Where the Cross Meets the Street

What Happens to the Neighborhood When God Is at the Center

Noel Castellanos

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780830836918
• eBook ISBN: 9780830897568
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

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The cross means more than we've let it mean.

Proclaiming the gospel and forming the faithful: these are the most practiced disciplines of the evangelical church. As central as these disciplines are, however, they are only part of the story. And as Christian Community Development Association CEO Noel Castellanos has learned over a lifetime of ministry and mission, the neglect of the gospel's full implications for the world has contributed to the erosion of communities and the languishing of poor and other marginalized people.

In Where the Cross Meets the Street Castellanos shows the strengths and limitations of a narrowly focused church and broadens our imaginations to embrace a gospel that proclaims Christ and forms disciples. This life-giving gospel also demonstrates compassion, confronts injustice and restores individuals and communities to wholeness. This is the whole work of the cross; this is the privilege of those who follow the Word made flesh.

ONE

Mi Familia

This book is over fifty years in the making. Like the formation of everyone’s ideas, mine have been shaped by specific events, circumstances and relationships. I am a third-generation Mexican American. I was born in 1959 to Anselmo Castellanos and Guadalupe Mendoza, just miles from the Mexican border in southern Texas. My parents were campesinos (farm workers), picking crops to feed our nation’s families. To feed their own familia (family) my father worked in a factory that canned grapefruit and my mother worked as a beautician. They had two sons and two daughters. Both of my grandmothers had a lasting impact on my life. When my parents traveled the country to work in the fields, I stayed with Dad’s mom, Abuelita (Grandma) Juanita. Her constant presence and love gave my life stability, and I loved her deeply. My mom’s mother, Abuelita Chencha, died when I was only one. She was struck by lightning in the fields of Colorado as she ran for cover from the rain. I was cheated by her absence, as I needed all the love I could get. I was the oldest grandson on either side of the family.

Being a Tejano, my first language was a mix of Spanish and English. Like many US immigrants who are blessed to speak a second language, the moment I entered kindergarten I became bilingual. In fact, on the first day of parochial school my teacher in her “flying nun” hat changed my name. Instead of pronouncing Noel Castellanos like my parents and grandparents did, I left school that day with an Anglicized version of my name, which stuck with me until I arrived at college, like the sting from handling jalapeño peppers. At home, my name did not change, but I was developing multiple identities. I often felt like a piñata torn right down the middle by a kid desperate for his candy. I was neither Mexican enough nor Americano (from the US) enough, depending on where I was or who I was with. I was a Pocho (Mexican American) through and through. I was pure mestizo, or what Virgilio Elizondo calls a member of a new race born of the clash between Mexico, Texas and the United States. And living and existing between these worlds often created conflict in my soul.

In the 1970 Census, the Hispanic population in the United States was 9.6 million. (Of course, it was much smaller in 1959 when I was born.) According to the 2010 Census, that number has mushroomed to over 50.5 million Latino residents (16 percent of the US population). And over 63 percent of the US Latino population is of Mexican descent. Today, many demographers believe that by the year 2050, there will be 130 million Latinos living in our nation—with the majority of them being born in the United States. The browning of America is upon us, with unbelievable ramifications for our society, our politics and the future of the church. Recently, Latino journalist and TV personality Geraldo Rivera wrote Hispanic Panic, a book that adequately describes some of the trepidation that many US citizens feel when they contemplate this exploding demographic. The fear and concern that many in our country express regarding this unbelievable growth reminds me of the rapid growth of the Israelite population in Egypt:

In time, Joseph and all of his brothers died, ending that entire generation. But their descendants, the Israelites, had many children and grandchildren. In fact, they multiplied so greatly that they became extremely powerful and filled the land.

Eventually, a new king came to power in Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph or what he had done. He said to his people, “Look, the people of Israel now outnumber us and are stronger than we are. We must make a plan to keep them from growing even more. If we don’t, and if war breaks out, they will join our enemies and fight against us. Then they will escape from the country.” (Exodus 1:6-10)

Like most Mexican Americans, I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church. Growing up, all of my extended family members were Catholic as well, but I do not remember religion or faith being a significant factor in my early childhood. Faith and prayer, on the other hand, were huge for my diminutive, 4'9" Abuelita Juanita, who constantly prayed to Jesús and had great regard for the Church. One of my favorite stories about Abuelita Juanita is that when she reached retirement age, she asked one of my uncles to take her to the Social Security Administration offices near her hometown of Weslaco, Texas, to figure out what benefits she was entitled to. After looking up her social security number, the agent came back with bad news. “We have no record of you ever working or paying into the system.” Her response was quick and furious. “¡Como que no he trabajado! What do you mean I have never worked? I have worked at home everyday raising nine children and taking care of my family. Of course I’ve worked!”

