Underground Conversations

As the day of sequester-loaded cuts arrives the consequences of global inequality receive a fresh spotlight. Millions of well-educated younger adults find themselves in the position of indentured servants, carrying six digit debt into their adult years. Over the past thirty years the real income of most U. S. citizens (adjusted for inflation) declined while only the top 5 percent gained in income and wealth. The rest of the nation remains in recession. The causes are not hard to find, ironically put this week by comedian Steven Colbert, when he reminded his viewers that the constant celebration of burgeoning wealth in Silicon Valley is built on today’s version of 19th century Chinese railroad “coolies,” virtual slave laborers then, now the Chinese low income workforce toiling for the I-gadget revolution owned by Western entrepreneurs.

So where is the rebellion against all of this?  Is there something in the Western narrative, perhaps in the Christian narrative, that removes the spine needed for resistance against unjust acts?

The Irish writer, Colm Toibin, published a novella in 2012 to be staged on Broadway later this month. The Testament of Mary, is a useful challenge to groups who feel driven underground by the dominion of war and inequality in both the U. S. and global society.

Toibin imagines Jesus as a healer and militant organizer come under growing surveillance by unidentified authorties. Toibin’s grandfather and uncle were active in the IRA, the grandfather having done hard prison time for his part in the 1916 Rising. The idea of Jesus as political liberator has been used more than once, for example in Jules Dassin’s 1970’s film, He Who Must Die. Toibin’s version of the disciples is a rough edged group whom Mary holds in little affection. They tell her Jesus is in danger, that he’s being watched by operatives whom they can point out to her lurking at the edge of the crowds while he is healing and teaching.  Mary doesn't really like the sound of Jesus’ organizing voice anymore, but with motherly concern she pleads with him several times: “You must get away from here, right now. Go! Now before it’s too late.”  Toibin’s Jesus is disdainful, he does not go and Mary reluctantly follows him to his awful execution.

In Toibin’s telling Mary lives out her years in Ephesus (there are ancient traditions to support this) but she holds to certain heretical thoughts. She thinks there was a better way, that the terrible execution of her son did not have to happen. Forced to live in hiding in a nondescript part of  Ephesus, Mary is grateful for occasional unsolicited gifts of food that appear near her doorway.  Although she fears arrest, she keeps to her distinct and heretical opinion: the salvation story could have had a better, different ending. It didn't have to happen that way.  Her son didn't have to die.

Toibin’s provocative imagination could prod today’s activists in the faith communities to ask some familiar questions again: Is there something in the dominant religious narratives of the West that generates passivity even as it invokes the authoritative?  Does the promise of eternity nullify the thirst for a just society now? Is the conversation about underground churches intended to provide a refuge from conflict or a launching pad for insurgency against injustice?  

Is the Western narrative too easily vulnerable to a disabling flaw that dilutes the energy needed for engagement with modern Pharaohs?   The sequester has the perhaps singular virtue of spelling out the terms of our further surrender: austerity and more austerity. This next step will cause  

“Some 600,000 to 775,000 low-income women and children, including very young children, who are eligible for WIC….to be turned away by the end of the fiscal year [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities 2/26/13]  

Lead “to 2,100 fewer food safety inspections; 4000 F.A.A. staff furloughed every day; 125,000 families put at-risk of homelessness; 70,000 children losing  head start programs,”[NY Times, February 16, 201].

Will a new occupy Wall Street movement require that we write a new story about ourselves with a different ending, one that does not conclude in either flight or tragedy?