BY DONNA SCHAPER
Jesus is the one who refused to
have an enemy. He also understood the fantasies of peace: “Peace, peace, when
there is no peace.”
I want to bring Jesus into this
leaderless mess we call New York City. I want to invite his refusal to have an
enemy into the audacity of those who think they are too big.
I think of Timothy Cardinal
Dolan, whose recent editorials in the Daily News made him too big.
As a Protestant, once again, I
beg to differ with spiritual meritocracy. Cardinal Dolan is not my enemy. He is
my friend, as are policemen, as are Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
I am not here to pick a fight
with Cardinal Dolan. Without naming him, the cardinal did criticize the actions
of Pat Lynch, head of the policeman’s union. I honor him for that criticism and
understand it probably cost him in certain quarters. I have read and re-read
his three public statements of recent months and each time tried to understand
what it must be like to feel like you have to defend the police at this time in
our city.
I understand the meaning of
constituency. I understand social position. I have often had flare-ups with
congregants who felt they needed protection, so deep were they within the
victim stance. “The real victim is not so and so, the real victim is me.” You
know the drill.
You ask for unity but you ask
for it from your perspective and the perspective of your people. That is what
the cardinal is doing. He wants unity at a table where he is the host and you
are the guest.
That kind of unity is not what
Jesus wanted.
He wanted a unity where
everybody at the table was a host and everybody was a guest, in a place where
the power differentials were recognized, not minimized.
Discovering that nearly all the
films nominated for awards had white male directors and starred white men is
not something for which anyone can take personal responsibility. Instead it
does show how deep our race-tinged glasses are. There was no conspiracy there.
It’s just the way things are.
There is also no surprise in
Cardinal Dolan thinking he has to defend the police. He sees them as his people
in a way he can’t see Eric Garner or Michael Brown as his people. The cardinal
doesn’t know how to see from the middle and mess of the table.
Another matter begs our Jesus
eyes right now. The way the mayor was disrespected — at memorial services —
shows just how deep the victimized privilege is about the police. They too feel
horribly disrespected. And so the cycle of disrespect clogs our arteries.
The Pope may think his
cardinals have spiritual Alzheimer’s, as he said in his Christmas message. But
Cardinal Dolan has arteriosclerosis, the hardening of the heart’s arteries. He
is not the only one with heart disease but he has more power than most people
with heart disease.
How do I criticize the cardinal
without demonizing him? How do I criticize the policemen who turned their backs
on the mayor without demonizing them?
How do we follow the Jesus who
refuses to have an enemy?
The disease of the moment goes
like this: If you support the community, you are against the police. If you
support the mayor, you are against the police. The opportunities to be against
someone multiply while the opportunities to be for something seem to be
radically decreasing.
“Peace, peace, when there is no
peace.”
In a mess this size, why not
follow Jesus, and refuse to have an enemy? And refuse to give up on the ones
who disrespect you? Refuse to give up on the ones who shoot you. Refuse to give
up on the ones who stop and frisk you. If you are white, understand that we
have heart disease. We have chosen our own to win the prizes. And we didn’t
even know we were doing it.
We need spiritual angioplasty,
the kind Dr. King performed, unsuccessfully to date, on the nation. We need our
arteries opened up.
Schaper is senior minister at
Judson Memorial Church. Excerpted from a sermon she will deliver Monday.