My six-foot-tall Grandfather Patrociño, on the other hand, was convinced that the Church’s only intent was to take away people’s hard-earned money. Thankfully, when I was just a few years old an archbishop came through our parish in Weslaco. Since I had been baptized as a baby in the church, I received my confirmation from the archbishop without having to attend any classes. I like to imagine it happened like it did in the movie Rocky, where his parents yelled up to the priest in his second-floor window, asking him to throw down a blessing for their son. I also faintly remem­ber having dreams of growing up to be an altar boy. Looking back, I have no doubt that my religious upbringing began to shape my belief in God. A pale, white Jesus was everpresent in my home and in the church on crucifixes large and small. Paintings of this blue-eyed, surfer-dude-looking Jesus hung on the walls of almost every Mexican home I entered—along with JFK. Of course, Jesús was a common name for Mexican men (as common as Maria was for Mexican women). Religion was everywhere, but it would be many years before a personal and dynamic faith in Jesus of Nazareth would take root in my life and in the life of my familia. And it would be years before I would begin to question the reality of a white Jesus.

Although our family’s faith was not deep or well-developed, we experienced the hand of God in our move from Texas to Northern California when I was around seven years old. An epic hurricane (Beulah) hit the Gulf of Mexico in September 1967 and devastated our small border town. Winds gusted at more than 160 miles per hour and forced the majority of residents of our small town of 10,000 to evacuate their homes. After being evacuated from our tiny wood-frame home, we, along with hundreds of people, moved into the massive city hall building, where we would be safe from the storm. In all, the storm caused over $1 billion in damage. Sometime during those horrid days my father made the decision to leave all of our relatives—grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins—and move our family to California. As we loaded up our 1963 Rambler station wagon and hit the road with all of our family belongings, we were showered by heavy rains. The story goes that with great skill and determination, my dad tucked in behind a Greyhound bus, which parted the waters on Highway 10 all the way to California. I’m sure we thanked Jesús for his help on that day.

When we finally arrived in Northern California a few days later, weary from our journey west, we knocked on the door of my Tía (Aunt) Eva and her family, and they invited all six of us into their home—because that is what familia does. We stayed with our relatives for a few weeks, but it felt like a few months for everyone involved. Within a few weeks, my father, with his sixth-grade education, landed a great job at a General Motors factory, where he worked the night shift for years to come. It was a God-sent job that provided many blessings for our family, as well as the kind of pension years later that many of us only dream about getting today. Soon we found our own one-room apartment in a mostly Anglo-populated city twenty miles south of my relatives. We were excited to have work and a home, and we quickly realized we were not in Weslaco anymore!

Ironically, as we began our new life in Los Gatos (which means “the cats” in Spanish), I became keenly aware that although our city had a Spanish name, to be of Spanish-speaking descent was not looked on favorably. As strange as it may seem today with so many Mexicans and Latinos living in California, our family was a minority in our new neighborhood. I was quickly enrolled in an ESL class, where I worked hard and was extremely motivated to learn English. But no matter how well I seemed to make gains in my language skills, I was still the butt of my classmates’ jokes because of the way I spoke English. On my way home from school I constantly encountered harassment and physical attacks. Needless to say, I worked extra hard to lose my accent.

Within a year my parents were able to save enough money for a down payment on our own home. Our entire family contributed to making this dream a reality. Every weekend we would travel south to Salinas or Watsonville, centers of agriculture, to pick strawberries or other crops in order to contribute to our housing fund. Truth be told, my two sisters, my brother and I squashed more berries with our rear ends than we put into the wooden crates we used for picking, but every little bit helped make the move into our new home a reality.

We realized we would never be able to afford to buy a home in the wealthy, white barrio of Los Gatos, so we moved to a city named Milpitas, which means “little corn fields” in Spanish. Apparently, years ago the place was filled with corn fields, but by the time we arrived even the apricot and walnut orchards were disappearing. Now, only apartments and track homes were sprouting up. Our new barrio was called Sunnyhills, and unlike Los Gatos it was diverse; many of our new neighbors looked and spoke just like us.

