stoves under a big plastic awning, When they see me they look a bit nervous, until a man recognizes me and tells them something in Mixteco that appears to put everyone more at ease. We walk under the smoky awning past big aluminum pots full of meat simmering over flames. It’s cold outside and some are huddling close to the fire. A woman points beyond her, where a group of men are gathered around some task. We make our way past the fires and ladies and come upon a group of 12-15 men atop a big blue plastic tarp, cutting away at slabs of meat from the carcass of a big cow, whose head lies already skinned. The men chatter away in Mixteco, and someone tells me in Spanish that don Feliciano is not here. An older man who speaks Spanish haltingly escorts us past another group of men hard at work digging a big hole that will soon be filled with firewood, lit and heaped with rocks. They are preparing for the wedding of don Feliciano’s daughter the next day. The meat will go into the pit atop hot rocks and buried until the next morning, when it will be unearthed for the fiesta.
The older man leads me into the family trailer, past chickens that roost on the railing. My sons check out a video game with Feliciano’s sons on their Play Station. They show the Mixteco kids their new Nintendo DS as the older man awkwardly enters numbers on his cell phone and don Feliciano answers. He’s in Kmart and won’t be back for a few hours. We plan to meet later in the afternoon. Before we leave the people insist that we all join them for a bowl of broken rice and chicken with broth and whole chiles and slabs of thick rust-colored chile paste. We head home with warm stomachs.
When I return it is near dark there are still more cars. Don Feliciano meets me at the door. He’s a dark, weather-beaten man in his late 50’s, dressed in humble attire: polyester pants, muddied work boots, insulated nylon jacket. He tells me that his living room is too crowded with guests for us to converse in peace. He escorts me into his son’s bedroom and has me sit on the bed. I tell him that I have been thinking of him often. He looks worried, tired. He tells me that it has been difficult pasturing people—48 families, while still working full-time as a crew boss for a local farmer. “Mucho problema, the people don’t understand,” he tells me. “I visit families. Lots of drinking, violence between spouses. It’s difficult.” On top of that he has six children still living at home. “Mucha responsabilidad.” He tells me about his terrible headaches that have kept him in bed for the last four days. I offer to pray for him. Feliciano first wants me to pray for his son, Antonio, and calls him in.
Antonio appears in the door way, wheeling himself into the narrow room on his wheel chair. Antonio’s legs are badly deformed. In his late twenties, he spends much of his time there in the trailer. He tells me about the burning pain in his stomach, which sounds to me like acid reflex. He tells me he has been suffering for over a year. Big tears tumble down as he describes his pain. He tells me he has been trying everything: avoiding greasy food, meat, coffee and soft drinks. He’s been to several doctors but medicines are not helping.
“There are people who tell me I should fast, and I have been fasting,” he tells me. I want to serve God,” he says as he cries.
I happen to have a bottle of a homeopathic remedy, nux vomica, and offer to leave it with him, showing him how to take them as a remedy for indigestion. Antonio is eager to try the remedy but also desires prayer. He immediately bows his head and his father and I pray over him. I anoint him with oil and pray in the name of Jesus that the comforting Presence of the Holy Spirit would replace the pain in his stomach. I pray in every way I know how, so desperately do I want him to experience relief. Then I offer to pray for Feliciano’s headaches. The whole time I pray Feliciano too is praying, simple prayers, “yes Jesus, help me, help me, help us.”
After I anoint him with oil and bless him he sits and tells me how all his people are illegal, and that this is the greatest problem that they were facing. “Pray Roberto that God would help us get papers.” He tells me how the American “hermanos” (brothers) from other churches he knows have been telling him that it is wrong to break the law.
“This makes me feel bad. What do you think Roberto? All of us are illegal. When you wanted to talk with me I thought at first that maybe you too were coming here to tell me that this is wrong that we are illegal,” he says. Even pastor Feliciano is living under the shadow of the dominant theology, which views God as cosmic, Border Patrol chief and church as his deputies. I lament his correct perception that the mainstream church, much like the Scribes and the Pharisees of Jesus’ time, takes the side of State and the law rather than that of the people and God’s Kingdom.
