BUT - for a few minutes, as I looked covertly at those black faces, so different in hue from mine, living so very close to me, my heart gave a treacherous, frightened lurch, and my mind leaped into antagonistic, defensive mode. Maybe they're drug dealers, I thought. Or sneak thieves. Maybe they'll be unfriendly, even hostile. Maybe they won't "keep up" their property. All these typical frightening, demeaning stereotypes temporarily overwhelmed my ability to think or feel in a rational, welcoming manner.
In others words, for a few minutes, without even knowing these strangers, my heart and mind had called these newcomers "invaders," people to be feared and avoided, people to reject. Much as currently political leaders call brown or black-skinned people coming over our borders "invaders," to be feared and rejected without knowing who they are.
This is why the words written by Rev. Jim Wallis which I read this morning really hit home. He writes a meditation on the following quote:
"For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me." —Mark 14:7
"For you always have the poor with you..." Some religious leaders have used this partial verse as an excuse to do nothing about poverty - it's just part of the "landscape." Some, followers of the Prosperity Gospel, have said that anyone who is poor obviously doesn't have enough faith, because if we have total faith in the power of God, God will give us whatever we want or need. Some others - commenting about people of different cultures or hues - have wanted the poor to "stay where they are" - and not do well enough economically to live "beyond their means" and come into middle or upper class neighborhoods - like mine.
However, it's important to know when Jesus said this verse, and why. Jesus speaks it when he and his disciples are at the home of Simon the Leper, and a woman has come in and poured a jar of oil over his head. Some are indignant, angry with her, because the expensive oil could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Jesus defends her, saying "the poor you will always have with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them, but you will not always have me." He goes on to say that she has anointed his body for burial.
Let's go back to this fact: they are in the home of Simon the Leper. Simon must be a leper whom Jesus has previously healed, or he wouldn't be back in his house, a member of society. Remember that lepers were examined by the priests, who recognized the symptoms of that deadly contagious disease, and ordered lepers to leave the community, where they were often isolated and shunned. But Jesus and his disciples routinely went out to the lepers, the forgotten, and there, in that isolated, shunned place, Jesus healed them.
Rev. Wallis comments,
"They are at the dinner table with a leper, and Jesus is making an assumption about his disciples’ continuing proximity to the poor. He is saying, in effect, 'Look, you will always have the poor with you' because you are my disciples. You know who we spend our time with, who we share meals with, who listens to our message, who we focus our attention on. You’ve been watching me, and you know what my priorities are. You know who comes first in the kingdom of God. So, you will always be near the poor, you’ll always be with them, and you will always have the opportunity to share with them. . . .'
"The critical difference between Jesus’s disciples and a middle-class church is precisely this: our lack of proximity to the poor. . . . The middle-class church doesn’t know the poor and they don’t know us. . . . So [we] merely speculate on the reasons for their condition, often placing the blame on the poor themselves."
"Poor" can refer to the economically poor. It can also refer to any group that is not totally accepted by some members of our society, is shunned, and/or isolated, or even rejected. Members of our society often exhibit deadly racism, sexism, and homophobia. Or they shun and stigmatize those who pray differently. Usually anyone who views a "group" through stereotypical eyes has not lived in close proximity to that group - in other words, does not really know anyone from that group, or lived with them in the sense of having them as friends or neighbors.
I remember that, around the time that African Americans first moved into our neighborhood years ago, several white neighbors moved out. I can't guess at their motives or pass judgement: probably their motives were different, and mixed. Perhaps some simply wanted to live in a nicer neighborhood; my street has the noisy Expressway in our back yards. Perhaps some were afraid of African Americans. Perhaps some were afraid that their property values would go down, and wanted to sell quickly so that they could make enough money from the sale that they could buy a good house elsewhere. Perhaps some were simply racists.
