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11

THE PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE POOR CHRIST AND THE LOGIC OF GRATUITY

Roberto S. Goizueta

The preferential option for the poor is one of the most influential theological concepts of the last fifty years-and one of the most mis- understood. No sooner is the term mentioned than it is met with the rejoinder, "But what about the rich? Aren't we supposed to love them as wel1?"or "Why are the poor necessarily any better than the rich? Surely there are plenty of bad poor people!" or "I thought that Chris- tians were supposed to be about harmony and reconciliation, not par- tiality and divisiveness." This essay will place such questions in the context of Christo logical reflections by U.S. Latino/a and Latin American theologians on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Galilee.

Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez, OP, of Peru, considered by many as the founder of Latin American liberation theology, has suggestedthat the two principal, overarching themes in scripture are: (1) the universal- ity and gratuity of God's love, and (2) God's preferential love for the poor. u.s. Latino/a Christo logy,as a theology written from "the bor- der," offers important insights into the interdependent, mutually im- plicit character of these two biblical themes, especially in its efforts to retrieve the theological significance of Galilee. U.S. Latino/a and Latin American Christologies help us understand how God's love, precisely as gratuitous and universal, demands a preference for the poor. Such an approach provides a way to resolve what can seem like conflicting claims regarding the nature of this preference and point to the possibility of a reconciliation grounded in an option for the poor. Building on these insights, then, in what follows 1 will argue that the preferential option for the poor is in fact a necessary precon- dition for both Christian faith and global reconciliation.

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176 .:. ROBERTO S. GOIZUETA

The Logic of Gratuity

What, then, have Latino/a and other U.S. theologians learned from the Latin American church about the gratuitous nature of God's prefer- ential option for the poor and its relationship to the Mystery of God? In myown case, I have learned that, first and foremost, God's preferen- tial love for the poor is the theological and methodological guarantee, or safeguard, of God's transcendence, sovereignty, and Mystery. It seems to me that if God is truly "Other," and thus irreducible to any human concept or construction, then logically God will take the side of the poor, the marginalized, the outcast, the victims. In other words, if God loves everyone equally and gratuitously, then God will love the poor preferentially. What at first glance appear to be mutually contra- dictory assertionsare, in fact, mutually implicit.

This conclusion can be reached, however, only if one first ac- knowledges that the poor do in fact exist and if one engages at least minimally with people who live on the margins of our society and world. Here one is immediately confronted with the fact that while there are indeed poor persons, there are also non-poor persons who pay little attention to the reality of those who are defined as "poor," "mar- ginalized,"and "powerless,"precisely in relation to them. Writing from El Salvador, Fr.Jon Sobrino, S.J., distinguishes those persons who take life for granted from those who cannot.' Tragically,we live in a divided world and society.And those in the best position to recognize this fact are the people who suffer the consequences of that division. Con- versely,those of us who benefit from social divisions-whether explic- itly or implicitly-are likely to either ignore these or deemphasizetheir significance. It is the hungry person who is in the best position to de- termine whether hunger exists in our society. In Sobrino's terms, the person who cannot take life for granted is in the best position to be "honest about reality."! In other words, the poor or powerless have a privileged epistemological perspective from which to evaluate "reality." (Note, however, that this privilege in no way assures infallible or in- evitable accuracy-only a greater likelihood of such.) And the en- counter of those who take lifefor granted with those who do not makes it possiblefor us to "see"a reality we would otherwise miss.

Given then that we do indeed live in a divided world that grants its victims an epistemological advantage in confronting its reality,what is the significance of this reality for our understanding of God (and for theology)? More specifically,what can it mean to say that God enters into and becomes incarnate in a world, a society, and a history that are

THE PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE POOR .:. 177

beset by divisions between those who have power (and take life for granted) and those who are powerless (and cannot take life for granted)? In such a world, what would it mean to saythat God loves all people equally and gratuitously? In such a world, what would it mean to saythat JesusChrist is the perfect expression of God's love?

