"Re-mapping La Frontera," a sermon given in Christ Chapel on October 12, 2004 (Santa Comunión), by the Rev. Dr. Eliseo Pérez-Alvarez, LSPS Associate Professor of Latino Theology and Mission.

Luke 5.12-16

Nic occa...
"My heart finally understands,
I listen to a song, I contemplate a flower,
may they never shrivel."

This 15th century Aztec poem is my apostolic greeting, a Texan short cut translation could be: Haudy yo'all!

Today we find Jesus Christ interacting with a redundant person, a leper. In Jesus' time there were purity maps of human beings , in terms of category. The holiest were the Priests, followed by Levites, Israelites, Converts, Freed Slaves, Illegitimate children of priests, temple slaves, bastards and eunuchs. Lepers didn't appear as impure but as being punished by God. In any event, they were pushed outside the political "fronteras".

Today also, we find a "Christ bearer" or Christopher Columbus mapping the Americas as India, as Japan, as Asia, while avoiding recognizing the original inhabitants of this continent. The "Christ bearer" instead, classified Native Americans as half humans and half beast; as little runts; as second or third class people.

Each society invents its own illness. Thus there's no point in approaching today's gospel story from the point of view of Western medicine, since every culture maps its own sickness-healing concept. Illness, then, does not necessarily correspond with a concrete biological entity but, in the majority of the cases, with a social convention, in order to keep certain people beyond our fronteras, far away from the center of power.

Leprosy was not necessarily a contagious illness; it was an exclusion mark related with Jewish maps of punishment (Dt. 28.21-22) Lepers were forced to internalize their unworthiness by having to declare aloud their sinful condition. However, guess what, the leper of our story changed the script! He put Jesus on the spot, by recognizing in him a non-priest who could very well disobey the oppressive religious law. As Bible scholar Ched Myers' translation suggests: "You could declare me clean, if only you would dare!" Jesus didn't care what his society said about that marginalized man. The Nazarene celebrated the Leper's freedom mentality; Jesus Christ listened to his cry and demolished the apartheid frontera: "I do want to. Be clean!"

On the other side, 15th century "Christ bearer" dis-encountered his neighbors. The European sailor built a wall to the fact that Asians discovered America; to the fact that Arabs, Japanese and Vikings reached the Americas in short inroads; to the fact that Africans made its rich cultural contributions to the Americas centuries way back. It's not accidental that Columbus saw continental America until his third voyage, precisely when he took the Guinea route although he never set a foot on it.

Jesus Christ, as a non-priest, heard the cry of the Leper and gave him a passport to show it to the priest-gate-keeper, so that the Leper would be welcome to society, of course, this social redemption was not tax-free! Some priests prefer profiteering over prophesying!

Christopher Columbus and his heirs not only confiscated Native Americans' passports, he went further up as to erase their identity by burning their libraries and prohibiting the writing and speaking of any other language than Spanish. With the Pope's blessing, the entire continent was distributed between Spain and Portugal. Even as we worship today, Wal-mart is almost finishing a store in the Teotihuacan Pyramids zone. That's why there's a Mexican national boycott. "Wal-mart is ruining our ruins."

Jesus paid the price for listening to the pariah's cry. By touching him Jesus broke the law one more time; Jesus Christ attempted against the established order. Now he had to go "underground": "Don't tell any one"; Jesus ended up being ostracized: "he went away to lonely places."

Regarding Christopher the Italian, he transcended the Atlantic frontera but not his Eurocentric one. He was sent back to Spain in chains because of his crimes, he was convicted and stripped of his titles. He would be very disappointed in knowing that only one country, Colombia, was rebaptized after him and not the entire continent! He would be glad though in knowing that at the fall of the Spanish empire, in order for Europeans to claim their golden age as civilizers, Christopher was resurrected during the first celebration of "Columbus Day" on October 12, 1892.

O well, the pressing question for us now is, in what directions are we re-mapping our fronteras? Are we like Jesus Christ who re-mapped it to include the outcasts' cry, or are we like Christopher Columbus who remained deaf to the cry of the Other? Are we like Marx who left out of his Frontera Oriental peoples for, according to him not having history, being barbaric peasant nations under despotic leaders? Are we like Frederick Engels who praised USA for taking over more than half of the Mexican territory, or are we like David Thoreou who protested against the same expansion of this country's fronteras and had to pay the price with prison?

Our world needs female and male cartographers, to proclaim in word and deed that in the Reign of God there aren't any fronteras.

This "La Raza Day" we must follow Henry Benjamin Whipple's prophetic model. On October 13,1859 he was consecrated as Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Minnesota. He sided with the Sioux tribe and served them for 40 years, by pushing his cause for justice at the Congress, at the Parliament, or face to face with Abraham Lincoln. Native Americans called him "Straight Tongue" for daring to tell the plain truth, at a time when Native Americans were the enemies in turn of this nation. Bishop Whipple let his hair grow and be draped on his back in Sioux fashion, but there was a price to be paid for listening to Dakota's cry: He permanently was verbally abused and threaten by whites who considered him a renegade.

This "La Raza Day" we should imitate Gonzalo Guerrero, the Roman Catholic Spaniard soldier who got tired of Indian massacres and in 1511 turned his back on Europeans. Gonzalo Guerrero married a Maya Indian, procreated three children, and in 1519 when Mexican invader Hernan Cortes asked Gonzalo to re-join the Spaniards he didn't. After 9 more years he was asked again but instead Gonzalo Guerrero led Mayan resistance. Gonzalo, the Father of Mestizo people, wore scanty Mayan clothes, he decorated his body, pierced his nostrils, lips and ears, painted his face, and tattooed his hands after Mayan fashion, but there was a price to be paid for listening to the Mayan's cry: he was killed in the battle field in 1536.

This "La Raza Day" we are called to join hands with the recently deseaced Dorothee Soelle, the 20th century Lutheran womanist theologian who opened Europe's frontera to the underbelly. This mystic, social activist German in the 1980's traveled to Nicaragua and since then became attached to that country's struggle for liberation. She lectured in Brazil, Peru, El Salvador, Chile, Argentina and Bolivia where her daughter a physician and committed Christian lives.

Dorothee wrote in 1993 in her book Gott im Mull "God in the Garbage": "we are also capable of healing the sick...I would like to betray my own social class, to renounce to its segregationist spirit and to totally committed myself to the liberation of all humanity.. . I'm beginning to be evangelized." For re-mapping the frontera and for listening to the wretched of the Earth's cry, there was a price to be paid: Professional death. The German university system never recognized her as a scholar but as an unacademic and unscientific theologian.

Jesus Christ healed leprosy; Christopher brought leprosy to the Americas.

In re-mapping la Frontera to listen to the Leper's, Jesus was considered a traitor, a renegade, an "apostate." He ran the risk by making the outcast his neighbor. The price he paid was the cross.
Are we listening to our neighbor's cry: "You could declare me clean, if only you would dare!