This past fall, I sat with an asylum seeker who was in tears over a new security device, a restrictive ankle monitor, that ICE had arbitrarily imposed (in more than two years, he had never missed a check-in appointment). The stigma, shame, and implicit threat of the monitor weighed heavily on this parishioner, who is already isolated from family and community by the very nature of seeking refuge abroad. He is a man steeped in scripture, full of 1 Peter’s “gentleness and reverence,” and so we talked about where he might turn for daily comfort. “Where do you see your situation reflected in the Bible?” I asked. “For you, where is the voice of the one who is persecuted though they have done nothing wrong? Where is the reminder that God sees you differently?”
“The psalms of David,” he answered, still quietly weeping.
A seminary professor of mine taught us to value the Psalms in particular as a means of entering into a discomfiting and transformative solidarity with the persecuted, besieged, and suffering. Similarly, I had often read 1 Peter as a sort of clarifying exegesis of the civil rights movement, along with other nonviolent social movements around the world: “Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord
. . . [and] when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.” No longer needing to imagine much or draw historical connections, I found myself offering pastoral encouragement that echoed these sentiments: You have broken no laws. You are suffering even though you’ve done what is right, proactively applying for asylum. Do not let this symbol of shame define or intimidate you. You know who you are before God; let scripture and God’s Spirit remind you, every day.
