Sanctuary

O God, you are my God, I seek you,

my soul thirsts for you;

my flesh faints for you,

as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,

beholding your power and glory.

Ps. 63:1-2 NRSV

The term “sanctuary” is getting a lot of play in the media and in the political realm these days. Philadelphia, where I live, and many other so-called “sanctuary cities” across the country were targeted in one of the flurry of Executive Orders issued by President Trump in his first week in office. The order threatens to withhold federal funding from those cities where local police will not cooperate with ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) to hold immigrants suspected of being undocumented. Soon after, the Pennsylvania State Senate passed a bill to penalize sanctuary cities like Philadelphia by cutting off all state grants. That bill awaits a vote in the State House, but it is more pointed than Trump’s order and could mean a loss of as much as $638 billion for Philadelphia including funding for schools and human services.

Meanwhile, over 1000 Philadelphians are being trained for a “Sanctuary in the Streets” movement. This is a rapid response effort in the event of an immigration raid on someone’s home. Volunteers show up at the site of the raid, hold a vigil of prayer and song, and offer comfort to the affected family and neighbors. The intent is to bear witness to the reality of our unjust immigration policy that is tearing families apart, and to “bring sanctuary” to a family’s home in the midst of such a terrorizing event.

And on a national scale, hundreds of communities of faith across the country are declaring themselves as sanctuary space for immigrants who are at risk of being deported. They follow in the tradition of the Sanctuary movement of the 1980s in which many churches harbored refugees from the U.S.-sponsored civil wars in Central America. At a minimum, these new sanctuary congregations are making a symbolic show of solidarity with those targeted by Trump’s anti-immigrant policies. And those faith communities who actually offer physical sanctuary to undocumented immigrants could face prosecution for harboring those whom the federal government views as criminals.

So why has sanctuary, a concept with deep biblical roots, captured the imagination and the ire of many Americans at this time? And why is the idea of sanctuary such a threatening notion to those in political power?

I think it’s instructive to look at the biblical origins of sanctuary. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the sanctuary refers to a place of worship, a holy place set apart to encounter the presence of Yahweh. It was a place that the priests were allowed to enter only after making the proper preparations and sacrifices to atone for the sins of the people. The sacredness of God’s sanctuary had to be protected from the profane acts of the community. The writer of Exodus dedicates no less than three chapters to the elaborate instructions for how the priests were to cleanse and dress themselves to enter the sanctuary and how to handle the utensils found there without contaminating the holy space (Ex. 28-30).

Yet the sanctuary was not in some isolated location cut off from the people. In fact, the intent and design of God’s tabernacle was for it to be portable. While the Israelites are on the run from Egypt through the desert, God instructs Moses to have the people construct a sanctuary that is mobile “so that I may dwell among them” (Ex 25:8). God’s express desire is to dwell with those people who are fleeing the persecution and violence of Empire. God is not bound to one place or set apart to be protected from the community. God’s intent is to accompany God’s people who are longing for safety and liberation.

I think of those thousands of women, children and men who, like the Israelites, travel across deserts from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Sudan, Syria and many others. Their souls thirst and their bodies faint as they wander through a dry and waterless land, often fleeing unspeakable terror. Psalm 63 reminds us that God’s power and glory shows up to those who are weary, to those whose bodies and souls have been crushed by the powers of violence and death. God’s presence is with those who have wandered in the desert. The sanctuary occurs wherever God meets those who have longed, hungered, and thirsted to find home.

The prophets and Jesus clarify that God’s sanctuary is made holy not by rituals of purity, but by the practice of justice. “Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed,” God tells the prophet Isaiah, “Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people” (Is 56:1, 3). The requirements for entrance into God’s holy presence are not based on ethnic identity or cultural rites, but the keeping of God’s commandments. Isaiah goes on, “Everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant — these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer”(56:6). Anyone who lives out the covenant of love and liberation is welcome into the sanctuary of God.

Jesus’ teaching and life also points to the worship of God as the practice of radical hospitality and justice within the community, not the protection of its borders. Jesus spent most of his time with those considered unclean – the sick, foreigners, adulterers, and tax collectors. On one occasion, the Pharisees challenge his disciples for not properly washing their hands before a meal. Jesus responds, “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile” (Mk 7:15). Using the physical body as a metaphor for the body politic of Israel, Jesus points out that these purity codes are powerless to protect the health of the community. What matters is what is in one’s heart – the core values that drive a person or a people.

This is perhaps one of the most radical teachings of the prophets and the gospel. Maintaining the integrity of the community is not about protecting ourselves from the ethnic, religious, or class “other.” Those boundaries are a subterfuge for maintaining the power and privilege of a few. But when our community reflects compassion, hospitality, and justice, then God is in the midst. God shows up when a place to rest is offered to the weary, when food is shared among hungry folks, when the sick are cared for, and when welcome and comfort are offered to those who grieve and fear for their lives. The sanctuary is holy space precisely because it is a reflection of God’s radical welcome and justice. God dwells in the sanctuary when sanctuary is offered and received.

I recently attended an event on anti-racist strategies for community organizing. Blanca Pacheco, a Community Organizer with New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, spoke powerfully to the audience of mostly white activists. She said that with all of the new attention on sanctuary, she’s been thinking a lot about what it means. She said, “We can’t call for sanctuary in our streets, in our churches, or in our homes without first creating sanctuary in our hearts. Are we prepared to offer sanctuary to the ‘other’ in our hearts?” Creating sanctuary is a spiritual journey as much as it is physical. It requires heart-searching on our parts as individuals and communities. Are we prepared to confront our own fears and prejudice in order to make way for the presence of the Holy One? Are we ready to encounter the power and glory of God in those we have considered “other”?

This aspect of sanctuary is precisely what is so threatening to the power establishment, and to folks like myself classified as white, American citizens. Sanctuary proclaims that we only discover holiness and goodness when we welcome the stranger. The belief system that undergirds the anti-immigrant Executive Orders, the anti-sanctuary cities bills, and the construction of a border wall is that America is holy ground and its holiness can only be preserved by keeping those perceived as profane out. We are led to believe, by the Trump Administration and by a white supremacist system, that if we create and defend boundaries to protect our nation, we will maintain its holiness. But, just as was true in Jesus’ day, these policies of purity only serve to amass power among a few and increase the oppression of the most vulnerable. What the practice of sanctuary exhibits is that security is not won through fear, and holiness is not won by demonizing the poor and the foreigner. Sanctuary is threatening because it proclaims that God desires to dwell among those who have been classified as other, as criminals, as terrorists.

As I write these words, I hear the sound of the buzz saw and the hammer as Timothy works to renovate an efficiency apartment in our house at the Vine and Fig Tree community. This is a space we have committed to hospitality for a person or a family in need of short-term housing. It’s what Dorothy Day would have called a Christ room, a place to receive the presence of God mediated through the stranger. We pray that when it is complete, this apartment may be a sanctuary, a holy space, a place where those whose souls thirst and flesh faints may find (and may bring) the glory and power of God in our midst. As Blanca reminded me, the preparation we have to do is not just in our house, but in our hearts. Even while we stand up against racist and fear-based policies in our nation, are we ready to encounter our own fears and biases when we welcome a stranger into our home and our lives? Are we prepared to meet the presence of the Holy One who dwells among those who wander in the desert and long for freedom? I pray that we will be and that our hearts and our home may be transformed into a sanctuary.