Recently we screened Bunuel's
film Nazarin. At the time I happened to be reading Juan Luis Segundo's
book The Historical Jesus of the Synoptics, a treatment of the historical
Jesus question from the standpoint of Latin American Liberation Theology. If you
know anything about either one, you know it was a felicitous coincidence. I want
to share with you some musings prompted by this case of synchronicity.
Nazarin is a Christological
parable; this film may be viewed as being analogous to Kazantzakis's &
Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ, that is, as a statement of the
author's personal impression of the meaning of the historical Jesus. It places
its Jesus analogue in poverty-stricken Mexico. No doubt it was the similar
scenario of Uruguaian peasantry that led Segundo to espouse Liberation Theology.
Segundo sees Jesus as a champion of the rights of the oppressed poor. He
argues rather effectively that Jesus' ministry would never have been
controversial enough to result in his crucifixion as a rebel leader ("King of
the Jews") at the hands of Rome if it had not had a strong element of
social/political radicalism.
Instead we usually hear that Jesus was
condemned to death on a sheer misunderstanding or perhaps a frame-up. All this
sounds more like desperate rationalization of an unpalatable fact. But in fact
such a death is quite consistent with the teaching of Jesus that the Kingdom of
God was promised to the poor as such, not the poor "in spirit" as Matthew
rationalizes and spiritualizes it. (Compare Matthew's
beatitude on the poor in spirit, Matthew 5:3, with Luke's on the poor, period,
Luke 6:20.)
No doubt Jesus' "cleansing" of the
Jerusalem Temple was the immediate cause for his death. I
cannot help thinking Brandon (Jesus and the Zealots) was in some measure
correct in seeing the incident as revolutionary. After all, Jesus did occupy the
building, to whatever purpose; it was certainly some kind of protest. And
the gospels themselves imply he escaped arrest at the time only because the
authorities feared rioting.
In Nazarin, Father Nazario
undertakes no overt acts of protest. Rather, his life is a tacit protest against
the state of the world around him. The priest's conflicts with the church
hierarchy stem from slander arising from his association with the sinners and
outcasts. Here there is a genuine gospel parallel, with the general rumors
circulated among the pious to the effect that this Jesus of Nazareth was "a
glutton and a boozer, bosom buddy of traitors and reprobates." Likewise Nazario
is tarred with the brush of scandal arising from his ministering among
prostitutes. You cannot hope to remain unstained by the reputations
of sinners if you associate with them, even if your purpose in associating with
them is to reform them or to minister to them in their wretchedness.
It is a self-fulfilling prophecy on the
part of the pious: they warn that if you associate with the corrupt, you must
necessarily become corrupt yourself. Even if you do not, the pious will have to
assume you have. "You support gay rights? Then you must be gay yourself!"
Those who choose to work with the poor
and the sick have to erect a barrier, eventually to retreat, to say "so far and
no further" --lest they find themselves dragged under by the undertow and become
one of the wretched themselves, a needer of help and no longer one of the givers
of it. This is what has happened to Father Nazario. I do not think it is what
happened to Jesus. The gospels tell us he did try to maintain some privacy, even
secrecy, in his movements, lest he be besieged and overrun by those to whom he
made himself available. Mark tells us he could no longer openly enter towns,
that when he and his men retreated to the desert, even there he found himself
besieged.
It seems that in its earliest version,
the story of the choosing of the Twelve was introduced by the statement that
Jesus had no longer any time even to eat a meal in peace, whereupon his Mother
Mary suggested he share the burden with others. The story may not be historical,
since it seems to have been modelled on the ancient story in Exodus 18 in which
Moses' father-in-law Jethro suggests he appoint elders to bear the burden of the
people along with him. But the general picture is striking and probably historical:
Jesus was in danger of being dragged down into the very same abyss from which he
sought to rescue others. He was perhaps saved from this fate by finding others
of like mind to share the work, as Mother Theresa has done. Or perhaps it was
simply his crucifixion that did it, forestalling a long, slow expiration by the
expedient of a short, violent one.
Another question the film raises is that
of the Imitatio Christi. The priest is obviously imitating Christ, as I
have been presupposing up to now. But in terms of the narrative, it is not quite
clear that he has any choice in the matter. He may be spontaneously
recapitulating Christ than intentionally imitating him. But the film surely
means to raise the model of a true imitation of Christ for
our consideration, whether to beckon us to take up the cross, or (as I suppose
more likely, coming from Bunuel), to show the absurdity
and futility of trying to do so. Should we try to do what Jesus did?
I have no answer, not that I am
particularly struggling with the question. But since it has come up, let me
outline the dilemma as I see it. It seems to me that we are damned if we do, and
equally damned if we don't. On the one hand, if we, like Shaw's character
Major Barbara, undertake to work among the poor without being poor ourselves, we
will be condemned for playing benefactor, condescending, merely slumming.
On the other hand, if we renounce what
wealth we have to serve the poor, as we think, authentically, the poor
themselves will tell us we are fools. The poor are the last to romanticize poverty.
Mixed with the supposed benevolence of
the self-sacrificing rich is a world-weariness that seeks release from the
burden of care that wealth brings. So to renounce wealth as Jesus bade the Rich
Young Ruler to do is really a self-enrichment. It is to trade the world for your
soul. One is simply trading earthly wealth for heavenly wealth (as Jesus said),
in fact gaining heavenly wealth by giving away earthly wealth. And as
Zooey says to Franny, wealth is wealth, be it heavenly or earthly, and to covet
one is no more noble than to covet the other.
The rich may also decide to give up
wealth out of the guilt and self-hatred one feels precisely for being rich. So
to renounce it is to do penance for the good of one's soul. And again, it is
one's self one is serving, not the poor. In our day we call it "salving the
conscience."
In Saint Francis' day, the first really
poor men he met, common laborers, thought him a fool and a play-actor for giving
up his wealth. If he'd wanted to know the truth from the mouth of the
authentically poor, they would have changed places with him in a second. And
here is a great irony. Is not Saint Francis, like Father Paneloux in Camus's
The Plague, silently assuming the old prejudice that poverty is a state of
punishment, that the poor are ipso facto sinners? Only he assumes it is
also sinful to be rich! So to atone for his sin, a rich man must embrace
punitive poverty, while he secretly frowns on the less-introspective,
healthier-minded poor, who show themselves to be sinners indeed in their very
desire to escape poverty and embrace sinful wealth!
Father Paneloux is finally consumed by
the plague of liberal self-hatred, done in, really, by a heart ailment, a heart
that bleeds too much for the victims who are victims not by masochis tic choice
(like himself) but by sadistic fate.
Faced with such an apparently intractable
dilemma, what stance can one take? Perhaps one must decide to accept the reality
of the fatalistic proverb "The poor you have always with you," deciding both to
help them when you can, and not to let the fact of their plight make your life
as miserable as theirs by feeling guilty for not sharing their lot. And it will
do neither you nor them any good to decide to share their lot in truth. To jump
from Bunuel to Bergman (specifically the final speech of
Gustav Adolf Eckdahl in Fanny and Alexander), I
suggest you give yourself the luxury of taking shelter in the "little world" of
your own life and chosen associations, in full cognizance of the inescapable
fact that outside evil breaks its chains and runs amok like a mad dog. It's what
the poor would do if they could.
Robert M. Price