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to see God face to face—Part II: narratives of the “other”

In my last post, I attempted to articulate a framework for thinking about God in and through our encounters with one another. I stated, provocatively perhaps, that it is only and always within creation—through our embodied experiences—that we encounter God. Therefore, we must think seriously about what it means to encounter God in and through each other’s embodiment, each other’s incarnation.

However, we do not simply encounter one another. There are narratives that shape the ways in which we encounter one another and how we make sense of such experiences. I want to focus this blog post on narratives and how they shape our encounters.

part II: narratives of the Other

“Stories make and unmake worlds.”

— Laurel Schneider, Beyond Monotheism

Words are powerful, and their utterance, like any act of power, is never merely neutral. No, the narratives they weave are making and unmaking our world. Once ingested, words get busy constructing images and concepts, building the narratives through which we attempt to make sense of everything—from wars to immigration to police brutality to meeting someone new to one’s own place in the cosmos. Narratives have the power to open us (bringing connection and healing), close us off (thereby re-inscribing fear, divisions, and hostility), or promote apathy.
This becomes particularly salient when encountering someone or something “strange,” “foreign,” or new. As such a moment of encounter makes potent, so much in our world and daily lives evades our comprehension. “Other” people act, love, speak, and look differently than “us,” and so we form a narrative (consciously or not) to help us make sense of why “they” do it.
As the renowned social and cognitive scientist Dan Sperber fascinatedly points out, somehow, without explicit instruction all humans learn to treat symbolically information that defies direct comprehension—that is, things we have never seen, felt, touched, tasted, or heard before.[1] Thus, in the face of the “Other’s” Great and Awesome Mystery homo sapiens become homo poeta, “humankind the meaning makers.”

We interpret each Other.

Indeed, as infinite Mysteries we treat each other symbolically (including those closest to us whom we *think* we know so well), conjuring up concepts and images that we have acquired over time through the narratives we’ve consumed—willingly or not. Consciously or not, it is through these narratives that we construct our physical world and “make sense” of (interpret) the Other who defies our comprehension, and whose “foreignness” might even incite fear within us.

Yes, in such a context, words are powerful. They are not neutral. They make and unmake worlds, for in every moment the stories they weave shape the decisions we make about how to relate to one another—both interpersonally and through the social structures we are creating.

We must therefore become conscious of those narratives by which we are conceiving and living in the world. Even more, we must “develop new habits of the mind” so that we might construct an alternative narrative that gives space to and celebrates differences / diversity.[2]

As theologians and others have been increasingly pointing out over the past half-century, narratives about our relations to one another—such as “us” vs. “them”—are intricately tied to our narratives about God. So it is to such narratives we now turn.

     §  orthodoxy and the narrative of God’s otherness

Since Rudolf Otto and Karl Barth, two of the most influential 20th century theologians, the notion of God as “Wholly Other” has permeated the modern western mind, from the theological academy to the church to even non-Christians and avowed atheists. This Wholly Other One is not only distinct from humanity and irreducible to its conceptions, but “He” [sic] is also absolutely separate from them.[3] Indeed, God is “imagined as inhabiting, indeed constituting, an external space of ontological elevation which is also the eternal telos (“end”) of all creatures,” even if we can say God is multiply present in creation.[4] Or, to put it more plainly: God is in heaven and you are on earth (and nothing can bridge that grand canyon but Christ).[5] Such imagery, however, stems from and insists on hierarchical and platonic thinking, where the immaterial divine realm alone is preeminently real and immutable and this lower, earthly one is but a fading placeholder.

Echoing Elizabeth Johnson’s incisive refrain, “The symbol of God functions,”[6] however, we proceed recognizing that conceiving God’s otherness as entailing separation from creation has negative implications not only for our visions of God, but also for the created world because it sets up real difference as antithetical to close relationship. Indeed, theological notions of God’s transcendence/otherness are inseparable “from theological notions of what a human being is and, as a consequence, of the meaning of inter-human differences.”[7] Therefore, “ideas about the divine Other are always related to our perceptions of and relationships with the human Other.”[8]

As such, symbolic representations of God’s otherness have tended to shape and perpetuate narratives that divide our world between “us” and “the Others.” And not only is there division, but the division itself continues the hierarchy along a descending chain of dependency away from God to men and then women, with further subgroupings of gender, race, class, ability, etc. along the way. With a painful awareness of the ways in which this “orthodox” hierarchical notion of God as Wholly Other and thus absolutely separate from creation has functioned throughout history to rationalize and justify the colonization and subsequent oppression of peoples both throughout history and in the present, we ask ourselves: is this really the only faithful way to envision God?[9]

Perhaps the most dominant contemporary western response to the violent and dehumanizing history of this “orthodox” notion of inter-human difference is a narrative that privileges notions of sameness.[10] Theologian Laurel Schneider has dubbed this narrative, “the Logic of the One.” Recognizing the difficulties posed by our differences, this reactionary narrative has simply sought to flatten them. Through a totalizing narrative that emphasizes homogeneity by wrapping each distinct Other into a universal One, this narrative promotes assimilation into the dominant group through the undressing of an Other’s otherness and the putting on of “like-us-ness.”

Intentionally or not, however, by downplaying our irreducible differences this narrative becomes a tool for maintaining the (typically unjust) status quo. Indeed, from the colonial project in its attempt to make one tribe out of the many nations,[11] to the Third Reich and Hitler’s desire for a single pure race, to the “All Lives Matter” reaction to the “Black Lives Matter” movement, the narrative has been used throughout history to justify the domination, subjugation, and silencing of peoples.[12]

So we ask ourselves again: is there another faithful way to imagine God?

