Blog #6
2-19-08

Gestures of Mercy & Christian Life

In the past weeks’ blog postings, descriptive commentaries have begun to capture the energy and reality of Israel/Palestine. This week, I am going to do a bit of theological reflection about the experience. There are three reasons for this shift away from describing my experience (travel log of people, places, events etc.) to a more reflective consideration of its meaning in my emerging perspective, as a pastoral care theologian and a woman of faith. First, the research at the heart of this “adventure” has begun to render fruit that requires the application of theology. So, frankly, it makes sense to remain in the “zone” of thinking theologically this week. Where is God (and Jesus, as the self-disclosure of God) in this experience? How is God evident for Palestinian Christians in their situation? Why and how is the Christian gospel the centerpiece of Christian living and accepted by Palestinian Christians as an abundant harvest of hope for Christians in this region, who could easily despair in their current circumstances?

Secondly and quite practically, the entire week has been a series of conversations, conferences, and dialogues related to Christianity as strategically rooted by God as a particular voice in this part of the world. Jesus was a Jewish man of Galilee. His religious affiliation with the Abrahamic tradition matters. His human life ended tragically under the brutal injustice of Roman occupiers in Jerusalem. His resurrection continues to transform any believer, imprinting a profound sense of hope of eternal with God in a just kingdom. 

A third reason for this focus is that many Christians in all parts of the world are in the second week of Lent, a six-week season of intentional and routine focus on grace through Jesus Christ, who Christians believe broke the chains of sin and death for all.  And, I am again reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s suggestion (mentioned in an earlier post) that grace comes to humans because God abundantly loves the fruit of God’s creativity: Creation! What we make of grace in our human situation flows from prayerful, generous, compassionate and merciful attention to the hurting, suffering world.

As a child, I remember dutifully memorizing the corporal and spiritual works of mercy in hopes of getting a star on my first Communion preparation sheet. In writing this week, I am reminded of their vitality:

Mercy for All

As a Sister of Charity, it might be surprising that the starting point chosen for this reflection is “mercy,” but there are growing suspicions that Jesus’ current mission in this part of the world flows with passion from a deeper understanding of this Christian virtue.  Where God’s charity (love) “makes a way where there is no way,” God’s mercy touches and anoints the deep wounds of life with comfort. Both virtues attend to human beings as Jesus inspired and one without the other, along with a rigorous pursuit of justice, may well be insufficient in the scope of human caregiving shaped by a gospel paradigm. For this week, mercy will be explored, as companion to charity and justice. 

Bishop Kenneth Untener presented this Scriptural “case” in a forum of religious educators (Origins 1988),

A strange thing happened to the story of Jesus and the adulteress on its way to becoming part of John’s Gospel. It was hushed up, suppressed. It is missing from the early Greek manuscripts in the East. In the West, it was missing from some early manuscripts, but was included in others.

Because of all this, there have been questions about where it belongs in the gospel. Some feel that it belongs at a different place in John’s Gospel. Others say that it doesn’t even belong in John’s Gospel, but was originally part of Luke and should be placed just before his account of the treachery of Judas. Some of the early manuscripts actually have it there.

Wherever it belongs, two things are clear: The story is part of the early tradition about Jesus. Early attempts were made to hush it up.

Why would people in the church want to suppress it? The answer is quite clear: This story just didn’t seem right. Jesus, it would appear, was too soft on sin. The more severe the church became in its discipline—and this happened very early—the more difficult it became to tell a story like this about Jesus. And so it was hushed up.

(Story is found in JN 7:53-8:11)

Bishop Untener’s thinking reveals something about why this story was almost set aside in the Tradition—it speaks to a kind of justice that could only flow from the inner-logic of God’s mercy. Confusing to us perhaps, irrational even, mercy as revealed by Jesus is central to God’s nature. Mercy, the “softness” at the center of Christ’s message, works directly to correct the strictness of Church (and society), according to Bishop Untener.

So, as I move forward let me frame these initial thoughts about this very important woman who once moved and lived and had her being in this part of the world. In one way, the adulteress woman harmed the honor of the whole. In another, it was her own honor for which she would be stoned. How could God restore honor when the entire system failed to prevent the sin? (More than one feminist writer has questioned the “choices” this woman had in a patriarchal society.) Jesus’ intervention becomes the gold standard for dealing with those in need of God’s mercy. In fact this story reveals the trifold-dynamics of mission, Jesus “makes a way where there was no way” according the law (charity). This gesture was followed by attending to the individual woman (mercy), softening her circumstances. He then addresses those representing the system (justice), softening the institutional perspective by interjecting the inner-logic of God’s forgiveness into the deliberations about legal interpretation.