I tell him that I believe that in the Kingdom of God there are no borders and that God views us all as his beloved children. If salvation were about obeying the law then all of us are damned. I tell him that I’ve been seeing Jesus more and more like as our Buen Coyote. Jesus crosses us over into the Kingdom against the law, by grace. We cannot save ourselves through observing laws. Jesus liberates us, Jesus saves us. He doesn’t even charge, he just wants us to trust him and follow. This delights Feliciano and Antonio, filling them with joy and encouragement in ways that are more visible than my prayers. We laugh together and they invite me to the wedding the next day.
I have always been attracted to coyotes, the wild dogs that wander under cover of darkness throughout Skagit County. This group of clever, wary migrant Mixteco farm workers gathering on the wooded hill make me think of a pack of coyotes, surviving resourcefully on the margins of our county. I regularly hear real coyotes howling in the woods just outside our home on the Skagit River. A chill goes up my spine as their wild yelps penetrate through my consciousness. Though they have attacked and eaten two of our sheep, I cannot help but admire their wily, street-wise nature. They have learned to survive at the edges much like outlaws and indigents with whom I minister. My ministry parallels the work of another sort of coyote who serves my Latino sheep.
Smugglers who lead people into the United States through the U.S.-Mexican border are named after coyotes. Immigrants from Mexico and Central America who do not qualify for visas nearly all have had to hire coyotes to smuggle them into the United States. Coyotes, also known as polleros (chicken carriers) meet their clients, “pollos” (chickens) in border towns or barrios of large border cities like Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez. They take their cash US dollar down-payments and set up the time and place to begin the perilous journey through the hills or deserts into the United States. In many ways they function like priests for the underdogs—offering them a rite of passage into the land where tangible salvation is possible.
Most every immigrant can tell you both good and bad coyote stories, much as they have good pastor/priest and bad pastor/priest stories. A bad coyote may knowingly lead people into bands of robbers, rape women or abandon their charges in the desert. Some will hold people hostage in safe houses until family members pay their fees. Others are known to lock people into trucks or box cars and even abandon them to their deaths. Good coyotes treat people respectfully and fulfill their obligations to guide people securely into the country. This includes guiding people to safe houses where they can eat, bathe and rest. They may carry children, rescue lost immigrants, or provide food and water to stranded travelers. Coyotes all function to lead immigrants who lack legal immigration documents into the United States against the law—a role that provides a strong contemporary metaphor to Jesus’ role as Savior according to Paul’s theology.
In harmony with Paul’s theology Jesus can be viewed as comparable to a coyote in his embracing--and symbolically crossing--people who cannot fulfill the legal requirements to enter legitimately into the Reign of God. Jesus’ eating with tax-collectors and sinners, healing on the Sabbath, touching lepers, speaking with Samaritans, eating with tax-collectors and sinners and countless other actions mark him as an alien smuggler. The Pharisees, Scribes and other religious authorities neatly parallel the Border Patrol and other law-enforcement agents, who consider it their job to keep “illegal aliens” out.
Most of the immigrants with whom we work do not have the luxury of legality. They work using counterfeit residency and social security cards, drive without valid drivers licenses and insurance. In addition, many struggle with addictions to alcohol or drugs. Consequently they are constantly living in a state of legal and spiritual insecurity. Andres and Maria are typical of the people whom Tierra Nueva serves.
I first met Andres in the jail when he was 22. He participated in my weekly Spanish Bible studies there over periods of 3-4 months while he did time on at least three occasions, and was deported by the Border Patrol to Mexico and returned illegally each time. Andres is short and muscular, with dark skin and hair that have earned him the nickname “el Negro” (the black one).
Andres was an orphan at an early age, learning to fend for himself on the streets of Mexico City. He has scars on his face and elsewhere on his body to show a life marked by struggle. He crossed the border illegally in his late teens to work in the fields in California. Eventually he made his way to the Skagit Valley and found work on a construction crew. His eyes reveal both a life of suffering and a readiness for unlimited levels of illegal adventure. He looks expectant and prepared to face any kind of fun or trouble and can invent brilliant lies, which he tells unflinchingly to police detectives, judges and also to public defenders that are ready to represent him—whom he does not trust. At the same time he weeps the moment he talks about the ones he loves. He adores his partner Maria and their four young children, though he is constantly separated from them due to his perpetual troubles with the law.
