Hermano- The Most Dangerous Word: Proper 12B
Behave as if you believe. Part of me wants this very much, because it is the way to the fullness of God. But another part resists. “Behave as if you believe” are very dangerous words.
They remind me Tennessee Williams’ wonderful play, “Camino Real” where Gutman, a portly man in a white suit, panics when he thinks the most dangerous words in any language might be spoken. Gutman‘s role is keeping everything under control, and he worries all is coming undone. He calls the palace. “Connect me with the Palace, Get me the Generalissimo. Quick, quick, quick. Generalissimo? Gutman speaking! Hello Sweetheart. There has been a little incident in the plaza. You know the party of your explorers that attempted to cross the desert on foot? Well, one of them’s come back, He was very thirsty. He found the fountain dry, (Actually the survivor is dying of thirst and can’t find any water available to the general public) He started toward the hotel. (This is very expensive private property whose residents have everything they want. It is built over a spring, and it was to this spring that the survivor was headed) He was politely advised to advance no farther, But he disregard this advice. Action had to be taken (The armed guard keeping the common people out of the hotel shot him in the stomach) and now, and now-that old blind woman they call “Mother” She’s come into the plaza with the man called “The Dreamer…They are extending their arms to the wounded survivor and the forbidden word is about to be spoken!”
What is this word which is so powerful that it is dangerous; what is this forbidden word which when uttered by mothers and dreamers makes dictators and those who try to control us tremble in fear?
As Christians we should be interested, because we know words are powerful. After all, the Bible begins with God using words to create the world. Our intelligence has been insulted long enough by those who think this creation story is a science lesson and miss its truly profound truth about the power of words. God creates by using words to order chaos. He says, “Let there be light.. and there is light.” And humans made in the image of God do the same. They name the animals. “That is a cow,” and it is a “cow.” They also create order by using words. Words enable us to express our thoughts. No, much more, words enable us to have thoughts.
John builds on this profound truth when he calls Jesus the Word of God. He creates by bringing order to the confusion about God. His Word is powerful, spoken in the backwoods and turning the mighty Roman Empire upside down. His Word is also dangerous, frightening those who want to control us so much they execute him as an enemy of the people. It is that danger which makes a part of me draw back from behaving fully as if I believe. It is that danger which Williams is trying to express in his play.
It is clear Williams wants to say the same word. When he finally has the players speak the word Mother holds the dead survivor in her arms just as Mary held the dead Jesus in the Pieta, One after another a chorus picks up the most dangerous word in any language, “Hermano. Hermano. Hermano. Hermano.” “Hermano” is Spanish for “brother.”
Gutman goes berserk, “Put up the ropes. The word was spoken. The crowd is agitated. I think we’d better have some public diversion right away. Put the gypsy on! Announce the fiesta. Dance. Bring on the clowns, the eternal Punch and Judy show.”
At first this might seem silly. After the Thursday night service a teenager asked me what is so dangerous about the word “brother”. We use it all the time in our families. Gutman and the dictators are not afraid if we speak the word in the privacy of our homes. In fact, he doesn’t care if preachers or politicians use it, because nobody believes them any way. It only becomes dangerous when spoken by common people who are being oppressed. Then those who want to control us lose their power.
Williams is speaking of this solidarity which gives ordinary people power. Many here remember how uncomfortable we were when African American men began calling each other “brother” and “bro” The solidarity of the oppressed seemed to threaten us. An even better example is when feminists began calling each other “Sister”. Williams wrote in 1953. Today he might have used “Hermana”, “Sister” as a sign of humanity’s solidarity, Many of us here remember when women in the 1970s began to regard each other as sisters, in spite of old divisions as race and nationality, how they frightened men out of their socks, as they revolutionized the world in a few brief years. This is the dangerous word Williams wanted to express. This is Old Testament solidarity. Remember Leviticus 19 tells us to love our neighbor, but it means our Jewish neighbor. It excludes some people.
Jesus message goes much further than Williams or the Old Testament. It excludes no one. He teaches us to call God Father and to regard all people as brothers and sisters. He is unique is among the religious, teaching we are to love even our enemies. That is powerful; that is dangerous. It calls us to go beyond the family, beyond the nation, and beyond any division separating us into “we” and “they” to find the fullness of God. He called all people, common and elite, brother and sister. So the early Christians took up the word and addressed one another as “brothers and sisters in Christ,” and they revolutionized the world.
Paul describes the fullness of God going beyond knowledge to love. If God creates all, he is the loving Father of all people. That is why the Bible immediately takes up the question, “If we are brothers and sisters, why don’t we act as our brothers’ keeper. How can Cain kill Abel? How can Jacob and Esau cheat one another? How can Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery? How can the elder son resent the Father forgiving his prodigal brother? How can we oppress and hate and kill one another?
Behave as if you believe God is father and all are brothers and sisters. Think how differently we would handle health care if we truly did believe Jesus’ words, or Aids in Africa, or immigration, or the growing economic divide between rich and poor, or racial problems, or for that matter how differently we would have responded to 9-11. We would still protect our loved ones from attack, but we would do so understanding we were attacked by our brothers and sisters. The solution is not more killing but healing the situation. Behave as if you believe.
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