The Church of St Elsewhere

Mont Saint Michel in Normandy is about as other-worldly as a church can get. It is an island in the sea, one kilometer from shore.  Mont Saint Michel is a monument to wars between kings, kingdoms, and religions. It is a crumbling fortress against the outside world that must constantly be shored up against rising tides (and sea levels).

Mont Saint Michel is among the great church buildings of the world I hope to see: Notre Dame in Paris (though now all that remains are the stone walls), Westminster Abbey in London, and St. Peter's in Rome. For some reason I have a fascination with centuries old church buildings. It would seem to be an odd fascination since I rarely attend a church service these days.

Maintaining these physical structures of the church is a never-ending battle against time, nature, and changing human sensibilities. Hundreds of years ago, wealthy noblemen and kings commissioned the building of these structures to the "Glory of God". Artisans and laborers devoted their energies to buildings that would inspire wonder and awe from both  inside and out. Perhaps this is the all too human response to our mortality. We want to build something that will outlive us, though Jesus warned us, "Not one stone will be left upon another."

We humans are not satisfied with physical structures. We want organizational structure. Jesus exhorted us to gather for fellowship at the table, but we want to know which end of the table is the head. In the Gospel of Mark, James and John decided they want to be in charge. Not only did they want to form a hierarchy, they wanted to be the head of it!

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” “We can,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.” When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Mark 10:35-43

Although Jesus told his disciples that  to "lord over" and to "exercise authority over" others was not to be the pattern for his followers, they began to adopt the world's structures of hierarchy. Most of the centuries of church conflict and turmoil was not so much about what the belief was as who was in charge.

A few centuries after Jesus had left this earth, the Roman model of diocese and archdiocese had been fully integrated into church governance, with bishops and archbishops as the heads. In the centuries which followed, the line between government and church were indistinguishable. The combination grew increasingly powerful, leading to the Crusades in the eleventh century. Over time, as nation-states formed, the influence of the church waned, but never completely abated.

Whatever its degree of influence on temporal affairs, the church knew that it was operating against the explicit direction of its Master.  Allowing space for monastic orders was a tacit admission of this truth. Most of the saints designated by the church, were either from monastic orders, founded orders, or otherwise operated at the fringes of the church. It was necessary to put some distance from the structures of power for people to even attempt to follow Jesus.

Jesus never left explicit directions on how to organize the nascent group of believers he was leaving behind, but he was very explicit about what structures and behaviors to avoid. Throughout history, Jesus' wisdom on these matters had to be rediscovered:

“the "small goodness" from one person to his fellowman is lost and deformed as soon as it seeks organization and universality and system, as soon as it opts for doctrine, a treatise of politics and theology, a party, a state, and even a church. Yet it remains the sole refuge of the good in being. ”― Emmanuel Levinas

This is why attempts to evangelize the world end up being an evangelization of the structures of power. The most notable example is the Roman Catholic church and its "Doctrine of Discovery." This gave European colonialists the moral cover to displace and enslave indigenous peoples. A number of non-denominational American churches have picked up on this as they setup satellite churches under the administration of one senior pastor. But truth is not found at the centers of power:

"If you really want truth, you need to escape the black hole of power and allow yourself to waste a lot of time wandering here and there on the periphery. Revolutionary knowledge rarely makes it to the center, because the center is based on existing knowledge. The guardians of the old order usually determine who gets to reach centers of power, and they tend to filter out carriers of disturbing, unconventional ideas." ―Yuval Noah Harari

Centralized power was always going to be a problem for the church. It's a place to hide all sorts of evil. It's why Jesus operated at the periphery. The margins are where he built his church. Father Oscar Romero realized this in the most trying of places, El Salvador in the late nineteen seventies.

