Jacques Would Be Proud

As I prepare to go to a conference entitled "What Would Jesus Deconstruct?," I've been reading up on Jacques Derrida and trying to understand the nature of deconstruction. Though much could be said about this philosophical notion, one of Derrida's chief concern was justice - particularly for the outsider, those on the margins, the Other.

Although deconstruction has been labeled many things - many of which it is not - one thing it calls for is hospitality. The call of deconstruction is the call of hospitality, of justice, of making room for the Other, of creating space for those who are not like ourselves without forcing them to conform to us.

Philosopher James K.A. Smith writes, "Justice, for Derrida, is hospitality: welcoming the other. Thus, he is most interested in those institutions which are called to be paradigmatic sites of welcome but which, in their current configurations... have become systems of closure, shutting down hospitality by shutting out the other. Thus [Derrida] has shown a particular interest in questions of immigration and international law, heightened no doubt by disturbing tendencies in France... which have given rise to new justifications of xenophobia and shutting down borders in order to protect against the threat of... 'French identity.' (Jacques Derrida Live Theory, 68).

How timely this is for us in America as Congress currently wrestles with immigration policy, the Bush adminsitration fluctuates its stance, and the destiny of millions of resident aliens is in flux. If Derrida were here today, he would have called for what he did in 1996. Then, he spoke for the International Parliament of Writers - an organization that provides aid to authors being silenced by their home nations - as they focused on developing "Cities of Asylum," places writers could find freedom from the oppression of their home nations. Here, the IPW and Derrida were drawing from the Old Testament notion of "cities of refuge" (Numb 35:9-32) [Cf. Life Theory, 68-69).

Derrida is not here, but thankfully, someone is picking up the baton. Mayor Robert Patten (a Republican, mind you) of Highstown, NJ has made Highstown a "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants. The Washington Post article states, "Joining a growing list of cities enacting a no-questions-asked policy on immigration status, Hightstown now allows its undocumented residents to officially interact with local police and access city services without fear of being reported to federal authorities." Patten speaks for himself in the article stating:

"Most of us know this town would have a heck of a time trying to run itself these days without the immigrants. They're working at the grocery stores, the fast-food places, they're opening businesses and keeping this town alive and young. We're just being practical by telling them, 'Look, we want you in our community, and we want you to feel like you belong.' "

Patten makes a point that raises a thought-provoking question: if these illegal immigrants practically run the big businesses that lobby so hard in Washington, why hasn't anything been changed? Where are the CEOs that look into the cameras and say they care so much for their employees?

Some may argue, "But these immigrants have broken the law! They ought to be sent back to Mexico where they all belong!" To this, I respond: Could it be that it is not the people that need changing but the law? Could it be that we as a nation, at the risk of preserving our "American identity" [which is, uh... what??] have strayed mightily far from the words coined by Emma Lazarus that preach from the foundation of our Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

To those who want to send them home [and thus destroy our economy while they're at it], I suggest they answer to one other figure: the original master of deconstruction himself. The one who often suspended the law in the name of justice himself - picking grain on the Sabbath, preventing an adulterer from being punished, fellowshipping with outcasts, touching the unclean, and readily permiting a human sacrifice - might have a thing or two to say about the immigrants, the Other, the least of these, the last who will be first.

Which begs the question: why has it taken a philospher who would rightly pass for an atheist and a mayor of a little town of about 6,000 people to bring to pass what Christians should have been doing all along?

I fear we have sunk so deeply into the entrapments of our narcissistic culture that we have kept the cold cup of water for ourselves.