Maria was also in her early twenties when I first met her. She has a dark, beautiful face and long black hair. In spite of her difficult life she is unusually quick to smile, revealing slightly crooked, protruding teeth that do not detract from her beauty, but give her a slightly mischievous, fun look. She had two young children when she met Andres. Together they had a one-year-old when and Maria was pregnant with their second when I first visited her. She lived on the second floor of a rickety cockroach-infested house beside the railroad tracks with her children, struggling to make it with no income since Andres was in jail.
Maria herself is one of nine children, born to a poor young woman in Tijuana, who carried her across the border when she was several months old. Maria has lived her entire life moving from farm labor camps to flop houses and the lowest-level apartments, eventually earning money in ways that have led some to gossip. Andres’ adoration makes him ready to pick a fight with anyone who questions her past or shows the slightest disrespect. Since she has spent all but three months of her life in the United States, she speaks English better than Spanish, and considers herself more American than Mexican. Yet since her mother never was functional enough to apply for her permanent residence, she is in the U.S. illegally, and has already been deported once. Her problems are compounded by the fact that she has no Mexican papers. Her mother has no memory of having a birth certificate for her, cannot remember in which poor barrio in Tijuana Maria was born and is unsure whether she ever officially registered her. Consequently Maria has no identification of any kind. When she and Andres came to me asking me to perform their wedding, I could not legally marry them because she lacked the necessary ID to obtain a marriage license.
As her advocate and pastor I work long and hard with Maria to pull together documents that might work to prove her identity so she could measure up to the demands of the law. The only proof we could dig up was her mug shot and personal information on file in the jail from an arrest the year before. Maria was unwilling to request a copy of this herself for fear that the Sheriff’s office would notify the Border Patrol that she was back. Her false immigration papers and social security card would have to do until someone figures out a way to help her become an official person.
Andres and Maria are somewhat typical of people on the margins with whom I read Scripture. They, like so many others from places all over the world are accustomed to rejection by the powerful. Their spiritual outlook is subsequently impacted, as they do not naturally expect God to call them or give them any special attention. They have accurately observed that their race, social class, nationality and other factors destine them for what they consider irremediable, eternal exclusion.
Andres has been arrested, jailed, deported and returned at least three times in the seven years that I have known him. Each time in the jail he progresses further in both his self-understanding and his faith and love for God. He participates actively in the Bible studies, talked honestly about his temptations and failings. He welcomes any good news he could get in ways that were contagious for the others. Each time I have watched him prepare to leave jail to be deported by the Border Patrol he appears more committed to Maria and their children. Andre’s risky illegal returns for Maria qualify him as a sort of buen coyote figure—willing to break the law and face Federal prison time if caught.. Each time he returns to warrants for failures to appear in one court or another, which we help him quash with the required $50.00 cash. This beautiful, young couple and their children are “damned” to an underground life, driving without driver’s licenses, working with false papers—always on the lookout for law enforcement agents of every variety who could temporarily end their happiness at any time. Yet Andres talks of feeling God’s presence beside him in ways that are tangible and subversive.
Andres’ most recent return involved crossing alone through the desert of Arizona, since he and Maria had no way to pull together the $1,400 needed to pay a coyote. He tells the story of paying without ceasing as he crossed the border, and of how the Border Patrol drove right past him without stopping as he entered a border town on foot.
It was like God made me invisible or something,” said Andres. “It was a miracle Roberto! God helped me.”
I do not doubt Andres’ perception that God had helped him. He is full of faith wrought from the furnace of his recent suffering, which always burned away all the distractions and left him glowing. I had visited him and Maria in the months after this incident. I watched him struggle with the temptation to do unnecessary illegal actions, which he carefully sought to distinguish from the necessary illegalities. Being caught driving without a license for his fifth or sixth time would most certainly land him in jail and into the hands of the Border Patrol. Yet when his ride did not show up he would take the calculated risk rather than lose his hard-to-come-by construction job. Working with counterfeit immigration papers and social security number was no different than Jacob’s covering his arms and neck with goatskins and lying to his blind father. Was I willing to be an Rebecca-like accomplice?
