The Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Isaiah, 45:21-25
Philippians, 2:5-11
John, 12:31-36a
And I, when I will be lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to me.
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
IN 1980, when he was two, Dinaw Mengestu immigrated to the United States. His mother brought him when she came to re-join her husband who had fled their native Ethiopia during the Red Terror--a brutal, gruesome slaughter of thousands of people. Mengestu worked his way to college at Georgetown and last year published a highly regarded novel -- The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears. The title is from the final lines of Dante's Inferno, his glimpse of heaven between leaving hell and entering purgatory.
The novel's protagonist, Stephanos, is in a type of purgatory, looking for hope and purpose amidst abundant melancholy, alienated in the clash between rich and poor, black and white, foreigner and citizen. He's an Ethiopian emigre who owns a small, failing grocery store, a couple blocks from here, just off Logan Circle. It's set some two or three decades ago when the neighborhood began to gentrify, when wealthy whites began to invest in the neighborhood, shaking up its stability.
Stephanos attends a community meeting in a church basement. The flyers promoting the meeting read: "Protect Our Neighborhood -- No More Evictions." The purpose of the meeting is to figure out what to do about their changing circumstances. Everyone at the meeting is a long-time resident, except for a single, relatively wealthy, white woman, an academic; she's recently bought one of the mansions on the circle. The convener begins the meeting:
We're all concerned about the direction our neighborhood is moving in. I can't begin to count how many friends I've had to say good-bye to in the past six months. These are people just like you and me.... I don't have to tell you that this isn't right.[1]
Very quickly the conversation turns into us versus them, complaining about how >they'[2] have >their' neighborhoods and now >they' want >ours,' about how >they' have all the jobs and schools. Stephanos observes that the crowd soon blames >them' not only for all the evictions, Abut for every slight and injury each person in that room had suffered, from the children who never made it passed junior high to the unpaid heating bill waiting in a dresser drawer.@
When the white woman stands up, she begins to express her shared concerns with the others in the basement, but she is quickly shouted down and driven out of the basement. She'll soon be the victim of multiple acts of vandalism. In the basement, the complaining continues. The meeting eventually breaks up, but the purpose of the meeting had been completely avoided. They never seriously considered how to respond to their situation.
As I read this scene, I thought about how much we only want to be around people who agree with us, people like us, how it's so hard, so threatening, for any group to open ourselves up to the minority, to the different, to accept some discomfort, to listen to different voices and welcome them. It's much easier, and more self-destructive, to find scapegoats.
This happens with every group. At the beginning of this year, Christian Lander began a blog called >Stuff White People Like,' and it's become enormously popular. He's just published a book of the same name with the subtitle: >A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions.' A reviewer noticed that Lander's white people aren't all white and that most whites wouldn't qualify as white to Lander, but it's his way of describing the elite: Atheir dogged pursuit of their own care and feeding, and their efforts to define themselves and their values through their all-but-uniform taste and accessories.@[3]
One reviewer concluded that Lander's book shows us a class of people whose --
attitudes, preferences, and sense of identity are ingrained in an unlovely disdain for those outside of their charmed circle. In Lander's analysis, much of their self-satisfaction derives from consumption ... and much of that consumption is motivated by a desire to differentiate themselves from [those they consider backward]. Sushi, for instance, is Aeverything [White People] want: foreign culture, expensive, healthy, and hated by the >uneducated.'@[4]
Whether we're gathered in a church basement or a sushi bar, we're more much alike than we'd care to admit. We all herd together and become suspicious of the other herds. We usually put limits on one another B how people in our group should act and think. Every group unconsciously shapes the attitudes, values, habits, behaviors of its members, and these things B the group's culture, if you will B can stunt our development and can thwart our purpose.
