Text: Proverbs 8: 1-4, 32-36
“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” Robert Frost wrote in 1914, a line that has planted itself in my imagination like a sentinel. I thought about it when I spent two summers studying in Berlin, where you can still witness fragments of the wall. I think about that line every time a Tree of Life group witnesses the hideous wall snaking through Jerusalem and the West Bank. I thought about it several years ago when several of us traveled to Cuba, crossing an invisible but no less real wall to visit that isolated island. And I thought about it not long ago when our family traveled along the US/Mexico border in El Paso, where we witnessed a grotesque wall that our President wishes to extend for some 2000 miles along that border. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, Frost says, a poetic statement as well as a moral, spiritual, and theological one.
Doesn’t that statement form the core of Jesus’s life and ministry, after all? Don’t touch those people the law said, and of course Jesus reaches out his hand. You must not eat with those over there the law intoned, and of course Jesus sits and eats. Don’t speak with or interact with this class of people the law instructed, and of course Jesus spends time with them. Don’t travel in this territory the law said, and of course that’s precisely where Jesus chose to travel. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, and Jesus found ways to tunnel under, to climb over, or to go around most all of them in his ministry.
That’s why, as talk of that border wall has increased, as antipathy toward immigrants has intensified, and as Mexico and Mexicans have been singled out for particular abuse, it felt important to go to Mexico. Ours is a community that, for decades now, has willfully transgressed the artificial and ideological barriers used to keep people apart, living in a state of de facto segregation and apartheid. And so several weeks ago several among us traveled to Cuernavaca, a city just south of Mexico City. We stayed with a small community of Benedictine Sisters. They invited us to pray with them in the mornings and in the evenings. We were offered simple, but lovely accommodations, and were treated to delicious Mexican flavors. We met two individuals who were migrating toward the United States, one from Guatemala and one from El Salvador. They shared harrowing stories with us of the dangers migrants are forced to endure, while also providing insight into why they felt forced to migrate. Both of them simply hoped to land jobs in the US doing menial labor, and to make enough so that they could return home, not wealthy, but able to provide a home, or food for their families. We visited a rural community that had formed an agricultural collective to address food insecurity. We visited a small community of women that meets regularly for Bible Study, and to learn traditional craftwork, as means of countering their economic insecurity. We visited indigenous sites, and learned about pre-Christian rituals and traditions that continue to this day. We learned much about the struggles that people face in Mexico, but more than that, we learned how vibrantly and wonderfully alive Mexico is, contradicting most all of the stereotypes we’re exposed to here in the United States.
As travelers, each of us came back with different impressions, and before long I hope many of us who made this journey will say more in an adult forum. But today I wanted to share a story with you that the Sisters told us one day about an icon at the center of their faith tradition, an image you’ll see on your bulletins this morning, but one that we saw many times throughout our travels. The image is the Virgin of Guadalupe, and it’s her story that I’d like to tell you today. While it may be familiar to some of you, it was entirely new to me. And it was one of the most exciting theological discoveries I’ve had in a while, connecting themes of prayer and indigenous traditions with questions of colonialism and loss, endurance and memory, and of suffering and grace. It’s a story worth learning here in Old Lyme.
It begins all the way back in 1519, when Hernando Cortez landed a fleet of ships in Veracruz, on the east coast of Mexico. He was greeted as the second coming of a god, who was said to have died off the coast of Veracruz. That’s why, when Cortez arrived with his fleet he was given a welcome befitting a god. It didn’t take long for the indigenous population to realize that they were mistaken about Cortez and his intentions. After being welcomed into their cities, and after being lavished with gold and other forms of honor, the Spaniards unleashed a campaign of extermination upon the population that lasted for two years, until 1521.
The goal was to do in Mexico what had already been done in Hispaniola and Cuba – to extract wealth from the New World using a system called encomienda. Under this system, the King of Spain granted settlers vast tracts of land, as well as responsibility to govern any natives within the vicinity of their holdings. In practice, it amounted to a brutal form of slavery, as indigenous people were worked to death on plantations and in mines, while the raw materials themselves were sent back to Europe. In Mexico, the indigenous fought as best they could to resist the Spaniards and their encomienda system, but the Spanish had horses, and cannons, and armor. They also had the plague. The population was decimated, and those that were left were forced to renounce their rituals and their gods, converting to the conquistador’s religion. It was, in short, a catastrophic trauma that occurred in those years, with aftershocks and reverberations that are still being felt today.
The appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe, what today is called the Guadalupe Event, took place within that historical trauma, speaking to it. It occurred in 1531, ten years after Cortez seized control of Mexico. A poor peasant man of Aztec descent named Juan Diego was living in the area that is now Mexico City. Like the rest of the remaining population, Juan Diego had been forced to convert, and in early December of that year, he was on his way to a neighboring village to receive catechism, or instruction, from the priest. As he walked past a hillside, he heard the song of birds, and it was beautiful enough that he stopped to listen. But behind the birdsong, he heard more singing, something powerfully alluring that caused him to go in search of where the song was coming from. In that moment, it is said, after being stripped of everything that pertained to his identity, Juan Diego felt fully embraced and enfolded within his own cultural traditions. Which is to say that the beauty spoke directly to him, was made for him, was given to him. He then heard a voice that said “Tzin,” meaning the one worthy of trust. After moving deeper into the forest, Juan Diego encountered a beautiful woman, more beautiful than any he had ever seen. The stones around her feet shone. Behind her were rays, as if from the sun. It’s worth noting that for the Aztecs, the sun was the primary god, and so it seemed to Juan Diego as if the woman was surrounded by God. It’s then that she identified herself as the mother of God, in whom all live. She asks Juan Diego to build a little house on that site, in order that she might listen to the pain, suffering, and sorrow of her people. Further, she asks Juan Diego to deliver the news of her appearance to the local bishop.
The bishop, of course, is unimpressed with Juan Diego’s story. He demands a sign. The Virgin provided two. In the first, she healed Juan Diego’s uncle, who had been suffering from smallpox. In the second, she causes rose bushes to bloom, even though they weren’t in season. Juan Diego picks the roses, the Virgin blesses them, and then he carries the flowers bunched up in his tunic to present to the bishop. As he stands before the bishop, he lets his tunic fall open, spilling the roses at the bishop’s feet. It’s then that they both discover the image of the Virgin imprinted upon the cloth of Juan Diego’s tunic, where the roses had been touching, the same image, it’s said, that we see today on our bulletins.
Have a look at the image now. For many of us, it reads simply as a Catholic icon, but it is more complex by far. It’s even said that the Spanish couldn’t read the symbols contained in the image, for most of them were indigenous in origin. For starters, the Virgin has brown skin and is, evidently, of mixed race, born of the violent encounter between the conquistadors and the indigenous. Flames shine behind her, as if from the sun, a reminder of the Aztecs reverence for the sun. The sun was their primary deity, but the moon is depicted as well, in the crescent shape at her feet, which for the Aztecs was the god of the night. Her shawl is a deep blue, the color of the sky, and is embroidered with the stars of the night – the Aztecs, we learned, were expert astronomers, and derived great wisdom from consulting the stars. Her tunic is a rosy pink, the color of the roses Juan Diego picked, and it depicts frescoes with cosmological symbols that can be found on Aztec pyramids. Her hair hangs loose, the way young indigenous women would have worn their hair. Some think that the black belt around her waist signifies that she is pregnant – and not with Jesus, since that birth occurred 1500 years prior to the Guadalupe Event. This would be a new divine reality, born of the violent encounter between Europe, Meso-America, and yes, Africa. Her leg is slightly raised, suggesting movement or walking. Beneath her is a child, and while some think it is an angel, the Sisters noted that the indigenous people had no beliefs in angelic beings. And so some believe it is an image of Juan Diego, or of the new life she came to bring.
In their explanation, the Sisters described the image of the Virgin as the fifth Gospel, a sacred text revealing the maternal face of God. And that maternal face is everywhere throughout Mexico. She is the occasion for prayers and devotion, particularly among the poor. One house that we visited in a very poor neighborhood had a small shrine to the Virgin in the corner of the house. A café where some of us drank a fermented drink called pulque had a statue of the Virgin behind the bar. Her image is tattooed on the arms of the young, and graffiti murals of the Virgin can be found in cities throughout the US and Mexico. Every year, a festival is given in her honor, and pilgrims journey hundreds of miles, often on foot, to pay homage to her in the Basilica in Mexico City that bears her name. Some of those pilgrims make the final portion of their journey on their knees. One of our presenters shared that during the midnight celebration at the Basilica on the feast day, a great sea of humanity, most of them of indigenous descent, flows through the Basilica to offer prayers to the Virgin. It is, clearly, an image, a reality, that continues to speak to ordinary people from within their ordinary concerns.
