A Fresh Perspective

The year was 2003 and the place was Wrigley Field in Chicago.  It was the sixth game in a 4 out of 7 series with the Florida Marlins for the National League Championship. The Cubs were leading 3 – 0, just five outs away from going to the World Series. Then it happened. With one out, Marlin second baseman Luis Castillo fouled one into the first row of seats off of the third base line. Several spectators reached for the ball as left fielder Moises Alou made a play on it. Just as Alou was about to make the catch, the ball deflected off the hands of a Cubs fan. That fan’s name was Steve Bartman. Alou visibly displayed his displeasure. After that failed attempt to make an out, the inning broke open in favor of the Marlins. They scored eight runs, defeating the Cubs 8 – 3. Because there were no replay boards in Wrigley Field, no one in the crowd knew of Bartman until friends and family members who were watching the game on TV started calling them on their cell phones. Bartma...

In Jean Vanier’s wonderful book, Becoming Human , he quotes the African-American writer Patricia Raybon about how the oppression she experienced in the United States had taught her to hate white people. She writes:  “I hated them because they have lynched and lied and jailed and poisoned and neglected and discarded and excluded and exploited countless cultures and communities with such blatant intent or indifference as to humanly defy belief or understanding.” But then she goes on to talk about how she came to recognize that her hatred, no matter how justified, was eating away her identity and self-respect. It blinded her to the gestures of hospitality and friendship a white girl in high school offered her. She realized that instead of waiting for whites to repent of the atrocities they had inflicted on blacks and ask forgiveness, she needed to ask forgiveness for her own hatred, for her inability to see a white person as a person and not just as part of a race of oppres...

Through Lent and Holy Week we have walked with Jesus to the cross. Our participation in Jesus’ death is one way through which his death has healing and redeeming efficacy. We too must die to our ego-driven self if we are to experience new life (John 12:24–25). The Passion story compels us, to not only identify with Jesus, but with all those who acted upon or in connection with Jesus. In so doing, we see our part in the crucifixion. Our shocking complicity in evil is exposed. Against this backdrop appears the shocking revelation of God’s love. Jesus says, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself” (12:32). In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ “lifting up” includes both the cross and the resurrection. As the risen, cosmic Christ, the Spirit of God is at work wooing, drawing, nudging, and mysteriously persuading all of us into healthy divine-human relationship. On Good Friday we mourn Jesus’ death and our participation in his crucifixion. On Easter Sunday, we cel...