For two thousand yearsthe Christian tradition has proposed an an- swer that, for many, has seemed inconceivable, if not scandalous. In such a world the perfect expression of God's love is found in the utter powerlessness of an unjustly condemned criminal who, having experi- enced abandonment by his closest friends and even God, hangs pitiably from a cross. God's love enters history in the person of an out- cast who is tortured and crucified for befriending other outcasts. God's love enters our divided society on the side of those who sufferits con- sequences-not because God loves the outcast more, but because in the midst of division and conflict, God's love for the victims, and God's love for their victimizers, must take different forms. Thus, God's love for the powerful will not (at least initially) be experienced as love at all, since it will take the form of challenge, confrontation, and a call to conversion, to metanoia.

To say that God's love is universal is not to say that it isneutraL In fact, it is to say the very opposite: precisely because God's love is uni- versal, it cannot be neutral. If a mother finds that a fight has broken out between her strapping teenage son and his much smaller sister, the mother will not hesitate to try to "liberate" the smaller girl from the brother's clutches-precisely because the mother loves her two chil- dren equally. In that context, the mother's love for her son will take the form of a call to conversion, though he will not likely see it that way.Were the mother to take a neutral stance and not get involved be- cause she "loves her children equally," the young daughter would n0L..-- experience the neutrality as love. In a situation of division, a neutral stance provides implicit support for the divided status quo and, there- fore, implicit support for thepersonts) benefiting from the division, in other words, the most powerfuLNeutrality, like silence, is consent.

The crucified and risen Jesus is the historical incarnation of this logic, the logic of God's universal, gratuitous love. If the incarnate God is truly Other, truly Mystery, then God will be revealed most fully among those persons who themselves are most "other," most incom- prehensible, in our world. The God who is absolutely Other, and thus "makes no sense" in the context of merely human calculations and ex- pectations, will be encountered most fully among those persons whose very existence makes no sense among the hungry in a gluttonous world, among the powerless in a power-mad world, among the insecure

178 .:. ROBERTO S. GOIZUETA

in a world obsessed with security. In Sobrino's words, the God who is Other will be found among those who cannot take life for granted in a world that takes life for granted. In the words of Gutierrez, this God will be found among the non-persons in a world that identifies per- sonhood with wealth, power, and security. In the crucified people, God assumes the most degrading, dehumanizing dimensions of vic- timized human existence by becoming the absolute Victim. God does not do this in order to privilege victimhood-which is always an evil-but precisely to reveal, once and for all, the absolutely gratu- itous and universal character of God's love for creation. In the person of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, God pronounces the victory of the logic of gratuity over the logic of suum cuique ("to each what is due him or her").3

Reconciliation as the Fruit of Gratuity

If the crucified and risen Galilean is the full expression of God's gratu- itous, universal love, he also reveals the intrinsic connection between gratuity and reconciliation. God's gratuitous love is revealed in the per- son of the Resurrected Victim as the source of reconciliation. The logic of gratuity is ineluctable: (1) God loves the poor preferentially, (2) in order to reveal the gratuitous, universal character of God's love, (3) which demands and makes reconciliation possible. This logic is evident, above all, in the central Christo logical events: the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Paschal Triduum reveals the inherently communal character of these events and, hence, the power of the God- who-is-love to create and sustain, not just life in general, but life-in- communion. The resurrection is not merely the victory of life over death, but the vindication and justification of the Victim and, there- fore, the victory of communion over estrangement and alienation."

What would the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ look like from the perspective of the victims, those whom the world has ignored, cast out, and abandoned-those who are "other" to the world of power and wealth? For Sobrino, the crucifixion provides the hermeneutical lens through which to understand-looking back- ward-the life of Jesus, and-looking ahead-the resurrection. The crucifixion is the link between Jesus' life and his resurrection.' Jesus' life-his words and his deeds-becomes interpretable as that which led inexorably to his crucifixion. Because he dared to welcome and accom- pany the outcasts of his society, Jesus was forced to either share their fate or renounce his message. The crucifixion was the direct conse-

THE PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE POOR .:. 179

quence of his com-passion for the outcasts. He was abandoned to his fate as they had been (and continue to be) abandoned by society.Inter- preted from the standpoint of the crucifixion, the resurrection confirms God's justification of the divine Victim of society's injustice, as well as all the other victims of history," Further, the resurrection affirms the victory of reconciliation over abandonment. It affirms the possibility and hope of constructing a newly transformed community grounded in God's gratuitous love, expressed in the Victim's offer of mercy.