Continuing, Bishop Untener asked this same audience of religious educators, “How many of you here have a picture of the foot washing on your wall at home? I’ll bet there’s not a person here who does. You rarely, if ever, see a picture of this. Also did you ever notice that this mandate from Jesus is optional at Mass on Holy Thursday? We’ve made it an optional mandate.”

Foot washing is a very touchy-feely, tactile and intimate experience. Some of us think we have funny looking feet, or feet that smell after hours of being in hot, sweaty shoes. We don’t want someone else touching our funny, smelly feet! Furthermore, some communities have deemed the ritual a “lot of extra work to organize” or argue that it’s “really not understood by some” or seek a less-intimate way to bring in the congregation suggesting that “maybe washing hands work better because people are more comfortable with it.”   

Bishop Untener challenges the people of the Church to receive both of Jesus’ gestures extended to the gathered community on the last night of his human life with equal fervor, so as to draw together from two gestures one mandate, the fruit of which is mercy. From the Scriptures (see John 13:1-20) it can be gleaned that feet washing at the last supper was viewed as quite indignant by Peter, whose acknowledgment of Jesus as the Christ made it incomprehensible for him to understand how this man of honor could assume the lesser position of kneeling to wash feet. The image of Christ bending down to touch the disciple’s feet functions symbolically within our Christian religious imagination: Jesus the Christ is of the earth and for the earth. At this christological perspective, Peter rebelled! When he sensed the benefit of accepting the gesture, however, he offered to be washed by Jesus head to toe. For all of his abundant faith this hour, Scripture records that the very next day Peter ran away from this same Jesus the Christ, fearing for his own life. Jesus demonstrated that one stays and attends, even over the objections of some. The story of Jesus Christ bending to wash the feet of those who were dearest to him remained within the oral tradition that preceded the writing of the Scriptures. To this end, we can be grateful that Peter’s initial viewpoint regarding this act did not prevail! What is critically important for this reflection is that mercy is explicitly at the heart of this gesture. Jesus was not going to simply abandon this gathered community who had faithfully followed, giving up any hope for a normal life in Galilee after he was no longer physically with them. “I have given you a way to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.” As the Christ, Jesus knew fully the significance of his words. “I say to you, no slave is greater than his master, nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.” (JN 13:15-17) 

The Holy Thursday image most internalized by the Christian community is that of the breaking of the bread, with the prominent gesture of Jesus reaching toward the heavens with the manna of life, then reaching around the table to share the bread. As with the washing of the disciples’ feet, this gesture also functions in Christian religious imagination. It empowers and connects those who receive the bread with the pervasive grace of God, with whom Christ is one. (Tradition has grappled to theologically “settle” the various perspectives on what actually happened as the bread and wine became the Body and Blood of Christ—and each Christian denomination asserts a different valued perspective. For this reflection, we cannot in this space take up the varying theologies. But the significance of the gesture for all Christians remains rooted in the same mission of Jesus Christ.)

Although aware of the significance of cultural interpretation, it is brought back into magnification in this cultural immersion that Western and Middle Eastern ways of knowing are not identical—even when it comes to the gospel. I have come to understand that Western views about equality are sensible for Westerners, for instance. We Westerners hold equality of individuals as thee cornerstone of social design. And recalling the abominations of slavery, colonialism, and disparity brought on by every kind of “ism,” it is essential that we not lose focus of this all-important goal. Western cultures have risen from specific ways of being and thinking that gave way to particular sins which we must make every effort not to repeat. But striving for equality presents challenges as well. In Western mindset, “greater” tends to have a negative implication, namely that of “having power over” the other. So while we push young people to seek out ways of achieving greatness through their acquired power, we also encourage them to cooperate, collaborate and help others to achieve greatness as well. “Weakness” tends to be associated with the individual who can’t take care of his or her needs, so weakness too is viewed with some negativity. Weakness, it is assumed, can be overcome by self determination.  Embedding the cornerstone of equality in our social institutions promotes the integrity of every human being. Equality holds in tension the notions of “greater” and “weaker.” Mercy becomes reality when the individual is tended to so that he or she is able to overcome weakness or accept the weakness as part of the process of becoming greater, as a person—an individual.

