A Prophet's Return

After receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in December, Rigoberta Menchu was accompanied on her return to Guatemala by an international delegation that included Joe Nangle, O.F.M., the outreach director of Sojourners when this article appeared. Nangle's reflections on the return follow.

-- The Editors

The Nobel Prize didn't make it home with Rigoberta Menchu. Prior to leaving Mexico City for our flight to Guatemala, Rigoberta entrusted the peace medal and scroll to the Mexican government. She explained that this act did not signify an attitude of disrespect for her country of origin. Rather, she said, the medal is passing through a time of "vigil," awaiting the day when Guatemala's human rights conduct permits its return there. Such a not-so-subtle statement of truth to the powerful of her country reminded me of another peasant woman many centuries ago and half a world away who prayed to a God who "has deposed the mighty from their thrones and raised the lowly to high places."

Accompanying Rigoberta Menchu on her return to Guatemala as a Nobel Peace laureate made possible the best sort of theological and biblical reflection, the kind that flows from such real life experience as hers.

Rigoberta's enabling message to her people, spoken in their native language, gave renewed meaning to the words, "I have been sent to bring good news to the poor." In promising a group of diplomats at the French Embassy in Guatemala City that she would take seriously her nomination by U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali as the U.N. goodwill ambassador during this Year of Indigenous Peoples, she provided a modern context for Isaiah: "A people in darkness have seen a great light."

The life and activities of Rigoberta Menchu call forth many other biblical allusions. "Do not be concerned about what you will say ..." "As long as you did it to one of these the least of my brothers and sisters ..." "I have come that they may have life ever more abundantly ..."

One reflection, however, stands above all others when one thinks of this young indigenous woman, her history, and the place she now occupies on the world stage. The beatitudes are once again taking on flesh and bone and sinew. Observing Rigoberta and the way in which her life and witness have turned the expected, the ordinary, the usual upside-down and inside-out, one catches a glimpse of the impact of Jesus' life and message on his times. The poor, the meek, the hungry, the ones who mourn -- these are the inheritors of God's reign, these are the ones Jesus pointed to as important. And once again it's happening before our eyes.

ONE EVENT ON that trip of accompaniment stands out in this regard. Several Guatemalan professionals (one doctor, two lawyers, and a civil engineer) sat with a number of Rigoberta's people to plan the next steps in their U.N.-backed campaign for human rights. The professionals have walked with Rigoberta and other indigenous folks for more than a decade now. It is the indigenous people who set the tone and dictate the next steps to be taken. Watching these unlettered Indians, most of whom a decade ago would have bowed their heads and waited for the Ladinos (upper-class Guatemalans) to give directions, convinced me that a new social contract is emerging.

This sensation was reinforced when I thought about the role we North Americans are called to play in this new order. As representatives of the powerful United States -- El Norte -- one might have expected that at such a meeting we would have offered some direction for the indigenous poor and their Guatemalan professionals. Instinctively, however, we realized that our place was one of service on their terms. We were useful insofar as we afforded some protection; or, should the violent forces in Guatemala have forcibly impeded the progress of the meeting and its results, we would have raised an international outcry.

Rigoberta Menchu's Nobel Peace Prize has pointed the international spotlight not only toward her personal struggle, but also to that of thousands like her in that country. Much that is theologically rich is taking place in Guatemala, and the time is ripe for the church there to speak a prophetic word about it.

Sadly, though, such an interpretive voice is largely lacking today in Guatemala. Many of those who would speak in biblical language about what is happening there have either left the country or been killed. Prophets tend not to survive very long in a place like Guatemala.

But it is clear that a new day has dawned when the poorest of the poor have the courage and self-respect to act on their own behalf, assisted (or at least allowed) by the privileged of their own society and actively accompanied by the international community. It is a glimpse of the day foretold in scripture: "They shall live in the houses they build and eat the fruit of the vineyards they plant ..." (Isaiah 65:21). "Every tear shall be wiped from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, crying out or pain, for the former world has passed away" (Revelation 21:4).