     §  relational transcendence—re-imagining divine otherness

In light of the tragic failures of the narratives of otherness above, we return to theologian Mayra Rivera’s profound theological paradigm shift from a hierarchical transcendence of the Wholly Other One to a model of relational transcendence, which emphasizes that “it is always and only within creation that the divine Other is encountered.”[13] Indeed, relational transcendence refuses “the ‘hard boundary’ between the divine and the created;” rather, it affirms that “the beginning, sustenance, and transformation of the cosmos are intrinsically divine.”[14] Indeed,

“Creation is the extension of God.
Creation is God encountered in time and space.
Creation is the infinite in the garb of the finite.
To attend to creation is to attend to God.”[15]

Furthermore, in such a theology incarnation—flesh, bodies, faces, eyes—is paramount. And because bodies are particular—each one being unique/irreplaceable—incarnational theology also refuses to be reduced to the homogenizing narrative of Oneness described above. Indeed, the particularity of God’s fleshiness lies at the heart of the Christian Jesus,[16] but contrary to the narrative of the One which limits incarnation to Jesus alone, relational transcendence affirms that the theological revelation of the incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth points beyond itself: the flesh of the entire cosmos “emerge[s] from and participate[s] in the divine.”[17]

At this point, we must emphasize what Laurel Schneider has called the “metaphoric exemption,” reminding ourselves that “we, theologians and dreamers of God, are not God just because we are a noisy dream of God.”[18] And yet, we are “finite fragments of divine matter,” the radiant glory of God, as (St.) Iranaeus so boldly articulated 19 centuries ago. It is not simply that “God is in all things, as essence, presence, and potential,” but that the Trinitarian life is “intrinsic to all things.”[19] God is that which “envelopes the immense organism of which we are all part.”[20]

Once again, this is not to erase or downplay the Other’s difference—God’s or our own. On the contrary, I am implying and emphasizing it. In a model of relational transcendence, however, neither God’s otherness nor our own need be equated with separation. Instead, our irreducible differences allow for the intimacy of relationship (and the proximity it implies), “where the common is what surprises” and proves mutually—and radically—transformative.

Indeed, “like a soft breeze that blows over words written in the sand,” we can hear Augustine whispering softly in our ear, reminding us: “If you have understood, then it is not God. If you were able to understand, then you understood something else instead of God. If you were able to understand partially, then you have deceived yourself with your own thoughts.”[21] Indeed, to understand God would be to claim to grasp God’s irreducible otherness—to grasp God!

Through a model of relational transcendence we can also say that if you have “understood” any human Other, then it is not that Other but literally a figment of your imagination!

Our interpretation of the Other must never be mistaken for the Other him/her/themself.

Importantly, there need not be a contradiction here “if we can imagine God to be big enough to break the laws of theologians, to incarnate freely, to respond, again and again, in the flesh of the world.”[22] As Mother Teresa (and Jesus himself) was fond of saying, Jesus comes to us every day in disguise.

Oh, the scandal! Would that we had hearts to see! God and we are irreducibly Other—not absolutely Other—and this makes all the difference. Gathered together in God’s own infinite singularity, space is carved for the risky and vulnerable intimacy of encounter, of relationship, with each Other. In God’s nurturing, non-controlling embrace, each of our own irreducible infinitude—that which makes each of us Other, distinct—touches, like the quivering lips of forbidden lovers.

_______________________________________________
in my next and last post, I will attempt to offer a poetic articulation that seeks to evoke the power that this narrative opens for experiencing encounter.

(and now that you’ve suffered through this long post, if you’re interested in the ideas I attempted to articulate above, I strongly encourage you to listen to this brilliant TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about the danger of a single story)

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[1] Dan Sperber, Rethinking Symbolism. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1975, 148.
[2] Rivera, Touch of Transcendence, 118.
[3] Ibid., 4.
[4] Ibid., 23; emphasis mine.
[5] Ibid., quoting Karl Barth, Epistle to the Romans.
[6] Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad, 1992.
[7] Rivera, Touch of Transcendence, 2.
[8] Ibid., 128.
[9] Cf. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, The Power of the Word: Scripture and the Rhetoric of Empire. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. 2007, 97.
[10] Rivera, The Touch of Transcendence, ix.
[11] See especially the chapter entitled “Colenso’s Heart” in Willie James Jennings groundbreaking book, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race.
[12] I can’t really do these narratives nor a discussion of their difficulties justice in such a short post, but if you’re interested in further reading on the topic, I highly recommend Willie Jennings’ book above, The Christian Imagination, again especially the chapter “Colenso’s Heart,” or Laurel Schneider’s book, Beyond Monotheism: A Theology of Multiplicity, especially Part I: “The Logic of the One.”
[13] Rivera, The Touch of Transcendence, 2. Emphasis mine.
[14] Ibid., 133.
[15] Pirke Avot, 6.2.
[16] Ibid., 159.
[17] Rivera, 128; emphasis mine.
[18] Schneider, Beyond Monotheism, 154.
[19] Rivera, The Touch of Transcendence, 46; quoting Ignacio Ellacuría.
[20] Ibid., 136.
[21] Augustine, Sermon 52, c. 1, n. 16.
[22] Schneider, Beyond Monotheism, 154.

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to see god face to face—part III: toward a theopoetics of encounter

part III: toward a theo-poetics and of encounter

“I confess my lack of piety: I am unable to love God. I am unable to love anything in the abstract. I need a face, a voice, the gaze of an eye, the touch of a hand.”

—Rubem Alves, Transparencies of Eternity

“We constantly fail to encounter the other as Other. Time and again we ignore or deny the singularity of the Other—we don’t see even when the face stands in front of us. We still need, it seems, ‘eyes to see and ears to hear’—and bodies capable of embracing without grasping. Are we not confronting a paradox here? The possibility of transformation lies in the encounter with the transcendence in the flesh of the Other, and yet how can we meet the other as Other—as transcendent to us—if we are not ourselves transformed?”

—Mayra Rivera, The Touch of Transcendence

I remember Miguel. How could I forget this man and the moment of our encounter — the conditions of our encounter? I was traveling through the Borderlands of the US and Mexico with classmates from a seminar at Harvard Divinity School studying immigration in the United States. On that day in March 2015, Miguel’s world and ours touched at El Comedor, a Jesuit-run shelter and dining area, and the first building one crosses after being deported from the US into Nogales, Mexico. Miguel, who was a permanent US resident, had just been separated from his family and deported for a “moral” infraction that morning.

Yes, I remember Miguel. Most of all, I remember Miguel’s eyes — their weariness spoke of disorientation, sorrow and longing. His wife, daughter, and son — US citizens — remained in California. His daughter was applying for colleges. I remember how his eyes beamed with pride and immense love while tears of joy streaked his face as he talked about her. But then, almost immediately, they were pierced by worry and trauma, trauma at the pain he knew his wife and children were enduring — that he was enduring — in his swift and unexpected deportation and their uncertain future. As his story wove its way into our own, Miguel’s eyes gleamed with the fullness of his singular infinitude.

