From the Meme, My Mind Turns to the Scriptures

   Written by Leo d'Entremont, there is a meme noting slavery was legal, while helping people escape slavery was not, and noting that smuggling Jewish people out of Germany was not legal. I guess as I thought on this meme, the story came to mind of how Christ healed the man with the withered hand on the sabbath, which they felt was against the law. And when Jesus perceived this, he said, "Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill?"
   These are the poor, the immigrants. Many of them remain outside our borders because we refuse to let them in. Many of those fleeing from violence do not make it, because we refuse them. We should ask, do we make it illegal to good? Is it illegal to save them from possibly being killed in their home countries? Do we make it illegal to do good? We think of the day when there were Sadducees, We must wonder, though, if we have learned from those days. Or, from the days of Isaiah. What of those verses in Isaiah 10?
   "Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness, which they have prescribed: To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take way the right from the poor of my people." That passage was incorporated in the Book of Mormon, in 2 Nephi 20. We know many of Isaiah's words placed in the Book of Mormon were placed there for us in these latter days living in America. I only know this: that I cannot look at those verses, and look around me on all that is happening, and find anything that looks more like a fulfillment than how we are treating the undocumented immigrants.
   I think of the story of the good Samaritan, and of how the priest and the Levite would not help the person travelling the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, but he, a Samaritan, would. I think of this day, and of how many of my faith turn away these poor, and of how those some who call themselves atheists do not, but are willing to administer care to them. Who are the priests and Levites in this modern-day story, and who are the Samaritans? And, I wonder if the story were to play out in our day, if we would look at that man travelling the road to Jericho, and tell him he must first show his papers before we would help him.