Un frío y gris de verano, después de pasar unos pocos kilómetros de Weimar, la capital cultural de Europa del año 1999, llegamos a la entrada del campo de concentración de Buchenwald. Actualmente un lugar de recordación y museo.
El día parecía un apropiado escenario para el macabro lugar.
Desde la vieja estación de ferrocarril al portón hay un camino de un par de cientos de metros. El camino se llama Camino del Carajo. Sí, en castellano. Probablemente el nombre lo puso algún prisionero con amargo humor, quizás un gitano hispanohablante. Se dice que el castellano es uno de los mejores idiomas para maldecir. Podría decir que estoy de acuerdo.
Carajo es una palabra que significa lo peor, una catástrofe, y eso era precisamente lo que los que transitaban ese camino iban a vivenciar.
Los que caminaban por ese sendero sabían o al menos sospechaban lo que iba a pasar. Carajo.
Uno entra al campo de concentración a través del portón principal que en las rejas tiene un texto de letras de metal que dice: "Jedem das Seine" que en alemán significa algo así como: "a cada cual lo que se merece".
Los prisioneros que estaban allí no tenían derecho a quejarse, sólo estaban recibiendo lo que se merecían. Los prisioneros eran enemigos, terroristas, desobedientes y lo peor de todo, pertenecían muchos de ellos a razas inferiores. El campo de concentración era lo que se merecían.
La lluvia cae sobre nosotros, tenemos frío y temblamos, quizás porque nuestra ropa liviana de verano no es la conveniente para la temperatura del día, quizás porque los hornos que vemos y los datos que la guía nos cuenta nos hielan la sangre.
Cuando los nazis que estaban allí supieron con certeza que el final del Tercer Reich era una realidad próxima, comenzaron a trabajar con empeño. Querían terminar con su misión aniquiladora antes de que fuera tarde. Aniquilaron a miles en pocas semanas. No es tarea fácil eliminar 13.000 personas por mes. Pero ellos lo lograron. Eran capaces en su tarea. Y estaban orgullosos de ello. Ellos sabían cual era su tarea, encomendada por el Fürhern. Sabían que todo estaba perdido, peor igualmente continuaron con su diabólica misión.
Hay en el medio del patio del campo un monumento recordatorio. No es nada del otro mundo. Sólo una plancha de acero inoxidable sobre el terreno de piedras redondas. No hay ningún texto ni frase célebre en la plancha metálica, sólo la lista de las naciones de las cuales provenían los que fueron aniquilados.
De Sud América figuran argentinos y brasileños. No es extraño, ambos países tuvieron aún antes de la Segunda Guerra Mundial grandes grupos de inmigrantes alemanes que llegaron hasta nuestro continente buscando una vida digna y en paz.
Pero la plancha metálica parece ser demasiado simple, para recordar las decenas de miles que murieron allí. Ese pensamiento me inquieta y un impulso me lleva a arrodillarme y tocar la plancha en ese día frío y gris.
Grande fue mi sorpresa cuando noté que la plancha estaba tibia.
A pesar del día gris y lluvioso, estaba tibia... Yo esperaba sentir un metal frío como la muerte, pero no fue así. Todo el monumento está constantemente a una temperatura de 37 grados centígrados, exactamente como un ser humano. Cuando uno toca y siente el tibio metal, se le pone a uno la piel de gallina. Decenas de miles de gritos que se escuchan en nuestra piel. Decenas de miles de vidas destruidas. Decenas de miles de gritos que los vecinos de Weimar se negaron a escuchar.
Tanto sufrimiento y sólo porque unos pocos arrogantes creían saber lo que cada uno se merece. Macabro orgullo europeo hemos heredado de los nazis.
En una de las celdas estuvo un tiempo un pastor luterano llamado Dietrich Bonhöffer. Un alemán de pura cepa que se negó a creer que un pueblo tiene el derecho de decidir sobre los demás. Un ario que creía que todos los seres humanos tienen un valor inalienable en si mismos. Un cristiano que pagó con su vida por su opción por la humanidad. Allí en ese lugar, fue Bonhöffer un preso más antes de ser enviado a Flossenburg donde fue ejecutado. El Tercer Reich no podía tolerar un cristiano alemán que se oponía a la ideología del "a cada uno lo que se merece" sino que creía que Dios había creado todas las personas con la misma dignidad.
”JEDEM DAS SEINE”
En kylig grå och regnig sommardag, efter några få kilometers resa från Weimar, det nuvarande Europas kulturhuvudstad kom jag fram till entrén av Buchenwald koncentrationsläger, nu en minnesplats och ett museum. Vädret utgjorde ett passande scenario till den makabra platsen.
Från den gamla järnvägsstationen till porten finns en väg på några hundra meter. Den vägen heter Camino del Carajo. Ja, på spanska. Förmodligen hittades namnet på av en fånge med en bitter humor, kanske en spansktalande zigenare. Många romer dog där. Och namnet passar perfekt. Det sägs att spanskan är det bästa språket för att svära. Jag håller med. Och carajo är ett fult ord som betyder det värsta, en katastrof, och det var vad de som gick den vägen skulle uppleva. Svenskarna kan förstå tyngden av ordet om jag säger att Estoniafärjan gick till carajo. Den värsta katastrof som man bara kan föreställa sig.