Oscar Romero was appointed and installed as the Archbishop of El Salvador in 1977. He was placed as the head of the Catholic church in El Salvador. His position naturally overlapped with the centers of power at the time, the wealthy landowners and the government. A number of events, culminating with the assassination of his friend, Father Rutilio Grande, changed his perspective about the center of power and moved him to the periphery, the poor laborers of El Salvador. He began to voice the sufferings of the poor and painted a vision of what the Church could be:

"God wants to save us as a people. He does not want to save us in isolation. That is why the church today, more than ever before emphasizes what it means to be a 'people'. And that is why the church experiences conflicts: the church does not want just crowds; she wants a people. A crowd is a bunch of individuals, and the more lethargic they are, the better; the more conformist they are, the better." - St. Oscar Romero 

The "church" Romero speaks of, the communion of life, the church which forms a people, is alien to the concept of "church" in middle America. I have read many of  Romero's words. As I did so, I was saddened by the vast gulf, a great chasm, between the Church Romero speaks of and the church we have today. Romero was martyred as he tried to live out this vision of what the church could be.

Yet I remain hopeful. I see stirrings among the people who want to follow Jesus, who see the truth of his life and teachings. They are tired of living a lie, of putting on a smiling face when inside they are grieving. I am one of those people. I know there are others. Perhaps you are one of them. We can all lament and grieve the state of the church and we probably need to do that. But we also need to realize that the baton has been dropped in front of us. At some point we are going to have to pick it up and "run the race set before us" (Heb 12:1). We cannot run this race alone. We must nurture a hopeful expectancy to find others on the same journey, those who are heading in the same direction. We must learn to recognize the presence of God in people and places where we did not expect to find him. Quite often those places are at the margins of society. We should try to be more spiritually aware, living with a Jesuit expectancy to look for "God in all things." Let us try to learn from those times when we look back, kick ourselves and say "God was in this place and I did not realize it!" (Gen 28:16).

The church we seek, the people that follow Jesus, is the fellowship of saints and the body of Christ. It does not necessarily meet in a building, although it sometimes does. It is a people who will live and speak the truth, however imperfectly. It is a people who have come to terms with their own mistakes, sufferings, denials, and sins. It is a place where people can rejoice, but also grieve together. It is a place where people will bear with one another in all their frail humanity.

It meets at the Church of St. Elsewhere. Service times to be announced.

The Fourteenth Station

One day I chanced to hear about an exhibit at a church I passed by regularly. It was titled "Migration: Stations of the Cross". The intersection of the "Stations of the Cross" and "Migration" resonated with my Catholic upbringing and my immigrant heritage. I had to check it out. Moreover, I lamented the President's harsh treatment of migrants and immigrants, I was hoping to understand these things in a new light.

I was on my way home from the office so I decided to stop by the church. It was a large building, so I asked a lady who happened to be standing in the hallway for directions to the exhibit, and she graciously pointed me in the right direction. I entered a large room that looked to be a meeting room, which was empty except for displays around the perimeter. Each display highlighted an aspect of human migration and matched it with Jesus' journey of suffering, the "Stations of the Cross". At the Fourteenth Station, where "Jesus Died", was a prayer written by a prisoner of the Ravensbrück concentration camp:

“Oh Lord, remember not only the men and women of goodwill, but also those of ill will. But do not remember only the suffering they have inflicted on us; remember too the fruits we brought forth thanks to this suffering-our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all of this. And when they come to judgment, let all the fruits which we have borne be their forgiveness.”

I read it and I remained there, transfixed. Tears welled up in my eyes. I thought about the context in which these words were written, a concentration camp. The summation of every evil humanity was capable of was distilled in that one place. How someone subjected to cruelties of that space could pen such words and pray such a prayer was beyond me. It was akin to the words Jesus prayed when he was being crucified:

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34)

It seems only a saint or superhuman could utter a prayer like that. Or perhaps it is the quintessentially human thing to do. Only a human has the possibility of rising above the fight-or-flight response, the "lizard brain" if you will. It would seem the advice given to Job in his suffering, "curse God and die", is more along the lines of what we would expect in this situation.