In the gospels, the process of com-passion ---+ abandonment ---+ reconciliation (the divine logic of gratuity) comes to a head and isfully revealed in Jesus' post-resurrection appearances to the apostles. Out of fear for their own lives,Jesus' closest friends had abandoned him at his time of greatest need; through their silence and inaction they became accomplices in his torture and crucifixion. As they cowered together after his death, they must have felt not just fear but also shame and guilt, for they had effectively rent asunder the community formed when Jesuscalled them together. This was the situation into which the resurrected Jesuswalked when he appeared to the apostles.

But rather than demand justice or recompense from his former friends and betrayers, the resurrected Jesus greets the apostles in the upper room with an offer of peace: "Peace be with you!" This offer must have disarmed the apostles, not only because the one whom they assumed was dead was now alive, but also because the one they had abandoned was now returned to haunt them! Surely they would have preferred to leave the past behind and get on with their lives, even if that meant living with some regret and pangs of conscience. But Jesus will not let them forget. He forces them to remember, not by demand- ing justice, but by extending to them his forgivenessand mercy."Peace be with you!" he says.Yet the offer of mercy,precisely as a demand for remembrance, includes a call for repentance and justice: "Put your fin- ger here." The still-visible wounds on Jesus' glorified body represent the inerasable memories of suffering that forever remain a part of the resurrection. Even the Victim's offer of forgiveness cannot wish the wounds away.Thus, the offer of mercy can be received only if and when the wounds are acknowledged, responsibility is accepted, and behavior is transformed: "My Lord and my God!" It isnot repentance that elicits justice and forgiveness, but precisely the reverse: the extravagance of Jesus' mercy compels repentance and metanoia-the logic of gratuity."

The resurrection, therefore, is not merely the resurrection of a single, autonomous human being; it is the resurrection of a commu- nity. That community is now radically reconstituted on the basis of

180 .:. ROBERTO S. GOIZUETA

gratuitousness. Grounded in the extravagant mercy of the crucified and risen Victim, the transformed community demands an equally transformed praxis, one that begins when those who had abandoned Jesus accept his offer of forgiveness. That reception necessarily in- cludes, as intrinsic to their decision to accept his offer, the apostles' acknowledgment of their complicity in Jesus' crucifixion and a com- mitment to carryon his mission, to a transformed praxis. Thus, the act of receptivity to the divine mercy expressed in the crucified and risen Victim's "Peace be with you" is mediated by a renewed praxis of solidarity and struggle for justice with the victims who embody God's extravagant mercy in history. To put it in Sobrino's terms, our recep- tion of God's offer of mercy depends upon our solidarity with the cru- cified and risen Galilean as mediated by our solidarity with the cruci- fied people in history, a solidarity most fully realized when we "take the crucified people down from the cross.?"

"There YouWill See Him •••"

Christ's crucifixion-resurrection thus includes not only the empty tomb but also the upper room. There is, however, a third element intrinsic to understanding the crucifixion-resurrection from a communal perspec- tive, namely,Galilee. In the gospelswe are told, "He has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him" (Mt 28:7, Mk 16:7). As in the case of Jesus' encounter with the apostles in the upper room, it is instructive to understand the command to "goto Galilee" aspart of the logicofJesus'crucifixion-resurrection.

After all, the receptivity of the followersof Jesus to his appearance is intrinsic to their experience of the resurrection. While we are told that the resurrection of Jesus is corporeal and takes place in history, it is not simply an empirical event like any other, for it is available only to those with "eyesthat see" (Mt 13:16,Lk 10:23).9Like all revelation, the resurrection is by definition a resurrection for or to someone; the encounter with the resurrected Jesus cannot take place without Jesus and another. Thus, just as Jesus' appearance to the apostles in the upper room is part of the resurrection narrative, so is his appearance "in Galilee." By sending the apostles to Galilee, Jesus brings his own ministry, which had begun in Galilee, full circle; what had been initi- ated in Galilee will find its consummation in Galilee. YetGalilee isnot just an ending, it is also a beginning. It is the birthplace of the apostles' new community and new mission. In a very real way, Galilee is the birthplace of the new ekklesia, or church.

