Of Proximity & Prejudice

A Homily for the 4th Sunday of Easter

“Prejudice cannot survive proximity.” What I really like about that slogan is that if we each take a moment and think about it we will realize the truth it expresses from our own lived experience. We can each recall times, I’m sure, when out of fear we kept our distance and kept our prejudices intact or times we risked drawing close and had our prejudices upended.

It seems to me that the quote from Psalm 118, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” needs to be central to our understanding of Christ. Jesus himself, in the gospels, identifies with it and we see in the Acts of the Apostles how the early church applied that same verse not only to Christ, but through Christ, to themselves as women and men often rejected by the world around them because they put themselves in close proximity to the rejected ones of the world.

If we look at the role a cornerstone plays in architecture, we discover that a “cornerstone marks a geographical location by orienting a building in a specific direction.” Jesus, as our cornerstone, marks the kind of geographical location we are called to occupy which orients us in a specific direction. But what direction? Well, I think it is safe to say that Christ orients us toward the intimacy of proximity rather than the distance of prejudice. Our geographical location is to be close to those in need… oriented toward the rejected ones.

In our gospel passage today from John, Jesus identifies himself as the Good Shepherd. And the pre-eminent marker of a Good Shepherd is “I know my sheep and mine know me.” A Good Shepherd does not fear proximity but actively pursues it. “To know” here does not mean: “I know about my sheep.” But rather carries with it the intense intimacy captured in the Hebrew word: Yada. As Pope Francis once said, we all need to have the smell of the sheep about us. And to get that smell you’ve got to draw intimately close and dwell intimately close.

But proximity, of course, requires great risk. Jesus says: “I will lay down my life for the sheep.” Proximity requires self gift. The willingness to occupy a geographical location and be oriented toward those the world so easily disposes of.

In juxtaposition Jesus gives us the image of the person who lives as the “Hired Help.” He tells us this one does not “know” the sheep so when struggle or difficulty arises he or she flees. They may smell good, but they aren’t Good Shepherds! The pre-eminent marker of one who lives his or her life as hired help is prejudice. And a prejudiced person can be simply defined “as one who runs away.” Those who run away from the rejected because they cannot admit their own rejection.

However, we understand prejudice it is fundamentally a human practice created to protect us from proximity. Why? Because the intimacy of proximity will open our hearts and eyes to see ourselves in the other we fear and not only see ourselves, but have awakened in us a desire to give our own selves away! And such a desire is rife with unpredictability, instability, and the unknown.

But primarily it means we open ourselves to encounter the rejection in us stirred by the rejected status of others that draws us to the Rejected One who is Christ… the Cornerstone. Draw close, in intimate proximity to that, or whom, you are prejudiced against, and you’ll realize your prejudice likely rests on your own fear of facing your own rejection and allowing that shared rejection you have with the other to transform your own heart.

We want to be the builders! We want to be the ones who reject and not the ones rejected. We want to reject the stone and keep our distance from what it might awaken in us. The stone rejected by the builders is also the scandal stone… Jesus is only cornerstone because he is also the scandal stone… the rejected one. He knows us and we know him in our rejection and in the rejection we share with our brothers and sisters.

Prejudice cannot survive proximity. Jesus reminds us this Sunday, we are either Good Shepherds or Hired Help, we either draw close or we flee, we either find healing for our own rejection in drawing close to the rejected and the Rejected One himself or we use prejudice to protect us from the proximity to which our faith calls us.

Jesus, our Cornerstone and Scandal Stone, marks a geographical location and orients us toward a specific direction. Our location is proximity and not prejudice. Our orientation is to the rejected and not the builders. May the stone the builders rejected be the cornerstone of our own lives.