Sunnyhills was made up of working-class and poor families, mostly Mexican, Filipino, African American and mixed race. My best friend Frankie was half Mexican and half Guamanian. Regardless of our race, we were definitely united by our economic status and class. Most days, we probably did not know we were poor or lower class, except that almost everyone in our school received a free lunch from Tío Sam (Uncle Sam) and his government. Most of us qualified to stand in line to get USDA blocks of cheese and boxes of powdered milk, which everyone hated. We all made jokes about the two hundred ways to eat our welfare cheese. The few rich kids in our school joked that it helped our families afford to buy TVs and cars.

Fifth grade was pivotal in my life. My teacher, MaryJo Risse, was the most unique white person I had encountered. It turns out she had been married to a Mexican man in her past, and she had a daughter named Maria, who was half Mexican. MaryJo, who I am still in contact with after all these years, gravitated toward kids who were hurting, were underdogs, were from broken families and the like. She always found a way to encourage and love her students in that special way we all needed—kids like Frankie and me.

By the time I entered the fifth grade, Frankie and I were almost inseparable. We shared a love for all sports, especially baseball. We attended our first professional ballgame together—the Giants versus the Cincinnati Reds. We hung out after school. We rode our bikes around the neighborhood and spent many days playing music, golfing and hanging out with each other’s families. We became more like brothers than friends. Frankie knew many of my struggles at home, and I was there when Frankie’s mom and dad divorced during our fifth-grade year. I was also there with him a few years later when his mother died of a heart attack while she was still very young. MaryJo was constantly there for us throughout that year. Frankie needed a strong parental figure he could lean on as his family disintegrated.

Frankie struggled with confidence, and I know he wanted to blame himself for his parents’ problems. I needed an encourager and a champion—someone who would express belief in me, as I grew up with a father who did not express love openly or provide emotional support. Growing up the oldest of nine kids and working at an early age to help his family survive, my father never received that kind of love from his own father. The older I got, the more I began to realize that my dysfunctional familia was not all that unique, but knowing that did not make it easier to endure. Unlike many kids, I knew who my dad was, and my parents were still married. But their marriage hung on by a thread, nearly unraveling hundreds of times during my growing-up years. Life was hell for Mom, and her courage and perseverance inspire me to this day. On many occasions I wasn’t sure if she would survive the verbal and emotional abuse from my father, and it made me angry that she continued to endure her bad marriage. My sisters went to extreme measures to find love. They both ended up having children way too young, but they managed to become great moms. And my youngest brother, Rey, was too often left to fend for himself, yet he somehow grew up to be one of the most amazing human beings I know today.

Without someone like MaryJo stepping in to fill the void I felt in my life, I do not know where I would be today. MaryJo often noticed how distracted I was in class, not paying attention and lost in my own world. She often caught me drawing horses, cars and occasionally curvaceous girls like the ones I stared at on TV. I was punished and persecuted for my artwork quite a few times that year! Through all of my acting out, she saw I had a talent for drawing and creating, and she encouraged me. She affirmed me, and I began to feel loved. I began to feel like I might have a special gift that I could use in some way. Little did I know that years later I would complete a degree in fine arts (and I would be required to draw nude models in my painting classes in order to complete my degree!). Incredibly, MaryJo and my parents were present at my college graduation long after my life-changing year in fifth grade. Although back then she didn’t talk much about God, she did possess a Christlike, gritty, unconditional kind of love that compelled her to give unusual attention to her students with very deep needs—students like me.

The kind of hands-on involvement that MaryJo provided for Frankie, me and many other kids in Sunnyhills is exactly the kind of incarnational love that is so desperately needed in neighborhood schools across our country. Our Chicago public school system serves close to 500,000 students—mostly from vulnerable African American and Latino communities. Teachers like MaryJo often become the ministers who walk with these children every day, not only working to provide them with a quality education but also becoming their mentors, counselors and surrogate parents, often with little support, fanfare or appreciation.

I can hardly imagine surviving my elementary years without MaryJo. Even though she knew the important role she was playing in many of her students’ lives, she also recognized the importance of not trying to replace our parents. Instead, she came alongside them when possible to add another strand of love and encouragement.

My father worked on the assembly line at General Motors for close to thirty years. Like most of us who are fathers, he failed to be the perfect dad, but he was a strong provider for his family. He would never hear the crowds cheering him for a job well done. I’ll never forget the day he was the center of attention in my fifth-grade class and how that made both of us feel.

In her bold way, MaryJo took quite a risk inviting her students’ parents to class to share about their professions and careers without asking us about it first. For certain, we would have done everything in our power to make sure it never came to pass. It was one thing for Frankie’s dad, who was a NASA engineer, to share about his work, but what in the world would my father have to say about his job installing windshield wipers on the GM assembly line? This would be the most embarrassing day of my life!