One afternoon when I show up unexpectedly to Andres' marijuana-smoke filled apartment living room, I worry that he might be slipping into an old pattern that included justifying more and more unnecessary and risky behaviors. Andres was eventually arrested on suspicion of knowingly using and selling counterfeit twenty-dollar bills and possession of stolen property—crimes for which he may well have been guilty. After the prosecutor was unsuccessful in convicting him, the jail turned him over to the INS for deportation. Since he was undocumented and had numerous prior deportations, the INS decided to prosecute Andres for illegal reentry, and sentenced him to two years in Federal prison. Andres called me collect from prison on numerous occasions. He was going through a dark period of worry and doubt. He asked me how Maria was doing, since she had long since had her phone service disconnected due to her inability to pay her phone bill. Meanwhile, Maria surprised him by preparing to move back to Mexico to start a new life with hopefully fewer troubles. When Andres was recently deported, Maria left the country she considers home to join him in Mexico, where they have been reunited with their four children. God is with Andres and Maria in the land of their dreams or in exile, as God is with my inmate brothers in Skagit County Jail. I recently hear that they have crossed back over and are living somewhere in Texas.
*** *** ***
Inspired by my visit with don Feliciano and memories of people like Andres and Maria, I decide to further explore the image of Jesus as Good Coyote with inmates in the Skagit County Jail. I begin a Sunday afternoon Bible study with a group of 25 Latino, Native American, and Caucasian inmates with the question: “Do you feel like you are unable to cross from where you are in your life right now to the new place or way of being that you desire?”
Nearly everyone says “yes,” “si” or in some way shows their agreement. I then ask what blocks them from being able to move. The men share about their difficulties being able to live the way they desire. Some talk of difficulties stopping smoking weed, using harder drugs or drinking. Others talk about their failures to child support, court-imposed fines or complying with the Department of Probation. I invite a reader to read Romans 7:15-24, which describes the experience of failure to live up to the law.
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Everyone relates readily to this realistic description of their struggles.
“If change or salvation depends upon our efforts to be good, then we’re clearly screwed,” I suggest. To bring this home again I ask whether there were any people there in the room who had tried over and over to change in some area of their lives but were unable to? Everyone raised their hand.
For the benefit of the Americans and to draw in a social dimension regarding the impossibility of changing from a place of hopelessness to a place of new possibility I ask the Mexican men whether there are barriers that keep them from coming to El Norte (North America). Since most are undocumented they talk freely about how it is nearly impossible to get permission to enter the United States legally unless you are a University student, from a wealthy family, or have s US citizen family member who can qualify to sponsor them. They share how it costs between $1,500 to $3,000 to cross the border with a coyote. We talk about how impossible it often feels to achieve our dreams or change our lives through your own effort alone, and how easy it is to give up and assume you must be damned. I then invite a volunteer to read Galatians 3:10:
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.”
“What do you think it means to be under the curse of the law?” I ask the men.
“Here we are, experiencing it,” someone says. “We can’t leave here.”
We talk about how their red uniforms, plastic identity bracelets, criminal records, sentences, pending courts, detention and undocumented status mark them as cursed under the law.
“When we leave here, the Border Patrol will deport us,” says a Mexican man. “Then we’ll have to come up with money to pay a coyote to cross back over.
“So if we cannot change our ways or find insurmountable obstacles to getting out of debt, getting a drivers license, a job if you are a felon, or acquiring legal immigration status, what hope is there for us?” I ask the men.
When no one can think of a compelling answer, I invite a reader to read Paul’s answer to his own question in Romans 7:24: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” And found in the next verse: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
“So how does Jesus do this?” I ask the men. I then propose envisioning Jesus like a Good Coyote who brings us into the Kingdom of God, in spite of the law, against the law. Before fleshing out the details of this analogy, I invite a volunteer to read Galatians 3:11-13:
Now it is evident that no man is justified before God by the law; for “He who through faith is righteous shall live”; but the law does not rest on faith, for “He who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree’—that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
For people unfamiliar with Paul’s theological world this language clearly requires some brief but careful explaining. My first attempt to make this language more relevant is to summarize Paul’s arguments for the men.
