And so, today being officially Labor Sunday, I want us to consider labor from a spiritual point of view as well as the issue of immigration, since immigration is mostly about labor and ask how we, as a spiritually liberal people, respond when issues of justice and compassion collide.

In the course of my life, I’ve had the opportunity to view life from two very different perspectives. No, not those two. We covered those two on gay pride Sunday. It’s Labor Sunday. Now I’m talking about the differing perspectives of the professional class and of the working class.

After high school, I went to a small Baptist college in southern Mississippi, became the first person in my family to get a college degree, went on to graduate school, then seminary, after which I entered the white color work force as a professional minister. Later -- when the Baptists no longer considered me suitable ministerial material -- I became a teacher and even though that allowed me to get rid of those horrible suits and ties and notwithstanding that some parents -- by virtue of their child being enrolled in the very expensive private school where I taught -- considered me a highly educated member of their domestic staff, though not necessarily as useful as, say, the housecleaner -- as a teacher, I was still a member of the professional class. Then I had the temerity to come out of the closet as transsexual, and when I opened that closet door a thousand other doors of opportunity simultaneously slammed shut. After a valiant, determined, persistent, yet, to date, unsuccessful attempt to become a rich and famous writer, I entered the world of the blue-collar worker (don hardhat), and this is the beginning of my 7th year as a school bus driver and member of the California State Employees Association local 212.

Actually school bus drivers don’t wear hardhats, though there were a few times when I thought it might not be a bad idea, especially when I was transporting the special ed kids. With that bunch, you could never tell what might come winging your way. Hefty little Lisa Ramirez could hurl a tennis shoe with startling accuracy. Fortunately for me but unfortunately for poor little Ivan, he was usually the target of her flying footwear.

As with gender, the world looks very different from the perspective of the the working class as opposed to how the professional class sees things. There is an excellent, insightful and rather pointed article in the Fall issue of UU World, the magazine of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, written by Doug Muder on the difficulty UU churches have reaching out to the working class whose interests, you would think, are better represented by liberal religion. I highly recommend you read it.

Muder, in his article, suggests that one of the main reasons that UU churches have such a hard time attracting the working class is that we primarily view things from the point of view of the professional class, which is likewise my assumption. However, let’s see how true this might be in our congregation. How many of you belong to a labor union? (of the 30 or so people, about 6 or 7 belonged to unions and three of those to the teacher’s union) How many of you -- like me -- consider yourself a blue-collar worker? In other words, how many of you actually work for a living? (about 4) So our congregation resembles other UU fellowships in that we are primarily a gathering of the professional class.

My operating assumption is that as religious liberals we are inclined to be supportive and sympathetic to the immigrants and much less concerned that they are here in violation of immigration laws; that they are here illegally. I’m also aware that, being mostly members of the professional class, should Congress pass a law legalizing the 12-14 million immigrants currently in this country illegally, you members of the professional class will have little reason to fear for your jobs. In fact, you have quite a bit to gain.

For much of the working class, however, it’s quite a different story. For instance, there is a chronic shortage of bus drivers. Don’t ask me why. Going to bed at hours usually reserved for preschoolers just so you can get up at 4:30 in the cold and dark to navigate a 40 foot vehicle through rain, fog and wind over some of the worst roads this side of the Rockies, dodging idiotic drivers while managing some 60 hormone crazed children -- with your back turned! I mean, what’s not to like? Still, at $20 an hour with great benefits and lots of opportunities for easy overtime, I’m guessing quite a few of those newly legalized 12-14 million workers might think that’s not such a bad deal, especially since back in Mexico they were lucky if they made $10 a day with the only benefits being a few shots of tequila at the end of a 12 hour day to help kill the aches and pains. And besides that, they speak Spanish, which, on most of the routes is the language of choice, since most of the anglo kids are chauffeured to school, or else, have their own cars.

So, from the point of view of a bus driver, what’s going to happen if millions of workers, who presently are ineligible for my job by virtue of the fact that they lack the documentation required to work legally in this country, are suddenly legalized? Think they’re going to want to hang onto those $4 an hour jobs bussing tables, or $6 an hour jobs cleaning bathrooms at the Motel 6? No, they’re going to look at my $16-20 an hour job that includes full benefits and say, hey, even with all those bratty kids that looks like a really good job. Then, the next time negotiations come up between the bus drivers and the school district -- except now capable Hispanic men and women are lined up for the jobs -- do you think that’s not going to affect the ability of the workers to negotiate wages and benefits? And if that’s true for bus drivers, it’s even more so true for custodians, grounds keepers, kitchen staff and even the maintenance guys, since, Justino recently repaired my broken water line for a fourth of what a regular plumber would have charged even though I paid him over twice the going rate of $12/hour.

