Setting boundaries

Public Forum Letter

The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 12/24/2008 07:17:45 PM MST
 

The young couple came looking for shelter, a place to rest for a while; she was pregnant, they were unmarried and afraid, but there was no place for them to stay. We all know couples like this. They come to be counted, hoping to find a life where they will count for something. They come, not great with child, but pregnant with the promise of a new life. What do we do with people like this? “Whatever you did (or did not do) for the least of these, you did (or did not do) for me.”

The problem lies not with “people like these” but with the “innkeepers” who stand safely behind the registration desk, setting the boundaries, counting to see who measures up, assigning rooms, determining who’s in and who’s out. No love lost there. Some “in-keepers” flaunt their power in God’s name or the law’s. They cannot comprehend what Archbishop Desmond Tutu meant when he said, “Love is more demanding than the law.”

In this season of hope, we celebrate the light that shines in the darkness, making room for peace and goodwill. I still cling to that hope, even though the immigration bill SB81 leaves us standing in the dark, safely behind our registration desks, justifying ourselves with simple answers to complex questions, setting boundaries that ignore “the least of these.”

Rev. Steven Klemz

Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church

Salt Lake City