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| The Gang of Jesus Tabitha Ruiz was on her way to class at Seagoville High School in Dallas, Texas, a couple of months ago, and was told by security guards to take off the silver and ruby beaded rosary, a gift from her mother, which had set off the metal detectors. This happened on more than one occasion. When pressed for an explanation, security officials told her that her rosary — beads and cross — were “gang-related.” Tabitha and her mother, Taire, had no idea. Evidently, this is no joke. Kevin Janse of the Dallas Police Department says that gang members have taken to wearing religious jewelry. “It is a factor,” he said, according to published reports. I read this account on the heels of posting a cute little story on the Homiletics blog (http://tmerril.blogs.com) about a kindergarten teacher who gave her class a show-and-tell assignment. The students were instructed to bring in an object to share with the class that represented their religion. The first student got up in front of the class and said, “My name is Benjamin and I am Jewish, and this is a Star of David.” The second student got up in front of the class and said, “My name is Mary. I’m a Catholic, and this is a rosary.” The third student got up in front of the class and said, “My name is Tommy. I am a Methodist, and this is a casserole.” So Tabitha brings a rosary to school and Tommy brings a casserole. Both stories raise issues about symbolism, metaphor, logos and branding. My experience with casseroles is that Methodists make great casseroles, but it might be interesting to speculate on what goes into a Methodist casserole, as opposed to, say, a Baptist casserole, or a Presbyterian one. I suspect that there’s a very specific recipe for a Methodist casserole — with a warning about leaving it too long in the oven lest it be pulled as a brand plucked from the burning — while a Baptist casserole might be a bit runny, what with all the water and all. An Episcopalian casserole would include a few jiggers of sherry to be sure, and the Presbyterian casserole might be a bit tart. As for a Catholic casserole — well, I don’t know. I’ve never had a Catholic casserole, but they tell me theirs is best, and they won’t let anyone but Catholics eat it. I don’t have any experience with rosaries, but I envy the discipline of saying the rosary, and I envy the fact that Catholics have a very tangible, tactile, visible and simple tool to help them say their prayers. I also think that finding rosaries in the pockets or around the necks of gang members is somehow appropriate. It reminds me of the original gang of Jesus. What is a gang? Definitions are important because the court system uses such definitions in the prosecution of gang members. According to one study, a gang is “a group of persons working to unlawful or antisocial ends; especially: a band of antisocial adolescents.” The FBI defines a gang as “a criminal enterprise having an organizational structure, acting as a continuing criminal conspiracy, which employs violence and any other criminal activity to sustain the enterprise.” A more sociologically nuanced definition suggests that a gang is “a group of two or more individuals who share an ongoing relationship with one another and support one other, individually or collectively, in the recurring commission of delinquent and/or criminal acts. The word “ongoing” is significant because, in theory, a group of people could come together to commit a specific crime, but if they don’t commit another one together, they’re not a gang. Ocean’s 11 is not a gang. But Ocean’s 12 and Ocean’s 13 are gangs. There are different types of gangs, of course. You got your street gangs, youth gangs, posses, clicks/clickas, Latino/ Hispanic gangs, crews and so forth. Most of these gangs have a gang NAME and have certain sartorial preferences — like gravity-defying cargo pants, or denim sailor pants with more canvas than the Niņa, Pinta and Santa Maria put together. They often sport tattoos and other forms of body art, believing their bodies to be a tapestry upon which can be depicted their particular, if not esoteric, belief system. Gang members will often have secret and coded signs and they will often throw signs. They may even take a gang oath, swearing allegiance to a leader and/or a set of principles. Often they carry a weapon of choice: perhaps a knife, sometimes a gun. Most law enforcement agencies regard gang members as youth delinquents, and define such delinquents as: young people who spend time in groups of three or more; a group who spends a lot of time in public places; a group that has existed for three months or more; a group that has engaged in criminal or delinquent behavior in the last 12 months; a group that has a name, an area, a leader or set of rules. Based on all of this information — and I’ve given you a lot — I think I belong to the Jesus gang. Jesus had an original gang, of course. They spent a lot of time in public places, they existed together, not for three months, but for three years, they had a definite leader, they were sometimes regarded as outlaws, and their activities were frequently the target of special investigation by authorities, but, like street gangs, they were often beloved by those who lived in their own neighborhood. You could say we carry a weapon, the “two-edged sword,” and the liturgical among us are certainly interested in colors. And some versions of the Jesus gangs even have signs that they throw around. More significantly, the Jesus gang has a shared vision and mission — I think — and work tirelessly, but often fruitlessly, to see it fulfilled. Like gangs, the Jesus gang in some quarters of the world is relentlessly prosecuted and sometimes even executed for being a member of the gang. Today, in some quarters, the faith has been conventionalized and civilized — although you can still be ridiculed for being a certain kind of Christian and even as street gangs in L.A. will often take up arms against each other, there is today still too much infighting about the different “gangs of Jesus” because their colors are different, their music is different, their dogma is different, or their focused mission is either too narrow or too broad — and so on. If we don’t think of ourselves in such radical terms anymore, perhaps we should. Perhaps we need to recover our “gangness” and resume our street activity, committing crimes against corporate injustice, social wrongs, moral filth, abuse of power. It’s been in our blood from the moment Jesus called his first gang member with the cryptic “follow me” through the post-crucifixion crisis and post-Easter recommissioning into the early church. Christians often worshiped and behaved sub rosa, throwing signs when they could, and if not throwing signs, doing signs that had the unmistakable fingerprints of God all over them.
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