I read recently of a scientific experiment in which four monkeys were put in a cage with a basket of bananas at the top of a pole.[5] When the monkeys were put into the cage, they went after the bananas, the strong monkeys getting more than the weaker ones, but all of them got some. Then the scientists put pail of water at the top of the pole. When the monkeys climbed the pole, water dumped on them. All four monkeys stopped trying to get the bananas. When the scientists then removed the pail of water, the four monkeys didn't climb back up the pole to get the bananas. They were still afraid of getting wet.
The scientists then removed one of the original monkeys and put another one in the cage. The new monkey started to go for the bananas, but the other three would yank the newcomer by the tail to pull him down or they would trip him up to protect him from the water which wasn't there.
The scientists gradually replaced one by one each of the original monkeys with a new monkey, and these in turn were replaced with other new monkeys, and they did this through several generations. At the beginning of this rotation, the monkeys would yank and grab each new monkey inserted into the cage to prevent it from climbing for the bananas, but gradually all of that yanking and pulling down stopped. After a few generations, each new monkey would come in the cage, look up and check out the bananas, but he wouldn't even try to climb the pole. The other monkeys wouldn't even have to pull the new monkey down, wouldn't have to touch him. The other monkeys made the message clear: don't even think about climbing the pole.
Those monkeys, of course, were acting just like you and me and the various social groups and networks we are part of. When a new person comes into a group, we expect some degree of conformity, even if it means we're missing out on the bananas. That's true for all groups, be it a country as large as the United States or a bridge club. We let unpleasant experiences change our view about what is possible. We accept limitations that are unnecessary.
Last week I attended a meeting about diversity. I admit that I am not quite sure what >diversity' means, although it has become a catchword and an esteemed value for many. It's a word I've flung around a lot. While it doesn't seem a very precise term, I think that it gets at something extremely important. It can refer to differences of socio-economic background, race, ethnicity, culture, opinion, sexual orientation, experience. There are countless other things that separate and distinguish people.
I think that part of the value of exposing ourselves to such differences is that they can make us more self-aware, that they can challenge us to see the bananas and go get them B if we're willing to listen to other voices, if we're willing to let other people do things in a way we're not used to. In other words, perhaps if there had been diversity within that group of monkeys, they would have found it within themselves collectively to make it back up to the top of the pole. Maybe that's a quality of diversity we should value.
To allow for diversity, however, we have to have some capacity for pain and anxiety. Living with differences, being open to another point of view, letting people do things another way, is risky and demanding. After his resurrection, Jesus told Peter: Awhen you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you don't want to go.@ (Jn 21:18) We see this in Peter's leadership in the Church, especially in Acts, where Peter becomes increasingly open to new possibilities and learns new ways. It causes strife in the early Church because Peter goes where he'd rather not go.
Can we follow Jesus anywhere he directs us, trusting him, confident that what seems impossible, frightening, will be new life? Can we have the humility to welcome and listen to other people B people much different than us? Can we go where they want to go instead of asserting ourselves? Can we love the strange, the unknown? When we look at the cross, that's what we see.
Jesus said that when he is lifted up on the cross, he will draw all people to himself. The cross B the sign of God's love for each of us B attracts all human beings. Jesus died on the cross for every person who has ever existed, who ever will exist. The cross shows us that God loves and cherishes every person we see. Beholding the cross, reflecting on the cross, can help to shape the way we treat other people.
Christ's followers constitute all kinds of people, and this enriches the body. It really does take all kinds. The cross, its outstretched arms, embraces all people. While sometimes painful and confusing, the Church benefits from the challenge of our differences. The cross confirms the value of looking beyond ourselves, the value of friendships, the value of learning. It reverses the human tribal instinct. It means that we're all in this together, and it points us to our purpose.
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] Dinaw Mengestu, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, Penguin Riverhead Books (2007), pp. 198-99.
[2] Ibid., p. 200.
[3] Benjamin Schwarz, >Intolerant Chic,' The Atlantic, October 2008, p. 92.
[4] Ibid.
[5] L. Gregory Jones, >Monkey Business,' Faith Matters Column in Christian Century, September 9, 2008, p. 39.
© 2009 Lane John Davenport
