Ruth at the Border

As a refugee from Guatemala living and working in Baltimore, Md., Karen Gonzalez knows what it is like to be uprooted from one culture and placed into another.

After leaving the instability of Guatemala as a child with her family, Gonzalez settled first in Los Angeles and then in Florida. She faced many barriers, misunderstandings, and the need to adapt to new surroundings.

Using her and her family’s experiences as a backdrop, she opened her talk at the January Series by retelling the story of Ruth in the Bible to offer insight into the struggles of relocation and how God urges us to care for people who migrate or immigrate to a new land.

Gonzalez noted the background of the story in Ruth 1 and how Naomi, an Israelite, and her daughter-in-law Ruth had become widows living in Moab.

“This was the ancient world — an incredibly vulnerable place for women, especially when they had no husband,” said Gonzalez. So Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem, where she had lived earlier, and Ruth went with her.

However, Naomi foresaw problems because, said Gonzalez, “in Bethlehem, there would be two more people to take care of — and Ruth was a Moabite, whom those in Judah would likely have considered to be despised.”

Gonzalez currently works for World Relief, an organization in Baltimore, and she advocates for the rights of immigrants and refugees.

In her work, especially given today’s highly charged political climate, Gonzalez said she often thinks of how Christians can turn to the book of Ruth for guidance on how to respond to harsh government policies on immigration — policies such as those that have separated families and put children in cages.

Author of the book The God Who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong, Gonzalez said we can learn much from how Naomi and Ruth were welcomed when they arrived in Bethlehem.

“There are provisions in God’s law for God’s people,” she said. “When Naomi returns, she is empty. She has nothing.” But Scripture makes clear that the other women are glad to see her: “The whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, ‘Can this be Naomi?’” (Ruth 1:19).

And then soon, as the story unfolds, Ruth experiences great hospitality after going to work in the fields of a man named Boaz. He is a landowner who, following God’s directions, leaves behind some of the grain from the harvest be taken up by people in need. Ruth therefore is able to glean some and returns home to share it with Naomi.

Boaz is a man — a character we can learn from — who listens to God, who “blesses the orphans, the widows, and the strangers,” said Gonzalez.

It isn’t long before Ruth, who arrived as a penniless widow, is welcomed into Boaz’s community. “Boaz not only allows her to work among his own harvesters, but also offers to protect her,” she said. “He invites her to drink from the same containers he drinks from.”

Boaz is a powerful man who uses that power “for good, to serve the most vulnerable in his community,” said Gonzalez. “But, at the same time, this is no [fairy] princess story. Ruth and Naomi go to work and work hard for their own thriving. They thrive, not just survive.”

Imagine, said Gonzalez, Ruth arriving at the U.S./Mexico border today. “Ruth would likely be turned away at the border, becoming one of the thousands waiting there” for an interview to get in, said Gonzalez.

Many of those waiting at the border today are seeking political asylum and refuge, having escaped brutal situations in countries such as Honduras.

In fact, this week marks the one-year anniversary of the implementation of the Department of Homeland Security’s Remain in Mexico policy, which has forced more than 56,000 asylum seekers to return to Mexico while they wait for asylum court hearings in the United States.

Needed, said Gonzalez, is comprehensive immigration reform so that refugees at the border — and many others — can gain a clear pathway into the U.S.

To lawmakers, she called for a better and much kinder policy of policing immgration at the border and making it easier for workers that are needed in many jobs to enter the country lawfully. Also, she suggested, reconsider lifting the current heavy restrictions on all immigrants who are allowed to enter the U.S., and loosen the laws that call for deportation of immigrants for committing a nonviolent crime.

Gonzalez called on people of faith also to see this as more than a social or political issue. We need to look beyond ourselves to whom God calls us to see, she said.

“This is also a Christian issue, because it is about people made in the image of God. . . . In the Old Testament, time and again, God tells his people to love their neighbors and do justice for them.”

Remember also, said Gonzalex, how the Bible tells us to open our lives and homes to the strangers among us: “Remember Ruth, and remember your neighbors. Remember the immigrants and the refugees.”

This week the CRC’s Office of Social Justice is encouraging churches to write to their Members of Congress about the "Remain in Mexico" policy and other policies that have harmed asylum seekers. You can use the link provided or the text option here: text ASYLUM to 52886 to oppose the “Remain in Mexico” policy and support asylum seekers.