There is much I don’t know — and never could know—about Miguel. Yet his face and eyes, his joy and sorrow, have carved for themselves a manger in mind and heart, a seat in me`ah—a Biblical Hebrew word rich in imagery that is, sadly, often lost in its figurative translation to English as “heart,” but which literally means “bowels.”[1] Yes, to encounter anOther is to be touched, to be marked at one’s visceral, bodily depths. Indeed, my encounter with Miguel continues, both of us and the multiplicity we carry being born again–re-incarnated–every day, for

“The transcendent Other leaves her trace in our flesh. The traces of Others whom we have encountered in the past are thus also present in our subsequent encounters with other Others. In each encounter, the self and the Other find themselves in indirect relation to multiple Others and thus with other times and places that are not fully present, here and now. All of those times and places meet, as it were, in today’s encounter…[as] we open ourselves to new incarnations of their transcendence.”[2]

Have you ever paused long enough to peer into the tehom–into the primordial “depths”–of another’s eyes? To gaze upon the vast horizon to which they open us is to be touched and forever transformed at the depths of oneself. There is something undeniable, extra-ordinary, even magical that happens to us when “the gleam of transcendence in the flesh of the Other…induces in us a feeling of wonder, surprise, and astonishment”—when we come to see each Other not merely as “something through which an external divinity shows itself, but the very brilliance of God.”[3] Indeed, how, then, could we meet the other as Other—as transcendent to us—and not ourselves be transformed?[4] We cannot!

Through encounter we are “shaping each other’s otherness toward new births”[5]—metaphorically, theologically, sure, but also literally, physically, for our bodies “are porously open to each other,” “always in a state of exchange.”[6] Boundaries exist, “but they exist temporally and spatially, meaning that they are always in a state of emerging and passing away.” Our skin cells, our hair, our microscopic tissue are constantly being carried away on the winds of divine breath and “sometimes indiscriminately enter[] neighboring bodies in passing.”[7]

In the episode “Deeper, Deeper, Deeper Still” of his popular series, Cosmos, astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson invites his viewer to breathe with him. A brief moment later, he makes the seemingly fantastical and absurd statement that “we all just inhaled 100 million molecules that once passed through the lungs of every one who ever lived before us.” No, that’s not a typo. As he states again in an article for the Hayden Planetarium, “A single breath-full draws in more air molecules than there are breathfuls of air in Earth’s entire atmosphere.” That means that some of the air you just breathed once passed through the lungs of Jesus and Mary and even Miguel. Indeed, “This process of flux and exchange characterizes bodies from conception.”[8]

From conception through death we are literally making each Other! We are made up of each Other!!!

Have you ever experienced encounter in this way–not only where you have seen the Other but where the Other has seen you (and your otherness)? A few years ago, I would not have even known what this question meant. But now—now I could never forget it! There is something undeniable, extra-ordinary, indeed magical that also happens to us when we are seen, when an Other’s touch pierces our own boundaries with a tenderness that whispers in our ear: I see you; no, I know I don’t comprehend you, but I do see you. I see that you are marked by a history of encounters—from once gaping scars now congealed to tender wounds only beginning to heal; you are marked in such a way that I—even you yourself—could never comprehend. For

You are
The Word enfleshed,
A library of sacred texts.
You are a calligraphic sketch,
A well-worn palimpsest.
In your tehomic depths,
In your bone and flesh,
Is etched
A universe’s history,
Of finitude, a virtual infinity.
Truth the tehom cannot enfold
Pours out through your flesh and bone.
Divine excess, like placenta flows
Subtending, opening, calling
“Let there be,” and
You are

Yes, to be seen, to be touched in this way is to be born anew, re-incarnated; it is to feel the cosmos shift; it is to experience a healing, a reconciliation that stuns poets to silence.

Once we open ourselves to the transcendence of the Other in encounter there is no returning, for in that intimate moment of vulnerability we discover how intricately and inextricably our humanity is intertwined. The earth and all that is in it transfigured before our face, we discover that the truth of the cosmos is not “I think, therefore I am,” but rather “I am human because I belong,”[9] for “to be born human is to be born angled toward an other and others.”[10] Indeed, we only realize our humanity as Others participate in it and as we participate in theirs. Thus it is to encounter the infinite multiplicity of divinity in its irreducibly singular incarnation. Thus it is to encounter the glory of God; to be fully human; to be fully alive.

Indeed, our response to the Other—especially in the face of one hanging from the gallows before us—“is not a secondary response to the encounter with God, but it’s primary moment.”[11] As in a manger in Bethlehem, at table in Capernaum, and the hillsides of Galilee; as on a mount called Golgotha and the road to Emmaus—still today: a single encounter with the Other alters histories and universes beyond our wildest imagining—if only we have narratives that open and move us to embrace each Others’ irreducible mystery as Emmanuel, “God with us.”

part IV: faint rumblings of an ethics of encounter

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come here because your liberation is bound up in mine, then let us work together.” —Aboriginal Activists Group, Queensland, 1970s

“Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. … Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” —Martin Luther King, Jr,. “Letter from a Birmingham jail”

Jon Ames, the grace-filled and aged country pastor in Marilynn Robinson’s masterpiece, Gilead, writes in a letter to his young son whom he will not live to see grow up: There is something important I must tell you, “which my father told me, and which his father told him. When you encounter another person…it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation?”[12] Yes, to encounter an Other is to have a question put to you; or, perhaps, is to put yourself into question. It is to put the western narrative of individualistic altruism into question. It is to re-imagine ethics.

For many, charity, justice, and love are viewed hierarchically—even if unintentionally. In encounter, this narrative manifests as: I help you because I have what you need—because you are a poor, unfortunate soul, and I, in my comparable riches have much to offer you. I am moved to action through pity. I / We come to save you / them. As I have emphasized throughout, such a narrative is not only misguided in its predication on encounter as a one-way exchange, but it also inherently undermines human dignity.

The question that arises from our theo-poetics of encounter, then, is this: what might our ethics look like if we saw our becoming from a place of inextricable interconnectedness, interdependence, interbeing? How might this differ from what often narrates our lives (if we’re honest with ourselves): an individualistic and self-aggrandizing “altruism”?

