Standing as One, United in the Spirit


by
Sr. Carolee Chanona, RSM
Coordinator of Small Christian Communities
Diocese of Belize

Los Angeles
July 8, 2000
"When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, the apostles were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind....And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak....

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in their own language. They were astounded and in amazement they asked...." how does each of us hear them in our own native language ? We hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God." They were all astounded and bewildered and said to one another, "What does this mean? " ( Acts 2: 1-2. 4-8. 11-12 )

Today this gathering of many faces witnesses to the cultural, ethnic, racial and linguistic diversity of the Church, today as yesterday. The invitation and the challenge is the same. What does it mean to hear the good news of God's mighty deeds in our own languages ?

What does it mean to be in solidarity, to stand as one, united in the Spirit?

Then as today, it is to understand what the Spirit of God accomplished in the life of the man whom we call Jesus the Christ, Son of God. Then as today, it is to understand the meaning of his life, of his teaching, of his actions in the context of his society which culminated in the sentencing to death by crucifixion. Then as today, it is to understand that this same Jesus Christ who was crucified is risen from the dead and lives today. The Christian community, the Church is the witness to this encounter with the living Christ.

Jesus' time

Jesus of Nazareth lived and died in a particular place, at a particular time. He belonged to a particular culture and lived and worked in a particular society. His mission was contextualized. In augurating his mission, Jesus proclaims in the words of the prophet Isaiah that God's Spirit has anointed him and sent him to announce Good News to the poor. His mission is one of solidarity with the poor. And from this perspective, he proclaims in word and in action a year that is favourable to the Lord, the beginning of the Reign of God.

To establish clearly and firmly God's reign becomes the ultimate horizon and meaning of Jesus' life. And he does this by "standing as one" - standing in solidarity with the victims of a reign that is not of God's design. As a result, Jesus takes on all the powers to be and the institutions that concretize that power - the leaders, the temple, the traditions, the society, the ideology, the very image of God that justifies a system that is subversive of the reign of God. Jesus denounces the mindsets, values, traditions and systems that have succeeded in manipulating the true image of God and the worship that God wants.

Jesus goes about doing good to those who are in need, spiritual, physical, material, emotional, psychological, and is even challenged to stretch beyond the narrow confines of his own cultural limitations as in the case of the Syrophoenician woman. In doing the good required of the reign of God, Jesus often comes in direct conflict with the Law that regulates and controls the "right" way of relating with God. Yet Jesus states clearly that he has not come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them.

From the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus choses to have companions who will walk with him, who will accompany him in his mission, who will be in solidarity with him. In other words, Jesus mobilizes others to identify with his values, his teaching and with his actions and thereby, sets in motion a counter-movement, a counter-culture and an alternative way of life that questions the status-quo and the establishment.

Jesus' entire mission was to announce in word and in action that the Reign of God was at hand; in fact, it had begun. The Reign of God is not a place; it is not an event nor a happening that is to come. The Reign of God is about relationships; it is about "right relationships"......right relationships with God; with each other; with creation. Jesus' whole life is dedicated to teaching, to living, to doing, to witnessing to these RIGHT RELATIONSHIPS. In his life and ministry, we see the conflict that emerges as his teaching and actions challenge the status-quo, unsettle and disturb the establishment and the acceptable way of living and relating.

Jesus stands with and moves among the masses of people who are marginalized, ostracized, alienated and excluded. From this stance of solidarity with the poor, he speaks of a God whose compassion is with the victims of the system; whose anger is aroused by the institutionalization of injustice and oppression and by the hardness of heart that refuses to recognize the moment of God in their lives.

It is this " stone, rejected by the builders," that becomes "the cornerstone" of a new foundation, of a new community of believers, of followers, of disciples.

21st century

What is the reality of the world and of the society in which we live today ?

I will focus on one phenomenon that is experienced across the globe, both in developing countries, such as mine, Belize, as well as in developed countries, such as yours, the United States of America. It is called globalization.

Globalization is a complex reality of a wide range of social, political, cultural and economic phenomena and processes. There are many ways in which the impact and the effects of globalization are very positive, providing a quality of life never before imagined and opening up an almost infinity of possibilities for future development and productivity. At the same time, there are subtle and not so subtle, insidious and pervasive negative impacts of globalization that directly challenge us as Christians in our mission and ministry and the focus of this reflection of solidarity, standing as one, united in the Spirit.

In one sentence, globalization is a system of exclusion, a system of domination and marginalization.

