Building Bridges

Jesus grew up in Nazareth, a very small village that was literally built into a hill. People took advantage of the limestone caves that dotted the landscape by setting up their living spaces within and extending tents out onto the hillside, where their animals were kept. Joseph, Jesus’ father, earned his livelihood by making the three-mile journey to Sepphoris, the regional Roman capital that was under construction one hill away. When he was old enough, Jesus no doubt accompanied his father on this daily commute, for the purpose of learning the carpentry trade.

It was a literally a journey from one world to the other — from Nazareth, poor and under economic and political oppression; to Sepphoris, which was designed to display opulence and power. It was a journey that opened Jesus’ eyes to the inequity of the world, and fueled his commitment to do something about it.

Jesus spent much of his ministry attempting to build a bridge over the chasm between the two worlds, and calling the denizens of Sepphoris to account for their hubris and isolation. The chasm between Nazareth and Sepphoris still exists – be it between the South Bronx and Larchmont or Scarsdale (which Jonathan Kozol makes frequent reference to in Ordinary Resurrections); or between any community where the cost of living keeps out those who don’t have the financial resources to buy in. And the same calling to account is still being issued.

When there is no bridge between the two worlds — or when the bridge that exists is too wobbly for people to want to cross over, we mentally manufacture bridges out of our projections. We make all sorts of assumptions about life on the other side, and since there is very little serious and honest traffic back and forth, these assumptions often stick. And they are inaccurate, and usually evolve into overt or hidden prejudices. And a certain blindness emerges, along with spiritual isolation.

We are challenged to follow Jesus’ lead and challenge by doing whatever we can (which is more than we want to assume) to build solid bridges between those whose lives are blessed by privilege and those for whom privilege is a wild pipe dream.

When I began my ministry as bishop of the Diocese of Newark, NJ in early 2007, I noticed the soup line that gathered outside the Roman Catholic Church located immediately next door to our four-story building in downtown Newark. We shared a driveway and a gate, which the diocese technically owned and kept locked, requiring those seeking a meal to walk around the block to get to the soup line. Good fences make good neighbors, as the poet Robert Frost wrote. And we were good neighbors, in the sense that we had no relationship with one another. We didn’t pay attention to them, and they didn’t bother us. The locked gate made sure of that. I did notice that there were a lot of men who arrived twice a day and ate outside — always outside. And I learned that the church was not used except for a weekly service for the deaf and a downtown mass opportunity on Ash Wednesday.

And then, after a few weeks, I no longer noticed the men, the church, or the gate. It all became an urban foreground for the Passaic River, which flowed just beyond and which captured the eye’s attention (if one was looking at all). They were poor, and therefore they were faceless, nameless – and story-less. They were a local cohort of “the poor,” which didn’t exactly mean that they were untouchable as a caste and therefore consigned to societal rejection, but it was culturally permissible to avoid them. And so I did.

I told myself that I needed to because as I became more acclimated to my new role, my gaze and attention was directed at the one hundred plus congregations in the diocese — to their clergy and laypeople, their problems, and their opportunities. Lots of things were happening. There was a lot to see, and an enormous amount to learn. I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, see anything else. When I arrived at the office in the morning, our parking lot, located against the fence and near the gate, was for me no more than a parking lot. There were people eating breakfast on the other side — but I literally didn’t see them.

After being challenged by a priest in the diocese, who said in effect that the diocese had created a modern monument of Sepphoris in the center of Newark, we began to build a bridge between the diocesan office and the soup kitchen next door. We opened the gate and in so doing we built a bridge. We began to meet with the men who came to eat. It wasn’t easy. Some of us, myself included, had to confront deep-seated prejudices and fear. And over time, with a lot of fits and starts, we were able to see one another as neighbors. It was a start.

Emerging Moral Obscenity

It is a moral obscenity.  It is said by some that white Afrikaners in South Africa are the victims of genocide, but there is no data to support the claim. It is said that the cohort of Afrikaners coming to America are refugees, but there are indications that they are...

The Ordering of Love: a New Debate in the Culture Wars

Several decades ago, a national debate raged over a question that helped launch America’s ongoing culture war:  who can you love? One side was insistent that love – which would involve intimate sexual expression – should be confined to a man and a woman. A popular...

Make America Great Again: A Clamping Down on Paradigm Shift

In April of 1970 the United States decided to invade Cambodia, thus expanding the Vietnam War. I was nearing the end of my freshman year in college. Campuses around the country rose up in angry indignation. Protests were planned, strikes were proposed, marches were...

Teach Us to Care and Not to Care: T.S. Eliot

It is becoming harder and harder to achieve emotional, spiritual and in some cases physical distance from what is happening in this country.  I hear more and more people saying that they are reluctant to buy, sell or make changes to their home because the economy is...

Ep 22 – “The Greatest Unifier” with Rick Joyner

In this episode, I welcome Rick Joyner, a prominent Evangelical leader, author, public speaker, and founder of Morningstar Ministries. We explore how to respectfully build mutual understanding and work together across differences. Rick shares about his life-changing conversion, his strong support for President Trump, his belief in God as the greatest unifier, and the challenges and hopes that he sees for the country. We also discuss finding unity in diversity and the ongoing pursuit of liberty and justice for all.

Fossil Fuels, Easter, and Pope Francis

For more than two hundred years we have been pulling former life out of the ground to heat our buildings, power our cars, run our machines, illuminate our lights. Fossil fuels, so named because they are the remnants of plants, animals and living microbes which, over...

Palm Sunday: Two Very Different Demonstrations of Power

They came into the city through separate gates, almost at the same time. The first was a procession that demonstrated power: Pontius Pilate’s power, backed by all the forces of the Roman Empire. The second procession was smaller, feeble by comparison, and it...

Personal and Systemic Racism: A Critical Difference

“Personal racism has gone down”, a wise colleague told me recently, “but institutional racism has gone up.” This is both good and bad news.The good news is that over the decades of my lifetime more and more people have become increasingly sensitive to the issues of...

Privilege Can Drown Out Pain

“The secret to white privilege is that if you don’t want to hear something, you don’t have to,”  my mentor Ed Rodman said in a video retrospective:  “A Prophet Among Us”...

Dealing with Psychic Lactic Acid

I was about six strokes from the finish of a 100 yard butterfly race in an age-group competition this past weekend when my arms gave out.  The last two strokes looked like I was drowning. I could barely get my arms out of the water.  Fifty-five years ago I was a...
Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Join my mailing list to receive the latest blog updates.

You have Successfully Subscribed!