Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship

by Gregory Boyle

There are no monsters, villains, or bad guys. Eddie seems to know this. There are only folks who carry unspeakable pain. There are among us the profoundly traumatized who deal in the currency of damage. And there are those whose minds are ill, whose sickness chases them every day. But there are no bad guys. Jesus seems to suggest that there are no exceptions to this. Yet it’s hard for us to believe him. At her sentencing to life without the possibility of parole, a young woman states simply: “I did what they say I did, but I’m not who they say I am.”

Desmond Tutu was right when he said there are no evil people, just evil acts; no monsters, just monstrous acts. A probation officer used to say, when certain homies would come up in conversation, “No use trying to help that guy. He’s pure evil.” Such comments merely compelled me to re-double my efforts. Slapping the dismissive label of “evil” on a person has never seemed very sophisticated or reverent of human complexity.

I only agree to testify as a gang expert in death penalty cases. This opportunity generally comes in the sentencing phase, and because I deeply oppose the death penalty, I often try to give a jury context to help them understand why the defendant became a gang member in the first place. You hope that some “There but for the grace of God . . .” kicks in for even one jury member so that a life is spared. Sometimes I’ve known the defendant, most times not. Until we come to our senses and decide to stop executing people, I will continue to take the stand and do what I can. I’ve done this maybe fifty times; only twice have the defendants been sentenced to death. I’m asked by defense attorneys how much I charge for my testimony. “Nothing,” I tell them, “and be sure to ask me that on the stand.” They usually do, and it allows me to state my opposition to the death penalty. This always sends both attorneys and the judge to holler and ask everyone in the courtroom to kindly ignore what has just been said. But even so, it hangs there in the air. And you hope it did some good.

Wasn’t the defendant free to choose whether or not to kill? Aren’t we all free to choose our actions and then be responsible for those choices? I suppose, I begin. But I always remind the prosecution that not all choices are created equal. My decision not to join a gang as a teenager in Los Angeles can’t be compared to the decision a kid growing up in public housing projects in LA faces; that choice was basically made for me. It was geography that mattered, not morality. The serendipitous lottery of zip codes. Finally, we get to the question of “good” and “bad,” “innocent” and “evil,” which almost always gets presented in a litany of the heinous. “What would you say, Father Boyle,” the prosecutor begins, “about a man who . . .” And then he will present an unspeakable act in gruesome detail. Sometimes enlarged photos are exhibited. “Well, gosh,” I say, “imagine how bleak and dark one’s despair would have to be to do such a thing.” The attorney continues, somewhat exasperated, with an even more grisly set of details. “Imagine,” I repeat, “how damaged and traumatized you’d have to be to do something so awful.” Blood pressure rising, the attorney unleashes the last horrific shot across the bow. He serves up the final, jaw-dropping, unimaginable set of events. “I can’t even fathom how mentally ill a person would have to be to do such a thing,” I respond. This statement always causes the kerfuffle of all kerfuffles. The attorney, apoplectic at this point, will always ask if I am...

A woman abducts a pregnant woman, stabs her, and carves out the fetus. The article reports that the police have come up with a motive: “She must have wanted a baby.” Funny, I was gonna go with mental illness. Why is it so unacceptable to raise this as an answer to the horrific things we read about every day?

I saw a sign in a probation camp once that read: “It IS your fault. You ARE accountable for your actions.” The sentiment seems valid, except for the fact that it is wholly unsophisticated and not very helpful. It is a distinction, born of our own fear, that refuses to acknowledge the complexity of being human. It stands at a high moral distance and says, “I didn’t join a gang. What’s your problem?” If we could simply drop the burden of our own judgments, we could see with clarity and then compassion would be possible.

Moral outrage is the opposite of God; it only divides and separates what God wants for us, which is to be united in kinship. Moral outrage doesn’t lead us to solutions—it keeps us from them. It keeps us from moving forward toward a fuller, more compassionate response to members of our community who belong to us, no matter what they’ve done.

“I am the other you. You are the other me.” The invitation for the Christ in me is to see the Christ in you. There is no one outside of that way of seeing.

When we label folks scum, it makes it all right to do anything we want to them. Who doesn’t belong? We try and imagine Jesus and God compiling a list of those who should not make the cut, but we come up short. We can’t think of anybody. The minute we accept this to be true, we will see racism, demonizing, and scapegoating dissipate in the wind like sand on a blustery day. The great Jesuit Howard Gray said: “God has no enemies and neither should I.”

Once a gang member, always a gang member. Once a felon, always a felon. Once a surly guard, always one. They are “the other” and most assuredly belong to Them and not to Us. They are “the monsters at the margins.” But the truth is, we belong to each other, and to this spacious God of ours, who thinks there are no bad guys, just beloved children.

“Do not be afraid.” A homie told me once that some version of that phrase is mentioned 365 times in the whole of Scripture. “One for every day of the year,” he said.

