When I was invited to preach today I was informed the decision was made to choose a theme that is relevant and challenging this year—immigration--and asked to reflect on what our faith says about how we should view and treat those on the margins.

Well, the Bible has a lot to say about immigrants and immigration. Here are but a few passages: “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deut. 10:17-19)

“You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 23:9)

“There shall be one law for the native and for the alien who resides among you.” (Exodus 12:49)

Like everyone in this nation who is not descended from the native people who lived here before us, I come from a family of immigrants. Although my surname, Winkler, is German, most of my family tree is English and Scots-Irish.

In my role as head of the National Council of Churches, I have the opportunity to interact with councils of churches around the world. I have learned it is now standard practice in Canadian church gatherings to acknowledge and discuss the native peoples who lived in the area where the meeting is taking place. I think we should follow their example. In Canada, they refer to native peoples as the First Nations. 

It turns out that in July 1608, just over 400 years ago, John Smith and 14 other Englishmen arrived in these parts and found a Necostin village called Nameroughquena just a few miles south of here. There were other villages around here speaking an Algonquian dialect. It is estimated there were about 500 men, women, and children in this area. They received the Englishmen in a friendly manner, but when a Captain Argall returned two years later to buy corn from them, they refused, so the English burned their villages and stole their food.

I’m not sure what they would have done with the money anyway and, for all we know, they may have been short of food themselves, but a pattern of hostility was established. In 1669, John Alexander purchased from Robert Howson 6000 acres extending from Hunting Creek, south of Alexandria, to about where Fort Myer is now.

So, let’s just be honest about things and acknowledge humbly and repentantly that we worship on land that was stolen from its native people. That’s not a very pleasant thing to think about--which is probably why we don’t do so very often.

About two hundred years later, my great great grandfather, Christopher Philip Winkler, came to the United States from the village of Guttenstetten in the province of Mittelfranken in the kingdom of Bavaria in what is now southern Germany. He settled in Memphis, TN where he taught music at a Catholic girls' school during the week. On Friday nights and Saturday mornings, he was the organist for Poplar Street synagogue. On Sunday mornings, he was the organist and choirmaster for St. Peter's Catholic Church. Christopher Philip was a Lutheran from a predominantly Catholic country who married a Scots-Irish Cumberland Presbyterian. They raised their six boys as Methodists.

Although I was born and raised Methodist, I like to think Christopher Philip’s example set the stage for my current work in the ecumenical field.

During World War I, my great grandfather, Eugene Winkler, was a medical doctor in southeastern Arkansas, about 100 miles south of Memphis. Dr. Winkler was proud of his German-American heritage, but this quickly became suspect when war broke out with Germany.

Remember, it was Teddy Roosevelt (not Donald Trump) who said, “There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.”

He went on to say:

“This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.”

The local townspeople insisted Dr. Winkler raise the American flag each morning in his front yard to prove he was loyal to the United States and not to Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. The duty to raise that flag fell to his teenage son, my grandfather, also named Eugene Winkler.