Nativity Catholic Church
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Moving Outside the "Zone" Without a doubt, I would certainly consider myself far from “isolated” or naïve. As one college student said of me a number of years ago, while conversing with a friend and telling her that I might be a good person for her to talk to concerning her problems, “Yeah, you need to hook up with Fr. Ben … he’s been around the block a few times!” I’m not sure which “block” the student may have been referring to, but I did take his remarks as a compliment. I have the good fortune to have been exposed to many different people, experiences, situations, and cultures — either through my travels, in the U.S. and abroad, through friendships, schooling, and certainly through my priestly ministry. Clearly, my years in higher education and college residence life exposed me to a great deal — much more than perhaps I would have ever cared to know or hear or see! But herein rests my dilemma … given the breadth of my experiences and the wealth of life encounters, I am baffled by the fact that I am still surprised and troubled by the territorialism of people. I see it booth on the global stage … and the stage of our own parish community. I am still perplexed and angered by headlines that proclaim the latest atrocities done in the name of Islam. Several years ago, there were scenes of Orthodox clergy and nuns reciting prayers to cast out “Satan” when Pope John Paul II ventured onto their lands. A drive through the city of Chicago, and even parts of Orlando, reveals clear lines of demarcation between races and ethnic enclaves. Then, of course, there are our “pearly-gated” communities (heaven on earth?), making sure the “good” stay in and the “bad” stay out. I struggle with the religious territorialism that manifests itself every Sunday morning when countless Christians scurry off to denominational “territories” for worship and praise. Even among the Catholic churches of our own diocese there is little cooperation or communication. Finally, there’s the territorialism of our own church—who took the table that belongs to X? Why is someone using Room Q when we have had that room every year for 20 years? That stuff belongs to the _______ ministry; no one else should be touching it! And so on … I keep telling myself: you’ve been around, you’ve seen a lot, you’ve heard even more—why be so surprised? After all, didn’t I have my own training in territorialism from an early age? Shortly after learning to utter, “Ma, ma” and “Da, da,” was not my favorite vocabulary word, “MINE!”? There’s the first time my brother reached for one of my Christmas gifts under the tree—and I snatched it back—with the lightening quick strike of a pelican plunging into the ocean for its afternoon snack. How about all those road trips in the family station wagon, where I recall my brother and sister and I had very clearly staked out “properties” in the back seat area—heaven forbid one of us would cross over the other’s imaginary line! Then there are the usual struggles of growing up and wondering where one “fits in”—whom to hang out with, whom to stay away from. My friends and I would build our shacks and tree forts in the woods on lazy summer days, and we were bound and determined not to allow “outsiders” into our clubhouses. Even Mrs. Mohney, a lady who lived two doors down from my grandparents, taught me that when a kickball or Nerf football mistakenly finds its way into someone’s yard, it now belongs to them. I can only imagine the cache of sports equipment that rested in the Mohney’s garage, since no one dared attempt to retrieve anything that ended up in her front yard! Somewhere along the way, my own sense of territorialism began to fade, and so perhaps it’s not so much that I am “surprised” by it in others, but rather that I struggle with its insidious pervasiveness amongst people. I was moved to ponder this struggle as I prayed the Opening Prayer at Sunday Eucharist. Four times that weekend, I raised my arms and voice in supplication to God, on behalf of the whole community, and proclaimed:
Almighty
God, ever-loving Father, What a powerful prayer; what a shake-up and wake-up call to put an end to the boundary-making in which we still engage. While we made our plea for God to crumble these boundaries and walls, I couldn’t help but think of all the territorialism that we continue to enforce and encourage. Would we truly be happy to see the outstretched arms of God, casting their all-embracing shadow, and melting away our divisions and separations? Do we know, sometimes, what we are asking for? It seems that our territorialism even makes its way into the fabric of our moral decision-making. I recently read a review of a new book by Alan Wolfe, Moral Freedom: The Search for Virtue in a World of Choice (W.W. Norton). Wolfe, a professor at Boston College, designed a public opinion poll and conducted more than 200 in-depth interviews with diverse segments of the American population, all in order to gain first-hand insight into the moral lives of Americans, the conditions under which they believe themselves to be living good and virtuous lives. As the author presents and then discusses the moral calculus of those interviewed, there emerges a very disturbing territorialism, so much so that the author speaks about Americans establishing somewhat clearly defined “moral zones.” In a nutshell, virtues such as honesty, loyalty, forgiveness, compassion are practiced “to a point,” that is, these values are more likely top be adhered to when dealing with close relationships, but begin to fade and are exercised with less commitment when dealing with those who fall “outside the zone” of close, personal, intimate relationships. In other words, one must be “honest” with one’s child or spouse, but there’s room for “less honesty” between a client and an insurance company, or between an individual and the cashier in the checkout line when one receives excess change from a purchase. It seems that Wolfe’s study reveals that Americans place a tremendous value on proximity — the closer someone is to us, the higher the commitment to maintaining some kind of moral relationship. Consequently, the opposite is true. The farther removed someone or some situation is from us, the less moral obligation we sense or practice. Those “within the territory,” however we mark out these lines of distinction, are more likely to receive the grace of our goodness, while those who fall “ outside the territory” are not entitled to such goodness and concern. This attitude, perhaps one we are barely aware of until it is raised to consciousness and we look at the overt and subtle ways we engage in this kind of moral calculus, is incredibly contrary to the Christian moral imagination; it can hardly be reconciled with those from whose lips falls the words:
Almighty
God, ever-loving Father, your care extends beyond the If God’s care extends beyond the boundaries of race and nation, then we care called to imitate that same love and care, that same movement which takes us beyond our own moral nests, our own “zones” of ethical concern. The love of God, the compassion demonstrated by Jesus, is never a “domesticated” love, one that is meant to stay within a tightly defined area of relationships. This is why Jesus stuns, infuriates, and still troubles us today when he speaks about the love and care of “family” extending far beyond blood ties. For Jesus, compassion and care, love and forgiveness are higher values than familial relationships. After being told that his mother and sisters and brothers are awaiting him outside the door, Jesus explodes our sense of territorialism when he poses the “question-heard-round-the-neighborhood”: “Who are my mother and sisters and brothers?” And again, he forever redirects our gaze and definition of “neighbor,” when he responds to the question “Who is my neighbor?” with the all-too familiar parable of the “Good Samaritan.” While the sin of territorialism even weaves its way through the pages of Sacred Scripture, the overriding movement of the Word of God, particularly as the living of that Word becomes more mature, presents us with the constant challenge to question our territorialism—to raise it up and expose it for what it is.
These I will bring to my holy
mountain…
But now in Christ Jesus you who
once
I come to gather nations of
every language;
Then the master of the house in
a rage In a world divided by the effects of sin, we will constantly be confronted with making choices that either will perpetuate the building of walls, or will contribute to their crumbling to pieces. The outstretched arms of God are casting their shadow over the “territories” we create and maintain, while the tender yet powerful embrace of those arms gives us the courage, the stamina, and the mission to continue loving and serving “outside the zone!”
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