Monthly Archives: April 2014

The Cross, Violence, and God: Some reflections on the eve of Holy Week

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been thinking about the violence of the cross the past few days. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, walking the familiar streets around Capitol Square while carrying a cross and reflecting on Christ’s suffering and death offered a new perspective on the suffering that occurs in our city. Earlier in the week, I participated in an ecumenical conversation around the atonement, violence, and non-violence. I was particularly intrigued by the comment of an Armenian Orthodox colleague who said that they sing a hymn during Holy Week, “He lifted himself up on the cross.” In other words, instead of the cross being something God did to Jesus, Jesus’ crucifixion is something Jesus himself did (as God, of course).

That conversation was in my mind as I tried to choose hymnody for our our Holy Week services and began working on my sermons. Our hymns tend to focus on Christ’s suffering on our behalf and the necessity of the shedding of Jesus’ blood. There are other images but for the most part, our devotional focus during Holy Week is on our guilt and Jesus’ suffering.

As part of my sermon preparation, I listened to the Working Preacher podcast, in which one of the speakers asked the question, “What does the cross say about God?” The answer is obvious if one accepts substitutionary atonemenent: that God is violent.

But is that the only possible answer? J. Denny Weaver argues in A Nonviolent Atonement and The Nonviolent God for a different perspective. If Jesus Christ is the full revelation of God in the world, Jesus’ nonviolence offers a key to understanding the character of God. He makes the case that the dominant understanding of atonement in the Early Church, “Christus Victor” puts the focus on the resurrection of Christ, not the crucifixion and thus God is seen as renewing life and creation through Christ’s death and resurrection (rather than seeking satisfaction for human sin).

How then to understand the cross? If Jesus’ sacrifice wasn’t necessary to appease a vengeful God, what does the cross mean? Here, the Working Preacher question takes on significance.

What does the cross say about God? The cross shows God’s love for the world, God giving Godself for humanity; God dying because of human evil and sinfulness, yet in the end triumphing over that evil. The cross helps us encounter God in the suffering of the world. The cross helps us experience God’s love in the midst of our pain and struggles. The cross, to use St. Paul’s language, is “power made perfect in weakness.”

What might devotional practice and devotional imagery that emphasized those themes look like? Perhaps a downtown, public stations of the cross that connects Jesus’ suffering with the suffering on our streets is one answer.

 

Walking the Way of the Cross in Madison, updated

Posted on by
Reply

It was a moving, jarring experience to participate in the Public Stations of the Cross in downtown Madison today. About twenty of us gathered at the Federal Courthouse and traced a path past many of the civic institutions and social service agencies that dot the landscape downtown. We dodged traffic lights, construction zones, groups of school kids on field trips. We received some strange looks from passers-by and occasionally were joined for a few minutes by someone who wanted to listen.

We walked sidewalks that I walk almost daily, passed the food trucks where I might get a bite for lunch, were greeted by homeless people who hang out on Capitol Square. We had to contend with the raucous voices and instruments of Solidarity Sing Along that meets every day outside the Capitol.

As we walked, I wondered about that day 2000 years ago when a procession went out from Pilate’s headquarters to the hill on the edge of the city where Jesus’ crucifixion took place. How many people noticed that procession? How many people wondered what was going on? Would it have been common knowledge, an extraordinary event? Or would it have been business as usual, another in a long series of public executions which had become so common that residents of the city didn’t even pay attention?

Our prayers and meditations connected Jesus’ suffering to the sufferings in our city–to homelessness, poverty, unemployment, and racism. As we walked and stopped to pray and meditate, I kept thinking of all those people in this city who suffer, all those who walk the street day and night, not just for an hour on a mostly sunny April afternoon. I thought of the man who died on our steps last January and all the men who seek shelter inside our walls. As we gathered in Grace’s courtyard garden for the last station, I thought of the folks who gather in the same area, waiting for our Food Pantry to open its doors.

As we walked, I thought of our worship, taking place safely behind the thick walls of our church, mostly protected from the noise and reality of life on Capitol Square. As we walked, I thought of the cross; I thought of Jesus, his loving embrace of the world and of all of the worlds cast-offs. I thought of his arms, stretched out on the hard wood of the cross, reaching out in love to everyone and to every city, reaching out to the sidewalks and the gutters, reaching out to us.

10001474_10202687585284187_3021223156820890468_nphoto by the Rev’d Miranda Hassett

Holy God,
Holy and Mighty,
Holy Immortal One,
Have mercy upon us.

