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October 29, 2023: Aliens in the land of Egypt
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“Remember where you came from.” A small, yet important bit of advice spoken our way once in a while. Sometimes the advice is spoken by someone trying to bring us back to our roots because we’ve gotten away from our roots as we move along in years.
It’s always good to hear about someone “who made it,” as we like to say, to the big leagues. To the top of their profession, whatever it may be. When a young player makes it to the major leagues in baseball, or in the world of economics or business, it’s good when we can say about them, “They haven’t forgotten where they came from.” In other words, their ego has not become too big, consuming their personality, treating others like they are somehow smaller and less meaningful people.
I remember a guy with whom I played baseball in high school, Rich Gedman. Some of you may remember Rich as playing for the Red Sox a good portion of the 1980’s. Rich grew up in Worcester, from the humble neighborhood of Crompton Park, and there he was in Boston, playing everyday at Fenway Park as the starting catcher for the Red Sox, catching the likes of Roger Clemens, Oil Can Boyd, and others. For anyone who has had the opportunity to meet Rich along the way over the years, you’ve likely been struck by his genuine humility as a person, his easy way of relating to people, and his lack of bragging about his exploits, which are many. I’ve always said about Rich after playing with him for one of our high school years (I was a junior when he was a senior) that he had a natural major league baseball swing throughout his life. He was born to play and succeed at the highest level, which he did. And through it all, he never forgot where he came from. In fact, he was the hitting coach for the Worcester Red Sox this past year, coaching at a park (Polar Park) that was built just a short way from the neighborhood where he was raised.
Another person who hasn’t forgotten where he came from is the Senior Priest at St. Anne’s Parish, Fr. Paul. I’ve enjoyed speaking with him about the town of Whitinsville where he was raised. A humble, hardworking town of middle-class people who knew what working for a living meant. I got to see Whitinsville firsthand as a UPS driver, delivering packages for Buster Brown to many of the homes and businesses in that Blackstone Valley town. I don’t recall seeing any mansions in Whitinsville, but many wonderful middle-class homes. And from our conversations, I can tell Fr. Paul has not forgotten the town from which he came. And I mean this in the best of ways, of course. In fact, one day when he dies at about 120 years old, he plans on being buried in the cemetery in Whitinsville. Fr. Paul, as we know around here, is a very humble man. Not bad for a guy who looks like a leprechaun. I’ve heard that leprechauns are always looking for a pot of gold, if you know what I mean. Not Fr. Paul. He’s been a humble servant of Jesus for 63 years and running as a priest, looking for people to guide home to heaven. And don’t forget to wish Fr. Paul a happy 89th birthday next month. He still has 31 years to go before hitting the 120 mark, which is about 40 years longer than I will live.
One other priest who remembers where he came from was the former Pastor of St. Anne’s Parish, Fr. John Foley. I was so blessed to have Fr. Foley as my first Pastor after ordination in 2006. I was his Associate Pastor, or Parochial Vicar, to use the technical term (which sounds one step away from the papacy in Rome) for three years before Fr. Foley was transferred to this wonderful Parish on Route 9, where he realized early on there was no shortage of restaurants in the area. Not quite the same as being raised on Vernon Hill (Vernon Street) in a 3-decker not too far from the Vernon Hill swimming pool which I used to frequent as a kid. The nearest restaurant, I believe, may have been Wrights Chicken Farm in Burrillville, Rhode Island. Or at least the nearest good restaurant. Fr. Foley was/is such a humble man. He was so humble that he used to cook dinner for me many nights. This does not sound like much of a big deal, but, when one considers that a Pastor not so long ago would never consider cooking for an underling – in fact, they would find it insulting to even think such a thought – it was most unusually humble. Fr. Foley cooking for his Associate was like Jesus breaking down certain cultural barriers during his ministry, like speaking with a Samaritan Woman at a certain, well-known well, telling her to give him a drink. And this is what Fr. Foley did. He has never forgotten where he came from.
So, why all this expansive discourse on not forgetting where we’ve come from? Why or how would this be a relevant theological topic for Christians? In the first reading this Sunday, in the opening verse, we hear proclaimed God telling the Israelites how “you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.” As they have been led out of Egypt, that place of slavery for the Israelites for 400 years, God is solemnly reminding them that their centuries-long time in Egypt should not be forgotten even though they’ve left the place. Not just for their own sake, but for that of those whom God favors in a special way, even to this day. The Israelites are not to forget their roots of 400 years in relation to how they are to treat “the alien” in their midst. That they are not to “molest or oppress an alien.” Why? Because God just saved the Israelites from their own longstanding oppression and alienation behind the bars of Egypt’s borders, and now Israel is to extend to those who seem to be “hangers-on” – the alien, the widow, and the orphan - the same benefit God extended to them in bringing them across the Red Sea into a land flowing with milk and honey. The Israelites are not to forget toward others their former way of being mistreated by the Egyptians, and treat these other people on the bottom of the totem pole with dignity and concern.
If the Israelites forget where they came from in a matter of days, months, or even years, then they will go their own way, away from how God calls us to treat one another, centered in the remembrance of our own humble roots. There’s no question there exist folks who will forget where they came from. I recall a former world-class, professional ice skater from Massachusetts who made it to the Olympics one year, recalling how this ice skater did not like the “Boston accent,” if you will, fearing they would be ridiculed because of it. Most of us get a rise out of an authentic Boston accent. An accent that reveals where we are from. On the other side, I’ve heard more than once a person making light of a Southern accent for the simple reason “they don’t speak like us. They sound really weird.” Really? Have you heard yourself speak? The point being with the ice skater story, that this person wanted little to do with where they came from. And what accompanies where we come from includes an accent. Anyway, this person learned how to pronounce their “R’s,” and lost was a world-class Boston accent from a world-class skater.
The above may be a poor example of not remembering where we come from. However, what God teaches the Israelites is humility toward others who depend upon our decency and goodness, our love of neighbor and respect for all of His people. He teaches them in a way not disconnected from where they just spent 400 years and how they were treated by another nation and its Pharoah. To bring this forward a few thousand years, the alien, the widow, and the orphan are presently known in the refugee, the despondent, and the immigrant. The questions arise for those who profess to be Christian, “Are we having all sorts of trouble seeing these people as God’s special possession? Do we see them in a less than dignified light? Do they get in the way of our conscience? Do they rub us the wrong way?” I have a concern for my fellow Catholic brothers and sisters that these other people made in God’s image and likeness are treated with a serious lack of dignity at times. I base this statement from comments I’ve heard spoken at times. Some comments that make my conscience recoil. Do we forget at times that such people, the poorest of the poor, the most disenfranchised, the lonely and despairing, that these are God’s special people? We enter dangerous spiritual waters if we dare to forget this fundamental Christian teaching, that “what you do to the least of my people, you do to me.”
Remembering where we come from is a test of humility’s staying power in our lives. It disposes Christians of expressing condescending attitudes toward other people. On the other hand, forgetting where most of us come from, unless we were born with a silver spoon as they say, but even then… a silver spoon birth is not a good reason for condescension. Forgetting where we come from opens the door to our mistreatment of God’s special people. The ones He cares for in a most deeply personal way. May this never be part of living out our faith in Jesus, who had no place to rest his head. He deserves at least a pillow. And it’s the giving of a “pillow” that may get us through the Pearly Gates.