Three Hispanic congregations in the Diocese of Newark are carrying a heavy burden during the immigration crisis. Reminding us that “None of us is flying solo – if any one of our congregations has trouble, then all of us are going to lift that congregation up in any way that we can,” Bishop Hughes invites the diocese to respond with prayer, practical support, and generous giving. (Time: 5:50.)
Video Transcript
This is Bishop Hughes in the Diocese of Newark, and I’m making an unusual blog post this week, in that I’m just giving a short introduction to a piece of video that comes from one of our Confirmation services, where I talk about the offering, the offertory, the monies that we collect during the service in order to support a particular kind of ministry. Every year it’s different. One year was the Diocese of Jerusalem. Another year it was food ministries, when we had big struggles with hungry people in Northern New Jersey. This year it is going to our churches that are on the front lines of the immigration crisis. That is primarily churches that have a Hispanic congregation or churches that have a large outreach to Hispanic people. These funds are gathered and will be given to them. Please take a listen to the video, and you’ll hear more.
I want to talk to you about the offertory. It’s a little bit unusual this year, and I’m going to ask you to be generous. We have got three Hispanic congregations. We are 90 congregations in the diocese. Three of them are Hispanic, and the immigration crisis has been brutal to them. One of those congregations is the only poor congregation in the diocese. And when I say poor, I don’t mean in numbers, and I don’t mean in faith, I mean most of the people in that congregation earn below the poverty line of $26,000 a year. That’s hard to live on in Northern New Jersey. They are the one congregation that never asks for help. Never. If something breaks in that congregation, they take care of it, it’s just taken care of. They are too scared to come to church, in all three of those congregations. And it does not mean because they’re undocumented, it means their skin is brown, and because we now do this thing with racial profiling, if you look Hispanic, you could be detained. And if you were the breadwinner of your household and are detained and eventually released, you may have lost your job, because it can take that long to get you out.
The pressure on these churches has been intense, and the loss of income has been very, very difficult for them. And, as one of them said to me, and they have roots very deep in the community, and their mayor is very clear that their presence remains vital because they know where the families are that are afraid to come to church and that have had someone deported and therefore they know they’re being watched. And the rest of the family has the right to be in this country but they need help with basic things: food, diapers, homework, all of those kinds of things, but the income loss has been extraordinary.
So one of these churches said to me, Bishop, we think we should just hang it up, shut the doors, give you the keys, and just stop. And I said, “You can’t stop, and, we are not Congregationalists, this is The Episcopal Church.” All 90 congregations are interrelated with each other. None of us is flying solo – if any one of our congregations has trouble, then all of us are going to lift that congregation up in any way that we can. For some of us, it’s going to be prayer, for some of us it’s going to be time, for some of us is going to be sharing our money.
So, for confirmation – in every confirmation season we dedicate the offertory to something in particular. Today’s, we are dedicating to support for these churches that are feeling the brunt of the immigration crisis, so they will make the decisions on how that money is spent. They’re the best ones to make those decisions, but primarily for them it’s just to stay in operation.
I’m going to ask you to be generous in your giving today. Some of you have heard me define generosity. I’ll define it for those who have not heard, and for those who’ve heard it again, hear me well when I say, God is so good to us and so generous with us, and I don’t know why us and not somebody else. I look at the people who died in Covid, and – good people we lost in this diocese, people who just gave so much to their churches and to the diocese, who were completely selfless, why they went and we did not, I do not know. Why we’re employed and somebody else is not, I do not know. But it is like I said in the sermon, that when God gifts us with something, it is meant to help other people. God gives, we give, God gives, we give, God gives, we give. It’s a cycle that goes on and on and on. The only people that can stop that is us. When God gives and we go, “Mine!” We hold on to it.
So I’m going to ask you to be generous today, and by generosity I mean this: if you have cash in your wallet or in your purse, God knew I was going to ask for it. When the operatory plate comes by, if you just empty that into there, I can’t tell you how good it’s going to make you feel. Someone tells me every single service how good it made them feel to just give that money. In your bulletin on page 14 is a QR code you can give electronically that way. If you have a number in your head, I’m going to ask you to consider increasing that number by 50%, 100%, 200%.
Again, with generosity like this, we give, and God just gives us more. That is how it works. And no one in this church is ever alone. We have each other, and we have the God who walks with us, so I thank you for your generosity. Let us with gladness present the offerings and oblations of our lives and labor to the Lord.