If we legalize all these workers, wages are almost certainly going to drop for working class people, just like they have in other industries. There was a time when a person could make a living -- not a good living, but a living nonetheless -- cleaning hotel rooms. No more. Same for the meat packing industry. Those wages are now down around the poverty level, because of an infusion of low-wage undocumented workers who are willing to work for $8-10 an hour. (You will notice however, that over the last decade when immigrants were taking over these jobs, the price of a hotel room or a nice cut of steak hasn’t dropped. Wonder where all that saved labor money is going?) So now my nice liberal friends, what do you say to me and my fellow workers about how we need to welcome all these lovely undocumented workers, since, we, not you, will have to bear the burden of their welcome? It’s one thing to take the moral high ground on an issue like immigration when you will be high and dry while those of us on the lower rungs of the economic ladder will be swept away in the floodwaters of the incoming tide. These 12-14 million newly documented workers will not be competing with you for your jobs. (For your children, however, it could be quite a different matter, especially since the immigrant kids will be fluently bilingual and yours won’t.) In fact, it could be argued, they’ll just make the lives of the professional class easier and richer, since getting your house painted, your yard manicured, your kitchen renovated, your roof replaced will likely get cheaper. When 12-14 million new workers flood the job market, your expenses, not your wages will decrease, your standard of living will rise while the standard of living for the working class will likely fall, perhaps long and hard. It remains to be seen. So on this Labor Sunday , whose side are you going to take? Are you going to stand with the undocumented immigrants who have fled their countries in search of a better life or are you going to stand with the American workers -- like me -- who stand to suffer if they are allowed to legally enter the work place?

I’m hoping this creates a moral dilemma for you, but if the issues facing laborers isn’t sufficient, consider this:

Several years ago, the Sierra Club -- not exactly the sort of organization where you’d expect to find an abundance of xenophobes -- found itself in a heated internal conflict over calls by many of its members to come out in opposition to immigration on environmental grounds. For those of us who care deeply about the environment and grieve the loss of habitat for the non-human inhabitants of this planet, the addition of millions more people is not good news. If I’m not mistaken, the last census revealed that California’s population growth is being driven primarily by immigrants, and that without them, the population would have remained fairly constant.

And for those of us who are also democrats, which is to say, most, though not all of us, George Bush, for all you may despise him, is clearly way ahead of the other members of his party in recognizing that all these new souls from Mexico are very likely just Republicans in waiting. Their social views on issues like the role of women, a woman’s right to choose an abortion, gay rights and the environment are far more in keeping with the right wing of the Republican Party than they are with we bleeding heart tree huggers, and if the other members of Mr. Bush’s party ever come to their senses, I’m imagining we Democrats will find ourselves dumped faster than an ugly suitor of a Hollywood starlet.

The author of an excellent article on illegal immigration in Mother Jones magazine when asked said he felt about illegal immigration the same way he felt about hurricanes, which is a clever way of saying it doesn’t matter how we feel about the issue; it isn’t going away. While I appreciate the realistic wisdom of that perspective, I wish to argue that it does matter how we feel; that our feelings on this subject and how we use and express them will make a difference -- a difference, I hope, for good.

As a member of a UU church looking for discernment in this matter, I will look at our principles, which you can find in your hymnal on the page preceding the very first hymn. Principle one says we recognize "the inherent worth and dignity of every person." And while I certainly like that, it still doesn’t tell me what to do when the worth and dignity of two groups of people are in conflict. So what about "justice, equity and compassion in human relations?" Well, I think that falls pretty squarely in the camp of the immigrants; especially the equity part, though, does that mean the teachers’ salaries need to be equitable with the aides, custodians, kitchen staff and bus drivers? What do we mean by equitable, and what is just? And then there’s the "respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part." To which I reply: At this rate of population growth -- what web?

So, I’m Christian, and as a Christian, when presented with such a dilemma, I turn to the Bible, because...well, that’s what Christians do; we turn to the Bible for guidance. Now, I realize that most of you out there are not Christian or are downright antichristian, so I beg you to indulge me for a moment. First of all, the Jewish scriptures (which are often referred to as the Old Testament. Hello! Has anyone noticed that the New Testament is not exactly hot off the press? Please, let’s call them the Jewish Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures.) As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted myself, a persistent theme in the Jewish scriptures, with their attention to history is a reminder to the people of God that they too were once wanderers looking for opportunity and a better home. There was a time when we were all illegal immigrants, and the Bible reminds us never to forget that. Then, of course, there’s the well-known, overly worn, yet ever so applicable golden rule: "As you wish others would do to you, do so to them," (Luke 6:31). Not much wiggle room there. As a Christian, the Bible tells me pretty plainly where I need to come down on this issue -- on the side of the immigrants.

But, as a mindful Christian, I do not think of the Bible as the final word. I think of it as a wonderful addition to the conversation.

I want not simply to listen and to obey, but to also feel my way into the issue at hand, and as I do so, something else leaps out at me, another stance beckons to me. Rather than say this is the right way, and that the wrong, or this way is better than that, what if I choose to stand in the gap? What if I choose to take hold of each, the desperate plight of the immigrants fleeing a corrupt government, poverty and hopelessness AND the need of the American laborer to protect his job, her income and their standard of living. You see, it’s easier to take one side or the other, and on some issues, such as this insane war in Iraq -- and war in general -- we are compelled to take sides, but in this type of issue it seems to me what is needed are people who will stand in the gap.

And that’s where I invite us to stand. Not on the "liberal" side or the side that seeks exclusively to protect the American workers, but between them, because so often that’s where the truth really is -- between us.

So what does it mean to stand in the gap? I think it means three things.