Another great Jesuit, Dean Brackley, who died too young, once spoke movingly of meeting his hero, Dorothy Day, when he was in his twenties and studying to be a priest. When he asked her how to live the gospel, she simply replied: “Stay close to the poor.” She could have said, I suppose, help the poor, rescue the poor, save the poor. But no—stay close to the poor. The invitation is not to romanticize the poor but to recognize that some essential piece of our own salvation is tied up in our proximity to those on the outskirts. Jesuit theologian Jon Sobrino suggests as much in his provocatively titled book No Salvation Outside the Poor.

The founder of academic medicine, William Osler, wrote, “I don’t want to know the disease the person has. I want to know the person the disease has.”

The principal cause of suffering for the leper is not an annoying, smelly, itchy skin disease but rather having to live outside the camp. So the call is to stand with them, so that the margins get erased and they are welcomed back inside. Jesus doesn’t think twice: he touches the lepers before he gets around to healing them.

Dorothy Day simply asserted that “love and more love is the solution.” And, true enough, love drives out all fear. The call to the margins, led by those we find there, is exhilarating and life-giving and renews our nobility and purpose. For this, we all long. The time is now, as never before, to put terror and defense to one side and find our human connection on the margins, where the original program is meant to take place. The Choir doesn’t feel under siege or the need to “defend the faith.” After all, our following of Jesus always has less to do with our words and more to do with our lives.

poet Judyth Hill’s idea: “Wage peace with your listening.”

Many high school volunteers, long accustomed to building the orphanage or feeding the homeless in a soup kitchen, ask me what they’re supposed to “do” at Homeboy, and I always answer: “Wrong question. The right one is: What will happen to you here?”

The rich young man asks Jesus, “How do I inherit eternal life?” This is not a question about heaven. We all want to get into heaven, but Jesus wants heaven to get into us. It’s not about bank accounts or a tally sheet of good deeds. It’s about the eternal life in connecting. Jesus shows us that before things become mutually beneficial at the margins, they need to be mutually relational.

“Who you here to visit in the hospital?” he asked. “What do you mean?” “Who’d you come to see?” “You, menso,” I said, “who else?” Duke couldn’t believe that he was the only reason for my presence at the hospital. He presumed I had a lengthy list of parishioners and friends to see. He must have thought that he would not make this list of those who matter. Folks on the margins find it hard to fathom that they, too, belong.

At a Congregational church where I’ve been invited to speak, the service begins with a unique translation of Revelations 21: “This is the story of the beautiful city of God. This city sparkles with the loveliness of rare gems. The city is filled with light. There are no shrines or temples because everything here is understood to be sacred and filled with the holy. This is the story of the beloved community. In this community we find welcome. In this community we find kinship. In this community we find our voice. In this community, all are loved.”

Demonizing and judging one another can’t survive the plentitude of community. With this beloved community, we cease to create a world that, unwittingly, makes life so tough on one another. What kinship always seeks to underscore is that separation is an illusion. However, we know that that doesn’t just happen overnight. Rivals who work at Homeboy settle for solidarity before they arrive at kinship. One says to another: “I know we’re not friends, but let’s not be enemies.” It’s a good start, holding out for an even better ending.

Now, we can be astonished at the authority of Jesus, who calls us to love our enemies. Or we can just love our enemies and so astonish the world as to jostle it from its regular course.

We think that Jesus wants a fan club. Undulating crowds, gushing adorers, clamoring for autographs and sidling up to him, proclaiming, “I’m your biggest fan. I have all your albums. I’ve never missed a concert!” As is often said, Jesus does not say in the gospel, “Worship me,” but simply “Follow me.” I recall being interviewed on the Christian Broadcasting Network by a woman who, having just listened to my litany of things we do at Homeboy Industries, from tattoo removal to job training, case management to mental health counseling, paused cautiously once I had finished. “But how much time do you spend at Homeboy Industries each day, you know, praising God?” she asked. I actually didn’t know what to say to that, but found myself offering: “All damn day.” How does praise please God, anyway? Or what would God find pleasure in? Find the thing that quenches God’s thirst. Since God is on the receiving end of all this praise-filled attention, it would seem to make sense to ask ourselves: What kind of praise does God have any interest in? Does exaltation matter to our “exhausted” God?

To just say, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, I’m your biggest fan,” causes him to stare at his watch, tap his feet, and order a double Glenlivet on the rocks with a twist. Fandom is of no interest to Jesus. What matters to him is the authentic following of a disciple. We all settle for saying, “Jesus,” but Jesus wants us to be in the world who he is. If you read the Acts of the Apostles, it doesn’t say that people “prayed in tongues” but were suddenly able to hear those around them speaking “in their own native language.” It is, as Marcus Borg points out, “the reversal of Babel,” when languages get confused and division, rivalries, and misunderstanding become commonplace: it’s the polar opposite of kinship, but it’s also the beginning of something: an amazing possibility of reunification. Somehow the highest praise of God is not in speaking unintelligibly but, rather, in speaking a language of inclusion where barriers are dismantled, circles are widened, and no one is left outside. No one. People hear their language spoken and feel brought in and welcomed as never before. Safe to say, this pleases God, because it is God’s only passion.

What Martin Luther King Jr. says of church, could well be said of this book: “It’s not the place you come to, it’s the place you go from.” And the hope is that one goes from this humble effort of a book to the margins and the nurturing of the kinship of God.