De som gick den vägen visste eller åtminstone misstänkte vad som skulle komma. Carajo.
Man kommer in i koncentrationslägret genom en port som har en text av bokstäver i metall: ”Jedem das Seine” som betyder : var och en får vad man förtjänar.
Fångarna som var där kunde inte klaga, de fick vad de förtjänade. De var fiender, terrorister, olydiga, och det värsta av allt, de hörde till de mindervärdiga raserna. Var och en får vad man förtjänar.
Regnet faller över oss och vi fryser, kanske för att våra sommarkläder inte passar till dagens temperatur, kanske för att ugnarna vi ser och fakta och guidens berättelser kyler blodet inom oss.
När nazisterna som fanns i lägret förstod att slutet på Tredje Riket var en oundviklig verklighet, försökte avsluta jobbet, avsluta uppdraget. De mördade tiotusentals personer per månad. Det måste vara svårt att döda 13000 personer under bara trettio dagar. De gjorde det. De var skickliga och var stolta över sin duglighet. De behärskade sin uppgift, och de kände sig hedrade av att lyda Führern. De visste att allt var förlorat, men ändå fortsatte de med sin djävulska mission.
I mitten av lägret finns en minnesplats. Den ser inte så märkvärdig ut. Det är bara en plåt av rostfri metall liggande på gruset mitt i lägrets torg. Det finns ingen annan text på plåten, bara namnen på de nationer som var representerade mellan de som dödades i koncentration läger. Från mitt Sydamerika fanns Argentinare och Brasilianare med. Det är inte så märkligt, båda länderna hade redan innan Andra världskriget stora grupper av invandrare från Tyskland. Fattiga européer som hade åkt dit för att kunna leva ett värdigt och fredligt liv
Plåten verkar vara för enkel, om man tänker på de tiotusentals människor som mördats där. En impuls får mig att knäböja och vidröra plåten. Till min häpnad att plåten var ljum, trots att det var en kylig dag. Jag förväntade mig att metallen skulle vara kall som döden. Men det var inte så. Hela minnesmonumentet är alltid ljum, mer exakt 37 grader, precis som en levande människa. När man rör vid den och känner den ljumma metallen får man gåshud på hela kroppen. Tiotusentals rop som blir hörda i huden. Tiotusentals rop som Weimars grannar vägrade att höra. Tiotusentals liv till spillo. Bara för att några ”supermänniska” tyckte sig veta vad var och en förtjänar. Makaber europeisk arrogans lämnade nazisterna till oss.
I en av fängelsecellerna fanns under en viss tid prästen Dietrich Bonhöeffer. En äkta tyskt som vägrade att tro att ett folk har rätt att bestämma över de andra. En äkta tysk som trodde att alla människor har ett okränkbart värde i sig. En kristen som tog ställning med sitt liv som insats som trodde på att Gud skapade alla människor likvärdiga. Här satt Dietrich fängslad innan han fördes till Flossenburg koncentrationsläger och avrättades. Den Tredje Riket kunde inte tåla en tysk som var emot den ”Jedem das Seine” ideologi.
Daniel Calero Davyt
Buchenwald sommaren 1998
PERSON IN MINISTRY
”If you want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” Jesus.
These texts made me decide to take the cross and follow Jesus. I was a teenager and in a Christian camp. We had a Bible study about the cross of Christ and when we read this text, I decided to take my baptism seriously, and follow Jesus the rest of my life. This text is –as you can understand- very important in the understanding of my faith.
In this process of maturation in my faith, there was a strong feeling to serve Christ with all my life and lifetime. A feeling of God’s call was there from the very beginning.
During the time at the University, I was confronted with my personal longing to study about God, which is to study Theology not only seeking for answers, but to find the way to serve God and my neighbours, and to continue my studies at the University, and some years after I began Theological studies, seeking to serve Christ in the church.
Martin Luther said that all honest work we do as Christians, is a Christian work. The work of a pastor or priest is no better than any other in God’s eyes, but I felt a strong desire to serve Christ in the Church than in the world. If we can make this kind of difference.
I have been a pastor in three different parishes in my life as servant of the Word. My concern in my work in the three parishes was to be a good pastor in the community and a prophet in the society.
I am convinced that these two aspects of the ministry are important in my life. I am a very politically concerned person but I do not need another political manifesto other than the Sermon of the Mountain. I have been always a known person (as a minister) in the society, in the media, in the culture; I am comfortable in this roll. I was 35 years old when I became a minister, but I had been a dynamic and engaged layman until my ordination. The leadership in the Christian community is not unknown for me.
My work as a theology student in the society gave me the experience of being kidnapped, torture and death threaten. I experienced a moment in my life when I believed that the text of Mark 8 would be literally for me: To give my life, for the sake of the Gospel. I was scared, but I felt a deep peace in my heart. I accepted this as my destiny. This experience helped me to see all other small “sacrifices” as they are: small. For me, my private life and my public life have the same chart of values and I feel comfortable with that. It is hard for me to understand any other situation and I am convinced that our call is for life, and not just a professional call. I am a Christian and a minister when I preach; play with my children, when I take my responsibilities as a citizen or when I pray.