Though I didn't fathom the depths of forgiveness required to pray a prayer like that, I knew I had read words of transformation. I feared losing these words, so  I took a picture with my phone. From time to time, I look at these words. It is my recurring devotional. It seems that if one could pray this prayer, even in the face of harsh realities and vicious evil, one could be healed of anger and bitterness.  However, this prayer also raises some hard questions.

Was this a prayer of reconciliation? Certainly. But reconciliation requires confession and mutual understanding. The perpetrator and the victim must face the truth together. But at moment this was written, the perpetrators were quite busy with their their murderous work, eliminating what they saw as sub-human vermin. The victims had no way of knowing if the cosmic scales of justice would ever be balanced.

Does this prayer give evil a pass because the victims forgave their tormentors? Even if that were so, does that balance the scales for all of humanity?

“When history looks back, I want people to know that the Nazis could not kill millions of people with impunity." Simon Wiesenthal

In passing judgement on all the perpetrators of the Nazi extermination program during the trials at Nuremberg and Jerusalem, humanity established that mass murder is evil and those who participate in it must be called to account. 

Nevertheless, we remain with the challenge and question of how to make sense, or better yet, meaning, out of the evils and tragedies of life that we have experienced personally. The challenge is to choose what our response will be:

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. - Viktor Frankl

Ultimately, there are the questions of forgiveness and redemption. The author of the prayer chose to forgive and redeem. It was a response in the face of an evil that could not be undone:

“The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility - of being unable to undo what one has done - is the faculty of forgiving. The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises. Both faculties depend upon plurality, on the presence and acting of others, for no man can forgive himself and no one can be bound by a promise made only to himself.” - Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition

If all the evil that was perpetrated and all the lives that were lost were to have any meaning, somehow it must all be redeemed from the past for the present and the future. For the past up to the present, all we can do is to come to terms with the evil done against us, by forgiving:

"Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past."  Gerald G. Jampolsky

Forgiveness is not passivity. Forgiveness is a response to the truth of evil and the harm it has done. It is also a decision not to let evil adhere to our souls.

For the future we must promise to respond to evil and not to passively look away. A promise not to forget how the evil took root and manifested itself. And a promise not to let it gain a foothold in the future. 

As Hannah Arendt points out, these acts of forgiveness and promise are meaningless in isolation. The commitment of forgiveness and the commitment of promise must be made in the presence of others. The fruits of forgiveness and promise can only take root in the fertile soil of community as it did that day in Ravensbrück.

A Journey of Faith into Politics

My first vague awareness of politics was November of 1963. I was sent home early from school. All I knew was that something bad had happened. When I got home, the news of the JFK assassination was playing on all the major networks. While I didn't understand the gravity of the event, the solemnity lingered.

I don't remember growing up in a particularly political household but it was a union household. I remember going to union picnics. I remember going to the plant where my dad worked when there was a strike. I didn't know why he was on strike. As I got older, I learned the issue was health care. I remember that my dad was frequently laid off. My other distinct memory of those times were the green painted walls of the Michigan Employment Security Commission. No mailed checks or electronic deposits back then. You went and you waited. All day. My mother worked, so I had to go. I don't recall how I passed the time. I might have brought a book. Or stared at the drab green walls. As a child, I did not understand the intersectional relationship of unions, economic justice, and politics.

I lived in Detroit in 1967 when the city exploded in violence and flame. The air was filled with the smell of burning wood. National Guard personnel carriers drove down my street while helicopters flew overhead. When the riots were over, for-sale signs sprouted up and down our street. We moved to an adjacent suburb. Meanwhile, images of Vietnam flashed across the evening news. I had a growing awareness of politics and how it might affect me directly. In 1968 I had a hope, an idealism that men like MLK and RFK would lead to a better, more hopeful future. Their assassinations were a gut punch to me. I was totally undone.