THE PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE POOR .:. 181

If this is the case, it is important to understand the theological sig- nificance of the command to go to Galilee and the appearance of Jesus there. If Jesus' disciples are to go to Galilee in order to "see" Jesus, what is the significance of Galilee as a locus theologicus, that is, a place of human-divine encounter? Here the most extensive, systematic theolog- ical work has been done by Mexican-American theologian Fr. Virgilio Elizondo, drawing upon the work of biblical scholars such as Sean Freyne, and upon his own experience as a Mexican-American son of the U.S.-Mexico borderland. 10

For Elizondo, Galilee's theological significance lies in its geographi- cal and historical character as a borderland region, distant from the reli- gious and political center of Jerusalem. The geographical and historical reality of Galilee assumes a theological role in the gospels because that reality marks the ministry of Jesus. Elizondo points out, for instance, that the borderland reality of Galilee gives rise to a Jewish religiosity be- yond the control of the religious and political elites in Jerusalem. As such, Galilee symbolizes a "newness" within the Jewish community that threatens established power structures. Inhabitants of the borderland cannot be adequately supervised and therefore cannot be completely trusted. (This fear of the "hinterland" is certainly not unique to first- century Palestine, but is a common human phenomenon.)

The suspicion arises not simply from the geographical distance but also from the concomitant proximity to Hellenistic and Roman popu- lations. For a Jerusalem religio-political elite concerned with ritual pu- rity, the regular contact of Galilean Jews with Hellenized Jews (such as Herod and his followers) and Gentiles representing religious and cul- tural influences from the other side of the border was a source of suspi- cion: "In Galilee the Jews were looked down upon and despised by the others as they were in the rest of the world. Their own Jewish people despised them as inferior and impure. Because of their mixture with others, they were marginated by their own."!'

Elizondo argues that as Jesus was a Jew raised in Galilee and had a ministry identified with the region, he was an object of suspicion and de- rision. Yet-and here is the key to the good news-this same object of derision becomes, in the person of Jesus Christ, the chosen one of God, the Messiah in whom God becomes fully revealed. In Jesus of Galilee, human expectations and preconceptions about God are overturned:

The apparent nonimportance and rejection of Galilee are the very bases for its all-important role in the historic eruption of God's saving plan for humanity. The human scandal of God's

182 .:. ROBERTO S. GOIZUETA

way does not begin with the cross, but with the historico- cultural incarnation of [God's]Son in Galilee ... That God has chosen to become a Galilean underscores the great paradox of the incarnation, in which God becomes the despisedand lowly of the world. In becoming a Galilean, God becomes the fool of the world for the sake of the world's salvation. What the world rejects, God chooses ashis very own.F

The return of the crucified and risen Christ to Galilee issimplythe final confirmation of the privileged place held by Galilee asa locus the- ologicus. What Elizondo calls "the Galilean Principle," that "what the world rejects, God chooses as his very own," turns out to be both the starting point of the mission of this marginal peasant from Nazareth in Galilee, and its logical culmination: "There you will seehim."

While the roots of Jesus' mission in Galilean Judaism are critically important, it is not until the end of the gospel that Galilee is revealed as not merely the origin and context of Jesus' ministry, but also the place where he founds the newly reconciled community. Only at the end is the most radical outcome of Jesus' life and work revealed. This genuinely "resurrected" community isborn in the borderland. As ekkle- sia, this transformed community thus eschews at its very foundation all barriers that separate pure from impure, or insider from outsider. At its very foundation, the church is a church of the borderland and, as such, it privileges the borderland as a place of revelation, a place of en- counter with the crucified and risen Christ.