With 16 years experience as a pastor, I feel I have an understanding of my call as human being, and as a Christian. I have many interests: politics, dance, society, but I say often if I would be born again, I would be a pastor again. To be a pastor for me is to deal with the deepest questions of the humankind. Who are we? Where do we come from? What is our destiny? And my faith allows me to come near God, through the Bible, prayer, the sacraments, my brothers and sisters, in different ways, and importance, as a mean of grace, or as a mean of fraternal care. In one hand I have the possibility to meet the needs of the humankind and in the other hand I have the possibility to know about God. In between of my two arms and hands, I have my heart, my eyes and my mind.
To be an instrument of God in the pastoral care, in the prophetic preaching, in the fight against injustices in one way and in the other way, to be an ear that can listen to the lonely, an embrace for those who need consolation.
I am convinced that very few professions in the world can put a person in continuously asking about the existential questions as to be a pastor. Of course, this is my own perspective, and I don’t mean all the people should feel in the same way.
The continuous process of asking myself about my life, ethics, and existential question made me a wiser person with the years. I must continue to avoid the weakness that “the questioning” is already enough and rest in my answers of today. I must be aware that the answers of today are not enough for tomorrow, although the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the same for ever and ever. The Gospel is the same but we must find the answers that are coming from the source that Jesus is.
I still must resist to the idea that I can have all the answers and I want to be humbler and seek deeper answers for the human being of today. To be more humble and to come closer to Jesus is probably a need in my life.
The gospel in a multicultural situation
My sermon in Faith Lutheran Church, San Fernando Valley, California
THE GOSPELIN A MULTICULTURAL SITUATION
Jeremiah 20:7-13
7 O Lord, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. 8 For whenever I speak, I must cry out, I must shout, "Violence and destruction!" For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. 9 If I say, "I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name," then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. 10 For I hear many whispering: "Terror is all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!" All my close friends are watching for me to stumble. "Perhaps he can be enticed, and we can prevail against him, and take our revenge on him." 11 But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not prevail. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonour will never be forgotten. 12 O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous, you see the heart and the mind; let me see your retribution upon them, for to you I have committed my cause. 13 Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.
Romans 6:1b-11
1 Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8 But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Matthew 10:24-39
24 "A disciple
is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master;
25 it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave
like the master.
If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they
malign those of his household! 26 "So have no fear of them; for nothing is
covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become
known. 27 What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear
whispered, proclaim from the housetops. 28 Do not fear those who kill the body
but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in
hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall
to the ground apart from your Father. 30 And even the hairs of your head are
all counted. 31 So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. 32
"Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will
acknowledge before my Father in heaven;
33 but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in
heaven. 34 "Do not think that I
have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a
sword. 35 For I have come to set a man
against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law; 36 and one's
foes will be members of one's own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother
more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than
me is not worthy of me; 38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me
is not worthy of me. 39 Those who find their life will lose it, and those who
lose their life for my sake will find it.
A few years ago I read an article about the software systems, written by the philologist and writer Humberto Ecco. He said that the computer system named Windows is a typical protestant, because at all times the system demands that the user takes decision between yes or no. It was a funny but interesting description of the software but also about us, Protestants. How this interesting and cultivated Italian writer can see us, Protestants. People who are at all times in front of a decision, like Windows. It's interesting, because the readings for today are complicated in one sense but demand a clear attention from us, a consciousness and a decision. I must recognize it feels a little bit dry to talk about yes or no decisions in a windows system. For me it's always a cause of anguish when my computer shows this kind of signs and I must to decide something that I probably don't understand completely its meaning.
I use a computer like I use a TV, I know how to change the channels, but no how the TV works. Well, for me, it's the same with a computer. When the computer shows me a sign with a complicated message, I bite my nails and have anguish. What did I do wrong? It's the first question I ask to myself. This kind of anguish I have also when I drive here in Los Angeles and must to decide right or left, on the freeway.
This culture of yes or not, is pretty much the result of our way to see reality. And it works. We are at all times using computers or not, are taking yes or no decisions. Think about Abraham, a long time ago, about 4000 (four thousands) years ago. He had a vision, God talked to him. The decision at that moment was yes to the unknown life and land, but with a promise or the same known life with no promise at all. Yes or no. And he took the brave but unsafe decision. Although Abraham didn't know Windows or the Los Angeles freeway system, he looked like a protestant.
Migration at any time was and is a part of the vital process of decisions that help a person to grow as a human being, as a Christian. When a person moves to a new country or a new culture is taking a very difficult decision that demand a process of maturing as human being. Migrations are part of the human soul and the Christian history. We all know people from all around the world who are living in another country, than the country they were born in, perhaps ourselves are these moving people.
We live in a fast time, we can write emails and receive the answer instantaneously and travel easier and faster all around the world that we could imagine just 20 years ago. A few decades ago you could expected that Swedes live in Sweden, Argentineans in Argentina, and Mexicans in Mexico and USA citizens in USA. It is not so any more. The people are taking as Abraham decisions and moving more than ever in the history of the humankind. It is irrelevant to say: "I don’t like it", or "I like it", because it is just a fact of our world.