The implications of such a re-imagining and re-framing of ethics are nothing less than earth shifting; they are radical in the truest sense of the word: they go to the root! As Lila Watson, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., and so many Others have given their bodies, indeed their very lives, to proclaim: (yes, hear the euangelion–“gospel” / “good news”–again, as if for the first time) our liberation, our freedom, our healing, our reconciliation, our salvation is bound together! All of these are relational realities. No one is an island. Injustice in Ferguson, Staten Island, Charleston, Pine Ridge, Gaza City, Nogales, the Tohono O’odham Nation–injustice anywhere–is injustice against all of us. Do we perceive it yet? Since before our birth, by no choosing of our own, we have been intrinsically interdependent. We begin and are ever on the Way, becoming, together.

postlude

I do not want to decipher the mystery. I want questions that provoke, evoke, inspire and impel–questions that carry me off my feet and, like the Breath of God, blow me where they will. I do not want answers that enclose and confine. “I want the sea and not the harbor.”[13] For

We are transfigurines
Bodies of glory as of one never seen
From stardust to stardust conceived and returning
Irreducible infinitude ever re-incarnating
Before each Other’s eyes, face, and body

Is our imagination faithful enough…
Is our faith imaginative enough…
Have we the openness to see
Divinity enfleshing humanity
Even if only in a mirror dimly?

/ / /

“provocations of incatenation”*

by eric j. ogi

there are songs inside of our souls
that we can hear in eagles’ wings,
in a caged bird taking to flight–
no walls or bars can hold it inside.

unraveling balls of thread
weave the blankets on our beds.
but they cover more than our weary souls,
they tie our hearts together and never let go
they never let go. . .

can you see your face in mine
when you look into my eyes
can you begin to paint a world you’ve never seen
beyond the foreground of your own reality?

are border walls our salvation’s crown?
the crucifixion of the Other, fear’s embodied song.
have we forgotten the story’s tune?
christ was crucified only to return.

yes, stories are what we need–
mirrors to infinitude beyond our grasping.
provocations of incatenation,
we are webs that can’t be undone,
we can’t be undone. . .

can you see your face in mine
when you look into my eyes
can you begin to paint a world you’ve never seen
beyond the foreground of your own reality?

*this song was birthed out of my travels through–and encounters with individuals in–Israel-Palestine and the US-Mexico borderlands (the latter for a class at Harvard Divinity School on immigration in America). the chorus–“can you see you face in mine…”–is a question i imagine being put to me by Others. it is a question that confronts, provokes, implicates, and ultimately invites into a new way of being.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[1] Cf. Jeremiah 31:20; Isaiah 63:15; Lamentations 1:20.
[2] River, The Touch of Transcendence, 116-117.
[3] Ibid., 138.
[4] Ibid., 119.
[5] Ibid., 122.
[6] Schneider, Beyond Monotheism, 159.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness. New York: Doubleday. 1999, 31.
[10] Rivera, The Touch of Transcendence, 129; here she is quoting Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.
[11] Ibid., 71.
[12] Marilynne Robinson, Gilead. New York: Picador. 2006, 119.
[13] Rubem Alves, The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet, 9.

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o, my soul

below is a reflection on the cross, Jesus’ few words there, and the unrelenting struggle to find hope and strength in the midst of the deepest despair, when it seems as though hell is swallowing you whole and death has permeated your bones. it was birthed at this time last year, in the midst of my own darkness and despair. i hope it speaks to anyone else who is likewise learning to walk in the dark.

o, my soul

wilts neath what’s left of my flesh and bones

and i can barely breathe

o, my lungs

pierced liked a spear in my side

God, where have you gone

and i’m left here alone

upon this forsaken tree

why have you forsaken me?

have you forsaken me?

o, my heart

gently ripped from my chest

laid bare before me

o, my God,

i long for you now, and i wait . . .

where have you gone,

and i’m here alone

upon this forsaken tree

why have you forsaken me?

have you forsaken me?

even still,

though angels of death surround,

my love, my life

into your hands i commit.

though my lungs may fail

and my breathing cease

though my eyes go blind

and i no longer see

even still, even still

your blood will run through me

weaving webs of eternity

delicately holding me

o, can this really be,

that in death there is peace?

o, my God,

i stand here and wait for you

i will wait for you

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“thy kingdom come”

For a while now, I’ve had the Lord’s Prayer on my mind—this prayer that many of us have prayed so many times throughout our lives that we may well have stopped thinking about what it is we’re actually saying.

But I want to reclaim what I believe to be the heart of this famous prayer: a radically revolutionary vision of justice, equity, and restoration to wholeness for all the earth.

As I was preparing to write this, there was a song that kept running through my head. You’ve probably heard it before. If not, take a minute–especially the chorus. You won’t regret it!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOGEyBeoBGM&w=420&h=315]

(doesn’t it almost feel as though you’ve just been rick roll’d? Ha!)

 

I don’t know that Belinda Carlisle had the Kingdom of God in mind when she sang this song, but I think she was on to something.

But first, let’s set the scene for this prayer:

About 150 years before Jesus was born, there was a Roman man named Aemelius Sura who famously proclaimed that there were five great empires that had ruled the world. The great empire of Rome, he declared, having been exalted by the gods, had reached the highest point yet achieved on earth. It was the fifth and climactic kingdom, “the empire of the world.” (1)

About that same time, there was a Jewish man named Daniel—you may recognize his name from the book of Daniel in the Old Testament. Daniel also refers to these four great kingdoms that have ruled the world. But for Daniel, the climactic fifth kingdom was not Rome, but the Kingdom of God—and here’s the important part: “it stood against all imperial kingdoms before, during, or after its advent.” (2)

This brings us back to the crux of the prayer Jesus teaches his disciples:

Thy kingdom come

Thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven

(cue Miss Carlisle once more. . .)

Now, Jesus wasn’t praying for a theocracy. But by stating it this way, Jesus was taking his prayer out of a merely spiritual realm and placing it in his lived social context. It was a bold critique of Rome and the powers that be, a declaration that they were at odds with the Kingdom of God. In short, Jesus’ words—epitomizing his entire ministry—were an affront to the power structures of his day.

But Jesus didn’t merely critique. He offered an alternative. He proclaimed that God’s heavenly Kingdom was in fact already present right there in the midst of the oppressive and unjust rule of Rome. Yes, people could enter into it there and then (as opposed to pie in the sky when we die bye and bye). And yet, it was also clear that the Kingdom of God had not yet fully arrived, for the Kingdom of Rome was clearly still running the show.

Already, but not yet. Two thousand years later, this paradox is still our reality: we live in the in-between.

As in Jesus’ ministry, we encounter the already present Kingdom of God here and now in acts of radical hospitality, inclusivity, compassion and justice. But here is the challenge ever set before us: the continual building of this Kingdom—of the great restoration of all creation, not just some of it, to dignity and wholeness. And this can only take place with our participation. God is apparently not interested in doing this alone. No, the coming of the Kingdom will not occur with a “flash of lightning,” as in the popular “Rapture” faux-theology, but as a result of a long and arduous process of mutual cooperation between humanity and God.