I was not raised in a particularly religious household either. My maternal grandparents made sure I was raised Catholic. I grew up going to Mass, Catechism, and Confession. I learned the creeds, the Commandments, and the Stations of the Cross. I was confirmed when I was 10 years old. As I grew into my teen years, I drifted away from the Catholic Church. Just before I turned 20, I had an Evangelical conversion experience. I met my wife in church and for the next 30 years we attended various Evangelical churches together. For most of those years, I focused on trying to balance work, family life, and church. The church we married in went though periods of turmoil with two pastors leaving in quick succession. That sent us on our spiritual road trip through a number of churches. Each change was made in the hope of finding a church where there was true grace and acceptance. Each expectation was met by disappointment.

The last church we attended was the smaller plant of a larger church. We were attracted because of the small church's outreach into the community and its acceptance of people who did not traditionally attend the denomination: homeless, alcoholics, addicts, single moms, and people of color. We threw ourselves into the work. For a time all was good, but trouble was brewing. A number of people were uncomfortable with the new direction the church was taking and with the associate minister who was leading the charge. Ultimately he was driven out. The church went back to its old ways. In the end, we left.

This led me to deconstruct my faith. I did not lose my faith, but I had to understand how faith, if it was valid at all, would lead me to live in the world. Specifically, what did the words of Jesus mean for me today and how was I to follow his teachings? While groping in the darkness I chanced to start reading Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer. Mother Teresa. and Dorothy Day. Each of these people brought me back to the Gospels, the "red letters", the words of Jesus. This was my pivot into a different understanding of faith, a faith lived out. Along the way I found and joined a team of believers who formed a non-profit providing semi-independent housing to young people transitioning out of foster care. I became a mentor, tutor, and driving instructor to young men in the program.

I began to understand that the lot of the poor was not because they were not "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps." I learned that some people don't even have "boot straps" to pull themselves up by. I learned what generational poverty does to people and how hard it is to break out of the cycle.  I also learned that poverty is entrenched by systemic factors: red-lining, inadequate schooling, poisoned water, a dearth of financial services, and lack of transportation. On top of all this, predatory capitalism swoops in like a vulture into poor neighborhoods and entraps people.  Payday loans, exorbitant auto financing, and overpriced insurance to extract the last drop of life out of people for profit. I learned that a lot of this was the product of public policy and that could only be changed through the political process.

Engaging politics would force me to take sides. Up to this point, I could remain publicly apolitical. Church life did not encourage open political advocacy, except to always vote for the "pro-life" candidate. Nearly all the sermons had to do with personal piety and "getting right with God", but only personally and spiritually. Rarely, if ever, did I hear systemic injustices addressed. At most, I might be encouraged to give and participate in a charity, to, in MLK's words, "fling a coin at a beggar" but not critically examine the system that produced beggars. Moreover I was living a relatively comfortable life, so why take sides? Then 2016 happened.

A man was nominated by his party and ultimately elected as President who was an anathema to my growing awareness of systemic injustice. He based his campaign on oppressing the marginalized even more than they were oppressed already. I was stunned. How could the political process allow a man like this to become President? Then it occurred to me: I wasn't participating in the process! I had allowed my relatively comfortable life to lull me into apathy. I barely knew what congressional district I lived in, much less my state house and senate districts.

In early 2017 we knew we needed to do something, but were unsure what was to be done. We walked in our first MLK Day march, our first political rally ever, in the bitter January cold. We met some nice, like-minded people in the church we gathered in to warm up, but were unsure what good our action did. We didn't see any press. Besides ourselves, who knew what statement we were making?

Meanwhile we learned about a new organization that was forming in response to the new political reality: Indivisible. We read their brochure. A chapter formed in a nearby town and we joined it. We were encouraged to see that, contrary to what we believed, this very red district had other like-minded people. We learned how politics leads to policy, how to take meaningful action, and how action changes political realities.