San Fernando Valley area is not outside of this consequence of the globalization process. The population here is changing once again, and the needs of the people are different. For hundreds of years Canoga Park was home to the American Indians of both Ferdaneno and Chumash, tribes, then Spanish people, then English people and now Spanish people again.
This situation is not specific to Canoga Park congregation; this is the situation of our churches all around the world. It is one of the most important challenges that God send us today.
How we talk about the Gospel in a multicultural situation.
That is the challenge. Once you take a big decision. To be relevant in this area, to have a consistent Christian message in this area. Being the church in the midst of the world. And you are doing that very well. There is too much to do, of course. Nobody says it is about easy decisions. It is a challenge to our credibility. How can we talk about Christ without seeing our context?
How can our Christian message be relevant if we are not multicultural? How can our Lutheran teaching be relevant to us if we forget the demand of Martin Luther to preach in the language the people understand? How can our Christian teaching be relevant to us if we forget the poor? You are credible, you are relevant as a church.
But in our personal life the situation is the same. Sometimes we need to take hard decisions. All persons here can remember at least a hard decision in life. To move to another country and culture, because of political, or economical or affective reasons is never a easy decision. You need a very big surplus of courage for to do that. I know that and many of you also.
Hard decisions in our life. Decisions that influence not only our external circumstances. There are many decisions we need to do in front our spiritual life, our internal circumstances. Yes or no, as Windows. Big things demand big decisions. As the letter to the Romans says:
8) But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
Such a serious things. Real, sincere, not faked, as a movie studio in Hollywood. Real stuff. But we have also a hope. We are not alone. We have company. A strong one.
Jeremiah told us about that: But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior. And then:
13 Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.
What a wonderful promise! And Paul told us too. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. That's big. That's hopeful. In the middle of the road, we have a strong friend who help us in the big decisions. And at last, what Jesus Christ says?
“Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is
not worthy of me.
Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my
sake will find it”.
We are Christians living out our faith according to
the grammar that is grounded in God's promises. This grammar calls us to an
imaginative and critical theological reflection within and across contexts,
such as when we face systemic death and injustice that sap our energy and
overwhelm us, and when we are overwhelmed with the presence, influence and
challenges of multifaith and multicultural realities. To be Christian today in
this context is not easy. Being the Church is not easy. Martin Luther talked
about the theology of the cross. The exigencies are many. But Jesus is with me.
Not just after my death. Now! Now He is helping me to take the difficult
decisions, as human being, as Christian, as a congregation, as a Church. This
is our hope. This is my faith. It's a wonderful challenge. Amen.
Article published in Svenska Kyrkotidning 2007, Stockholm Sweden.
Migrant – an important part of the human condition
”Sigue
el camino del pueblo hebreo, busca otra luna, tal vez mañana sonría la fortuna
y si te toca llorar, es mejor frente al mar”
(Follow the path of the Hebrew
people: search for a new moon, perhaps your luck will improve tomorrow. If you
must cry, it is better to cry by the sea.)
Juan Manuel Serrat (Catalan
troubadour)
Humans have been in motion ever since time began. In spite of the fact that we consider permanent living sites to be a major step in our progress through history, humans have continued to move in order to find new worlds. New continents have been populated through large scale migrations; from Africa to Asia, from Asia to Europe and America. For ten thousand years people have wandered around the earth in their hunt for food, safety and freedom. No people now living in Sweden, not even the Sami, can state with truth that they have never migrated anywhere.
Our entire history concerns people and peoples in movement, starting ten thousand years ago and still continuing today. Finding new paths and longing for better lives are an essential element of the human identity. Being a migrant is being a human being.
God’s people – a people in motion
The Bible confirms it. From the first page of Chapter 1 of Genesis we are reading about people who are moving. The first eleven chapters consist of a mythical story containing great truths.
When we talk about myths in the Bible we do not mean false facts or lies, we mean non-historical descriptions that encompass great truths. Would you like to know about human nature? There is a lot of information in these texts – however if you are more interested in the beginnings of the universe and the human race, it may be better to study cosmology or the origin of the species.
In the first eleven chapters of the Bible, human characteristics such as sinfulness, love, envy, courage and many others are described. After the story of Adam and Eve we can recognise human beings as we understand them today – influenced by both good and evil during their time on earth.
Before the end of Chapter 4 we have already experienced two emigrations. Adam and Eva were forced to leave the Garden of Eden. Using words of the Swedish Migration Board this was the deportation of citizens who had committed a crime.
After Cain murdered his brother he decided to move to another location. In this case the decision appears to be voluntary, or perhaps due to force of circumstance. The Bible speaks about the country of Nod, east of Eden. If Adam and Eva were the first deportees then Cain was the first immigrant.
Strangely enough we know almost nothing about the land of Nod. This is the only time it is mentioned in the Bible and it may possibly be a play on words as “nad” in Hebrew means vagabond, homeless. Perhaps, for Cain, it became a journey without end.
When we leave the first eleven chapters of the Bible we arrive at the story of Abraham. These are no longer central myths that illustrate truths; these are stories with origins in historical reality.
