International Potluck

Last Sunday I preached at some of the masses about Brother Andrea Pozzo’s 1695 gigantic fresco, “The Triumph of the Missionary Activity of the Society of Jesus” (see cover image). It shows the light of faith bouncing from Christ’s side to Ignatius’ heart to allegorical female figures of the four known continents: Lady Africa rides on a crocodile, Dame Europe on a white horse, turbaned Lady Asia on a camel and Miss America astride a puma. This graphic demonstration points to a fact that Jesus underscored in this Sunday’s gospel, and that Ignatius’ missionary outreach demonstrates: the gospel message is meant for all people, not just a chosen few. The love of God encompasses and is available to all people “from the north and the south, from the east and the west.”

It seems to me that that’s an important lesson that we need to listen to in this time of division and exclusion. I read in the news today about townships that are being devised by “homesteaders” in rural parts of our own country. The founding fathers of these neo-apartheid villages - whose wives are trad-moms content not to vote - are searching for ways to legally exclude all non-white people and by extension, will exclude non-Christian people.

Exceptionalism is nothing new. Our ancient ancestors of all sorts, and our Hebrew tradition in particular, claimed a unique divine mandate. In the earliest days of the Christian church, battles were fought over this assertion of privilege and exclusivity, until St. Paul’s daring reminder that the gospel is for all, not just the nation in which Jesus was raised.

Yet exceptionalism continually arises in cultures everywhere. The American Exceptionalism of the Pilgrims’ “city on a hill” gave way to the 19th century’s doctrine of “Manifest Destiny” that displaced the indigenous peoples of what became the United States and sought to undermine the principles Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation sought to guarantee. There are many threatening echoes in the jingoism that rattles around on the internet’s echo chambers.

The prophet Isaiah and Jesus remind us that peoples “of all nations” are our brothers and sisters. That’s what I see every Sunday looking out at all of you from the pulpit and the altar. Africans and Central Americans, White folks and Black folks, Asians of all descriptions and provenances. I’m reminded that all peoples are invited to enter the kingdom through the narrow gate of righteousness and charity. It’s not an easy road. But it’s the path that leads to salvation.

A bonus. Brother Pozzo’s fresco was painted before the western world was aware of the existence of the one of the southern hemisphere’s continents. Your reward for reading this text is my first foray into AI design, a sketch for a revised fresco that represents Australia in the form of Nichole Kidman riding on a kangaroo. Ars longa, vita brevis. Life is short, but art is long.

Blessings,