To paraphrase St. Augustine: “God without us, will not; as we, without God, cannot.”

So why is this Kingdom message still relevant for us today?

Because we live in the current “world empire” and global superpower. And while I’m grateful to be a citizen of this country—for its freedoms, for its contributions and advancements to science, art, and technology—our imperial American empire has continually ignored the fact that injustice is enshrined in and thus perpetuated by the very systems and institutions governing it. No, we are not the pinnacle of humankind. In fact, we have a long ways to go!

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus challenges us to have the freedom of mind to imagine an alternative world beyond our present reality, to have the audacity to maintain hope in its coming despite the present pervasiveness of oppression and injustice, and to offer our hands, our feet, and our voices to the long and arduous construction process justice requires.

But there is another sort of religious word, I think, that has gotten in the way of this justice work: charity.

Since we often conflate the two and seem to prefer charity over justice, I want to end by clarifying, in my eyes, their differences and the importance this difference makes in building the Kingdom of God.

Perhaps a story will help us here:

There was once a small town built just beyond a large bend in the Mississippi River. On one particular day some children from the town were playing along the shoreline, giggling and making up games as kids do, when they noticed three bodies floating downstream. Frightened, they jumped on their bikes and burst back to town shouting for help. Without hesitation, several people sprinted to the riverside, dove in and pulled the bodies out of the river.

One body was dead so they held a funeral and buried it. One was alive, but quite ill, so they took him to the hospital. The third turned out to be a healthy, though shaken child, who, after an unsuccessful search for her parents, was adopted and raised by a loving family.

From that day on, however, every day a number of bodies came floating down the river, and every day, the good people of the town would pull them out and tend to them—taking the sick to hospitals, placing the children with families, and burying those who were dead.

This went on for years; each day bringing its quota of bodies. The townsfolk not only came to expect numerous bodies each day, but also began developing more elaborate systems for picking them out of the river and tending to them. Some became well known for their generosity in tending to these bodies, and a few even gave up their jobs so that they could do so full-time. The town established a reputation in the greater region for their incredible generosity, a great pride of the local community.

However, during all these years and despite all that generosity and effort, nobody thought to go up the river, beyond the bend that hid from their sight what was above them, and find out why, daily, those bodies came floating down the river. (3)

As this story illustrates, there is a fundamental difference between charity and justice.

Charity addresses the outcomes of an unjust society—it takes the bodies out of the river, gets them the care they need, and a support structure to grow up in—acts that are vital and important, no doubt, but which will never eliminate the injustice, for they don’t get at the root cause, which is the work of justice.

Justice travels up the river to discover and change the reasons that people are ending up in the river wounded and dead in the first place. Moving beyond our story, justice looks at the systems in place so as to name and change those structural things that account for the fact that some in our society are unduly penalized even as others are unduly privileged (4). Justice has to do with issues such as poverty, educational inequity, racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and all other structural impediments that deny individuals and groups of people their inherent dignity and wholeness, and full participation in society.

Justice inevitably has to do with how we organize ourselves as a society, which is to say that justice inherently deals with the political. This is why, I believe, we have elevated charity over justice. It’s vastly easier, much sexier, and far less controversial. Even major corporations have gotten in on it! The famous line from Brazilian Catholic Archbishop Hélder Câmara makes the point well: “When I feed the poor, they call me a saint; when I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.”

I close with the questions this reflection has engraved in my mind and heart:

Do you have the imagination to envision a just and equitable world? Are we, followers of Jesus, willing to embody the radical vision and mission of justice and equity at the heart of our most sacred prayer? What can each of you do to educate and involve yourself with justice issues in Madison and globally? And how can you spread that vision? How can you empower others in your community to lend their hands, feet, and voices to the cause of Justice, in solidarity with—not for!—the marginalized and oppressed. How can you be a part of the building of God’s kingdom on earth?

all my love,
eric.joseph

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Sources:

1. Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History, 2.131.

2. John Domminic Crossan, The Greatest Prayer, 74.

3. story adapted from “Justice and Charity: A Parable” by Ronald Rolheiser in Living God’s Justice.

4. Dennis Arthur Conners, Preparing School Leaders to Ensure Equity and Work Toward Social Justice

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The God of incarnation: with us, for us, and ahead of us

Everyone seems to have their own ideas and images as to who God is: whether it’s an old white man in the sky with a flowing white beard,

old god

a God who is Love

heart jesus

 or a tribal God who leads His people in battle against His enemies, as in the God of the crusades or even the God of Christianity vs. Islam vs. Judaism vs. Atheism etc.

tribal jesus

Martin Buber, who was one of the great religious philosophers of the 20th century once said that the word “God” has been so defiled and covered with blood that it should be retired from our vocabulary, at least until it recovers from such abuse. (1)

But as much as we are frustrated by the pervasive and disgusting misuse of this word, humanity seems unable to sever itself completely from the quest to encounter the reality behind the word. I think that’s why there are so many who identify as “spiritual” even if not “officially religious” in our generation.

I think Jane Fonda captures this well. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, she was asked about her controversial late-in-life conversion to Christianity (because, why the hell would a well-educated and well-off adult convert to Christianity?!). In her response, she spoke of being drawn to faith because

“I could feel a reverence humming in me.” (2)

I like that.

Try as many of us may, we simply cannot escape this reverence that hums within us when we experience moments that are deeply life-giving, moments where we sense something beyond that which meets the eye.

We recently entered the Advent season, a season filled with longing and preparation where we reflect on the state of our souls and the state of our world as we await the coming of God in that “8lb 6oz newborn infant Jesus, don’t even know word yet, just a little infant, so cuddly but still omnipotent” on Christmas. I love the Advent season; I love the lectionary readings that draw us into the ancient narrative of longing for God to redeem creation. With them, I look deep within to my own stirring soul and out at our world groaning with the pangs of brokenness, and I, too, yearn for God to bring shalom, wholeness.

I do have a complaint, though. I am frustrated that conversations about Jesus’ birth narratives, including the virginal birth, get limited to whether or not history literally happened the way Matthew and Luke present it (note: the birth stories are only part of these two Gospels. Mark and John–and Paul in his letters–apparently weren’t concerned enough with the birth of Jesus to write about it).