Middle-Eastern mindset is also sensible, but different. It seems to hold that we are distinct in our abilities and responsibilities, and there is a hierarchy of relations that sorts this out. It may be very difficult (if not intolerable) for some Westerners to accept the basic premise that there is a hierarchy of skill, ability, wisdom, natural talent, and authority that keeps us unequal. So weakness (softness, as Bishop Untener might have said) can be implied when reaching across the table to the one who is lesser in stature, or if the one who is lower in stature reaches across the table to the higher. Tantur’s director tells a story of attending his first staff meeting, fresh from his ministry in the States and eager to find out what all the employees thought should be done in his upcoming tenure. Turned out, they thought that he had been hired because he had “answers” that they were not responsible for having. Palestinian culture recognizes differences in the stature and role of its members in ways we might bristle at in the West. The staff recognized they weren’t equal and because it was not an embedded cultural aspiration, they needed to focus on what did matter: upholding the honor of their position and place in the system with dignity. So silence prevailed at the meeting.  They could only be effective in their work if the director would be effective in his work—which is to direct them in their roles and assign them specific responsibilities by virtue of the authority his position presumes! He possessed the authority because he possessed the skills. Seeking advice from one “beneath” was a sign of weakness. Mercy, in this situation, becomes reality when the director, directs. He does not try to improve their self esteem as individuals by including them in decision making.

At first blush, Christian sensibilities seem to cast the inter-relational dynamics between humans as the Body of Christ with a Western “twist,” promoting the equality of individuals as the goal. (see Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 12:12; 1 Cor 12:27) God’s mercy bends down into our individual human circumstances, washing the sores and the ugly toes of our aching feet. God’s mercy then reaches across the table, touching individuals, anointing individual’s wounds with the bread of life as a means of comforting and sustaining. Westerners think of mercy not so much in terms of the suffering corpus, the Body of Christ. We tend to think of God’s mercy as the salve of Christ’s comfort passed from one ministering human to another suffering creature, bringing dignity to the suffering individual. This seems to be the very reason that the story of Jesus and the adulteress woman disappeared for so long. (And never to be known to us is anything of the man with whom she had been!)  This woman’s honor was completely in shambles. In this honor-shame culture, Jesus redefined the most basic principle of law. This woman brought shame on herself. She was her own judge and jury, in that her sentence was decided by the sin she chose to commit. But Jesus lifts the veil of shame and restores her honor, forever redefining the contour of honor and shame for followers. This old precept was replaced with a new way of “knowing”: Relieve the one who is suffering of the burden as an act of mercy and the justification of God will be complete, albeit not clear how or why this is possible.   

Middle Eastern Christian mindset grasps the notion of distinctive roles that animate the whole Body of Christ for the work of mercy in a complimentary, but not exact or equal way. Reaching across the table to others, as Jesus mercifully does during the last supper, isn’t an act of bringing the individual members into the circle of equality. The gesture brings into unity the many members, functioning effectively, each with a distinctive perspective nurtured by one’s particular roles and responsibilities. It is a matter of honor that the unity of the whole Body become the animation of mercy in whatever soil the Body is planted. Dignity of individuals (not equality of individuals) flows from the very best efforts of the members to use their distinct power for mercy to protect the honor of the whole Body. Certainly Palestinian Christianity manifests mercy to the individual in the ordinary realm of things, but the motivation is perhaps a bit different from that of Western Christians in that at least in some measure, mercy is rooted in the honor of the Body of Christ. The particular act of Jesus bending to wash disciples’ feet mercifully tends to the gathered community, raising the whole corpus, Body of Christ, in dignity by comforting, in advance, the brokenness they would experience in the days ahead.

Universally Christian perspective recognizes that Jesus’ gestures anticipated the need of God’s mercy, for the individual and the whole Body. Returning for a moment to the opening insight from Bishop Untener, “mercy, the softness at the center of Christ’s message, works directly to correct the strictness of the Church (and society),” there is little doubt that Western and Middle Eastern Christians acknowledge the need for the softness of mercy to intercede as a correction to the strictness of many institutions that diminish the quality of life and cause great suffering for many humans. At this moment in history, it would seem right to say that Palestinian Christians experience the last supper gestures of Jesus as anticipating their corporate need for mercy. (I have yet to experience this ritual during the Holy Thursday liturgy here, and will dutifully report the week after Easter!)

When the Pentecost event took place, Jesus extends yet another gesture to guide the mission of mercy. With the fire of the Spirit planted within his companions, this trilogy of gestures functions to breathe life and mission into the Christian community. Each of the three gestures manifests a significant intersection of postures that carries the mercy of God into their midst, and in the most intimate of ways. (I will say more about Pentecost in a future post.)

Katherine Siksek: Orthodox Christian Arab Embodiment of Mercy

“It is now high time for us to go back in our thinking to where in 1918 Jerusalem and all of Palestine were suffering from the after effects of WWI. When Red Cross units moved in to alleviate the distress.” This is how Henrietta Siksek Farradj begins the remarkable story of her mother, Katherine (1894-1973). Katherine, who had an excellent capacity for the English language, quickly signed on to assist the Red Cross when they arrived in Jerusalem.

The good that was embodied in the heart of Katherine Siksek came up to the surface…. Further still in her moved the desire to sacrifice pleasure for a better life for others, all with a daring spirit of adventure molded into the need to love the deprived, bed-ridden, and the sick and suffering.

