Love, Compassion, Mercy
By Charles Rush
July 9, 2006
Luke 10: 29-37
[ Audio
(mp3, 5.2Mb) ]
e of the salient observations of Christianity revolves around the difficulty of actualizing the Good.
Lord Acton once observed that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts
absolutely. What is true of secular institutions is also true of sacred one's.
Indeed, in all of history, in only the rarest of times, have religious
institutions been separate from the dominant power. The vast majority of
civilizations, religious institutions are simply a spiritual reflection of the
virtues and vices of society at large. And when you stop to think about it,
what else would you expect?
I want to give one horrendous example of this, in part because it has concerned
so many of you, the idea of religious wars. This is a long excerpt from the
diary of Pizarro's brothers reflecting on a conflict at Cajamarca
on November 16, 1532. On that day, Pizarro
led 168 Spanish soldiers with horses, swords, and guns in a battle with 80,000
Incan's. They slaughtered thousands of soldiers, captured the King Atahuallpa for ransom, extracting possibly the largest
ransom in history- a room filled with gold 17 feet wide, 22 feet long, filled 8
ft. deep.
He writes to "the most invincible Emperor of the Roman Catholic empire,
our natural King and Lord" about "the glory of God our Lord and for
the service of the Catholic Imperial Majesty" because "they have
conquered an brought to our holy Catholic Faith so
vast a number of heathens, aided by His holy guidance." He also notes that
this narrative will bring "terror among the infidels". We note, that
it not only did, it continues to do so.
The Spaniards were on an exploratory mission, quite far from the rest of their
convoy, when they happened upon the King of the whole Incan Empire. They were
overwhelmed. He says, "The Indian's camp looked like a beautiful city.
They had so many tents that we were filled with apprehension... fear and
confusion. But we could not show any fear or turn back,"
for fear of being killed.
The next day King Atahuallpa sent a messenger and the
Spanish Governor invited the King to come visit, promising no harm would come
to him. He then divided his troops on either side of the plaza where they were
stationed, put artillery right behind him. He was going to lure the King and
his courtiers into the full plaza where they could be attacked from three
sides.
Later in the afternoon, Atahuallpa arrived with a
full retinue. Some 2000 men proceeded him in a large march, followed by
dancers, followed by singers, finally the King himself on a a
litter carried by 80 of his immediate Cabinet members, bedecked in beautiful
jewels and parrot feathers.
Governor Pizarro sent Friar Vicente de Walverde to go
speak to Atahuallpa, and to require Atahuallpa in the name of God and of the King of Spain that
Atahuallpa subject himself to the law of our Lord
Jesus Christ and to the service of His Majesty the King of Spain. Advancing
with a cross in one hand and the Bible in the other hand, and going among the
Indian troops up to the place where Atahuallpa was,
the Friar thus addressed him: 'I am a Priest of God, and I teach Christians the
things of God, and like manner I come to teach you. What I teach is that which
God says to us in this Book. Therefore, on the part of God and of the
Christians, I beseech you to be their friend, for such is God's will, and it
will be for your good.'
Atahuallpa asked for the Book, that he might look at
it, and the Friar gave it to him closed. Atahuallpa
did not know how t open the Book, and the Friar was extending his arm to do so,
when Atahuallpa, in great anger, gave him a blow on
the arm, not wishing that is should be opened. Then he opened it himself, and,
without any astonishment at the letters and paper he threw it away from him
five or six paces, his face a deep crimson.
The Friar turned to Pizarro, shouting, 'Come out! Come out, Christians! Come at
these enemy dogs who reject the things of God. That
tyrant has thrown my book of holy law to the ground! Did you now see what
happened? Why remain polite and servile toward this over-proud dog when the
plains are full of Indians? March out against him, for I absolve you!'
With the cry of "Santiago" the Spaniards
charged, on horseback, their spears and armor no match for their opponents.
They cut them down left and right. A general panic ensued because the Incans
had never seen or heard gunfire or canon fire before. For reasons never really
determined, the 20,000 support troops about a half-mile away never budged from
their position. Meanwhile the Spaniards slew some 7,000 men in battle. They
captured the King. Afterward, Pizarro addressed the King Atahuallpa.
This is what he said "Do not take it as an insult that you have been
defeated and taken prisoner, for with the Christians who come with me, though
so few in number, I have conquered greater kingdoms than yours, and have
defeated other more powerful lords than you, imposing upon them the dominion of
the Emperor, whose vassal I am, and who is King of Spain and of the universal
world. We come to conquer this land by his command, that all may come to a knowledge of God and of His Holy Catholic Faith;"
A
friend of mine gave me this book to read recently. He wrote in the margins,
"novel interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan."
In terms of Christianity, there is no justification of incidents like this, no
rationalization, no explaining it away. I only want to use it to point out the
uniqueness of the teaching of love in Christianity and to show just how
difficult it is to actually manifest love.
From our modern point of view what strikes us about this story is how
hypocritical these Conquistadors and priests were. That is because, from our
perspective, religion is unquestionably about love and the Church is obviously
separate from political and military power. The proper role of religion is
obviously to our mind, is to teach people a nobler way to live and to serve as
a prophetic critique to power.
But from an ancient point of view, when I look at stories like this- and they
could be duplicated- what I see is the continuation of a very ancient form and
function of religion/politics/military.
In no other religion, is there any teaching like Jesus has about love. I would
be willing to bet that the reception of love as the essence of God and our
relationship to each other was counter-intuitive when it was first proclaimed,
despite the fact that it is almost a matter of common sense today.
If you look at the function of religion in the Roman Empire, it modeled a very
different relationship than we have today and the same could be said of Egypt, Babylon, and a number of
different Empires in the ancient world.