In 2017, the GOP controlled congress was trying to kill the Affordable Care Act. Our congressman, who we later learned had cashed in on foreclosures in private life, opposed the ACA, despite the wishes of his constituents. We started calling and writing letters, the first time we ever tried to communicate with our representative. Indivisible and other organizations made themselves heard at his office. Ultimately he decided to retire. In time, a number of candidates threw their hat in the ring to run for the newly vacated seat. We attended our Congressional district's candidate forum. We threw our support behind a promising candidate who helped save the industry I worked in. I signed up to run as a Democratic Precinct Delegate. In the primary election, I won my first elected office! Shortly after that, I attended my first state-wide political convention. We hosted canvassing drives out of our home and knocked on doors. Our congressional candidate won! Not all the candidates down-ballot won, but we moved the needle. We began to see the effect of involvement.

My faith journey took me into politics because I came to understand the primacy of Jesus teaching:

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

 Matthew 25:35-40

In this passage, Jesus taught that any good I would do for another human being, I have done for Him. I also learned that any good I could accomplish on an individual basis was limited. To do any real good for many people, a change in policy and governance was required. I must advocate for people who will advocate for others. A failure to do so leaves people at the mercy of evil men: 

“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” 

Plato

So I have become a card-carrying member of the Democratic party. I admit that I am a contingent Democrat. I am not a natural-born politician or loyalist. Nevertheless, as long as Democrats remain an advocate for working people, the sick, the poor, the aged, people of color, LGBTQ, and refugees, I will remain a member. Some who know me from conservative church circles will see this as a denial of my faith. I see it as a living out of my faith. I used to be blind, color-blind that is, and now I see....the "red letters" of Jesus' words.

Transformation

As the message of Jesus passed through each era and each reorganization of society, it acquired some characteristics of the culture at large. The first, most obvious examples are when Jesus' message passed from Jewish culture, to Greek, Roman, and finally to our present Western culture. Each culture absorbed it, but it too was absorbed by each culture.

Modern Western culture is nearly all about business and finance. The emphasis in our present society is on the "deal" or transaction. This philosophy has slipped into the church and has almost completely supplanted Jesus' message. Jesus' message (the Gospel) is so corrupted by this line of thought, that most believers assume the Kingdom of God operates like the marketplace. Quid pro quo.

For example, let's take teaching on Salvation. Many denominations teach that if you participate in some action or make a declaration of faith, you are "saved" . Quid pro quo. The "prosperity gospel" distorts Jesus' teaching still further, by proposing that if you give a "seed offering" of money, you will be blessed by God. Quid pro quo. Even in the Catholic tradition, indulgences are an older example of this thinking. All the while, though grace is taught, transaction is understood and assumed.

So, if Jesus' message was corrupted, what was His message regarding the Kingdom of God? And how does it differ from what our culture tells us? The best example I know is that of the Prodigal Son.

“There was a man who had two sons.  The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. 

“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. 

“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father. 

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. 

“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ 

The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ 

“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”  Luke 15: 11-32

The younger son left with his father's name and money. Now he spent it all. He was broke. He had nowhere else to go. In his despair, he remembered the kindness of his father towards workers. His countenance brightened. He set out resolutely to return to his father's house. But he was not same man who left. He was transformed. He now understood the world's harshness, it's lack of mercy, and he recognized the love and kindness of his Father.

When his father saw him walking towards the house, his compassion overwhelmed him. He ran and embraced his son. He put a ring on his finger and threw a banquet to celebrate his return. Meanwhile the elder brother heard of his brother's return and was incensed at his father's lavish welcome. He protested to his father, "all these years I have served you, yet you didn't give me a goat". To his transactional mindset, the father's grace made no sense at all. And as long as we remain in a transactional mindset, it will make no sense to us either. We will continue act according to the rules of the market.

But Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God operates differently. You can't buy it directly. Oh, you can buy the field that contains it. But you can't give anything in exchange for it. The Kingdom of God and the Love of God are transformational. There is no prerequisite to receive it, save one. We must be emptied of the power and inclination to transact. No deals. Often this process requires suffering, loss, and disillusionment. With the old ideas bankrupt, we are open to new possibilities. This has been my journey.