I believe the God we encounter in the incarnation—in the belief that God took on human flesh in Jesus—is infinitely more profound if we go beyond a sole focus on historical fact and instead probe the profound depths of insight it gives us for thinking about God. In a world where God is too often used to exclude and perpetuate injustice, I believe the incarnation gives us a picture of a God who is:

with us,

for us,

and ahead of us. (3)

“O come o come Emmanuel” is my favorite hymn of this season. Emmanuel—which literally translates to “God with us” is the longing cry and the expectant song of hope of this season. It is our reminder and our declaration that the God we believe in does not sit idly by while we experience the depths of despair or heights of joy or the mundane in between. One of the most profound truths of the incarnation and the Christmas stories is that God is not distant. And not only is God not distant, but God has actually entered into the messiness of creation with all its chaos, injustice and suffering.

This idea is taken to profound depths when considering Jesus’ life and death. Just as God, in Jesus, was with the people of Jesus’ day, especially in solidarity with those on the margins, so is God with us—all of us—but especially those on the margins of our society and those whose humanity has been denigrated. And get this—this is crazy!—through the lens of the incarnation, not only is God not distant but, paradoxically, in Jesus’ death on the cross, God was crucified! Wrap your mind around that!

Through the incarnation, we encounter a God who we can not only say identifies with our suffering, but even suffers with us. A God who suffers with us!

Not only does the incarnation reveal a God who is with us, it also reveals a God who is utterly and irrevocably for us. And perhaps here I should clarify: by us, I do not merely mean Christians. No, God is utterly and irrevocably for all of creation, as all of creation is made in the image of God. If you’ve been told that you are “less than” or an “abomination,” or a “deviation from the norm;” if you’ve been denigrated, excluded or marginalized—not only is God with you as you endure this dehumanization, but God is for you as you journey to truly claim, celebrate, and live into your identities and truest self.

In pondering the “who” or “what” or “when” or “where” or “why” in the for-ness of God, I return again to Jesus as the particular through which to make sense of the abstract and ultimately mysterious Universal Reality we call God. When we do that, we find a God whose gospel critiques pride and arrogance, which divide people, and elevates humility, empathy and compassion, which bind us together and enable us to find our own humanity in and through one another. Jesus embodied this message by not only standing in solidarity with the marginalized and denigrated of his day, but by daily advocating for their full inclusion—for the full recognition of their humanity by the people and society denigrating them (namely the religious leaders of the day).

The God revealed in the incarnation of Jesus is a God who is utterly and irrevocably for you as you journey to truly claim, celebrate, and live into your truest identities and truest self.

Lastly, God is ahead of us. For me, this belief is grounded in the inherent reality that God is ultimately beyond full human comprehension. In fact, the moment we begin to insist that God is confined to any one particular image or set of images, we risk idolatry—worshiping an idea about God rather than the Ultimate and Ineffable Mystery that is always beyond, always more than our words can say. St. Augustine put this quite well in one of his sermons when he said, “If you have understood it, then it is not God.” (4)

To make my point, let me give you some of the ways in which God is conceived or imagined throughout the Bible:

In addition to the preeminent image of Father, God is depicted as mother, a female beloved, companion, and friend. In addition to King, God is an advocate and liberator, a shepherd, midwife, farmer, laundress, construction worker, potter, artist, merchant, physician, baker woman, vinedresser, teacher, metal worker, and homemaker. Did you know that imagery is used of God as a woman giving birth, nursing her young, as a hovering mother bird, an angry mother bear, and a protective mother hen? In addition to God as a Being, God is depicted as a cloud, a rock, wind, fire, a light, refreshing water, and life itself. (5)

Clearly, we aren’t meant to take any of these literally. God is always beyond the literalization of words and images. What this myriad of images—and their contexts in the Bible—shows us is that God is revealed to us in new ways as we encounter new situations. It’s not that God changes; rather our ability to perceive the “when” “where” “why” and “how” of God changes.

In the Hebrew Scriptures—the Old Testament—there’s a story of a man named Jacob who has a magnificent dream one night. When he wakes up, he exclaims, “Surely God was in this place and I, I wasn’t aware of it.” (6)

The work of each generation and each group of people is to “wake up” and have eyes to see and hearts to discern the “wheres” and “hows” of God’s presence in light of their present context and realities, even as they remain grounded in their historical tradition. For example:

“Who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why” and “how” is God in light of the history and experiences—of denigration as well as life-giving—of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals? or African-Americans, or black people worldwide? or women? or people with disabilities? or the homeless and poor? or any combination of these and/or other identities? or in light of the ecological crisis our generation faces? the list could go on. . .

In his most recent book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, Rob Bell writes that in the Bible we encounter a God who meets “people, tribes, and cultures right where they are [but then] draw[s] and invit[es] and call[s] them forward, into greater and greater shalom and respect and rights and peace and dignity and equality. It’s as if human history were progressing along a trajectory, an arc, a continuum; and sacred history is the capturing and recording of those moments when people became aware that they were being called and drawn and pulled forward by the divine force and power and energy that gives life to everything.” (7)

The idea of God incarnating a poor Jewish peasant was inconceivable for many in its 1st century Palestinian Jewish context. It required a radical freedom of imagination and a deep encounter with the divine.

So here’s my question to you: this Advent season as you prepare your heart to discover and encounter the incarnation anew—the truth that God is with us, for us, and ahead of us—how might the divine be drawing you forward? And what insights might your own encounters with the divine provide our community for “who” “where” “when” “how” and “why” is God in our midst?

all my love,                                                                                                                                                     eric joseph

—————————————————————————————————————-

(1) from Elizabeth A. Johnson’s Quest for the Living God, p. 9                                          
(2) unable to access article without a subscription; however, she states her point similarly on her website here: http://janefonda.com/about-my-faith/                       
(3) I’ve borrowed this framework from Rob Bell and his 2013 book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God. The way I develop it using the lens of the incarnation, however, is my own work.                        
(4) Sermon 117.5            
(5) Johnson, Quest for the Living God, p. 21                                                            
(6) Genesis 28:16                                                                                            
(7) pp. 164-165

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in search of a real and relevant faith

[the following is an adaptation of a sermon i gave at the Crossing for our first Vespers service of the new school year (09/08/13)]

The beginning of a new school year can bring with it the full range of emotions—from expectant excitement at new possibilities to anxiety about unknowns to homesickness for what you’ve left behind. On some level, it may feel daunting, as if you’re staring at a blank page. But, a blank page also presents us with opportunity. It reminds us that our lives are a novel and there is much yet to be written.

Perhaps a blank page is a good place to begin a new school year spiritually as well.