Katherine’s husband George was an author, teacher and translator, able to speak English, French, Turkish, Greek, and Arabic. They had three children. There is little doubt that they could have lived a very comfortable life. But, with the reputation for being the “best beggar in the land” (generally not an honorable term), Katherine was committed to turning her family’s good fortune of education and perseverance into helping her impoverished nation manage the suffering that was all around them. War had destroyed so much of the fertile potential both in terms of land and morale. She presumed, and rightly so, that other women would also feel called to join her.

Katherine was a well-educated woman. Her daughter writes,

Passing by Damascus Gate people saw a young damsel walking with an escort behind her, carrying her books as becomes a girl of good standing. Why an escort? The road was lonely, and it was deemed fit that a beautiful damsel and the daughter of a man of good standing should be escorted.”

She had know-how, stood on stature as her family’s honor was well-established, she took initiative and in the early years of her work in Jerusalem, she was able to attend to the many sick and needy by walking endlessly making home visits or answering the never-ending stream of requests that appeared at her door—“the house beyond the archway with the green door with the circular knob” that apparently everyone in Old Jerusalem knew.

Katherine’s story takes a turn when she visited an old dying woman who pleaded with her to care for her mentally ill and bed-ridden son and daughter, he in his thirties and she in her twenties. In turning for help to a local hospital when the woman died, Katherine was keenly made aware of the reality that there was no one who would accept this young man and his sister. At the same time, Katherine had been securing funding for medicine to help another woman get medication to alleviate the suffering of a stomach ulcer. Rich benefactors were not always financially able to help Katherine and she was aware that a more long-term solution to such need had to be established. The woman with the ulcer, overcome with pain and despondent from waiting for relief, threw herself from “a high window” and died. A third situation almost simultaneously presented itself when a young Ramallah bride-to-be slipped on a wet floor, becoming paralyzed. Her fiancé, unable to take care of her, returned to America. Her needs far surpassed her family’s resources and they turned to Katherine, by this time known as Madame Siksek, her title being the only honor and appreciation that could be bestowed by the poor and suffering she served.

Katherine was called to the home of an elderly couple, childless and bed-ridden, living in a basement room in Old Jerusalem. “Their beds were seeping with dampness and their room was dark and unhealthy.” In 1924, Katherine encouraged her friends, the Orthodox Society of the Destitute Sick, to found with her the Myrrh Bearers. Monthly donations from member-families were committed to the project. Katherine walked from house-to-house in Old Jerusalem, collecting money. She rented a house and hired a newly-widowed woman to care for the bed-ridden brother and sister and four newly orphaned boys. The Society secured a new house and after many requests (and some protestation), Katherine begged the Board to open the home and use it to care for elderly handicapped. She and her husband gathered a group of benefactors in their home, and asked them to sign a “trust” document that would establish the Homes of Mercy. Her daughter recalls:

It was Mandate time, the community was poor, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate seemed to be distant and busy in its own problems [Bishop Untener might say, in need of “softening”]. No municipality was ready to back up the issue (loan) though they gave free water! One would think that what was started in 1940 could easily crumple a few years later. That however was not the case.     

She convinced King Hussein to give the Homes a piece of land near Bethany. Trees were planted, which today yield olives, tangerines and pomegranates, symbolic of the lives that have been transformed. The governing board sometimes has meetings in the house of Katherine and George to be “close to their talents and efforts for service” in the same place that “ordained them into a ministry of love and service.” The Homes have grown into health care centers that attend to maternity services, mental health, refugees, and the populations for which the homes were established. “The care of persons as human beings with hearts and feelings and likes and dislikes” requires “caregivers to go beyond the actual care of the body into the care of the soul.”

At the time of Katherine’s death in May of 1973, the Four Homes of Mercy “had gained in stature, experience and ability to handle patients effectively.” She raised a great deal of awareness about the lives of the marginalized handicapped, elderly, and mentally ill. She harnessed the little bit of financial resources available and transformed them into quality ministry. Her faith was deep, she began and ended most encounters with the words, “Have faith—God is sure to help.” Bishop Untener is no doubt rejoicing with Katherine Siksek who embraced the Scriptural mandate to wash feet.

It’s interesting that on different continents, two women, Katherine Siksek and Dorothy Day, who to my knowledge knew nothing of the other’s work, animated the gospel by extending mercy, softening the harshness of life for many.

Resources for Posting #6 to which you might like to refer:
Bishop Kenneth Untener, The Practical Prophet: Pastoral Writings. (Paulist Press, 2007)
Henrietta Siksk Farradj, A Light of Light and Love: A Glimpse into the Life of Katherie Siksek. (The Four Homes of Mercy, 2001)