Les Miserables

I've been hesitating to post about this, but since this morning's edition of my hometown newspaper featured another "festival of bigotry" (as I've taken to calling the community opinion pages), I find I can't quite keep my mouth shut. Please forgive the following indulgence, it's just the musings of someone looking at her home with newly-foreign eyes.

I got back to the US last Monday - a day when illegal immigrants/undocumented workers (pick your term) held marches and rallies to protest impending legislation dealing with immigration issues. I confess my ignorance of the exact implications of said legislation, and so my comments my be summarily discounted if you wish. Yet...

After a week of reading editorials in which "they" are accused of "taking over America," and "they" are said to be "too lazy to learn English", and "they" are generally discussed with a tone of contempt that's uglier than I thought possible, I CANNOT help but wonder, truthfully, what Jesus thinks about all of this. Having now lived a considerable amount of my adult life outside of the US, I strive more and more to find my identity as a member of a bigger Kingdom, as a global Christian. For me, this means that my primary allegiance must be to my brothers and sisters in the Lord - what is best for them? How are their lives influenced by any small political decision I might make? How can political situations enable or disable the spread of the gospel? This is more important to me than protecting any set of national interests.

These thoughts have been accentuated by fact that I got to see Les Miserables in Denver this past Saturday, courtesy of my friend Kristen and her insistent need to set me up on dates! It had been years since I'd seen it, and I was blown away by the real Christian theological depth of such a blockbuster musical. It has so much to say about the law and grace, and how only grace truely transforms people, how it upends everything we believe about fairness and justice. But that's a topic for another blog. What struck me even more than the theological content was the contrast between the lives portrayed in the play and those who were enjoying their expensive seats watching them.

Sitting there, I could not help but think, who are les miserables today? Who are the people at the bottom of the economic ladder? Those forced to make the kinds of ethical decisions that those of us with sufficient incomes will never have to face? The ones willing to do just about anything, even die, to change their way of living?

Do I need to connect the dots for you?

It just struck me as supremely ironic, as the well-heeled of Denver were moved by the romanticized story of 19th century French peasants rising up against the bourgeiouse, many of the same would probably not be so moved by a more local revolution! But, the music is beautiful, the actors are white, and people die so photogenically, what's not to like? At the end, we stood in our lovely dresses and fancy suits, applauding the idea of a people's revolution, and then headed off to lovely resturants employing immigrant dishwashers and minimum wage janitors.

Funny, I do hear the people singing... they're singing the Star Spangled Banner. In Spanish.