Each of us has chapters already written in our ongoing epic that speak to our experiences with religion and Christianity: Perhaps you have seen nothing but lemon drops and gumdrops, even when it rained. You were active in your home church or youth group, you were included, and faith was made relevant to you. You’re a rarity—the number of people defining their experience like this is continually decreasing.

Perhaps your experience has been defined by negative, painful, even scarring encounters with the church and Christians. Perhaps you or someone you know and love has been subjected to homophobia, transphobia, sexism and racism justified by the Bible and a refusal to see your humanity. Perhaps you’ve mostly experienced a Christianity that is divisive, hypocritical, judgmental, and a perpetuator of an unjust status quo. Perhaps you’ve been dismayed by your experience of the church as an overtly partisan political player, or as being anti-science and ignoring creation stewardship even as our global climate crisis grows ever more threatening. Unfortunately, you’re part of a segment in our national population that has long been growing.

I’m guessing most of us have experienced a frustrating combination of both. I know that’s been my experience, at least.

When I was a college student, I began asking tough questions about God and Jesus, the Bible, heaven and hell, gender and sexual diversity and people of other religions—questions that stemmed from me trying to understand my faith more deeply and make it more relevant my life as a 21st century young adult who had friends who were gay and Jewish and Muslim. However, I was told by people in the campus ministry with which I was involved that my questions were out of bounds, and indicated that I was “losing my faith.” Meanwhile, I was supposed to accept answers to all my earnest and honest questions that felt sterile and pre-packaged, often simplistic, removed from reality, and ultimately unhelpful.

As a result, I began developing a frustrated sentiment similar to that expressed below by Abraham Joshua Heschel, an extraordinary Jewish rabbi profoundly involved with Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Civil Rights movement, who said:

“It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion has declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion—its message becomes meaningless.”

Indeed, the message of religion has too often been rendered meaningless for our world.

As a result of the negative reactions I was getting to the questions I was asking, I too became disillusioned with Christians and just stopped going to church. And yet, spirituality—and particularly Jesus—has always claimed me deep in my bones. I couldn’t escape that.

And so, I began searching for a relevant faith and faith community that lived in and addressed 21st century issues open-mindedly and emphasized truly following in the radical way of Jesus rather than subscribing to a primarily spiritualized and dogmatic religion. I was looking for a spiritual community that was engaged in the most pressing and controversial issues of social and environmental injustice of our day; a place that embraced doubt as a check on certainty, and probing questions as a sign of an engaged faith. I was looking for a community of followers of Jesus that truly loved all people with the unconditional grace, mercy, truth and compassion I found in Jesus of Nazareth.

Paul describes this sort of community well in his exhortation to the diverse community in Rome (12.1-3, 9-21; 13.8-10). And so—with blank page in hand—let this be our vision for what a relevant faith and faith community could look like (my own paraphrase):

Present your whole bodies, that is, every aspect of your life to God—not just going to church on Sundays or Bible study on Wednesdays or doing a service project once a month or any other box you are checking off.

Do not be conformed to the consumeristic, materialistic, militaristic, and overly-individualistic ways of the world and of our age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, your inner-self.

In a world that tells you that it’s all about you—let go of your ego, your pride, your need to be right; let go of self-righteousness; but don’t forget that you are valuable and that you do have unique gifts to contribute.

In a society full of façades and fake smiles covering oceans of deception—in everything from relationships to politics to business to, yes, religion—let your smile and your love be deep and genuine; in this generation where one has a thousand “Facebook friends” and yet drowns in a sea of loneliness, might we finally make manifest the dream of a “beloved community” where deep and diverse relationships are formed and one another’s greatest joys and deepest sorrows shared; a community that practices radical hospitality, seeking out and welcoming those who are new to our country, city, or community, as well as those marginalized by the wider church and society.

In a world that worships redemptive violence and still lives by the pax Romana seeking to establish peace through war, you are never to return evil with evil; rather extend your love and forgiveness even to those who may define themselves as your enemy, for “darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that; likewise hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that (MLK).”

Beloved, live life with passion and know that everything in the Bible—from the law and the Prophets to Jesus’ gospel proclamation—boils down to this: “loving God, by loving creation and your neighbor as yourself. Therefore, in all things “err” on the side of love and inclusivity, for that is the very heart of the gospel, the meaning of the message of Christ.

 

Pfew. That’s a lot to live into. But in a world where religion has too often been rendered meaningless or irrelevant and even oppressive, isn’t it’s invitation refreshing?

May God grant us grace and inspiration in our quest to creatively reimagine Christianity for our generation—not by throwing out tradition and that which has gone before us. But, in living by the spirit of Paul’s call (as I paraphrased above), by breathing new life back into it by wrestling humbly and open-mindedly with relevant questions about the meaning of God, Jesus and the Bible for our world in our context, profoundly engaged with today’s most pressing issues and injustices.

 

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“because your liberation is bound up in mine…”

[this is a blog i initially wrote in the summer of 2012 while living in a small palestinian arab village in galilee, israel]

when i initially left the states, i don’t think i realized how much “alone time” i would have here in Israel. as lame as it may sound, i have been spending a good amount of time reading, thinking, and writing of late; and it has honestly been rich and exciting (for the most part). it has given me space to slow down and step away from the busy-ness that so easily consumes our lives and think, among other things, about who i am and the kind of person i desire to become. and so, this post isn’t directly related to Israel-Palestine, though i could easily connect it to it. it is much bigger.

first, i should say that though it seems we live in a “rebellious” “post-label” society, i actually think labels can be helpful if we assume their inherent limited-ness and don’t confine ourselves (or others) to them, but rather use them as sign-posts on a journey of deeper understanding.

i’ve been quite introspective lately, reflecting on who i am. what characteristics or actions come to mind in trying to describe myself, i’ve pondered? what words open dusty stained-glass windows  to pier out upon the vast horizon of my soul?

i don’t know exactly what others would say, but the first word that comes to my mind – and has for some time – is empathy. my dictionary tells me that empathy is “the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.” indeed. yet this word and my attempts to explain it further has never seemed to sufficiently convey the height and depth of its magnitude as i experience it (and as i know others experience it as well).  maybe that’s because we’ve domesticated it? it’s a nice word. we use it to try to tell people we relate to them and their experience. “i feel your pain,” the unhelpful old proverbial phrase goes. again, labels are limited, but how to meaningfully and succinctly point to this reality that is truly much more profound than old cliches?

and then i recently came across the following quote that left me connecting other previously collected quotes in a way that just blew my mind. it was an “AHA!” moment that moved me to sudden joy, as if scales just instantly fell from my eyes. it was beautiful. speaking to those looking to stand with the indigenous population in Australia against the injustices being committed against them, Lilla Watson and the Aboriginal activist group in Queensland, Australia, 1970 put forth this quote:

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come here because your liberation is bound up in mine, then let us work together.”

