A Message from the Dean

Pentecost 2010

“All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ— if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.”
(Romans 8:14-17)

The Feast of Pentecost seems lately to be jumping off the front pages of our newspapers and broadcast on television talk shows! Recently on the "McLaughlin Group," panelist Pat Buchanan proclaimed that the United States must decide “if it wants to have one distinct culture, or if the country wants to be ‘multi-cultural,’”citing as an illustration of his point that the roughly 500,000 illegal aliens who are thought to reside in Arizona comprise a population larger than the number of personnel in the U.S. Army. His conclusion was that they constitute an invasion.

Eleanor Clift, another panelist on the same program, retorted, "It's a happy invasion for most people in this country," adding, "[W]e love the diversity of food. We have it— English is the language of commerce. People who come here want to learn our language. There is a problem with human smuggling and with drug smuggling, but the vast majority of Mexicans, and that's who we're talking about who come here, come here to work, and they are terrified and keep their heads down. And they commit far fewer crimes than other groups."

Fighting over immigration waves and laws is not new for the United States. I will leave it to you to decide, whether a citizen of this or some other country, what you think about persons who are native to a land or legal or illegal “aliens.” I would like simply to suggest that how we treat people, within our own countries, may shape how we respond to each other across national borders.

That may seem counterintuitive. After all, each country and all people have the right to protect themselves and to be secure. International law endeavors to help us in our transnational relationships and to respect national autonomy.

But thinking about “the other” as an invader, maybe even as a happy invader, cannot but exacerbate fears and increase the kind of local and national thinking that makes it possible for us to act as if some people are more human than others.

Yet all of us live under the same sun. Creation keeps reminding us that it does not belong to any one or even to some group or grouping of us. Although some us hoard and control access to natural resources, what we pollute, waste or use up ultimately will impact all of us everywhere.

The real “invasion” is that we show disrespect for the diversity of peoples that God created. We wage war against God's intention. We invade and destroy the creatures and creation of God.

Diversity was not simply a special project that God worked on one morning on a whim. Diversity was not a Divine "special project" whose useful life expectancy follows the usual advertising or market cycles. God delights in and is self-defined in terms of diversity. God seems to have needed, as it were, to create differences and their consequent complexity.

The Spirit moves with a unifying engagement that rejoices in those differences, not only celebrating them but also respecting their insights into the ongoing creation and revelations.

There were many tongues spoken that first Pentecost, but all heard with understanding. That truth may be hard to believe today, in a culture where so many voices generate cacophonous misunderstanding and vitriol.

Maybe that is why, as we often say, we need to listen to what the Spirit is saying to the Church. And if we do, ours can be voices of: reason, respect for the dignity of others, compassion and justice. And then we will help God raise up anew a season of the Spirit.

From the Dean of the Cathedral