Freedom of Speech, as spelled out in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, protects the right of individuals or communities to openly articulate opinions and ideas without interference, retaliation, or punishment from the government. We see that freedom expressed on college campuses and across the American landscape, especially as spring turns to summer. Certain speech, such as child endangerment, obscenity, deadly threats, and false or defamatory talk, is not constitutionally protected.
In addition to our right to speak is our right to protest. Now that seasonal college protests and commencement speeches fade, we can reflect more thoughtfully upon the blessed right that we possess. Many American campuses became places of expression for the chaos that followed Hamas’ terrorist attack on innocent Israeli citizens and the response that quickly escalated to war in the Holy Land, a place that has wantonly suffered throughout history. Most of us don’t understand the complexities of the situation or its multi-layered past. Both sides want peace, but only on their preferred terms. Perhaps it is natural to think that our side of things gets unfairly diminished or that we have somehow been socially or emotionally abandoned by greater powers or even the greatest power. The battle seems to be indicative of the one that rages on everywhere, even inside us, which we also don’t completely understand.
Though I can’t think of many human creatures worse than terrorists, as a descendant of Ireland, I also think of Leon Uris’ hero of the historical novel, Trinity, Connor Larkin. He grew up amidst Irish famine, poverty, subjugation, and torture, and was driven to attack oppressive and dominant powers that enslaved his family, neighbors, and nation. He walked in the shadow of Jesus who stood against cultural and religious tyranny from the Roman government and Jewish hierarchy in His time. As godly people we have a responsibility to speak up and protest such abuse. Everybody knows about it, but we haven’t yet harnessed appropriate ways to drive it out. Pope Francis, who wants us to discover the way, continually reminds us that reality is more important than ideas, the whole is greater than the parts, and unity prevails over conflict. Yet the parts (protestors and terrorists), acting on ideology, create conflict. We’ve got to find a better way.
The late Jewish musician and spiritualist, Leonard Cohen, in his 1988 song, Everybody Knows, famously tackles ethical issues such as war, racism, greed, addiction, immoral and illicit behaviors, and misguided societal priorities. In the continuously repeated title phrase, he implies that we all know the ills or sins of our world and all its imbalances and injustices; further, he suggests we also know that the way to a better world is modeled for us on the bloody cross of Calvary and the persecution of Christ (not caught in religious tribalism, Cohen was also a Buddhist monk and believer in Jesus’ role in salvation). Pope Francis this year made an addition to the Stations of the Cross: Jesus’ Cry of Abandonment. This new 11th Station helps us find solidarity with the suffering Christ who, with His dying breath, begs God to forgive the world of our damnable words and deeds.
Jesus doesn’t mention sins much in the Gospels; when He does it’s usually in response to self-righteous religious leaders who judge others to be sinners. In John’s account, He uses the singular “sin” as though there is only one. He implies that it is the sin of separation and division, when we separate from God or divide people by judging, blaming, or condemning them. The same Gospel refers to Jesus as “The Word.” It suggests that God, who gave us the right to speak, only spoke one word: the Word that became flesh and dwells among us. Jesus’ life of self-sacrifice is the only word we need. When we are in sync with it, we truly have free speech and we understand what’s right, what everybody knows deep inside; when we’re not in sync, we exist in chaos or in divisive parts that keep us separated. As Cohen underscores, the interior and exterior battles we fight can be diminished by what we already know: that our hearts (like Christ’s heart) are sacred. Jesus, who experienced separation and abandonment, provides magnetism to gather us and adhesive grace to bond us. He spoke often of unity and oneness 2,000 years ago, much as the pope now speaks of how the whole is greater than its parts. The parts are speaking freely, as is their constitutional right, of all kinds of things that send us in varied directions. But there is Good News: we are one. John’s Gospel reveals that “The Word” is “The Way” and, in doing so, it helps us understand that, as one, we are part of something far greater than we can grasp. Our job as Christians, then, is to speak with it, through it, in it, and for it—not against it.
It may not be politically or culturally correct in America these days to turn to Christ to solve our divisive society but I think He, the Word, is the best source to provide us the Way.