When the day arrived, I wanted to pretend to be sick, but I knew better. I saw my father pacing nervously outside of our classroom. I’m sure he was as worried as I was terrified about his upcoming presentation. He shyly made his way to the front of our class and had every eye staring at him. MaryJo stood by his side, trying to ease his nervousness, and introduced him to my classmates. It was one of the most spectacular introductions that I had ever heard. You would have thought she was introducing someone who had found the cure for cancer. When she came to the end, her final punch line was “Can you imagine what the world would be like if we had to drive our cars in the rain without windshield wipers?” The entire class went nuts, and my dad left that day feeling loved; he was affirmed in a very Jesus-like way. Imagine if children and parents in every US school located in tough neighborhoods had a teacher like MaryJo!

Miraculously, I survived junior high, my first real girlfriend crushes, my Jesus-like long hair and an attempt at acting in drama class. I quickly reasoned that I already had enough drama in life, so I quit. By the time I entered high school my art was showing promise and I was becoming a pretty good athlete. I participated in football, baseball, soccer, tennis and golf, but I felt emotionally beat up by my family life. My parents continually seemed to be on the verge of getting a divorce. As the oldest child, I took on too much pain and too much responsibility, often blaming myself for their problems. Amazingly, in my junior year, with the generous and surprising help of my father and with some money I earned selling eight-track tapes of Motown hits at the flea market, I was able to buy a bright orange 1969 Firebird. It was amazing. No more walking to school. No more bumming rides. Life was looking better.

Not long after I started driving my car to school, I offered one of my classmates from the neighborhood a ride home. He was a nice dude, but we weren’t close friends. In fact, he was a bit of a Jesus freak who always toted a huge, family-sized Bible wherever he went. He was one of the first non-Catholic Christians I knew, and he would often tell me that God loved me. After arriving in California, my family only attended church on occasion—midnight mass on Easter and Christmas, with a few funerals thrown in. Some of my friends and their families attended the Catholic Church as well, but none of us were in danger of being called Jesus freaks. At the time, church and Jesus were as irrelevant as eight-track cartridges are today.

When my friend got into my car, he began to compliment me on my new ride. He went on and on about the great paint job the car had. He made comments about how clean the interior was—so black and shiny. Then he asked me about the engine, which was in pretty bad shape. Before he got out of the car, he made a comment that I’ll never forget. “You can have a car with a great paint job and shiny interior, but if your engine is no good, you’ve got problems.” He got out of my car and walked away.

I’m not exactly sure how, but as soon as he left, I knew he was not only talking about my car. I could sense in the deepest part of my being that he was talking about my spiritual life. My life seemed pretty good to many of my classmates and friends. Even though I had family problems, I had a car. I was a good athlete with lots of recognition. My grades were good. I had lots of friends who, besides getting me to smoke dope and drink too much beer, were good guys. I had a few opposite-sex relationships that served to ignite and activate all of my teenage hormones. Yet none of these relationships seemed to fill the void I felt in my heart. Surprisingly, by the end of high school, I was not addicted to drugs or to finding romantic love, but I was beginning to realize that I needed help figuring out what was missing. Like my car, my life and my heart were in need of a new engine—one fueled by the unfailing love of God.

That help came from an unexpected place. My history teacher and football coach, Bob Kellogg, had a way about him that made his students eager to learn about the Great Depression, about blitzing linebackers and about the story of God invading planet Earth in the person of Jesus. While I had very little in common with Mr. Kellogg, his love and concern expressed in the time he invested in his students made him someone I wanted to hang around. I was not alone; many other students felt the same way. His dry sense of humor, his corny jokes that broke up the monotony of class and his ability to get us to think and learn made him a great teacher. During my sophomore year, Bob’s powers of persuasion stirred an interest in a few of us to attend a summer camp, one with horses, motorized minibikes and lots of girls!

That Young Life camp’s hefty registration fee was a challenge for some of us barrio kids. But weekend after weekend our small posse of friends washed cars, did odd jobs a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction: Mumbo Jumbo
• 1 Mi Familia
• 2 Leaving the Barrio
• 3 A New Burden for the Barrio
• 4 Becoming an Evangelico
• 5 Incarnation
• 6 Proclamation and Formation
• 7 Demonstration of Compassion
• 8 Restoration and Development
• 9 Confrontation of Injustice
• 10 Sí, Se Puede
• Epilogue: Seek the Peace and Welfare of the City
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix 1: A Snapshot of CCDA
• Appendix 2: Lessons from the Book of Nehemiah
• Notes
• Glossary
• Praise for Where the Cross Meets the Street
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press