Breaking windows
It was around 1:30 in the afternoon on Thursday when I heard the doorbell. It was a police officer standing in the misty rain, asking if I was the owner of a black Toyota. It had been broken into, he said, and the address came back as mine. I followed him to my car half a block away. The front passenger window was gone, shattered into a million pieces.
As I gave the cop my insurance information and he filed his report, I wondered aloud what the thief could have been thinking, to risk so much for so little, and in the middle of the day on a well-trafficked two-way street, no less. The cop didn’t have any theories, or if he did, he kept them to himself.
The tape on the hospital’s surveillance camera across the street didn’t catch anything, and for all I know, the thief got off scot free. Of course, he didn’t get much. He got a couple of pockets of change -- ten, maybe twenty bucks. He got my phone charger and my iPod connector cable. He jacked up my CD player but couldn’t take it with him. And apparently he got something black from my trunk, though after taking a look in there -- laden as it is with lingering odds and ends like a boogie board and tennis rackets and my grad school graduation gown from the summer of 2009 – it beats me what he got.
I know he got something from my trunk, though, because as I left for the autoglass place for a temporary window (which, as I came to learn, is nothing more than glorified shrinkwrap), the woman who had called the cops, a neighbor I’d seen before but never met, came out and told me the story. She described a Hispanic guy in his forties, who she spotted through her curtains stuffing his pockets frantically. “He didn’t seem right,” she told me. “I don’t know if he was on drugs or something, but he wasn’t right.”
He wasn’t right.
In the time that’s passed since the break-in I’ve been wondering about this man, this thief who wasn’t right. And that initial question – what was he thinking? – has evolved. Sure, I still wonder why he took the risk. But I wonder more than that. I wonder what was going through his head when he put his elbow or his hammer or his fist through the glass. When he saw the Franciscan cross hanging from the rearview mirror, Christ the innocent one being crucified for the sin of the world – for his sin and mine – did the thief have second thoughts? In his quest for change in the center console, stuffing his pockets with pennies and nickels and quarters and dimes, he found another cross, a Celtic one, which he left on the passenger seat amid glass and a few straggling pennies. I wonder what he thought when he saw a recent copy of La Voz Hispana on the backseat, a local Spanish language newspaper he very well may read when he’s at home, wherever home for him happens to be, if he has one. And of course, I have to wonder what he was thinking, when he saw it in the back: my VHS copy of My Oh My!, that utterly amazing, tear-jerking portrayal of the Seattle Mariners’ magical 1995 season, which I recently rediscovered in my parents’ basement.
I don’t know what the guy was thinking, or if he was at that moment capable of very much thought at all. I don’t know what has driven him to this, or who, for that matter. I don’t know where he lays his head at night, if he lays his head anywhere in particular. I don’t know where he was headed when he took off running, pockets jangling, between the hospital and the cemetery. I don’t know where he’ll end up, or where he is even now.
Since the break-in, while driving in a car suddenly drafty, devoid of music except for the flapping of the glorified shrinkwrap, I think of this man and of myself and I keep coming back to one thing. As much as I’d like to get my stuff back and be able to listen to music again and not have to worry about rain getting on the upholstery; as much as I’d like to think I’m better than this guy and that he’s a lost cause; as much, as much, as much, I keep coming back to one haunting, sobering, ultimately amazing thought: There but for the grace of God go I.
And so I pray. I pray believing that the prayer is already being answered all around us, every day, even when all we see is a disregarded cross and a million pieces of broken glass. The prayer is simple.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Amen.
Mexico’s “crisis of faith”
Philip Jenkins, a professor at Penn State well known for his research on the incredible growth of the church in the Global South (I especially recommend his book The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity), writes an occasional column for Christian Century called “Notes From the Global Church.� His latest is about what he calls a “crisis of faith� in Mexico.
About 80-90% of Mexicans identify as Catholic, with the number of Protestants estimated in the single digits. Jenkins writes that Mexican churches -- presumably Catholic ones, by and large -- ought to be applauded for what they have often done right:
They have behaved heroically, striving to make peace between factions, trying to fulfill social needs in regions where secular government has all but abdicated its power. Individual priests and bishops comfort bereaved families and preach bravely against violence and criminality, at grave risk to their lives. Fearless activism for peace and human rights made Saltillo's legendÂary bishop José Raúl Vera López a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.
On the other hand, he also points to the problem of syncretism, which obviously compromises the distinctiveness of Christian belief, but also contributes to immediate matters of life and death. Whereas syncretistic cult practices have long been practiced in the shadows, Jenkins says, the rise of drug cartels and gangs have only recently brought some of them to the surface:
One terrifying symbol is the skeletal figure of La Santa Muerte, Saint Death, who serves as the gangs' patron saint... Santa Muerte is condemned by the official church but worshiped in countless clandestine shrines. Nor is she the only manifestation of a subversive pseudo-Catholicism that veers close to outright diabolism. Another wildly popular folk saint is the 19th-century bandit Jesús MalÂÂverde, "angel of the poor," patron of drug dealers and illegal migrants. Devotees of San Juan Soldado (Soldier John) venerate a man executed in 1938 for raping and murdering an eight-year-old girl. While such beliefs demonstrate a profound faith in spiritual realities, they also show the yawning gulf that separates popular practice from any traditional concept of Christian faith.
It’s easy to spot syncretism like this in foreign contexts, when the idols can be seen and named and are connected to obvious brutality, but none of us have embraced a culture-free gospel, and a healthy dose of humility here would go a long way. Nonetheless, the Mexican church will need to figure out how to handle the veneration of La Santa Muerte and others.
But what ought to happen first: correcting theology and private worship, or reforming society? Would a crackdown on gangs and narco-traffickers render La Santa Muerte redundant? Would strong, compelling theological teaching by the church lead members of gangs to turn, not only from idols but from violence too? What lessons can the rest of us learn from this case about the often uneasy relationship between society and religion to which none of us is exempt?
Prayer for churches in Northern Mexico
I wrote last month about the churches of Central America, asking what ministry looks like in communities immersed so thoroughly in violence and oppression. It begs some very basic, fundamental questions. For example, what is truly good news for people in slums overrun by narco-traffickers?
I remain concerned about Central America especially, since it’s where I grew up and where I’m most familiar, but I was interested to read this letter from a pastor associated with a church planting network in the extremely violent region of Northern Mexico, who is asking North American church groups to stay away, while requesting increased prayer and support. Comparing churches in Northern Mexico with the people of God in Scripture, he writes:
The Lord called his people to incarnate their lives and way of life in Babylon to be hope in the middle of darkness. In the same way, we as the people of God are called to incarnate our ministry in the cities where the Lord is sending us to serve. We are sure that this is very difficult, but we are looking to Christ as God incarnate dwelling among his enemies, showing His love for us.
It's a weighty perspective many of us can't quite grasp. He goes on to outline a few of the ways the churches are seeking to do this, and specific ways those in less chaotic regions can be praying.
[Photo credit: Redeemer City to City]
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