Jesus has a universal message of communion and is often on the move sharing it. He is thus constantly in contact with a variety of different people always bringing them together. He is creating a new people’s movement. It is a universal movement in which all people are in communion. Jesus’ universal movement is highlighted at Pentecost, All “were filled with the Spirit and began to speak in different tongues” to different people “from every nation under heaven” yet “each one heard them speaking in his own language.”
There has always been a universal language to Jesus’ universal movement. But some are confused about it. Some have taken the language element literally, confining the movement to language, for example, Pentecost’s miracle of tongues. Some call themselves Charismatics and claim a select ability to speak in tongues. But no one beyond their own select group understands what they are saying. That selectivity directly contradicts Pentecost and its witness of universality in which all people understood the words spoken. Other people are confused about the behavioral language of Jesus’ universal movement, that everyone relates in communion. The confusion stems from some white people who call themselves Christian. These white people claim to be Christ-like, except no one beyond their own select group of white people understands their connection to Jesus, who is a dark skinned man. Their selectivity directly contradicts Jesus’ miracle of universal communion at Pentecost. Some of these select white people are participating in a global white supremacist movement. It includes Australia’s Catholic Senator Fraser Anning, France’s Catholic politician Marine Le Pen whose National Rally Party recently scored an electoral victory, various Catholic politicians in Italy’s Lega Nord, and Viktor Orban of Hungary who claims to be defending Christian Europe and recently visited the U.S. where he was warmly received by its white supremacist ruler, Donald Trump. In the U.S., leaders of the non-universal white supremacist movement include self-described Christian and Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Duke is “gonna fulfill the promises of Donald Trump,” using the KKK to do so. The KKK is a U.S. white supremacist group whose members target for exclusion Blacks especially and also Jews and Catholics. Thus, another confused person is Catholic Cardinal Raymond Burke who joins KKK leader Duke in praising President Trump for his white supremacist policies. Trump has many white allies who claim he and they are all Christian which is a sign of their confusion about Christ Jesus. One of Trump’s allies in the white supremacist movement is another confused Catholic, Steve Bannon. Bannon has been on a global tour of white supremacist nations visiting some of the aforementioned rulers with Cardinal Burke. The two men are collaborating on curriculum for a far-right Catholic monastery. They envision their monastery as providing leadership across Europe for their white supremacist views. Given that both Bannon and Burke are confused white people, both men mistakenly think they are starting a universal people’s movement. It is clear they are not participating in Jesus’ universal people’s movement.
A word that means universal and refers to our wholeness is catholic. Katholikos is a Greek word that means ‘of the whole’ or a ‘sense of wholeness.’ In its capitalized form it became the title of a particular thread of institutional Christianity, Catholicism. Even in this form it is being highly confused by white supremacists in its fold. In its non-capitalized form catholic reflects our being all of a whole; joining together with all of our differences. Ilia Delio expresses this insight in many of her writings. Delio is a Franciscan Sister and the Director of Catholic Studies at Georgetown University. She writes, “To live in catholicity (is) to have a sense of the cosmos or the whole order of things, including physical and spiritual things.” “We do not invent a whole; rather, the whole exists prior to anything else. We are to awaken to the whole we already are.” White supremacists do not unify for wholeness. They are not yet themselves whole; not yet awakened to the whole they already are. They are divided from the universality of their own humanity. They would tell us we too must be divided – by the color of our skin or the name given our land mass – but we are not divided. We are whole, we are catholic.
Prayer: Spirit of wholeness, help us awaken to the whole we already are.
Question: Why does it matter that Jesus was a dark-skinned man?
June 09, 2019 Gospel John 14:15-16, 23b-26 Pentecost