Seeking Justice for All Neighbors

At the Friday night dinner for MFSA (Methodist Federation for Social Action) back in June, MFSA members discussed an important ministry, Justice for Our Neighbors.

Justice for Our Neighbors (or JFON) is a program providing immigration counsel and legal advice to low-income people. The was launched in 1999 by The United Methodist Committee on Relief and the Just Neighbors Ministry in Virginia. The ministry is founded on the Biblical principle of showing kindness and mercy to strangers and 'aliens' among the people of God.

Love the sojourner... for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

(Deuteronomy 10:19)

Perhaps nowhere is America's failure to live out this Biblical injunction more obvious than in the history of immigration policy in the United States. As MFSA members and guests gathered for dinner, we were able to read a timeline around the room, detailing the treatment of immigrants in Unites States history. The trend toward greater and greater restriction on immigration (unless the country was in need of inexpensive labor!) demonstrates our unwillingness to extend hospitality to neighbors from around the world.

Under America's current immigration policy, individuals seeking entrance into the United States or seeking assistance with legal status once inside, are subject to a difficult, lengthy, and expensive bureaucratic process. Many present in the room had stories of their own to share about how this process had impacted them and their loved ones.

That's where JFON comes in, providing legal assistance through clinics.

Churches and groups of churches can assist in JFON's ministry by providing financial assistance and by organizing enough resources to provide a clinic in their area. Further, all people can join in seeking justice in the systems around us. To quote at length from the UMC's Council of Bishops:

Genuine hospitality for the sojourner requires not only a welcoming embrace, but also the effort to address the conditions that uprooted them from native soil. God's pilgrim people in the United States are called to recognize and repent their participation in systems that result in injustice and contribute to the circumstances that lead people to undertake the risk of sojourning. Fully to love sojourners, acting justly on their behalf, challenges the ultimate commitments and fundamental values of the sociopolitical and economic systems of which we are a part. The church cannot easily extricate itself from those unjust systems and wash its hands of the problems. The United Methodist Church can act justly within the systems by challenging them through the management of its considerable resources, and through advocacy of foreign and domestic policies that value human welfare above a narrow concept of national security.

What do you think? Do you have an experience to share about how immigration policy has touched your life? Do you have some ideas to share about how the churches of Troy Conference can participate in the JFON program? we'd love to hear from you!

Monetary gifts to the ministry of Justice For Our Neighbors can be made through UMCOR's Advance #901285.