‘Isolating Jesus from mutual relationships carried forward the trauma of violence without healing it.’

Children at school occasionally called me names, like Chink or Jap, and made fun of me by pulling the corners of their eyes up tight. Their taunting made recess time a minefield. Eventually, I figured out who the mean kids were and avoided them, but it was difficult. I grew more homesick for Japan, where I had lived for my first five years. No one there had ever treated me with such cruelty. How does a seven-year-old child defend herself against random and incomprehensible hostilities?

It would be many years before I had an answer. I formed a flesh of bronze to shield myself from arrows of hate. Inside that metallic skin, I could pretend that I did not feel the sting of scorn, the humiliation of contempt, that I was impervious to hate. My pain remained hidden, as undigested lumps frozen in time. I worked to assure I did nothing to provoke ridicule, nothing to embarrass myself. I became disdainful of my own feelings of vulnerability. As long as I faced outward from my shield, I could deny the pain within. If I could scorn my own weaknesses, I could forestall succumbing to my fear, despair and homesickness.

Even now, when hurt, I sometimes retreat behind that shield; it gives me an air of imperturbability. I am emotionally hidden, unavailable to others. I can be indifferent or cruel. I ignore my own pain, resorting first to fury. Anger allows me to blame others, to deflect the pain off the surface of bronze. My capacity for empathy disappears. I survived a childhood being Japanese in Kansas this way, but sometimes I feel as though the fat white girl won.

I realized long after I was a theologian that my interest in religion and my focus on the violence done to Jesus are grounded in my childhood experiences of racism. I have concluded that the Christian theological tradition has interpreted Jesus’ life in ways that reinforced trauma. I was isolated by the traumatic events of my childhood. The tradition has isolated Jesus as a singular savior, alone in his private relationship with God. Jesus is depicted as unique and separate, carrying salvation on his own solitary shoulders. His relationships to others are described paternalistically, as if they needed him but he did not need them. To be saved, I was supposed to have an isolated relationship with him, to need him when he did not need me.

I knew, from my own experience, that there is no grace in such isolation. Isolating Jesus from mutual relationships carried forward the trauma of violence without healing it. My theological obsession became how to show that vulnerability, mutuality and openness demonstrate love, that these bonds of love and care reveal the presence of God. If Jesus did not participate in such bonds, if he was isolated, he could not offer any grace.– Rita Nakashima Brock, Proverbs of Ashes