Abraham is called the Father of the Faith, and not only the Christian faith but also the Jewish and the Muslim faiths. If we were to interpret the story of Abraham using a modern, secular approach, we could say that he was one of the many who participated in a mass migration in the part of the Middle East known as the “Half Moon”.
He was, as were probably many others, convinced that God had called him to leave and travel to the new country. We do not know the circumstanced that affected him but he heard a voice which commanded him to: “Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show.” (Genesis 12:1).
How many people have heard a similar message and begun their travels? Thousands of people in our country come from exactly the same geographical area as the people in the Bible who, more than three thousand years ago, heard an inner voice that told them to leave everything and find a new place to build altars to their gods?
The entire Old Testament is founded on the problems associated with immigration and emigration. The Latin name of the book, Exodus literally means emigration. Our faith was formed on the road, in exile and when wandering in the desert. We are sons and daughters of a religion that came to maturity in the footsteps of a travelling people; a people in motion.
It appears that God himself is inclined to regard his people as wanderers. It is God who encourages Abraham, Moses and others to start travelling and to find God during their journey. Our God does not sit still; he is a Good in motion who accompanies us through our life travels. Our own perception of the reality of life is that it is a journey, we must travel through it.
Not strange then that there are so many traditions and instructions telling us to take care and protect travellers. “Give us counsel, render a decision. Make your shadow like night at high noon. Hide the fugitives, do not betray the refugees.” (Isaiah 16:3) “Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.” (Exodus 23:9)
In the New Testament, the situation is the same.
Jesus himself experienced the fate of the refugee as a child. In common with many Palestinians, Jesus grew up in a strange country, using a foreign language surrounded by a foreign culture.
Our Christian faith is a faith in motion. It was born in a corner of the Mediterranean Sea and fifty years later it had already travelled to the other side and even farther.
The people who are in motion in the New Testament are regarded as possible angels; messengers from God who come to us. The actual theology that Paul systematises with the word of Jesus as its basis tells us about the welcoming of the traveller, the one who up until this moment was experienced as a stranger, or at best a guest. “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household.” (Ephesians 2:19)
Christianity is the religion of travellers, pilgrims and migrants. Our “Abrahamic” God challenged our forefathers to look for “new moons”. A new moon that softly lights the way to your home. A place for you to live, a place to bless the land with sons and daughters. Land on which to build an altar to the being that led you there.
Current situation: a new interpretation of reality is necessary
The concept “refugee” is not new. However the word was ascribed the meaning it has today at the beginning of the 1950s. In 1951 the Refugee Convention (Geneva Convention) was established. In those days it was easy to discuss refugees as there was a clearly-defined picture of who a refugee was. A refugee was a man from Eastern Europe who had escaped from Communism. The situation was fairly similar up until the 1970s when the picture of a refugee expanded to include a man from South America who had been involved in politics and had been forced to leave an oppressive dictatorship behind in countries such as Chile.
However this picture changed radically in the 1990s. It was no longer a case of a few thousand, politically committed individuals trying to escape from dictatorships – now it was tens of thousands of women, children and men escaping from the wars of the Middle East or from European countries torn apart by mass murder and the disintegration of states. The refugee was no longer a politically committed man, now the refugee was perhaps a raped woman, with young children.
After the major upheavals in the world political situation of the 1990s (the fall of communism, the new map of Europe, the end of the Cold War, the development of militant terrorism), came the new economic and technological revolution. A revolution which did not replace the conditions of the 1990s but which provided new preconditions with opportunities for global communications in “real time”, cheap air travel and a liberal economy that affected the entire world.
In the mid-90s it became clear that, in addition to political refugees, there was also a growing group of so-called “economic refugees”. I write this term in quotation marks because I believe that the economy is a highly political concern. Countries’ politics and economies can never be separated from each other. The poverty that destroys the lives of more than one billion people in the world today is not a political issue only, or an economic issue only, it is both. This separation into political and economic refugees is no longer relevant.
In this time of globalisation other forms of migration can also be observed such as migration with “no papers”. This concerns people afflicted by poverty or threatening poverty and who choose to live in an irregular situation in another country rather than staying legally in their own country. During the course of my job as a diocesan curate I have met many people from the Latin American middle class, some with university level education, who choose to live illegally in Sweden, working as cleaners. When I wonder why they have made this choice they say that they have a greater chance of improving their lives as cleaners in the rich world than as civil servants in Latin America.
Millions of people travel across the Mexican desert or the Straits of Gibraltar in order to reach the rich countries whose message of a better life has been transferred to them through global TV. The “no papers” group are not only to be found in USA or Spain, they travel on and can be increasingly found in more remote places such as Sweden.
Many of them, especially girls and young women dreaming of a better life, become victims of trafficking which is a trade in human beings that combines two profitable businesses; people smuggling and prostitution. Young women or children become victims of the sex trade and end up in the hands of ruthless “businessmen”.
Another type of refugee who does not fit into the 1950s definition in the internal refugee. These are people who, due to violence and conflict and many times with poverty as another contributory factor, flee from one part of a country to another. In order to apply for asylum it is assumed that a person, fearing for their life, has left the country where he/she lives and travelled to another country where they consider themselves to be safer and more secure. There are millions of people in the world in countries such as Colombia who suffer due to war and persecution and who have no opportunity to make it to another country to apply for “traditional” asylum.
