The Berlin Wall
Xenophobia: fear of the
outsider.
August 13, 1961, goes down in history as the day the Berlin Wall was born. It was 10
feet wide and 15 feet tall. It ran for 28 miles through the city of Berlin. It
was built in order to lock people in and to stem an exodus of historic
proportion. The wall killed 191 people
who refused to be locked in, and who died trying to scale it. The wall was built also to lock people out: to lock out the outsider, the
foreigner, the stranger. It was, therefore,
a xenophobic wall. Xenophobia: fear of the stranger or foreigner: i.e.
fear of the one who doesn’t look like
us but should; doesn’t speak like us
but should; doesn’t worship like us but should doesn’t; doesn’t think the way we think but
should; etc.
Erich Honecker, an old party chief, vowed that the wall would stand for a
hundred years; it lasted only 28. In
one historic moment, at the stroke of midnight, Nov. 9th, 1989, mobs scaled the
wall, and with hammer and chisel tumbled it
down. << Time magazine said, "It was one of those rare times when the tectonic plates of
history shift beneath people's feet, and nothing is quite the same anymore. For
West and East Germans it was Christmas, New Year's and Easter all rolled into
one"(Time Nov. 20). The
only ones missing that historic moment were the 191 people who tried to scale
the wall but were killed. >>
There was a similar wall in the days of Jesus. It did not run through the heart of a city but through the heart of the very temple itself, which Isaiah called "the house of prayer for all peoples" (56:7). The wall was 5 feet tall and was made of stone. It divided the inner court of the Jews from the outer court of the Gentiles (those foreigners, those outsiders who don’t think like Jews or pray like Jews or eat like Jews but should). The wall separated the chosen Jew from the unchosen Gentile.
<<It supposedly was commanded by God in the
blue-print of the temple. Supposedly
built by “divine will,” it was a “holy wall.” In reality the wall was built more by human hands than by divine
will, and it a good example of religion's ever-present "unholy"
temptation to ignite hostility, to divide people, and to destroy true peace. In Ephesians (2nd
reading) Paul speaks of "the enmity (the bad blood, the hostility) between
Jew and Gentile caused by the religious rules and regulations of the Law of
Moses" (Eph 2:15). >>
Like the Berlin Wall, this one also killed! On it
were attached xenophobic signs prohibiting any foreigner (Gentile), under the
pain of death, from going beyond the prescribed line. <<In fact a stone
inscription was found in 1871 near the temple area, threatening death to any
Gentile who passed beyond this "Check-point-Charlie" located in the
very house of God. This same wall
almost killed St. Paul. In Acts we read that some Jews from the Province of
Asia tried to put Paul to death because they claimed he had introduced an
Ephesian foreigner beyond the forbidden
wall (Acts 21:28-29). >>
Like the Berlin Wall, this wall too was torn down, and by no other than Christ. Jesus scaled the Cross, and with hammer and chisel in his pierced hands died up there. At that moment the curtain of the temple was rent in two and the "tectonic plates of history shifted." At that moment, Paul writes, "he tore down the wall of hostility that used to keep us enemies, and made the two of us (Jew and Gentile) one, and so he has brought us peace” (Eph 2:14-16).
Our walls
(many,
hidden, xenophobic)
We Catholics shouldn’t raise our eye-brows over a
wall of separation in the very house of God. We have many separating walls of our own in the church. There’s a wall that separates the followers
of Trent with its Latin mass and the followers of Vatican II. There are walls
in our church that separate clergy and laity,
men and women, straights and gays, rich and poor, black and
white. In the house of God, there’s a wall that separates so-called “liberals”
and “conservatives.”
For the most part, they are hidden walls; we have them pushed down or smoothed over or
covered up. We choose not to see the
problem and feel its acuteness. So the peace around us is only apparent; it is
not “the kiss of peace; it’s a patched-up affair.” Though hidden, the walls are there, and
given the right occasion they surface, and sometimes with a vengeance.
For example, you’ve just finished Mass and someone comes up to you, and expresses great joy and elation and
thanks. Then along comes someone else who is very very angry, and wants to know why you skipped the creed, or
why you didn’t utter the exact official words of consecration
over the bread and wine, or why you disobey
the magisterium of the church.
Something else about our walls of separation: they
are basically xenophobic. People
who don’t think as we do but should,
or don’t feel the way we feel about
matters but should, -- they are considered outsiders, foreigners, even
abnormalities or deviants, i.e. “not on the right path” (by which we mean our path). For some mysterious reason, such people are a threat to us, and
they fill us with fear. So we exclude them, or worse yet, we exterminate them
by means sometimes refined and sometimes not so refined.
But here is the most important consideration of
all: though our many walls of
separation concern different issues, they have one thing in common: they represent competing world-views, they represent
competing ideologies.
What in the world is a “world-view” or “ideology”? (Sounds highfillutin but it’s a simple idea.) World-view or ideology is a whole web of basic values within you and me, and that web says to us, “This is the way the world is supposed to be.” And then we say to the world, “This is the way you are supposed to be.” World-view, ideology -- a whole web of basic assumptions and values, that are almost articles of faith within us, and profoundly influence the way we look at life and other people and the world around us.
Where in the world do you and I get our world-view or ideology? We draw it out from the ancestral well from which we’ve been drinking all
our lives. What in the world is the ancestral well? We are all conceived as
"tabula rasa"--as clean slates and innocent babes. But no sooner are we
born into this world than we are led to drink from the ancestral well. Some of
the best stuff that's in us is drawn from that well. Some of my best recipes
for spaghetti sauce come from the well. My
warm Italian nature comes from
it. My sense of Italian hospitality comes from it. At the ancestral well we
imbibe not only the best of our ethnic traditions, but also the good values
we believe in and the decent priorities with which we arrange our lives.
