Our faith community proclaims these words each week and have written them upon our hearts: "We welcome all to the table as God welcomes us. For this is the table, not of the Church, but of God."

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As a native Hawaiian whose ancestors came to these islands over 1,000 years ago, I am troubled by the way our immigrant communities have come under threat by the powers of the day who are themselves immigrants and descendants of immigrants whose ancestors arrived within the last 3-4 generations.

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As followers of Jesus, we believe deeply in God's ALOHA and extravagant welcome for, and to, all creation. We believe deeply in Scripture's call to "...love the stranger..." and "...love the alien..." as we too were strangers and aliens; to "...extend hospitality to strangers…” and to "...love [thy] neighbor as [thy]self." We also heed Scripture's warning that "Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow." For whatever we do to the "...least of these," we do also unto Christ himself.

We must strongly reject the resurgence of racism and xenophobia that continues to fuel the policies of this present Administration and those in our midst who have unleashed a wave of attacks against immigrants - documented and undocumented alike - whose hard work and love for family and community have contributed to the wellbeing and prosperity of the very country that seeks to purge them from our midst.

We stand in solidarity with our immigrant siblings - remembering Christ's call to love God and our neighbor as ourselves, for in doing so, we "...fulfill the law." We are all sojourners in this land, temporary residents on this borderless planet which belongs, not to man, but to the God who brought it (and us) into existence.

May Ke Akua have mercy on those who show no mercy. And, on those who sit on the sidelines in silence. "For silence," the Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson writes, "is for those who are living dead."