Politics, poverty, prostitution, states in dissolution and lives without rights mean that the concept refugee has become too narrow for our new reality. The refugee concept is dissolving. We have to save it by not closing our eyes to the new situations we see in the world. We are surrounded by vulnerable people in motion. Vulnerable because they, partially or totally, lack the opportunities that you and I enjoy in the rich world – even if they are in our midst and travel on the same tube train or tram as we do.
They are in motion because they have followed the law that is buried deep in our souls; they are looking for new moons – not because of romance (well in a few cases) but because of their need and longing for a better life with freedom, security and justice. They are not all aware of this, but that makes no difference.
We, on the other hand, must be aware that this is the situation. Thirty years ago we discovered the poor with the help of Latin American liberation theology. Of course we did know previously that there were poor people in the world – but liberation theology showed us the poor as locus teologicum i.e. the poor as the place were we can reflect and theologise reality. With the help of the poor, theologians from the rich part of the world were able to build a theology that reflected the social conflicts in their societies. Moltmann, Duchkrow, Frostin etc. could be named as the theologians who accepted the Latin American inheritance.
For us in the rich part of the world, the poor are elsewhere. Or so we thought. As late as the 1980s we believed that “our poor people” were on the other side of the world. Through the Marxist analysis – which initially utilised liberation theology as a socio-economic tool for analysis of information – we could see that the poor who lived (and still live) in the southern part of the world were a consequence of the assets that we had taken from them through unfair terms of trade, slavery and brute force capitalism.
I do not mean that this understanding is necessarily out of date or untrue, however I would like to point out that today the poor are no longer only on the other side of the earth – they have also moved here to our part of the world. As a product of globalisation, globalisation that shows the world on TV how we live with these assets we took in this unjust manner, that facilitates communication with different parts of the world and, last but not least, provides greater opportunities for travel all over the globe.
A large percentage of these people want more freedom – just like we have, want more food – just like us, want democracy – just like us, want to be able to afford to move around – just like us… The list of everything we have and they do not have and would like to have is very long.
Irrespective of whether we use a Marxist or liberal tool for our analysis, we know that they are not responsible for the injustices of the world and the imbalance between the haves and have-nots. We understand that it is this longing for justice, freedom and welfare among the poor that sets them in motion. It is this longing that has brought them here.
Even if we have been aware of the issues of justice in the world, we find ourselves in another situation today. The poor are in our midst. The vulnerable human being in motion is now our neighbour; the person talking about human rights in the square in our village; the one cleaning our workplace; the prostitute in our town, working to put food on their children’s table.
They travel with us, shop in the same stores and demand, of course, the same rights. Injustice in the world is no longer something primarily experienced through a missionary’s slide show – it is also there when we see the cleaner enter our office.
We have to renew our thoughts on working with people of different ethnicity or with refugees. Today this concerns a much broader group that includes many different “categories” that we could not even imagine some years ago.
In English-speaking countries there is a concept used that is interesting and valuable – “uprooted people”. We must also find a new concept like this in Swedish otherwise we run the risk of getting stuck in our old words and concepts. We ought to think more broadly and renew our vocabulary – not in order to sound more cultivated but in order to open up our manner of observing reality.
Our manner of regarding reality must be inclusive. Currently all these groups of people are included in our assignment, even if we are often not very comfortable with these new situations. These are groups who need our humanity, sympathy, empathy and mercy. This is no longer a case of some UNHCR refugees on a quota basis, this is a considerable number of people with different needs who have come here looking for help or who have landed up here after having travelled truly horrific paths.
All activities with vulnerable people in motion or in flight reflect our manner of dealing with our fellow human beings. Their lives form an unavoidable presence which proves the level of our mercy. “People in exile also shoulder the stranger’s universal role throughout history – being the others” says Ana Martínez, an Argentinean/Swedish author. If we welcome the person who we experience as “the other” – the one who is different – we are practising how to welcome God who is the ultimate other, the one who is totally different to us but who also wants to meet humanity. Meeting the stranger trains us in how to meet God. As Christians we should not hesitate to take up such a challenge.
Rev. Daniel Calero Davyt
2007
1
La segunda venida del dios verde
Debía ser agosto, probablemente del año 1966, pero ese detalle importa poco. Debía, sí, ser agosto, porque la mañana estaba fresca y el aire muy transparente. Mucho más transparente aún, que el de ahora, en Colonia del Sacramento.
Yo estaba en mi lección infantil de religión en la Iglesia Valdense (n. del a: protestante), en el subsuelo del templo que sólidamente aún está en la Avenida Artigas de mi ciudad natal.
Más o menos atendíamos la lección, cuando un tumulto se armó entre los niños.
”!Llegó el dios verde! !llegó el dios verde!, gritó alguien desde la escalera.
Nadie pidió permiso al maestro para despavoridamente salir corriendo hacia la puerta grande del templo y presenciar la teofanía popular.
Era lo más cercano a la visión de Moisés en el Horeb que un niño coloniense a mediados de los sesenta podía experimentar. No era cuestión de perder esa experiencia mística y curiosa esperando el permiso del maestro que con dudosa hermenéutica trataba de enseñrnos teología de la revolución a pendejos a los cuales nada nos interesaba más allá de los resultados de la Libertadores.
