Today we begin the week with a continuation of Douglas John Hall writing on The Church and the Cross..
The symbol at the center of our faith (the cross) must be turned into an apotheosis (an exalted or glorified ideal) of death, including the death of Jesus. Golgotha, rather, is a courageous facing of death and a confrontation with death - with "the enemy." Here God confronts the enemy and oppressor of life with a view to death eschatological overcoming. This enemy, like all great enemies of life, can only be overcome from within. ...Death must be faced, undergone, entered into - if it is to be challenged, defeated. Hence the second sentence of Moltmann's book on this theological tradition reads: "Yet only the crucified Christ can bring the freedom which changed the world because it is no longer afraid of death." What Paul calls "the sting of death" ( 1 Corinthians 15:55-56) is removed in faith through the grace-given courage to confront death's mockery of life openly.
There is and there must be that "confrontation." Otherwise, death will rule among us. From the cross of Christ we do not merely receive a pass to the other side of death. We take up a life of confrontation that is not afraid of the power of death because our Lord has faced it - in its full and brutal force - and made the power of death powerless. When I read this kind of talk - as a self-acknowledged coward - I find that I am encouraged to act and speak more often than not. Could it be that in hearing of the "courageous facing of death and the confrontation with death" by Jesus at Golgotha" the Holy Spirit is able to move even me to act just a bit...and then again maybe a bit more? I think so. In fact, as this coward, I would say I am in the boat with a whole bunch of folks. Our task as Church may be to keep telling this story and never turn it into something sweet and sentimental. Rather, we must keep it as real as it was. We must steer one another to focus on the way in which Jesus walked up to the power of death and did not give death an opportunity to win the day - any day. In that community support, even the cowards become more courageous and then...life becomes new.
Connection: When we are able to courageously face all the signs of death around us (and remember they can be quite small and ordinary), we are also beginning to take hold of the life that is promised in our baptism. Life that will live - and live abundantly - even as death stalks us.
O Lord of Life, we await the power of you Spirit. We long for the encouragement of our lives to break in and shape us this day. We know that you continue to bring that power into our lives and we pray that we will be made open vessels ready to be filled by your Spirit of life. Amen.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Thursday, July 27, 2006
28 July 2006
More on the Church and the Cross by Douglas John Hall.
For biblical faith, death is "the enemy" (1 Corinthians 15:26) - as the Apocalypse also insists (Revelation 21:4) - "the last enemy," waiting for its final eradication by "the Lord and Giver of Life." This is why the theology of the cross must never become, or seem to harbor, a glorification of death. And this is why, when the cross has been turned into such a glorification, it is right that it should be resisted - as some feminists and others in our time have done. To the surprise of many, Jurgen Moltmann began his book on the theology of the cross with the sentence, "The cross is not and cannot be loved." With this short sentence, Moltmann writes a great question mark over all cross-inspired pietism, heroism, and sentimentality, such as one has in many much loved hymns ("In the cross of Christ I glory," "I shall cherish the old rugged cross," etc.). To such sentiments one wishes to say a qualified yes, but always with the caveat: be careful!
It is to life that we move along the way of the cross. If the cross was the end, what life would we have...what would we have to offer to the world...what would be the gift we bring with us into each new day? We are invited to live within the domain of the Lord of Life. We live already in the victory knowing that to live there means that we will not be in step with the world...and yet we love this new life so much we press on in truth and love. The cross is always an attempt to silence this life and therefore it must be in our way and it must be something through which our journey as followers of Jesus will take us. It does us not good to make the cross something sweet like those chocolate crosses (solid or hollow) that are sold from chocolatiers at Easter. It is and can never be sweet. It is death. It is the attempt to shut up the promise for life that is a gift to all. At the same time, we know that through that story of the suffering of Jesus on the cross comes the defeat of death. The defeat of the power of death that we let rule us, is the beginning of what may be the possibilities of new life yet again...today.
Connection: Living within the promise of life given and shed for us means we recognize the way of the cross that is a part of such life. And yet, today is a day to lean into that life and to be ready for what such leaning will bring our way.
You love us, O Lord, and that love brings you into the very depths of our fears and pain and sorrow. And yet, in you great love, you do not abandon us to the power of death. By the power of your Holy Spirit, we find that even as death attempts to overwhelm us you stand alongside and hold us up so that we can look beyond all things into the heart of your gracious promise for life eternal. Amen.
For biblical faith, death is "the enemy" (1 Corinthians 15:26) - as the Apocalypse also insists (Revelation 21:4) - "the last enemy," waiting for its final eradication by "the Lord and Giver of Life." This is why the theology of the cross must never become, or seem to harbor, a glorification of death. And this is why, when the cross has been turned into such a glorification, it is right that it should be resisted - as some feminists and others in our time have done. To the surprise of many, Jurgen Moltmann began his book on the theology of the cross with the sentence, "The cross is not and cannot be loved." With this short sentence, Moltmann writes a great question mark over all cross-inspired pietism, heroism, and sentimentality, such as one has in many much loved hymns ("In the cross of Christ I glory," "I shall cherish the old rugged cross," etc.). To such sentiments one wishes to say a qualified yes, but always with the caveat: be careful!
