The Gospel reading for this weekend comes from John 13: 31-33a, 34-35. It relates a scene from the last night that Jesus had with his disciples before Judas betrayed him. Jesus is preparing his disciples for his imminent departure from them, “I will be with you only a little while longer.” In the second half of verse 33 which is dropped from Sunday’s reading, Jesus also tells the disciples that “You will look for me, but I say to you now, what I once said to the Jews, where I am going you cannot come.” I am not sure why that phrase is dropped unless it is to avoid any hint of antisemitic dialogue as was clearly present in last Sunday’s reading from Acts (13:14, 43-52). It is important however, that Jesus tells them they cannot go with him. In other words, they will be on their own at least for a while.
Jesus offers a way to unite his followers, knowing that his death and absence from their midst will be traumatic. Unity is an important focus in John’s Gospel. It is, as Francisco Lozada Jr. writes in his introduction to John’s Gospel, a unity in a community that has a “shared sense of belonging, a shared vision and mutual trust.” He also writes that “A consequence of such an emphasis on community is that it always excludes.” (p. 86) Thus, Jesus gives the disciples a new commandment: to love one another as he has loved them. This mutual love is to be characteristic of his disciples, and hopefully it will be a corrective against forming a gated community that stands against the rest of society. But love is easier when a community is small and exclusive.
Fr. Jose Pagola writes “Christians have talked a lot about love. However, we have not dared to or succeeded in investing love with its true meaning based on the spirit and concrete attitudes of Jesus. We have still to learn that Jesus manifested his love in active and creative ways, which led him to being always ready to serve and to struggle against all that dehumanizes people and makes them suffer.” (pg. 74-75) If that is what love looks like, to serve and struggle against that which dehumanizes, it requires Christian communities to make time to hear from those who suffer, and to discern what dehumanizes people in our society.
Like many of you, I have spent a lot of time reading during the long months of the pandemic. Much of my reading has focused on those who have historically been considered less than fully human in the United States. The list is longer than I would have hoped, and I continue to learn more about the myriad ways that humans have worked to dehumanize other humans for their own gain. It is an incredibly sad and disappointing history, disappointing because I wanted to believe that we – Americans – were better than some of our history says. However, perhaps it is because of our history that people work so hard to prevent or undo dehumanizing laws and systems in other parts of the world. It is as if we are saying “Don’t go there! We’ve been there and we know it is a very bad place to go.” On the other hand, there is a significant group of people who fight to protect a false narrative, one that says “We can be freedom fighters in the world because we have always been righteous” – and if we haven’t, they don’t want to know about it. I suspect that these groups may be defining what it means to be human in separate ways.
When I go back to the reading I have done, I am convinced that the standard for being fully human in America has long been to be physically fit, literate, employed, financially secure, housed, preferably Christian, adult, white from European lineage, heterosexual, and male. Religious teachings may encourage those who are ‘fully human’ to take care of those who are less than fully human in a paternalistic manner; seeing to it that they have what they need to survive, and do what they should do, while also making decisions on their behalf as needed, all while allowing those who are fully human to prosper, or they may simply decide God created the world to be hierarchical. I am aware of how disenfranchising this sounds, but the evidence from taking a hard look at how our society and our laws have been built is bleak.
I am reminded of the scripture in Luke 7, when Jesus is called out for allowing a woman of ill repute to wash his feet with her tears and dry them with her hair. Jesus responds by telling a parable of two people, one forgiven of a small debt and the other of a large debt and asks which person would be most grateful? Jesus then explains that although the woman has many sins, she has been forgiven because of her great love. Our nation has committed many sins, racism, sexism, ablism, xenophobia, eugenicism, genocide, and yet America still exists which makes change possible. If we understand the legacy of our nation, we can be ashamed and/or try to deny it, or we can be determined to right the wrongs done in our name whether purposefully or through ignorance.
I was inspired this week to hear Deb Haaland the first Native American Secretary of the Interior give an emotional summary of the recent government report detailing the effects of Indigenous boarding schools on the Native American communities in this country. It is a horrifying history that did not end until the 1960’s. Deb Haaland, who is also a Catholic, stood up to expose the great sins, while also advocating fiercely to remediate the policies that hurt her people. This is an example of the kind of active and creative love that serves and struggles against all that dehumanizes. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-interior-secretary-deb-haaland-gives-update-on-federal-indian-boarding-school-initiative
The church community has a long way to go to address built-in dehumanizing of women, non-Catholics, Jews, and the laity in general, but I am convinced that the church can move forward toward inclusive rather than exclusive love by first paying close attention to the sins of the past that have shaped our present. Only when we know who we are and where we have come from, can we as a nation or a church move forward with great love.
Following in the Footsteps of Jesus. Meditations on the Gospels for Year C. Jose a Pagola. Convivium, 2012.
John: An Introduction and Study Guide. History, Community, and Ideology. Francisco Lozada Jr. T&T Clark, 2018.