Walking the Way of the Cross in Madison

Posted on by
Reply

On Friday, April 11, at noon, Madison Episcopalians will be walking the way of the cross downtown. We invite others to join us in this devotional practice as we prepare for Holy Week. We will begin outside the Federal Courthouse (120 N. Henry St.).

The Stations of the Cross is a traditional Roman Catholic devotional practice in which participants walk fourteen stations that depict scenes from the last hours of Jesus’ life, his death and burial. Visual images are prompts for devotion and at each station prayers and meditations are offered. The roots of this practice go back to the earliest centuries of Christianity. We know that Christian pilgrims came to Jerusalem in the 4th and 5th century and sought out those places mentioned in the gospels in connection with Jesus’ passion.

In keeping with St. Francis of Assisi’s devotion to the imitation of Christ, the Franciscans were the popularizers of the Stations of the Cross in the Middle Ages. Eventually the number of stations was fixed at fourteen. While many of the traditional stations are linked to the gospel accounts, others derive from popular stories and devotions. The medieval hymn Stabat Mater often is sung or recited and at each station the traditional hymn Adoremus te is sung or said:

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Our stations will differ from traditional practice in that we will link them to life in Madison. We will begin at the Federal Courthouse on Henry Street and walk a little over a mile around Capitol Square. Our stations will include the Dane County Jail, the City-County Building, the YWCA, the Wisconsin Veterans’ Museum, as well as the steps of Grace Church where a homeless man died on one of the coldest days of the year. We will end in the courtyard garden at Grace.

Typically, the Stations of the Cross are an intensely personal and individual devotion focused on one’s own entering into Christ’s suffering. We want to reflect on Christ’s suffering more broadly. The community of Madison is struggling in so many ways, with  deepening racial, economic and ethnic divides, poverty and homelessness. It is our hope that by walking the way of the cross in Madison, we will be a witness of Christ’s redemptive and transforming love in this community and in our hearts.

Here’s the Episcopal Way of the Cross (from the Book of Occasional Services) by way of St. Mark’s Pro-Cathedral, Hastings, NE

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: April 9, 1945

Posted on by
2

“To be conformed to the image of Christ is not an ideal to be striven after. It is not as though we had to imitate him as ell as we could. We cannot transform ourselves into his image; it is rather the form of Christ which seeks to be formed in us (Gal 4:19), and to be manifested in us. Christ’s work in us is not finished until he has perfected his own form in us. We must be assimilated to the form of Christ in its entirety, the form of Christ incarnate, crucified and glorified. Christ took upon himself this human form of ours. He became Man even as we are men. In his humanity and his lowliness we recognize our own form. He has become like a man, so that men should be like him. And in the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God.” Cost of Discipleship

Some words from Auden for Holy Week

Posted on by
Reply

“Just as we were all, potentially, in Adam when he fell, so we were all, potentially, in Jerusalem on that first Good Friday before there was an Easter, a Pentecost, a Christian, or a Church. It seems to me worth while asking ourselves who we should have been and what we should have been doing. None of us, I’m certain, will imagine himself as one of the Disciples, cowering in an agony of spiritual despair and physical terror. Very few of us are big wheels enough to see ourselves as Pilate, or good churchmen enough to see ourselves as a member of the Sanhedrin. In my most optimistic mood I see myself as a Hellenized Jew from Alexandria visiting an intellectual friend. We are walking along, engaged in philosophical argument. Our path takes us past the base of Golgotha. Looking up, we see an all-too-familiar sight — three crosses surrounded by a jeering crowd. Frowning with prim distaste, I say, “It’s disgusting the way the mob enjoy such things. Why can’t the authorities execute criminals humanely and in private by giving them hemlock to drink, as they did with Socrates?” Then, averting my eyes from the disagreeable spectacle, I resume our fascinating discussion about the nature of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.” W. H. Auden, in A Certain World: A Commonplace Book

Source: Alan Jacobs

Unruly Wills and Affections

Posted on by
Reply

The Collect for the Fifth Sunday in Lent is one of my favorites, full of rich imagery and language. I didn’t preach today because I spent it with our kids. They’ve been learning about the Eucharist and today I talked with them about it during the Liturgy of the Word. At the offertory, we rejoined the main congregation and the children gathered around the altar for the Great Thanksgiving.