When, a few years later, our neighborhood Catholic Church closed because of white flight and a drop in the number of parishioners, the Church was full for the closing Mass. Full of those who had left our neighborhood behind. And I couldn't help thinking: "They felt safe enough to drive into the old neighborhood for the final Mass. If they'd stayed, this Church wouldn't be closing." I felt angry, and was probably judgmental. Yet there were those who'd left who blamed the African Americans' moving in for our Church having to close. In effect, they were blaming the newcomers for their Church's closing instead of recognizing the real reason: many had left the neighborhood, so the parish could no longer financially maintain itself.
In our little, interracial city Church, we have many parishioners who stayed when newcomers moved in, as well as those who left the old neighborhood but who still return to remain members of their home parish. These white parishioners welcome the people from different cultures and races who have joined us over the years. They participate in our ministries to the neighborhood: food pantry, free clothing, pediatric clinic, school for city girls.
But I imagine that several who left integrated neighborhoods and moved to join all-white, middle to upper class churches, often fit Wallis' profile: "The critical difference between Jesus’s disciples and a middle-class church is precisely this: our lack of proximity to the poor. . . . The middle-class church doesn’t know the poor and they don’t know us. . . . So [we] merely speculate on the reasons for their condition, often placing the blame on the poor themselves."
Why do I say this? Because I have met people who talk and think like this: "The poor should be left to take care of themselves. We have no responsibility for them. Our white, middle-to-upper class Church has no responsibility for them, or for poor city Churches. We spend our money on ourselves, because we are the only ones worthy of it."
Strangely enough, many of these white Christians would consider themselves "pro-life." They say, rightly, that the unborn have no voice, that they are the poorest, most vulnerable, among us. I agree.
But - I also suggest that it is easy for little old white me to want to protect the unborn. Why?
They have no color. They don't smell with the sweat of fear, or the smell of some food they eat that I'd gag on. They don't ever act angry and hostile, exhibiting reverse prejudice towards me. They don't act ungrateful at my food pantry. They don't chatter away in a language I don't understand. They don't kiss someone of their own sex in front of me. They aren't dirty, living under viaducts, or talking to the air in front of me because they're experiencing psychiatric illness. They don't challenge me to see the ways in which I am unconsciously prejudiced. In other words, the unborn don't challenge me the way that "born" human beings, full of faults and full of grace, do.
Yes, the unborn are really the easiest to defend because they don't come up to me as unknown entities wanting to "violate" my personal space.
Whenever we encounter someone different, new, challenging, we will always, if we're honest, first encounter an inner frisson of fear, or anger, or distaste in ourselves. We can't help our first feelings, or thoughts, our first reversions to deadly stereotypes. But we can acknowledge these thoughts and feelings for what they are: unChristian attitudes that will twist our perceptions of the stranger in front of us. We can acknowledge these first reactions and then let them go. We can choose to follow Jesus, Who never turned away from the stranger. We can choose to act in love, because in choosing love, love casts out our fear.
Jesus allowed a woman, whom some called a prostitute, to pour precious oil over his head. He accepted her with kindness, but also with gratitude. She received his gift of love; but he also received her gift of love. When we think that we are the ones constantly being asked to give, we forget that everyone else also has a special gift to give us. I think, for example, of a wonderful inner city choir which has inspired and enchanted suburban parishes across the Diocese with their unique, powerful gift of music. I think of several gay couples who are friends whose faithful, sacrificial love for each other inspires me. I think of the rich, courageous faith of many of my friends whom the world considers poor, and I know my faith is poor in comparison.
We are equal to all others: all of us are both sinners and full of light. Do we think of ourselves as the "special" ones in God's "special "Army," full of grace and generously giving, when in reality we are as sinful, confused, irresponsible, immature, and neurotic as the next person?
Fr. Richard Rohr says, "I can’t hate the person on welfare when I realize I’m on God’s welfare." We are all poor, vulnerable, wounded, sick from sin, unworthy of God's aid. Yet God loves and aids us, without counting the cost. Let's remember this when Welfare, Medicaid, Medicare,Immigration Reform, and Social Security come up in Congress for discussion. Let's remember this, when someone new and different comes into our lives or onto our street. When our heart's and mind's first impulse is to run from the stranger, the leper, in fear, can Love, God-With-Us, overcome our fear and convince us to stay?