Yo llegué en cuatro saltos a la puerta del templo que como todos los domingos de mañana estaba abierta de par en par. Pude verlo unos suficientes segundos como para no olvidarlo nunca más.
Era un hombre flaco y pálido, como decolorado por las reiteradas exposiciones a luminosas experiencias místicas, con un bastón de peregrino en su mano, su barba blanca larga y su hábito blanco al estilo de Jesús.
Impertérrito, lentamente pasó frente a la iglesia sin – al menos así parecía- percatar el simbólico edificio y los niños de ojos ávidos que lo mirábamos desde la segura distancia de la puerta del templo.
Al instante llegó el maestro o el pastor, no lo recuerdo bien, y nos dispersó a nuestras clases, rezongándonos casi con tanta severidad como si hubiéramos sido atrapados mirando una revista pornográfica.
Nunca supe más de él: el dios verde.
Parece ser que fue un mercedario, es decir oriundo de Mercedes, no de ninguna orden, seminarista que abandonó la iglesia romana con fuertes críticas a su burocratizada e impersonal institución religiosa. Su apelativo verde se debía a su túnica, -dicen-, pero recuerdo que a mí me sorprendió que su vestimenta fuera blanca.
Repartía las migajas que le daban entre los necesitados y a pesar de su origen familiar adinerado, vivía en un rancho hecho con ramas y chapas en las costas mercedarias. Desde allí recorría, presumiblemente a pié, el Uruguay con su prédica evangélica, antiinstitucional y más bien heterodoxa.
Murió en la mayor de las pobrezas y olvido algunos años después de aquél encuentro.
En
el Uruguay secularísimo de los 60, había lugar para un loco como el Dios verde.
Loco, lo digo con respeto. Quizás loco como Juan el bautista, San Francisco o
Pedro Valdo; claro, estos locos fueron recordados en la historia y ahora gozan
de la respetuosidad que emana de estar registrados en los libros sagrados o
manuales de historia de la iglesia.
Hoy 2002, de vuelta por Colonia, de vuelta en esa iglesia, en esa misma escalera, me acuerdo de él.
A Uruguay lo veo sin proyecto, sin pasión. Aparte del candombe, al borde de caer en las garras del craso consumismo, o la esperanza de volver a un Mundial de fútbol de la celeste, no hay nada. El gran proyecto uruguayo de la izquierda democrática, deja cada día un poco de su crítica social en aras de un poco más de la porción de poder.
En los noticiarios, una buena noticia es que los brasileños vienen a Rivera de compras, la mala, es que estamos pegados a la Argentina y no a los Estados Unidos.
A nivel doméstico, la llanura de los proyectos personales se me confunde con chatura , al decir de Fontanarrosa, por boca del gaucho de historieta Inodoro Pereyra.
Sí, me gustaría volver a ver uruguayos apasionados por sus ideales. Me gustaría volver a ver un pueblo involucrado en hacer de este país con balcón al mar (Benedetti dixit), un hogar y nido a nuevas ideas. Así como fue en las décadas del dios verde.
Así, un país loco y pasional por sus convicciones, como aquel profeta, condenado a peregrinar por Avda. Artigas, en lugar de la via Apia como San Pablo, como castigo por nacer en el Uruguay.
Se necesitan nuevos dioses verdes en la gris llanura mental uruguaya.
Uruguay, me siento extraño y me duele. Me siento extraño y extraño esa pasión. Uruguay, seguimos por caminos diferentes, pero te deseo lo mejor, y como decía el dios verde.
!Que Batlle te bendiga!
Colonia del Sacramento - enero 2002
Deus nao tem odio.
In the hotel in Maputo, Mozambique an old South African white lady says: Good morning! And she begins to talk to me just as if she was talking to her neighbor in Pretoria. A couple of years ago, in Costa del Sol, not in Spain, but in El Salvador an American tourist also began to talk to me in English as naturally as talking to his neighbor in Ohio. In Rumania the people confused me with an Italian and sometimes even with a German
The only two policemen in the police station of Namaacha, a few meters from the border between Mozambique and Swaziland, treated me with honor, because to them, I am an important person they must protect. I am the only white person on the streets of Namaacha. It’s funny but it is not. I have nothing against these nationalities they confuse me, but it is a little bit frustrating to be confused with the people who has the power.
My face and skin, white enough to be mistaken for nationals from these countries, but the problem is that in context it says to them, that I am one of the people who has power whatever my origins are. With power, in this case I mean, the power and all privileges that the rights of my European citizenship (it could be American, Australian, etc). The power that gives to belong to the most privileged people of the world, this white minority who has all the basic needs solved, but not only that, but which has a qualified job, an education and financial capacity to travel around the world.
It doesn’t help to make the situation better, that I came to Mozambique to help in training for humanitarian assistance. For the Mozambican who opens the door of the hotel, I am just one more white he must satisfy all the time, or at least smile to, because his rice and beans, and also his children’s rice and beans depend on it.