All this meant that I really hadn’t spent any time with the propers this week, so the beautiful collect came to me as a wonderful surprise while I was presiding at the early service:

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

It has an interesting history. It derives from early sources (the Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries), where it was used in the Easter season. Cranmer appointed it for the Fourth Sunday after Easter. His translation was altered in 1662, introducing the phrase “bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners.” The 1979 Book of Common Prayer moved it to its current location. It seems much more appropriate as a Lenten collect than as an Easter one.

I’m taken by the understanding of human nature expressed in the prayer. The phrase “our unruly wills and affections” certainly implies sin, but doesn’t dwell on human sinfulness. But there is also an appeal to God working in us to effect our salvation, the request to God to give God’s people grace “to love what you command and desire what you promise.”

It then moves out to put us in our context–amid the swift and varied changes of the world and expresses the hope that we might focus our attention not on the constantly changing scenery around us, but on our true hope.

The New Day Resource Center: Making the best of a difficult situation?

Posted on by
Reply

The news finally broke yesterday. Dane County has purchased Porchlight’s Hospitality House facility which will be the site of the new Day Resource Center. Here’s the press release.

I’ve written about the need for such a facility before and I’ve also written about the difficulty the County and others have had in finding an appropriate site. In some ways, Hospitality House seems like the path of least resistance. It’s in the Town of Madison rather than in the city so there won’t be much pushback from city administration or alders. It will be located at a site where some of the same services have been offered for years, so there shouldn’t be a lot of pushback from neighbors.

Pat Schneider’s article includes interviews with homeless advocates who are opposed to this location and claim to have been shut out of the process. Here’s where it is: a half-hour bus ride from downtown. While I share their concerns about how this process has played out, I am also acutely aware of how difficult the search for an adequate facility has been. I think it’s safe to say that the downtown area has been carefully searched for possible sites to no avail. One of the problems is that in this real estate market, few property owners are going to want to sell underused land or buildings to the county when they might be able to sell it at a high profit for another upscale apartment complex. I also appreciate that few County politicians or bureaucrats want to start another dust-up with city officials who would likely have opposed any proposed location.

One of the persistent difficulties faced by Hospitality House in the past has been transportation from downtown. Porchlight has operated a van that has transported guests from the Salvation Army and the Drop-In Men’s shelter downtown to Hospitality House but that hasn’t always been an effective means of getting people back and forth. The County will need to assess the transportation needs of the new Day Resource Center and have an effective plan in place when the Center opens in order for this renovated facility to be a success.

What homeless advocates and community members need to do now is work with the county and those who will operate the Day Resource Center to ensure its success. Let’s make sure we get the best facility possible with the necessary resources, fitted out with showers, storage, and laundry, and access to the support services that can help homeless people find adequate housing and stabilize their situations.

 

 

 

 

Whenever You Pray–Sermon on the Mount Bible Study

Posted on by
Reply

This evening, we’ll be looking at Matthew 6, especially vss 1-14. I’m always struck when I encounter texts in different contexts and the liturgical uses of these verses are powerful and foundational for the Christian life. The Lord’s Prayer is also our prayer, recited in the Daily Office and at every Eucharistic celebration. Its familiarity is both blessing and problematic. When said consciously and meditated upon regularly, it offers the possibility of helping us shape our discipleship and faith. It helps to create a relationship with God that stresses our dependence on God for the necessities of life as well as our purpose and end (“Your kingdom come, Your will be done). But it’s also easy to allow the words to roll off our tongue unthinkingly. Sometimes that’s OK; for example when we need to pray but can’t find words of our own. Sometimes it may be an example of the sort of external piety that Jesus criticizes in the first verses of the chapter.

Those verses are always the gospel reading on Ash Wednesday. In that context they are problematic and challenging, especially of the piety we display on Ash Wednesday. It’s hard not to think about how our actions look to others, whether we’re walking around on Ash Wednesday with ashes on our forehead or attending church on Sunday morning when our friends and neighbors are drinking coffee and reading the paper or out on a bike ride or run. But hiding our piety for the wrong reasons is also a problem. Jesus criticizes “hypocrites” for wanting others to know about their donations and fasting. He isn’t addressing those of us who hide our actions or faith because we are slightly embarrassed of our quaint habits.

Perhaps most important is something implied rather than directly stated here: that our prayers and other practices should be sincere and come from the heart. Prayer is not about others or about ourselves; it is about God. Bonhoeffer has this to say:

Prayer is the supreme instance of the hidden character of the Christian life. It is the antithesis of self-display. When men pray, they have ceased to know themselves and know only God whom they call upon. Prayer does not aim at any direct effect on the world; it is addressed to God alone, and is therefore the perfect example of undemonstrative action