Last month I wrote about the movement referred to as the
“new monasticism.” Central to this
movement’s identity are twelve “marks of the new monasticism.” I think of them as marks of mission: a set of
instructions for following Jesus. They
focus on the “doing” of Christianity.
The conviction that the truth of our faith is demonstrated in action
underlies these twelve marks.
The first mark is “Relocation to the abandoned places of
Empire.”[1] What might this mean? How is it consistent with following Jesus?
Think of it as an admonition to embrace downward
mobility. We live in a culture that
places a premium on the values of Empire:
control, domination, accumulation, and excess; more is better. The emphasis is on moving out and up: continually
relocating ourselves until we are at corporate headquarters, usually in a
cosmopolitan city at the center of the networks of Empire. This is what it means to be successful – to
rise above it all. “It all” meaning the deprivation experienced by the vast
majority of the earth’s people.
There is a kind of spiritual upward mobility as well. It sees spiritual progress as an ascent to
God, an increasingly blissful disengagement from the material and bodily
realities of life and the suffering that accompanies them. This kind of upward mobility is certainly
found with the Christian tradition. It
developed along with the movement of Christianity from being a marginal,
oppressed movement within the Roman Empire, to becoming the exclusive religion
of the Empire.
Spiritual “upward mobility” that seeks to escape from the
world offers little in the way of critique of the “upward mobility” promoted by
Empires old and new. Upwardly mobile
spirituality abandons the world, much as Empires abandon the people and places
they exploit for profit. Jesus invites
us to move in a different direction.
It is not we who ascend to God; it is God who descends to
meet us in the Incarnation of God’s Son, Jesus.
The downward mobility of God redirects our attention to the abandoned
places of Empire where Jesus appears:
not Rome or even Jerusalem, but the backwaters of Galilee. Jesus teaches his disciples, “Whatever you do
to the least of these (the hungry, the sick, the naked, the prisoner), you do
to me.”[2] The resurrected Jesus tells his disciples, “I
am going ahead to Galilee – meet me there.”[3] Jesus
is found among all the “wrong” people in all the “wrong” places.
The downward mobility of God was understood well by St.
Paul: “Let the same mind be in you that
was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard
equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the
form of a slave, being born in human likeness, and being found in human form,
he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a
cross.”[4] Obedience to God places us in opposition to
the values of Empire, choosing solidarity with the poor rather than exploiting
our privilege.
The Letter of James
is even more pointed, quoting Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount as it
warns: “Has not God chosen the poor in
the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has
promised to those who love him? But you
have dishonored the poor. Is it not the
rich who oppress you?”[5]
Relocation to the abandoned places of Empire recaptures the
practice of the primitive church in its embrace of the downward mobility of
Jesus. God is not the cosmic
justification of earthly Empires that exploit inequality and reward the few at
the expense of the many. God is instead
found in solidarity with suffering humanity and the struggle for justice.
Solidarity begins with intercessory prayer for the poor and
vulnerable. It moves into relationships
of mutual service with people on the margins.
It can mean physical relocation to abandoned neighborhoods and rural
areas. It always means placing our
dollars, our energy, our votes, and our bodies on the line so that those
abandoned by Empire will know that God never abandons them.
This past summer, the Episcopal Church’s General Convention
passed a resolution calling upon its members “to begin every meeting in
calendar year 2013, whether at the parish, diocesan, or church-wide level, and
no matter what the purpose, with this agenda item: ‘How will what we are doing
here affect or involve those living in poverty?’”[6] This is one small step we can take to
redirect our attention toward the abandoned places of Empire, and consider how
we will respond to what, and Who, we discover there.
[1] “Empire” is understood here as referring to systems of domination that stand in opposition to God’s desire for the
well-being of creation.
[2] Matthew 35:31-46.
[3] Matthew 28:10
[4] Philippians 2:5-8.
[5] James 2:5-6; cf. Matthew 5:3, Luke 6:20.
[6] Resolution B008 “Focusing on Those Living in Poverty”
accessed at www.generalconvention.org/resolutions/download/185-1342045939
3 comments:
Fr. John, all in all, I find this a compelling vision on the whole. I would want to qualify your words:
"There is a kind of spiritual upward mobility as well. It sees spiritual progress as an ascent to God, an increasingly blissful disengagement from the material and bodily realities of life and the suffering that accompanies them. This kind of upward mobility is certainly found with the Christian tradition. It developed along with the movement of Christianity from being a marginal, oppressed movement within the Roman Empire, to becoming the exclusive religion of the Empire.
Spiritual “upward mobility” that seeks to escape from the world offers little in the way of critique of the “upward mobility” promoted by Empires old and new. Upwardly mobile spirituality abandons the world, much as Empires abandon the people and places they exploit for profit. Jesus invites us to move in a different direction."
I would do so be beginning with a footnote of a recent paper I completed (I'll send you a copy):
Some modern readings of the Desert Elders conflate world and creation. This is unfortunate. Those who make the claim that they are world-denying miss that the world they are protesting is Christian accommodation to imperial ways of domination and exploitation of one another and creation. Their political-economic engagement with this accommodation is to live out an alternative way on the edges of empire and amidst the wilds of creation. To deny a world is to deny the worldview of that world. The world they vision is one in which we are in harmony with creation and one another. It is ironic to me that this same materiality found among Celtic Saints and St. Francis of Assisi is not negatively categorized. On the contrary, these examples are often sentimentalized and de-radicalized. All of this does not deny that flesh-hating materialities have arisen from some monastic and ascetical tendencies, but this should not lead us to a wholesale dismissal without careful examination of the worldviews that emerge in particular expressions of holiness in persons and groups of a given time and context."
Thanks Christopher. I completely agree that leaving the "world" means leaving the behind the ideology or world-view of the dominant culture, rather than abandoning creation. The Gospel of John is a good example in this regard.
It also seems to me that the desert abbas and ammas were exemplars of a spirituality of downward mobility. They descended into their inner depths to wrestle with the demons, as well as choosing to live on the margins of Empire. The way "up" is "down" for them.
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