“According to Saint Paul,” I begin, “nobody can be justified, that is, become law-abiding, righteous or successful by complying with the law. Paul had been a holy roller for years,” I continue, “and lists all his religious and social merits in Philippians 3:4-6. As a Pharisee he had attempted to be perfect through obeying the Jewish law but in the end actually says he recognizes that his righteousness ain’t shit compared to knowing Jesus.”
The men are surprised that I swear, but I assure them that the Bible actually uses this word in Philippians 3:8-9, when he says
Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as excrement [shit], in order that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith of Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. *
“According to Paul,” I continue, “we are only saved through faith in Jesus, and what he has done. What has he done according to Galatians 3:13?” I ask the men, who look down at their Bibles.
“He has redeemed us,” says one of the men. Since nobody knows exactly what redeemed means, I briefly describe posting bail as kind of contemporary equivalent of redeeming that I know the men can relate to.
“How does he do this exactly?” I ask, inviting the men to keep examining Galatians 3:13.
“He became a curse for us,” a man reads. “It says that that cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree. He became a curse for us when he was hung on the cross.”
We talk about how the cross was the equivalent of the electric chair, lethal injection or any form of capital punishment during the first century.
“If this is true, then can we say that Jesus is like a coyote who crosses us into the Kingdom of God, brings us into favor with God even though we cannot legally do this ourselves?”
While I wonder to what extend the men are grasping my argument, I have their full attention and they are visibly intrigued enough to make an effort to understand. When I continue by describing how Jesus actually gets caught, detained and sentenced, assuming the curse that is upon us because of the law, people are all ears. Jesus is such a good coyote that he actually gets caught by the Border Patrol agents of his time, while the law breakers run free.
We talk about how it is by faith in Jesus that we become justified, an idea that can discourage people who struggle to believe. I invite a volunteer to read further in Galatians 3:23 to deepen our understanding of how Jesus crosses us into a place of blessing:
Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed.
“What do you think Paul is talking about when he writes of faith coming and being revealed?” I ask the men.
“Faith is Jesus himself,” says one of the men matter-of-factly.
I agree, and ask the reader to continue reading Galatians 3:24-26 in hopes of penetrating this mystery.
So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.
We discuss together how Jesus’ action on behalf of law-breakers makes him a truly subversive coyote. Jesus work undoes the legal basis for Us-Them distinctions and borders or barriers of any kind. Jesus brings about a leveling that destroys any distinctions based on compliance with laws. Jesus makes all people children of God. Faith comes in the flesh to accomplish what humans could not do. I invite the men to turn to Ephesians 2:13-16, which I hope will bring further clarity.
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the barrier of dividing wall, the enmity, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.
Our heads are reeling as we contemplate Jesus as a coyote who actually breaks down the borders through actually abolishing the law. By reconciling humans to God through the cross, Jesus brings about a new society with no distinctions between us and them. I ask the reader to continue reading Ephesians 3:17-20.
And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those that were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.
I sit amazed at the power of these words there in the heart of the jail and migrant farmworker communities where I serve. The men look both perplexed and comforted. In an attempt invite active response from the men while at the same time holding them in a place of grace I ask the men a question: “How do we come to embrace the benefits of what Jesus has done?”
Armando, a Pentecostal pastor in his fifties facing a 115 month sentence is tracking fully. He says: “People at the border have to look for a coyote to cross them. And we also have to look for Jesus so that he can pass us.”
I agree with Armando, and then ask the question “what does Jesus the Good Coyote charge to cross us into the Reign of God?
“Nada,” says an inmate. “He does not charge.”
“That’s true, I believe,” I respond. “Yet perhaps there is something that is necessary as we contemplate following Jesus. When you go with a coyote, even if you pay them, you put your trust in them, don’t you?” I ask.
The Mexicans all nod their heads. For the others there in the group who have never had to illegally cross a border I point out that when they buy and use drugs or drink a Budweiser, they are putting their trust in the dealer or company that they will not die when they smoke, snort, inject or drink.
