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| From He Qi Gallery: http://tinyurl.com/dyvdbc6 |
On Facebook a little red square with an equal sign began to appear as people's avatars. It went viral as thousands of people used the sign to indicate support of gay marriage, even as the Supreme Court of the United States debated marriage equality. I joined in the solidarity with my gay and lesbian sisters and brothers.
During the week I read Charles Mills The Racial Contract. It's a book I am using with students this semester as we try to untangle issues of social and political philosophy. Mills highlights white supremacy and the domination of people of color. He makes an argument that from the beginning of modernity—if we date it at 1492 and the beginning of the conquest of the Americas—there was a contract by white peoples that excluded, used and abused peoples of color. It's hard to argue against, and very disturbing.
Then on Maundy Thursday I watched a presentation of a documentary about Mumia Abu-Jamal Long Distance Revolutionary. Mumia was convicted in 1981 for the death of a policeman. He was given the death sentence (which was only recently commuted to life in prison without parole). Mumia's is a profoundly unsettling story of domination and inhumanity.
During the week I was introduced, also, to Chinese artist He Qi's work (thanks Yanchy!) See the link under the picture. He Qi's paintings are astonishing. Like traditional icons, the pictures stylize some incident from the scriptures that prompts deep thought and meditation. Unlike traditional icons all the characters look Asian rather than European in expression, culture and clothing. It adds a freshness to the tales and brings them alive in new ways. Dr. Qi set out deliberately to change the "foreign image of Christianity." His work is extraordinary.
On Holy Saturday I had opportunity to reflect on all this.
While on the face of it gay marriage rights, racism, the injustice of the criminal justice system, and the hegemony of European religious imagery do not directly speak of the Easter story, for me this Holy Week they have framed the text. Homophobia, racism, injustice, and imperialism are all systems of domination of one group over another. If was just such a system that killed Jesus. Just such a system led inexorably to Good Friday.
In The Last Week, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan persuasively make just such a case for the death of Jesus from Mark's gospel. They conclude, "In an important sense, Jesus was killed because of the sins of he world. It was the injustice of domination systems that killed him, injustice so routine that it is a part of the normalcy of civilization" (162-163). It is normal in our culture for lesbians and gays to be denied basic human freedoms. It's normal for a Black man to be locked away in a tiny cell for twenty-three hours a day year after year without even a human touch. It's normal for most of us to view the world through the lens of White supremacy—so normal we don't even notice it. It's normal for the world to be viewed through the lens of European/American imperialism. Feminist theologian Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza calls it the "Kyriarchal system"—after the Greek word for "lord" or "master" (in But She Said, 1992). The urge to dominate others is humanity's constant temptation. The practice of domination is humanity's habitual sin. The effect of domination is always death. Such is the human condition. It was this human condition that killed Jesus of Nazareth.
Then comes Easter Day. The contrast is stark. Easter affirms life—love, well-being, inclusion and freedom from domination. Easter tells us that domination and death do not have the final word. For, ultimately, death is not real. The real is that which exists. Death is ever only the absence of life. Life is reality. Consciousness is truth. Life continues, for life is indestructible. In the resurrection of Jesus we see God sides with life against the powers of oppression and death Nature, too, teaches us such. The Dao is always life from death, always spring after winter, always new birth.
How strange that, in time, Christians made Easter into a mirror of the domination system that killed Jesus, making Christ a new potentate!
Post-Easter people are those who side with life and love, freedom and inclusion. They are those who eschew the ways of domination and death.
Christ is risen! Alleluia!
+Ab. Andy
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