But this is also true, some of the worst stuff that's in us is imbibed from the ancestral well which contains also
murky and brackish waters. From it we
drink in murky and brackish judgments and assumptions about this and that,
which color all our thoughts, words and
deeds. And those judgments are pre-judgments and those assumptions are “pre-assumptions” because we don’t
carefully and thoughtfully think them out but simply swallow them up and gulp
them down.
Out of such an unthinking well arise our so-called strangers or foreigners or outsiders or deviants – those people who deviate from our world-view. From such a well arise those people who should be looking like us but don’t; praying like us but don’t; eating like us but don’t. The very first moment we start drinking from such a well, we start losing our innocence.
Remember the story
of Jesus and the women at Jacob's well. It’s a story of competing world-views, competing ideologies. (Jn
4:5-42). She claims it’s on Mt. Gerizim that everyone should be worshipping God ”but you Jews, you
deviants, don’t.” From where did she
get that presumption? From the ancestral well from which she’s been drinking all her life. The Jews claim it is in Jerusalem that everyone should be
worshipping God “but you Samaritans, you
deviants, don’t.” From where did Jews get that presumption? From their ancestral well from which
they’ve been drinking all their lives. Jesus
refuses to drink from it. Instead he declares that the day is coming
when people will worship the Father "not here on this mountain, nor even
in Jerusalem, nor in any temple built by human hands, but they will worship God
in spirit and truth" (Jn 4:24).
The ancestral drinking continues. The woman asks
Jesus, “How can you, a man and a respected rabbi, be talking to me, a yukie
woman, in public?” (Jn 4:5-42).
Where in the world did she get this prejudice against her own gender? Why, of course, she swallowed it in at the
ancestral well.
Still more drinking from the ancestral: The woman asks, "How can
you, a Jew, ask me, a so-called yukie
Samaritan, for a glass of water?" She’s echoing a Jewish prejudice
against Samaritans. From where did the Jews get their racism? From their
ancestral well. In that well
flowed murky waters that claimed the Jews are pure breeds and Samaritans
are impure mongrels. <<Jesus
refused to drink from that well. In fact, he goes out of his way to tell his
fellow Jews good stories about these impure mongrels. "Once upon a time
there was a man going from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he was waylaid by robbers
and left half-dead. Along came a Jewish priest and levite and they didn't stop but passed the poor man
by. But then along came a Samaritan, and he stopped." The
ancestral well says, “Every Samaritan is bad;” the parable says, “Wrong! Some
of them are good; in fact very good. “>>
Every infant
born into a Palestinian
household drinks of the ancestral
well, and knows for sure that every Jew is
bad; vice versa. Every infant
born into a Protestant household in Northern Ireland drinks from the ancestral well,
and knows for sure that every Roman Catholic is bad; vice versa. Every infant born into an Orthodox Serbian household drinks of the ancestral well, and know for
sure that all Catholic Croatians are bad; vice versa. And so the drinking goes on and on, and so the hating goes on and
on, and so the killing goes on and on.
Much closer to home -- listen to this piece of
ancestral drinking: A friend writes, “I was raised in a conservative
working class family in Cincinnati, Ohio. Being of German heritage, I was
taught from my earliest memory, to challenge nothing that Holy Mother Church
teaches. I was taught to respect all persons in positions of authority:
teachers, parents, aunts, uncles, police, government officials, etc. I was
taught to work for what I wanted and to
wait until I had cash to buy it. I was
taught the Lord helps those who help themselves. And I was taught there is no
excuse for being dirty because everyone can afford a bar of soap.”
How do you
like that for ancestral drinking? That’s what we mean by a “world-view.” That’s
what we mean by an “ideology.” Can you sense the mischief that lies waiting in
the wings? Our world-view is comfortable; the truth is not. The man
writes: “The truth hurts, especially if
you are comfortable and are living in Grafton or Cedarburg.”
Our world-view or
ideology, our web of assumptions and values which say to us, “This is
how the world should be,” -- for
the most part is unexamined; is not
reflected upon (but is simply swallowed and gulped down) -- until it is challenged in some very powerful way. What if one day your world-view is about to
destroy someone you love? Then what? Then indeed you reexamine, reconsider, review, reflect.
"Consenting Adults" is a movie about an upper-middle-class-white family. The son reveals his homosexuality to his parents. Both had drunk deeply from the ancestral well. So both are weeping and wailing over this ”horrible” revelation; they’re weeping and wailing for themselves and not for their son. The son wants only one thing from them: to be embraced and kissed by his father and mother. The father refuses to examine and reflect; he dies without ever embracing and kissing his son. The mother, whose innate mother’s love is stronger than any world-view or ideology, eventually embraces and kisses her "leper" son. At that moment he knows he's embraceable and kissable. At that moment, he is healed as he will have to be healed over and over again in the years to come.
Our task as human beings is to drink thoughtfully
and deliberately at the well. Our task is to do what human beings are created to do and what my dog Simeon can't
do: reflect, ponder, think things out for ourselves, instead of swallowing and gulping them down. At such a good well
we become not our ancestors but our own persons and our own true selves.
Our world-view is perhaps our most prized
possession of all our possessions. Our task as Christians is
to renounce our possessions, realizing that some of worst
possessions(just as some our best) are
not in our hands but in our hearts and heads
-- in our world-view.
Through such renunciation we
regain our innocence lost, and we find ourselves worshipping God, not on Mt
Gerizim nor in Jerusalem but in spirit and truth.