ii.The cost of mission

When the film The Mission (1986) was released it did not make a huge initial impression on me except that because my theological college was close to the cinema, and the film was not doing too well, we were granted massively subsidised entrance. Subsequently it has taken up a much more central place in my reflections, in part because I used it annually as an element of a course in Liberation Theology.

Near the beginning of the film we witness Father Gabriel (Head of the Jesuit Mission) precariously climbing up the hazardous Iguazu Falls to reach the territory of the Guarani (who not long before have sent one of Gabriel’s predecessors back down the falls tied to a cross). Fr Gabriel successfully surmounts the top, and armed only with the entrancing music of his oboe, is given entry to the Guarani community, some of whom then later join the Jesuit Reduction.

The climb up the waterfall is an image that sticks in the mind, and for me it speaks of the cost of entering another world on that world’s terms. Entry requires leaving one’s institutional baggage behind, making oneself vulnerable to rejection, and bringing something of value (in this instance a haunting melody). It is only after entry is granted that the story of Christ can be shared (in the film initially via a collection of images). Whatever the historical veracity of the image, the Jesuit missions of the Eighteenth Century succeeded where others failed because they paid attention to what we would today call inculturalisation. They paid attention to and valued the culture of the other; and they took care, to some degree at least, to distinguish between the Gospel and their own cultural reception.

Chaplaincy may, on the whole be safer, but it requires no less attention to and exploration of one’s context; one needs to understand the culture and the language. And there is always a price to be paid for entry, even if this is in terms of patience as one earns the right to belong until a point when others determine it is safe to ask you about what you find important.

What happens then when one is asked about one’s belief, or your motivation? I’ve discovered over the years that I am often much more embarrassed and reticent about speaking of such things than those who invite my response. Yet there is no need for coyness, because (despite secular claims to the contrary) there is no such thing as non-religious space. Religion is not a dimension of life from which you can opt out. In this way it parallels politics. Simply put, this is because the attempt to opt out of religion is itself a religious decision.

Further, everyone has his or her own value hierarchy whether it be explicitly owned or implicitly held. In Luther’s terms we all have our gods; we all worship something. The important question however is this: Does the object of our worship bring liberation (authentic life) or a form of enslavement?

Finally, the space of competing claims, the pluralist space we inhabit, is precisely that into which the New Testament church expanded. To say nothing is to tacitly affirm whatever claims are being made in your environment. There is, thus, no need for embarrassment.