The Preferential Option for the Poor Revisited

In the borderland of Galilee, the crucified and risen Christ brings the "hermeneutical circle" of the Paschal Triduum to its culmination, thereby revealing the internal logic unfolding in the passion, death, and resurrection of the one known asJesusof Galilee. This logic,how- ever, is accessible only to those "who have eyes to see," those open to gratuitousness in a world of suum cuique. It is a logic that appears fool- ish and scandalous to those who insist that God is on the side of the righteous and the virtuous. Thus, the crucified and risen Christ appears scandalous to those who, in the words of Johann Baptist Metz, are more concerned with sinners than with victims, more concerned with sin than with suffering.But the Galilean Jesus is moved much more by the latter than by the former; he who readily forgives sin does not eas- ily abide the sufferingof victims. Indeed, that is the scandal ofgratuity.

THE PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE POOR .:. 183

Sin is alwaysforgivable,but the blindness that causes and perpetuates suffering is not-precisely because such blindness precludes the possi- bility of receiving God's gratuitous mercy even when it is offered (as it alwaysis). This latter is,by definition, the only unforgivable sin.

The decision to "go to Galilee," therefore, eventually unveils the intrinsic complementarity between two biblical principles that guide the thought ofGustavo Gutierrez;God's preferential option for the poor and the gratuity and universality of God's love. In returning to Galilee, the formerly disheartened followersof Jesus discover the intrinsic and unbreakable unity of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection. In Galilee, the full import of Christ's offer of reconciliation is made pre- sent. The acceptance by his followersof the offerof reconciliation made possibleby Christ's resurrection (betrayaland abandonment are not the end of the story) reconstitutes and transformsthe community that was shattered when they fled at the crucifixion. Further, it includes-and demands-the extension of that reconciled existence, grounded as it is in the gratuitous mercy ofChrist's "Peacebe with you," to all those per- sons who have never been a part ofour community because they live in the borderland. The command to go to Galilee isa command to under- stand Christ's mercy as extending beyond the upper room to the seem- ing chaos and uncontrollability of the borderland.

The command to go to Galilee thus affirmsthe ecclesiological im- plications of the crucifixion-resurrection. God's preferential love for the poor is embodied in the abandoned Criminal hanging from the cross, and together they reveal the utter gratuitousnessof God's mercy.In the upper room that mercy becomes the seedbed of a new, reconciled com- munity that includes the very persons who had abandoned Jesus. In Galilee this reconciled community-the fruit of Christ's resurrection- is opened to all those persons who, because they live on the marginsof society,have been excluded or abandoned. In Galilee the crucifiedpeo- ple (to use Sobrino's terminology) become the privileged locusor place for encountering the crucifiedand risen Christ in history.

Elizondo's Galilean Jesus

The work of Virgilio Elizondo has helped to retrieve the theological centrality of Galilee, and has thus helped broaden our understanding of the crucifixion-resurrection event itself. Elizondo reminds us that the resurrection of Jesus transforms not only his individual existence but also the relationships from which his personhood emerges. The resurrection of Jesus not only renews and transforms the bonds with

184 .:. ROBERTO S. GOIZUETA

his estranged disciples, but it leads them to return to the Galilean bor- derland where the post-Easter church is destined to be born and to grow,amid the marginated inhabitants of the borderland.

The mandate to return to Galilee is the final confirmation that God's preferential love for the poor expressesand safeguardsGod's uni- versal, gratuitous love, for the full ramifications of Jesus' crucifixion- resurrection become visible only upon his return to Galilee. The scan- dalous and inconceivable self-communication of God in the person of a crucified criminal reveals the extravagant gratuitousness-and Mys- tery-of God's love. As Elizondo has suggested, however, what Christ- ian theology still fails to fully appreciate is that the self-communication of God in the Galilean borderland is equally scandalous and unex- pected. It is precisely because God's love is most fully revealed in the person of the crucified Victim that God's love can be revealed to every- one. It is precisely because the crucified and risen Christ will be seen first in Galilee that he can be seen everywhere and in everyone. Fi- nally, it is preciselybecause the church is the church of the borderland and thrives among its inhabitants as the church of the margins that the church can be present everywhere and to everyone.