But how might that image speak to us, here in Old Lyme? It is, first and foremost, one more example of the variety of prayer and devotion that exists around the globe. We do well to consider that for many people, prayer is an intensely visual experience, conducted while gazing upon an image. That isn’t idolatry, as our Puritan forbears might have thought, but rather a validation of all of our senses as important components of our spiritual lives.
But there’s far more that we can glean from the image. What made the story so compelling to me was the way it spoke to an historical trauma, insisting that love, grace, beauty, God – call it what you will – can emerge even there, especially there. Juan Diego was a motherless child, representing an entire hemisphere of motherless children in that particular moment. She spoke to that condition, validating the very humanity of Juan Diego and so many others like him. She became a sign to indigenous people, then and now, that they have not been abandoned, and that a mother’s arms is enfolding them with care. We need such reminders in our current political climate. A mother’s love enfolds the despised and forsaken of the earth. But there’s more still. The Virgin is a stunning amalgamation of indigenous religion and European piety, suggesting that in matters of the spirit, it can never be a zero sum game. The best components of our religious practice will be those that are hybrid, mestizo, mixed, born of multiple origins. That’s a truth confirmed by the Bible, which is itself composed of Hebrew but also of Babylonian sources, to say nothing of Greek, Roman, Egyptian and other smaller, regional practices. Are we all at our spiritual best when we exercise the freedom to exist as people of multiplicity?
But here’s where the image speaks most powerfully, at least to me. I believe we need images that disclose the feminine face of God, the maternal embrace of God. We need images that contest patriarchy, that counter the relentless violence, intimidation, harassment and humiliation to which women are too often subjected. In Mexico, we learned about the horror of feminicides taking place throughout the country, especially among the very poor, even as our own country was convulsing from the courageous testimony before the Senate of a survivor of sexual assault, testimony that was dismissed all too quickly, before being mocked. Sadly, we were reminded in Mexico that that attitude is inscribed throughout the pages of Scripture, from the punishment of Eve for her pursuit of knowledge to the so called texts of terror, that seem to provide divine sanction for violence against women. The Virgin of Guadalupe speaks to that condition as well, a steady rebuke to the abuses of patriarchy, misogyny, chauvinism, and all the other ways churches and governments and institutions have debased women.
The Virgin of Guadalupe visited humanity in a critical moment to disclose the feminine face of God. But maybe the visitation is for us as well, for we too stand in a critical – some would say catastrophic – moment. Might it be that we need to discover the feminine face of God? It’s true, an image alone won’t save us, not with all we’re facing. But if we let it, it might suggest different life arrangements, rooted in the flourishing of all of humanity, and not simply the privileged few. Might it be that God comes to us as a woman, who speaks to the deepest parts of our humanity, loving us into a courageous and generous form of existence? Might it be that even now, she is speaking into the parts of each of our lives where we feel like a motherless child, lost and adrift? Perhaps if we listen, we too can hear her calling us as well, assuring us that we too are worthy of trust. It’s a powerful responsibility she bestows, but it’s one worthy of our assent.
I conclude with a lesson from the Sisters themselves. Significant revelations of God tend to occur on the periphery of cultural life, they reminded us, a dynamic as true for the life of Jesus as for the Guadalupe Event. The challenge is to draw those in positions of power and authority out toward the periphery, even as that which was peripheral needs to be drawn toward the center, in order to humanize and quicken the conscience of those who wield power. Wouldn’t that back and forth, from the periphery to the center and back, constitute the most powerful border crossing of all? And is that not what the Sisters themselves have practiced, inviting those from the United States to dwell for a time on the periphery? If we do it again, I hope some of you will consider making that journey. But for now, my hope is that the Virgin of Guadelupe, the fifth Gospel text, will reveal her wisdom to you, drawing you into the peripheral zones of the world, and of your heart.