“All Jesus wants from us is our faith,” I say, reminding the group of Paul’s words in Galatians 3:14, “that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”
I talk briefly about how in our baptism we enter into a death, leaving our distinctions based on the law behind in the water. On the other side of Baptism we are a new community marked by solidarity. In conclusion I invite a volunteer to read Galatians 3:27-29:
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
In conclusion we discuss together how according to Paul, in our baptism we enter into and become beneficiaries of Jesus’ death on our behalf. In the waters of baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection the borders are brought down, and there are no longer distinctions between law-abiding and criminals, US citizens and foreigners, legals and illegals, brown and white, chemically dependent and clean and sober, poor and rich, male and female—all are one in Christ Jesus. On the other side of baptism we are members of one human family, not by right but because Jesus has brought us into the Kingdom. We’re all wetbacks, and must even count ourselves as fellow “criminal aliens.” Paul certainly did in his humble confession in 1 Timothy 1:12-16, which never fails to shock people in its radical inclusiveness of the bad guys.
I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace or our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience for an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.
Knowing that inmates might miss the power of this text when they notice that Paul is thankful because Christ for having appointed him in spite of his past behavior as a blasphemer, persecutor and violent man, I invite a volunteer to reread verse 15, where Paul speaks of himself in the present: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.”
On this particular afternoon, I ask the men how many of them feel attracted to Jesus the Good Coyote enough to desire to follow him. Nearly everyone expresses their agreement and I invite people to stand, gather in a circle and hold hands for a closing blessing and prayer.
“How many of you desire to follow Jesus, and receive his gift of crossing you from where you’ve been unable to succeed through obedience to making it through his grace?”
I hear many “I dos” and “yo si’s” as I repeat the question in English and Spanish. “In putting our faith in Jesus, the blessing of Abraham is available to us,” I announce. “Let’s pray that God would pour out blessing on us through filling us all with the Spirit as Galatians 3:14 mentions,” I say. “God’s blessing is a gift. All we need to do is humbly receive,” I continue.
The men close their eyes and wait expectedly as I pray for God to pour out the Spirit upon them, filling each man with a special blessing. As I pray I notice many faces lifted up with great openness. People appear to soak in God’s love and blessing as I continue to pray for God’s mercy as they face their court hearing during the coming week, relate to family who visit them or who they are able to phone and as some are released. We pray for a man who is off to 21 months in prison two days later and for Mexican guys awaiting deportation. I pray that God would free each man from the curse of the law, touching the heart of the prosecutors and judges so that mercy would win over justice.
We close with the Lord’s prayer. “Let your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven” has fresh meaning as I leave the jail that afternoon, thinking of don Feliciano’s pain before American Christians' criticisms of the immigration status of his congregation. We are people of another Kingdom, whose allegiance is to Jesus the Good Coyote causes us to walk by faith and not by adherence to the law. Our higher allegiance to God’s Reign marks us as strangers and aliens, wetbacks. This is a call to live outside the camp, in solidarity with those who truly suffer exclusion, regardless of their circumstances. Clearly-stated and boldly-lived solidarity brings great hope to people on the margins. Yet it must be announced, practiced and celebrated over and over in order for it to become believable as it becomes incarnate.
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I regularly have opportunities to announce, practice and celebrate Jesus as the Buen Coyote who brings outlaws into the Kingdom by grace. During another Sunday afternoon bilingual Bible study I invite the men to celebrate Communion. We gather in a big circle, where I take them through a simple liturgy. Two Chicano men from California, Julio and Seferino, are among those gathered. Julio was then 26, a moody but charismatic man in the prime of his life. He has dark eyes and a lean, handsome face, sporting a carefully groomed goatee, his raven-black hair slicked back from his forehead. He has told me of his years running with the gangs in East Stockton, California. He has already spent twelve years of his life in juvenile detention and prison. He has been coming to the Bible study regularly for months, participating with intelligence and wit. Julio often talks about his addiction to crack cocaine and his temptation to sell drugs to make quick money. He complains about not being able sense God’s presence with him, until one day he tells me it’s happened.
“God came to me, man, in the middle of the night. It was so good. I felt all warm and shit. I was tripping out,” he announces to the group.