It is a system of exclusion:


It is a system of domination and marginalization that fosters:

In a word, it is a system that spawns the globalization of injustice and the deprivation of human dignity.

Jubilee Year

Ironically or providentially, we are in the midst of celebrating a Jubilee Year. The bibilical notion and tradition of the Jubilee Year has to do with exploitation of land, indebtedness and enslavery, dehumanization and oppression of peoples. There is an intimate relation with the very sense of what it means to be a People of God and how this people organizes itself socially. The year of Jubilee then is a year of liberations and of profound structural transformations. It is a year which demands a rupture in history - a break with, an interruption of "business as usual" - to allow the land and the people to regain their freedom, to put life and relationships into perspective and to begin anew, to start over.
It is to re-establish the value of life and of human dignity which has been destroyed by the problems of debt and injustice. It is to protect the land from over-exploitation and from its concentration in the hands of the few. It is to inhibit the accumulation of wealth and to put an end to all types of slavery due to debts. As one person has said, " You don't polish the chains of slavery. You break them."

This call to restore, to give back, to reconcile and to forgive is founded on the basic principle that everything belongs to God. No one, no people, no nation has the right to appropriate the goods of the earth definitively nor exclusively, especially if this exclusive and definitive appropriation is at the expense of another's fundamental right to life.

Our challenge

What then does it mean to be in solidarity, to stand as one, united in the Spirit, in a world and society that is embarked on the phenomenon of globalization; of the homogenization of ideology, economy and popular culture; of promoting "one world" on terms and conditions that are so often diametrically opposed to the Gospel values of respect for the uniqueness and diversity of each one, of inclusivity, of mutuality, of interdependence, of justice and mercy and compassion, to name just a few?

In the context of a globalized system of exclusion, marginalization and domination, what does solidarity mean today?

Like Jesus in his time and now as the Christian community in our time, we are called to be a SIGN, a SYMBOL, a PARABLE, a PROPHECY of SOLIDARITY.

SIGN A sign of solidarity that in this cultural, ethnic, racial and linguistic diversity of today's Christian community ( a mirror of the early Christian community), it is possible first of all to be a community; that hearing the marvels of God's actions proclaimed in our own tongues that we overcome our bewilderment and realize that God can break down the walls that could otherwise serve as barriers and obstacles; that we share a common experience of God; that we discover that our unity is possible and sustained when we stand as one with the the outcasts in our society today. As Paul says to the people of Galatia, "You are all children of God in Christ Jesus.... There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free person; there is not male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. "

SYMBOL A symbol of solidarity - the Christian community that is synonymous with the values of openness, of respect and of acceptance of the other, precisely as other, of affirmation of one's own and the other's dignity and equality, of justice and defense of the defenseless and powerless, especially of those who are constantly violated in their right to life, health, education, work and all the basic rights that so often are considered privileges of the few.

PARABLE A parable of solidarity. To be a living parable of an alternative way of living life in the 21st century, in the rediscovery of evangelical poverty, to choose "to live simply, so that others may simply live." To share not only what we may have in excess but to share from our poverty, not necessarily or solely in terms of dollars and cents, but primarily, our poverty of not knowing how to share ourselves, our lives with those who are in any way marginalized and victimized in our society. In a society and in a world of excluded persons, groups, nations, to learn solidarity in the sharing is to find a way to build a society and a world without excluded ones. It is to discover ways to live Jubilee in concrete actions of solidarity with the poor in situations of many unjust inequalities and discrimination.

PROPHECY A prophecy of solidarity. To become in word and in deed a prophetic call to action; to denounce with courage and in love the dehumanizing structures and systems that institutionalize injustice; to announce good news by being willing to walk the talk and to pitch one's tent, in whatever form that takes, on the margins, to take up residence with and among the ones relegated to the periphery of the circles of power, of influence, of status..... To be a community whose very experience of God's mercy and compassion and recreative love makes of them a community where the outcasts and the undesirables of society find outstretched arms enfolding them in the embrace of fellowship.

To stand as one, united in the Spirit, the spirit of Jesus Christ. This Spirit who rested on him, who anointed him

who sent him



It is this same Spirit who gathers us together to experience the possibility of unity, of oneness and anoints us as the Body of Christ to be GOOD NEWS, to be an alternative model of participation, of relationship, of organization, of creative fidelity to the cause of Jesus - the Reign of God.





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Encuentro 2000
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
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