About 30 years ago, I read Luke chapter 4:14-16. They are words of Isaiah now recollected in the text from the mouth of Jesus Himself
I wanted to help to build the Kingdom of God, I wanted to collaborate with the construction of God’s kingdom on earth. That was my mission on earth. Yeah, so big!, so simple! so idealistic!. The readings of some texts of the Liberation Theology were enough for me to see this was an action with very strong social consequences and implications.
It was the late seventies and we felt a strong longing for freedom in a Latin America paved with dictatorships, and Uruguay, my country was no the exception. Of course, we dreamed with slogans still alive from the student movement in Paris '68, and the Robin Hood-like guerillas from South and Central America. “Let us be realistic, demand the impossible!” Paris '68, but also Medellin '68, there the Catholic priests of all Latin America expressed: “The Church on the poor’s side, that’s God’s will”. Yes, we wanted to build God’s kingdom on earth. Nothing less was enough.
What happened? Well, kingdom of God is biblical, but the models we had, were earthly. Besides our criticism of the communist block, we have a picture of God’s kingdom as a socialist and anti-capitalistic model. The model fell down, and we didn’t even realize it in the late eighties. It was difficult to adapt the revolutionary idea of God’s kingdom to the liberal democracy and the market economy. It was too conservative, too reformist for our radical taste.
Other important issues took the empty space that the word revolution left behind. Ecology, feminism, culture diversity. But it was not the same. To fight for women's rights, was a concern for women from different political cultures, not only revolutionary women. The integrity of the creation was an issue for Greenpeace before us; we must accept them although they represent the bourgeois archetype social movement.
Were we Marxists revolutionaries? Not at all! We used the Marxist analysis of the reality, but we were Christians, and born again Christians who wanted a whole transformation of the reality. Transformation that would initiate within ourselves and then transform the entire world. But we failed, especially we failed ourselves but it was easier to see the failure in society, rather than to see it in ourselves. We were so arrogant to believe that we could transform ourselves. We were young and we had too big expectations of ourselves. That was our mistake. That misleads us to believe that we could build the Kingdom of God on earth. We didn’t realize that we were and are just human beings.
And not only that, the reality changed without asking us. We grew up and we were in a liberal, global world, that was laughing at us. We heard the laughs of the world when we hesitated waiting the birth of our first child. Of course, it was more comfortable in the First world than in the Third, not to speak of the Second that had already disappeared below its own ashes.
Below the ashes of our ideas, hopes and expectation of the construction of a new heaven and a new earth, a part of our soul died.
Our friends from Europe or USA explained to us that we could do many positive things for humankind, or at least for the people around the corner. They were used to these explanations. When their souls were not quiet enough to continue consuming, they told themselves, we can do this positive things for humankind . They began earlier than us for the circumstances that they were born in Europe or USA.
We, needed a job. We needed a home. And we got them. We were actually smart enough, and colorful enough (what came first?) to succeed into the multicultural picture of the democratic global era that have just began in the early nineties.
We have been loyal to our jobs, to our new life; we wanted to fit in the society we wanted some years ago destroyed. We panic if someone can believe that we are still then, and we still are in the deepest of our hearth. We are mutants, but not all our DNA has been transformed. That is the problem.
Now, here we are. The idea is to teach some Africans how to work with other Africans even least privileged. We teach to handle crises many times we helped –at least partially if not totally- to create. I am good at this, I have a very good salary and stay in hotels with many stars. My students back to their poor villages or neighborhoods in the poor suburbs of Maputo. Me? To my safe and protected life in Stockholm. As my European friends say: See, you helped them a little bit! But I don’t feel better with that.
So, when the old South African lady talks to me, I don’t see that she is talking to the picture I gave to the world of myself to survive. I am somebody else in the deepest of myself. Somebody else who was that old lady's “ mortal enemy” . Now the old lady talks to us as she does with a neighbor in Pretoria. So innocent and equal as her neighbor in Pretoria, I look like. And we don’t like it. I am not comfortable with that. We hate ourselves for that, but it is too late to kill the old lady, to kill our agonizing souls.
Is the old lady guilty for my young arrogance and my mis-adaptation to the society? To look at her with a mixture of hate and frustration is it her fault? Not at all, I am unfair with the old lady who just wanted to chat with me in the elevator. But I don’t worry so much about that. She will understand. She knows pretty well about injustices. Injustices that she is accomplice too. She will understand.
Am I so cynical and bitter? Well, may be not. A young Mozambican tries to sell something to me. I try to say, no thank you, and my bad Portuguese produce a laugh in the guy's face. I laugh with him, and think, and feel: with such a laugh, such a joy of life, there is still hope for him and even hope for myself, who laugh with him. I can laugh at myself. There is hope.
Today I visited a very poor community in the middle of nowhere. They received us with songs, dance and laugh. Poverty, AIDS, and hunger are not enough to destroy their joy and faith. They sang to Jesus and danced with us. The rich white person, now I badly represent, can stand the hot sun they are used to live under. My eyes were wet; it must be the dust of the road.
I continue my travel and in a car I saw a decal with the text. Deus nao tem odio. God has no hate. As usual God meets me before I find him. As Muslim people say: “Allahu Akbar”, God is bigger. Once again I find trust and consolation in His Grace.
Daniel Calero Davyt,
Namaacha, Mozambique march 2008
