Give Me Your Tired - Come To Me

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The words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, where it majestically stands on Bedloe’s Island, now called Liberty Island, in New York harbor, I hope are familiar to all of us:

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

These gracious words of beckoning invitation express the hopes and yearnings of the millions that passed it by on their long, weary journey across the sea to the hope of a new life. Through nearby Ellis Island, which lies in the shadow of the lady of liberty, some 17 million people passed from 1892-1943.

There is song written by Brendan Graham, Irish novelist and composer, about the very first immigrant that passed through the portal of Ellis Island in 1892 that depicts a little of what it must have been like for those millions to stand on a patch of island ground between two worlds; the world they left behind that was known and beloved but too difficult to bear – and a new world that was as yet merely words of promise engraved into the side of a great statue. The song goes:

on the first day of January,
eighteen ninety-two,
they opened Ellis Island and they let
the people through.
and the first to cross the threshold
of that isle of hope and tears,
was Annie Moore from Ireland
who was all of fifteen years.

isle of hope, isle of tears,
isle of freedom, isle of fears,
but it's not the isle you left behind.
that isle of hunger, isle of pain,
isle you'll never see again
the Isle of home is always on your mind.

in a little bag she carried
all her past and history,
and her dreams for the future
in the land of liberty.
and courage is the passport
when your old world disappears
but there's no future in the past
when you're all of fifteen years.

It would be well for us to remember, on this weekend especially, that the words engraved on that monument of lady liberty were not just for our forebears who came so far and endured so much, but they are still our words too. Whether our ancestors came on the Mayflower, or a New England slave ship, or a nineteenth century clipper, or a twentieth century jet, those “huddled masses” and “wretched refuse” are not merely past history, but they, with their hopes and dreams and aspirations, are a part of us and woven into the fabric of our beings. We are the beneficiaries of their courageous initiative and the inheritors of the promise engraved on the great statue; a promise that has been entrusted to us to carry forward. We are now the stewards of the promise. It is not merely their story but our continuing story too, and if we listen we can hear from deep in our souls faint echoes of their cries for a new life. Perhaps it is only when we really acknowledge that it is our story too that we can ever begin to truly identify with the millions of “tempest-tossed” and oppressed around the world who also yearn to pursue the dreams that are our reality that we far too often take for granted and sometimes clutch possessively as exclusively our own.

The words engraved on that great statue sound amazingly like things that Jesus said and embodied. They sound a lot like something Matthew’s Jesus says in today’s gospel. “Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

A prominent characteristic of the life and ministry of Jesus was that he offered a kind of authentic and abiding “rest” to the “tempest-tossed” and “wretched refuse” of his day. Whether it was the lepers who were ostracized by dehumanizing religious sanctions, or the blind and lame who were relegated to beg by the city gates, or Gentiles and Samaritans who were considered by the religious crowd as little more than dogs, or the Roman occupiers who were regarded as enemies to be despised, or women and children who occupied the lowest levels on the social totem pole, or any of the various of assortment of “wretched refuse” of the time including prostitutes, tax collectors and the demon-possessed, Jesus never lost sight of their essential humanity. To a person he reached across fearful and forbidden social and religious boundaries to embrace and affirm the humanity of each and include them in his inclusive circle of relationships – and convey to them they were loved beyond measure with a divine love.

And if that wasn’t enough, he told stories that reflected the same values, none more poignant and disturbing than the story of a king who gave a great banquet.[i] The king sent invitations by courier to those you would expect at the banquet of a king - those of means and significant social station. But they rejected the king’s invitation, even made light of it. The king was shocked and disturbed and sent his servants out onto the hi-ways and by-ways with instructions to invite, without distinction, the “good and the bad”[ii], especially including, we might say, the “tempest tossed” and “wretched refuse”[iii] so that his banquet hall might be filled.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…” These specific words of Jesus only appear in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew included them to instruct his faith community to be an inclusive community that welcomed and embraced those who were weary and carrying heavy burdens no matter who you were, good or bad, tempest tossed or wretched refuse. “Take my yoke upon you.” Matthew took that as a challenge to embody the life of Jesus, not only individually, but as a faith community.

It was not only a challenge to them but also a summons to us to take the yoke of Jesus upon ourselves, which is nothing short of embodying his all-encompassing grace that characterized his life and he extended to others, into our lives.

The words on the base of a colossal neoclassical sculpture some 93 meters in height in New York harbor challenge us as nation to be a certain kind of people with a certain kind of heart-set and mind-set. In light of the current complex debate about how to treat foreigners, aliens and immigrants in our midst, I cannot help but wonder if it wouldn’t be good for all of us to take a time out and visit that sacred place, stand there and merely reflect on those words; let them soak in so that we might be reminded of who we once were and perhaps who we are still called to be.

The life of a first century Jewish carpenter was so engaging and inspiring that some of the people around him named him Lord and full of the divine like they had ever experienced. His life and his words challenged them as individuals and as communities to live with a certain heart-set and mind-set. He still calls us to come to him, even though the world calls us in a hundred different directions. I trust that in our heart of hearts we know so much more than we let on about what he would have us do and who he would have us be. We have within us, each one, so much more of his power and love that we ever spend; too often being misers of love and pinchpenny guardians of grace. But he calls us to come and challenges us to take his yoke upon us which is nothing less than to live his life of grace in the world; to go places and do things and speak words that without him we might not ever dare dream of; to be “rest” for the weary souls of this world – to be “rest” to each other even when those weary souls might be us.

[i] Matthew 22 & Luke 14

[ii] Matthew 22:10

[iii] Luke 14:21