In Rome, religion was principally about the spiritual
dimension of political power. The priests accompanied the army for protection
and prediction of the conditions for victory. They petitioned the divine to
bless political leaders. Their religious services were also like unto our
pledge of allegiance in which the citizens of Rome bound themselves to
the authority of the Empire and submitted themselves to the Emperor and the
Senate. In later Roman society, prosperous families hoped for Sons that would
go in three fields. One to run the estate, one in the Senate,
and one in the priesthood.
After the Roman Empire, fell apart in the Middle
Ages, there were regular hopes on the part of the aristocracy in Europe that the Roman Empire might be reconstituted
again. Those hopes came and went and they continued for centuries. Once again,
landed families hoped for sons in three realms. One to run
the estate, one to be a General in the army, and one to become Bishop.
Bishops had enormous spiritual influence. They administered the considerable
properties of the Church. They heard the confession of the political leaders of
the day and gave their blessing to new political and economic enterprises. They
were vested with power to bless and damn, not only in this life but in
eternity. They assumed the ancient form and function from the old Roman
society, one that the people understood, one the people felt comfortable with,
one that they wanted.
Whenever religion becomes wedded to power, it is nothing but a spiritual
expression of the virtues and vices of that society. It was always an
uncomfortable arrangement because Christianity is not a very good Empire
religion. There are some dimensions that justify conquest but Love is a pretty
large brake on Imperialistic expansion of a rapacious nature. In the history of the Church power corrupted love. And we
came to understand just how difficult it is to actually implement love in any
kind of institutional way. You know that if you just stop and think what it
would take to even remotely allow the teaching of love to have some impact on
your workplace. Make it easier, it is hard to actually implement love in our
charitable organizations- the YMCA, the Community Foodbank-
people are still petty, mean, vindictive even when they are working for a good
cause.
The Church today is like that too. We are severed from political power, from
economic power. We merely come together as a volunteer community to focus on
matters spiritual. But I dare say that anyone who has gotten involved in a
Church for any length of time, won't have a story to tell about someone that
has been mean, arbitrary, hurtful. You should go to a
Presbyterian General Assembly and hear the Ministers debate a social issue like
the role of homosexuals in the Church. There are times when it appears a food
fight is about to break out. If you have a disagreement with someone you know
well and have an ongoing relationship, they just don't see things like you do.
But if you have a disagreement with an Evangelical from California, pretty quickly they
become a right-wing fascist bonehead with a clerical collar. Love is very hard
to establish institutionally because power corrupts love invariably.
And it is a unique idea in the history of religions. It is just foreign to the
spirituality of Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism. That is
not to say that they have no concept of care, compassion or affection. They do
but the concept plays no central role in the spiritual quest.
We are so deeply influenced by Christianity that we take love for granted. I
have a friend who is a Minister. They had a student from the Middle East to stay with them on
an exchange program. She would attend Church and sit in the back of the balcony
because she had never been in a church and wanted to know what Christians were
like. The Minister preached on love. She said to him afterward, we should teach
that to the Elders in my country. We never hear anything about love. Duty- yes,
obligation-yes, discipline-yes... Love is not a central concept in Islam.
Even in Judaism it is not central. I had a conversation once with an Orthodox
Rabbi. After a long discussion, he said to me, "The more I hear you speak,
you sound like the Almighty is love. I hear this from you Christians. I must
tell you that is not what I think of principally when I think of the Almighty.
The Almighty is about holiness most of all.
I've thought about that issue a lot over the years. I believe that we do have
an issue. As Jack Miles has pointed out in a recent book, if you read through
the Bible from Genesis on, there is no explicit statement about God loving
until Isaiah 39. Looking back from Jesus' explicit teaching, we Christians have
seen the love of God implied in creation, implied in the Exodus, implied in
God's relationship with Isaac and David. But Miles is right that love is simply
not front and center in the Jewish scriptures like it
later becomes in Christianity.
And it is not easy to implement, particularly to the stranger, to people we are
bound together with and do not personally know, particularly in any kind of
institutional way: the nation, the corporation, even charities. It is always a
struggle, even in the most intimate circles. On the one hand, we should have
high expectations and high hopes. But on the other hand, we should be thankful
for small victories wherever they arise.
I am reminded of a friend who tells a story of her father, a simple man who
immigrated to this country from Sicily after the War. He was
a laboring man, not very articulate. His whole life, he was pretty aloof, not
very in touch with his emotions. As she said, "who knows why he was what
he was, it never occurred to us to ask. It appeared that he had a fairly formal
relationship with his wife. They fulfilled their family duties but they never
had much warm intimacy. His wife endured a lot of frustration with him on a
number of levels and worked through it.
She got sick with cancer. Over some time, her condition worsened. Some
physicians told her that her situation was grave but they gave her an option to
enter an experimental study. The problem was that entrance to the study was a
blind test. It required her to forgo the standard treatments and she wouldn't
know whether or not she was getting a placebo or the medicine. She decided to
enter the study. She came home and said to her husband, "I need you to
call me every day from work. I need you to tell me that it's going to be okay
and that you are going to take care of it, and
everything is going to be okay." He got it. He was not a very bright man,
nor articulate, but sometime every morning and
sometime every afternoon, he called home, "I'm just calling to check in a
see how you are doing... I just want you to know that everything is going to be
okay and I'm going to take care of it."
On Eric Eriksson's scale of profound love, it was not all that high but in his
own fumbling and limited way, it was also beautiful. And I think that we should
probably simply be grateful, whenever and wherever love manages to sneak in and
manifest itself in our lives, quite in spite of ourselves and our foibles. The
fact of the matter is that we are only stumbling towards Jerusalem. Amen
© 2006
Charles Rush.
All rights reserved.
