In a time when the chaos is increasing, when our government is attacking its own people in targeted cities, when ICE agents are violently terrorizing people who are just trying to go to work or pick up their kids or buy groceries or sleep in their own beds, when one’s version of truth and reality depends on one’s political party… in short, when everything seems to be falling apart and despair is hovering, we are beginning a sermon series on thankfulness. From now through November, we are going to focus on what’s going right, where we find kindness, what parts of our nation’s infrastructure continue to function. Today we begin by focusing on thankfulness for immigrants.
Unless you are Native American and trace your presence on this land back before recorded history, you have immigrants in your family tree.
Who here feels safe admitting that they themselves are immigrants?
Whose parents immigrated from another country?
Grandparents
Great-grandparents
Why did your people come to this country, do you know?
Opportunity
Get away from what was happening in the old country—coal mines, a death
Education
Land
So future generations could have a better life
And we are that future generation, the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren of those who came full of hope and hard work. So we have benefitted directly from immigrants in our background. We give thanks for those immigrant ancestors who made our lives possible.
We also benefit from immigrant labor in our society, particularly in agriculture, construction, restaurants, hotels, and tech. Our economy depends on a work force willing to work hard, often for little pay, to grow and harvest our food, to change the sheets in our hotel rooms, to wash the dishes in the restaurants, to build the buildings. Without those workers, things fall apart.
According to an article at Fortune.com, the Department of Labor has quietly noted that there is credible concern about a looming labor shortage in agriculture, because there are not enough workers to harvest the crops, and U.S. citizens do not want and will not take those jobs. The work is too hard, the hours are too long, in extreme temperatures and harsh conditions, for not much pay. By one estimate, “42% of the U.S. crop workforce is unable to enter the country, faces potential deportation, or is leaving the U.S.” (Trump’s own Labor Department quietly admits his immigration crackdown risks ‘supply shock-induced food shortages’ and higher prices.) Forty-two percent of the people who usually grow and harvest our food are unavailable. Prepare for shortages, price hikes, and a lot of farmers declaring bankruptcy. This was an entirely preventable situation. It’s hard to see how anyone benefits.
I suspect something similar is impacting my niece off at Whitman College in Walla Walla. Whitman is building three new dorm / apartment buildings. All of them were scheduled to be completed by the start of the fall term. My niece signed up to move into one of them with two roommates, but she got word over the summer that her building would not be finished in time. In fact, two of the buildings weren’t ready. And I suspect that the construction crew may have shrunk, so there weren’t enough workers to get everything done. The college is giving my niece and all the others who can’t live in their new buildings yet free housing until the buildings are done. So my niece saves some money but doesn’t get to live in the place she wanted. This delay is costing the college money, and the construction workers who had to quit are out of a job and not earning an income. It’s hard to see how this crackdown benefits anyone.
And the crackdown is terrifying. You have no doubt heard about the raid of an entire Chicago apartment building at 1am, with Blackhawk helicopters, everyone rousted out of bed, children being bound by zip ties. In other places, ICE agents show up with their faces masked, rip people out of their cars or take them from their jobs. They are terrorizing people who are just trying to live their quiet lives.
I’m not suggesting that every last immigrant is an angel. Some of them may be gang members or drug dealers or involved in other nefarious goings-on. But most immigrants are like your ancestors probably were: just wanting to build a better life for their families. Statistically, immigrants tend to be more law-abiding than citizens for the very reason that they don’t want to attract attention. They work at their jobs, they pay taxes, send their kids to school, try to stay under the radar.
Most of us have probably internalized the passage in Matthew 25 about the sheep and the goats, where the good sheep take care of the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, those in prison—and in so doing they care for the Christ. We know we are to love and care for each other. Our scripture reading today from Deuteronomy mentions another category: the resident alien—the immigrant. We remind ourselves that our spiritual ancestors Abraham and Sarah were wandering Arameans who came into the promised land, emigrated to Egypt, and whose descendants returned to the land of milk and honey. They’re all immigrants. And when we bring our thank offering to the priest, it is shared with the widows and orphans, sure—and also with the resident aliens or immigrants in our midst. We share God’s bounty with everyone. Everyone eats. And the immigrant is specifically named as part of the community.
In the reading from Hebrews we are told, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” You may recall that three strangers show up at the tent of Abraham and Sarah one day. Abraham slaughters the fatted calf, Sarah makes bread, and they treat the visitors to a feast. It so happens that the strangers are angels who predict that Sarah will have a baby within the year. We may think that we are serving the stranger, but sometimes it is the stranger who serves us.
So as we eat our meals, we give thanks for the immigrant labor that grew the food. As we live in our buildings, use our computers and phones and other tech, eat at restaurants, sleep in hotels, we give thanks for the immigrants who make those experiences possible.
Rev. Quincy Worthington, pastor of Highland Park Presbyterian Church in the Chicago area, has been showing up at the Broadview, Ill. ICE detention center for peaceful protests for about a month. At first he worked to make sure lines of communication were open between protestors and law enforcement officers in order to keep everyone safe. He said some people there feel that God has abandoned Broadview, but when they see clergy standing with them at the protest, that gives them hope that God is with them as well. When he first started attending these protests, ICE agents would open the gates to allow a vehicle in or out, and they would push protestors to the ground violently to get them out of the way. Since then, Rev. Worthington has seen ICE agents’ behavior escalate to the point where they are using pepper balls, tear gas, flash-bangs, and rubber bullets against peaceful protestors. And if that’s how they’re treating peaceful U.S. citizens in broad daylight with cameras rolling, Rev. Worthington wonders how they are treating the immigrants being detained inside. He hears horror stories.
When asked how he felt about the administration quoting Bible verses to justify their actions against immigrants, Rev. Worthington said, “I find it highly offensive and extremely troubling. The overall message of the Gospel is one of grace and one of love and one of compassion. To use scripture to promote domination and dehumanization I find is probably one of the most egregious and abhorrent uses of scripture that one can do.” He continues, “For me, what faith is, is to see people in the world as God sees people in the world . . . that they are precious children, that they are beloved, that they are created in God’s image. . . . When we see unnecessary suffering inflicted on our siblings, we can’t help but respond to it. . . . At the end of the day, when my head hits the pillow, I have to answer, Did I live up to my faith and my beliefs?” (https://www.npr.org/2025/10/12/nx-s1-5567127/a-chicago-clergy-member-talks-about-the-role-faith-leaders-play-in-anti-ice-protests)
Christianity is not a spectator sport. When our immigrant siblings thrive, we thrive, too. But when they suffer, we are called to respond. What can we do, when our immigrant siblings are being chased down and hounded out of the country?
We can attend trainings on active nonviolent resistance hosted by the Church Council of Greater Seattle. We can attend No Kings demonstration. We can write letters to legislators. If we are brave like Rev. Worthington, we can show up at ICE detention center protests. Find the thing you can do, and do it. People’s lives depend on it. Maybe our own lives depend on it.
God,
We give thanks for the immigrant ancestors who worked hard so that we could thrive. We give thanks for the immigrants in our country who work hard and just want a decent life. Show us the way to support our immigrant siblings so that all of us may thrive in community and mutual love. Embolden us to stand up for justice in the face of corruption and blatant oppression. Amen.