That’s it! My liberation is bound up in that of my neighbor’s! As a Christian, I would say that my salvation is bound up in your salvation. that is, salvation is not merely about us as individuals, but rather more about us as a larger community, indeed all of humanity, as sisters and brothers the world over! and as this quote points out — in line with the Gospel, i would say — our identifying with those who have suffered or are suffering is not merely to stem from a place of guilt or mere pity, and our call to action should not dress itself in the garb of some sort of “savior complex,” as though you or me or we must save all those poor souls as if everything depends on us and our action. identifying with others at its core is to come from a much more profound realization and experience of our interconnectedness. ultimately, what i’m trying to convey is much more than a change in semantics; it is an entire paradigm shift toward a truth i believe exists deep within each of us but is difficult to truly grasp, and only in uncovering it and living into it are we able to become ever more like the human beings God desires us to be. Indeed, to become more like God.

this realization finally gave me adequate words to describe an aspect of my being that i have had difficulty conveying even though i “knew” it, and it does so especially when paralleled with the following quotes i’ve collected. i hope they inspire you as they’ve inspired me that together we might become more than who we presently are–more fully who we truly are as the Imago Dei (image of God).

—– (in explaining the indigenous South African humanist philosophy of ‘ubuntu’): “Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. It speaks to the very essence of being human…It is to say, “my humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours.” We belong in a bundle of life. We say “a person is a person through other persons.”” — Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness

—– “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s own chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others” — Nelson Mandela

—– “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” — Mother Teresa

—– “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” — Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from a Birmingham jail

—– “We are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (p.s. in case you haven’t seen this, you should!)

all my love,
eric.joseph

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Healing the Heart of the 9/11 Generation

[below is a reflection i wrote on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 about growing up in its aftermath]

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 has come and gone, my brain has been flooded by images and stories from that fateful day. I have seen the haunting videos of the buildings going up in flames played and re-played (more times than I care to), and people scrambling frantically as they try to make sense of living in a reality almost completely foreign to most us. But, I have also been deeply moved by those who have responded to their great personal loss that day with difficult stories of moving forward in forgiveness.

It has all made me recall that ominous day 10 years ago for myself, as I have so many times before. I remember exactly where I was the moment the announcement came over the loud speaker – standing in my row about to stretch for phys. ed class. Just as often as I have thought about that day, I have wondered why I remember it with as much detail as I do – especially since, as a 7th grader, I specifically remember not having any idea of the significance of that morning’s events. What was the World Trade Center, anyways, I had thought? But, what I didn’t quite understand back then I have spent the rest of my life learning about, in both formal and informal settings.

The sad reality is that while these events initially seemed to unify our country, they soon revealed themselves to be a catalyst to an ugly realization: despite being an eclectic country of immigrants steeped in diversity since our very beginnings, we are too often uncomfortable with those who look, think, and speak differently than ourselves, and we allow this fear of the “other” to build walls between us. This truth pervades the ranks of Christians and non-Christians alike.

On the Daily Show the other night, Jon Stewart and his always hilarious news team satirically “remembered the day we forgot the lessons of the day we had sworn we would always remember.” That day was September 13, 2001. And as I sat there chuckling to myself, I was overcome by the reality of this satirical comment, stated succinctly in an article that I had read earlier that morning:

“I am the 9/11 generation.”[1]

Besides Bill Clinton’s infamous ordeal with Miss Lewinski, I have very little recollection of anything in the political realm before the wars of the past decade sparked by that day – both the ones we’ve been fighting abroad, and the ones we’ve been waging against one another here at home (i’m particularly thinking about the affects of Islamophobia). These domestic wars have been enacted on the national level within our government, and they have happened on the local level on our streets and in our classrooms.

This has led many to become disillusioned with politics. Honestly, I have been there too. But, unlike the many Christians that I’ve talked to who use this warring as the reason for staying away from politics, I believe following Jesus elicits quite the opposite response; it necessitates engagement with and standing up against the unjust structures that dominate our society. As Jim Wallis of Sojourners emphasized in a recent article, “to change injustice, you must confront politics.” For example, “British abolitionist William Wilberforce…didn’t just call upon English Christians not to possess slaves, he wanted to end the slave trade, and that required a long political campaign.”[2]

If we look directly to Jesus, we will see that the call he places on those who would follow him is unequivocally political in nature. The cross wasn’t just some spiritual exchange on a cosmic scale; it was, in its most basic sense, “the punishment of a man who threaten[ed] society by creating a new kind of community leading a radically new kind of life.” [3] And it was the final act of a man who said that if anyone wanted to follow him, they too must “take up their cross daily.”[4]

2000 years later, Jesus is still calling us into this new, radical community.

So, what does this all mean? Are we to join the ranks of mudslingers and closed-minded pundits? Of course not. Rather, we are called to acknowledge that we are a deeply wounded nation. Each of us is. We have grown up in a society so deeply imbedded with certain prejudices that we too often don’t recognize that they’re there. I know that was, and still is, the case for me.[5] What might those prejudices be for you?

Let us end our daily warring and begin to heal the heart of our 9/11 generation by engaging our world with the politics of Jesus. This must begin with a recognition of the need for God’s Spirit to transform ourselves. And, as we continually open ourselves to a new reality, I believe that God will continue to call others there as well. Or, as Marianne Williamson has so famously stated, “as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”[6]


[1] Carrie Adams, “I am the 9/11 Generation,” Sojourners, September 9 2011, http://blog.sojo.net/2011/09/09/i-am-the-911-generation/

[2] Jim Wallis, “What is ‘Biblical Politics’?,” Sojourners, September 15, 2011, http://blog.sojo.net/2011/09/15/what-is-biblical-politics/

[3] John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 2nd ed. (Eerdmans, 1994), p. 53.

[4] Luke 9:23; cf. Mark 8:34, and Matthew 16:24.

[5] If you’re interested in reading more about my personal journey of understanding these prejudices, here is an article I wrote for the Lubar Institute’s Undergraduate Journal (published Spring, 2011), “A Journey of Faith through Interfaith Friendships,”  http://lisar.lss.wisc.edu/files/Undergraduate_Journal_2011.pdf, p. 7.

[6] Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love, (Harper Collins, 1992).