Seferino was in his mid thirties, a battered heroine user from East Los Angeles who had been living on the streets of Mount Vernon when he was not in jail or in the hospital. The last time he had done heroine his kidneys had shut down. The doctors had told him that if he used again he would probably die. On the verge of offering each person the body of Christ, Julio stopped me and asked a question.
“Hey pastor, I probably shouldn’t take this if I know that I might not be able to resist drugs and shit when I get out, should I?”
“Do you need and want God’s help Julio?” I ask.
Julio nods his assent, and I tell him and the others that Christ’s body and blood are the food and drink that they really need, to heal and strengthen them. I move towards the first man to offer him the body of Christ, when Seferino stops me with a question.
“Hey Pastor, maybe Julio is right. He probably shouldn’t take the Eucharist. What he’s saying is that he’s probably going to go back to using drugs when he gets out of here. He’s telling you the truth, man.”
Slipping into my coyote role I remind the men that on the night when Jesus was betrayed, he gave his body and blood to all his disciples. He gave it to Judas, who he knew would betray him. He gave it to Peter, who he knew would deny him. He gave it to the rest of his disciples, who he new he would abandon him. Jesus said “I came for sinners, not for the righteous.” From the cross he cried out: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Finally, I ask Julio to read Romans 5:6-8.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
My explanation and the reading from Romans appeared to be enough to appease Seferino, and I begin serving the men. Half way around the circle, an Anglo guy meekly asks me: “I was baptized in the Mormon Church. Can I still take communion?”
I assure him that I believe Jesus died for him, too, and he assents. I left the jail in amazement, glad that Christ’s body and blood were able to freely make their way into the drug-craving bodies and blood streams of these spiritually starved men.
In conclusion, reading Paul with undocumented immigrants, inmates and “criminal aliens” can clearly bring new life to worn-out texts. Reading these Scriptures in a way that holds onto the radical grace that infuses them requires faith and risk. Though I am fully aware of other texts that emphasize the importance of being subject to governing authorities (Romans 13:1-7) and of walking by the spirit and not by the flesh (Galatians 5:16-26) I do not believe that people always need to be presented with the “whole picture.” Most broken people assume the Scriptures are only about lists of dos and don’ts and calls to compliance. Reading with people whose social standing, family of origin, addictions, criminal history and other factors make compliance with civil laws or Scriptural teachings impossible requires a deliberate reading for and acting by Grace. The Good News alone must be seized by faith as having the power to save, heal, deliver and liberate. This Good News is no one other than Jesus Christ himself, who meets us through the words of Scripture, the Sacraments and through the flesh of his beloved family of buen coyote followers. My own attempt to follow Jesus through accompanying today’s Samaritans, lepers, tax-collectors and sinners has shown me the necessity of switching sides and changing allegiances. Pledging allegiance to Jesus above all other authorities and powers comes about as a result of repentance, or, having another mind or "after mind." Paul’s words in Romans 12:1-2 point to this notion of repentance, when he writes:
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Transformation through the renewal of our minds happens in the process of conversion, which means literally to change direction or turn around. Reading Paul with undocumented immigrants and inmates invites us to a radical reorientation away from total allegiance to the State, denominations and other principalities with their laws and doctrines towards a 100% following after the one crucified outside the camp. Baptism into Christ’s death as a lawbreaker is necessary if one is to effectively serve as a bearer of Good News to people like don Feliciano, Antonio, Andres, Maria, Julio and Seferino and any of today’s undocumented immigrants and outlaws.
The Greek word skubilos literally means excrement or shit.
I often point out that the literal Greek genitive here best translates “faith of Christ,” though the standard translation “faith in Christ” is also possible. This notion of Christ’s faith making us righteous fits the literary context of Philippians 3:8-9, where gaining Christ is described passively as being found in him and as “the righteousness from God.” This description of faith as coming in Gal 3:23 supports this interpretation, as does the similar genitive construction in Galatians 2:.16 which reads literally: “yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith of Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith of Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.”
La gente de la frontera tiene que buscar un coyote para pasarnos. Y nosotros tambien tenemos que buscar a Jesus para que nos pase.