Jesus' crucifixion, resurrection, and reconciliation with the apostles through his return to Galilee calls all of his followers to the option for the poor and fuels demands for social justice as the natural expression of the gratuity of God's love and the Mystery of God, which confounds our expectations. Our solidarity with the marginalized and work for justice-"taking the crucified people down from the cross"-are simply the Christian mode of openness to, encounter with, and reception of a God who isMystery.Far from implying any reductionism or exclusivity, which would undermine God's transcendence, God's preferential op- tion for the poor is the only credible guarantee of that transcendence. Likewise,our own preferential option for the poor is a precondition for encountering the God who isMystery.

Gustavo Gutierrez insists we must

situate justice within the framework of God's gratuitous love. Only in the perspective of the latter is it possible to under- stand God's predilection for the poor. This special love does not have for its ultimate motive the virtues and merits of the poor but the goodness and freedom of God, a God who is not simplythe guardian of a rigid moral order,"

All is ultimately gift, including justice and communion: "Entrance into the kingdom of God is not a right to be won, not even by the practice

THE PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE POOR .:. 185

of justice; it is always a freely given gift."!" Gutierrez contends that this assertion has always been at the heart of liberation theology:

Despite reductionist interpretations that try to deny the fact, this conviction has been part of the theology of liberation from the beginning and has always fed the spirituality that ani- mates this theology. The theme of the gratuitousness of divine love is therefore the point of reference for determining the ul- timate meaning of the emphasis on the practice of justice.P

Virgilio Elizondo in turn makes explicit the significance of the borderland as the privileged place for encountering the gratuitousness of God. Insofar as borders become barriers that separate "us" from "them," the "pure" from the "impure," they become barriers to the God who, because God is Mystery, is revealed first among "them," among the "impure." In Gutierrez's words, "the world outside the fence [i.e., the border] is the world of gratuitousness; it is there that God dwells and there that God's friends find a joyous welcome.?" It is there that the crucified and risen Christ will be seen and will find a joyous welcome.

This joy is the fruit of our encounter with the gracious gratuity of God. It is the fruit of a receptivity that refuses to grasp even at justice, as if it were our own achievement. If the option for the poor makes it possible to encounter the God who is Mystery, it also makes it possible to rejoice. The struggle for justice is thereby undertaken not out of duty, but out of gratitude for what we have freely received, without merit. Paradoxically, it is often among the marginalized, among the in- habitants of the borderland, that contemporary followers of Jesus find an ability to rejoice and to celebrate even in the midst of daily strug- gles. It is often in the borderland, in the Galilees of our world, that those who despair in the church find the most vital, energized, bur- geoning communities of faith. Why are we surprised yet again? It is be- cause we live in a world that identifies joy with material wealth and se- curity, and for which the rejoicing of Galilee is the ultimate scandal.

Notes

1. Jon Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993),85. 2. Jon Sobrino, Spirituality of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orb is Books,

1988),14-16. 3. Daniel M. Bell jr., Liberation Theology after the End of History: The Re-

fusal to Cease Suffering (New York: Routledge, 2001), 144-53. See also my

186 .:. ROBERTO 5. GOIZUETA

Christ Our Companion: Toward a Theological Aesthetics of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009), 25-43.

4. Ibid. 5. Jon Sobrino, Christ the Liberator (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 200l),

11-15. 6. Ibid., 79-95. 7. See Goizueta, Christ Our Companion, 25-43. 8. Jon Sobrino, The Principle of Mercy: Taking the Crucified People from the

Cross (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994). 9. Sobrino, Christ the Liberator, 35-65.

10. Among his numerous works on this topic, see especially Galilean Jour- ney: The Mexican American Promise (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983), and A God of Incredible Surprises: Jesus of Galilee (Lanham, MD: Rowman and lit- tlefield, 2003).

11. Virgilio Elizondo, "Elements for a Mexican American Mestizo Christel- ogy," Voices from the Third World 11 (1988): 105.

12. Ibid. 13. Gustavo Gutierrez, On Job: God-talk and the Suffering of the Innocent

(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987),88. 14. Ibid., 89. 15. Ibid., 129. 16. Ibid., 88.