It is to life that we move along the way of the cross. If the cross was the end, what life would we have...what would we have to offer to the world...what would be the gift we bring with us into each new day? We are invited to live within the domain of the Lord of Life. We live already in the victory knowing that to live there means that we will not be in step with the world...and yet we love this new life so much we press on in truth and love. The cross is always an attempt to silence this life and therefore it must be in our way and it must be something through which our journey as followers of Jesus will take us. It does us not good to make the cross something sweet like those chocolate crosses (solid or hollow) that are sold from chocolatiers at Easter. It is and can never be sweet. It is death. It is the attempt to shut up the promise for life that is a gift to all. At the same time, we know that through that story of the suffering of Jesus on the cross comes the defeat of death. The defeat of the power of death that we let rule us, is the beginning of what may be the possibilities of new life yet again...today.
Connection: Living within the promise of life given and shed for us means we recognize the way of the cross that is a part of such life. And yet, today is a day to lean into that life and to be ready for what such leaning will bring our way.
You love us, O Lord, and that love brings you into the very depths of our fears and pain and sorrow. And yet, in you great love, you do not abandon us to the power of death. By the power of your Holy Spirit, we find that even as death attempts to overwhelm us you stand alongside and hold us up so that we can look beyond all things into the heart of your gracious promise for life eternal. Amen.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
27 July 2006
Today is a longer section of Douglas John Hall on the Character of Christian Suffering.
Christianity, so long as it remains true to its own sources, cannot embrace any of the heroics of death, including those associated with war or various causes, because its orientation is toward life. Life should not be easily or lightly thrown away. Christianity has this life-orientation from its parental faith, Judaism, a religion that , unlike many other religions of the human species, never succumbs to the subtle whisperings of death -even when it is hounded to death and rounded up by death and shipped to factories whose sole product was the transformation of the living to the state of death. One of the most astonishing facts of human history, surely, is that a people whose whole recorded history is one of suffering at the hands of others, more powerful peoples manifested and still manifests the most intense and jubilant commitment to life - a people whose most cherished motto is "To Life" (l'chaim).
We move toward life. The beloved community is all about life. Life that comes in the face of death and whenever and wherever death appears to have won the day. In each day, we sing a new song that does not sing the melodies of the powers that like to rule other and run the world in a way that will limit the lives of any. "To Life"....of course, to life...of course we have a memory of what it means to be hounded even though we may have not present notion of what it is to be hounded by the power of death because Christianity tends to be walking in step with the powers that have a history of hounding the underdog...the lowly...the minority. But we are a people of the Book and that makes us a people with some sense of memory. We remember the story of Israel and we remember the story of the suffering servant and we remember the story of Jesus walking with great compassion into the lives of the forgotten and we remember the life of the body of Christ, the church, that lives in, with, and under the very fabric of life as it is often rejected and despised. We move toward life even when death is an overwhelming and real presence among us.
Connection: Some days we have to really give ourselves to reality that the Church is made up of a people with such a contrary vision for life that death,through real and terrifying, does not have the last word. It has a word - a strong word - but, not the last word.
Come, Lord of LIfe and Death, be the bright light that comes into this day to reveal the life that makes us all followers of Jesus who are not too afraid to venture out into the adventure that come when we walk along your gracious way . Amen.
Christianity, so long as it remains true to its own sources, cannot embrace any of the heroics of death, including those associated with war or various causes, because its orientation is toward life. Life should not be easily or lightly thrown away. Christianity has this life-orientation from its parental faith, Judaism, a religion that , unlike many other religions of the human species, never succumbs to the subtle whisperings of death -even when it is hounded to death and rounded up by death and shipped to factories whose sole product was the transformation of the living to the state of death. One of the most astonishing facts of human history, surely, is that a people whose whole recorded history is one of suffering at the hands of others, more powerful peoples manifested and still manifests the most intense and jubilant commitment to life - a people whose most cherished motto is "To Life" (l'chaim).
We move toward life. The beloved community is all about life. Life that comes in the face of death and whenever and wherever death appears to have won the day. In each day, we sing a new song that does not sing the melodies of the powers that like to rule other and run the world in a way that will limit the lives of any. "To Life"....of course, to life...of course we have a memory of what it means to be hounded even though we may have not present notion of what it is to be hounded by the power of death because Christianity tends to be walking in step with the powers that have a history of hounding the underdog...the lowly...the minority. But we are a people of the Book and that makes us a people with some sense of memory. We remember the story of Israel and we remember the story of the suffering servant and we remember the story of Jesus walking with great compassion into the lives of the forgotten and we remember the life of the body of Christ, the church, that lives in, with, and under the very fabric of life as it is often rejected and despised. We move toward life even when death is an overwhelming and real presence among us.
Connection: Some days we have to really give ourselves to reality that the Church is made up of a people with such a contrary vision for life that death,through real and terrifying, does not have the last word. It has a word - a strong word - but, not the last word.
Come, Lord of LIfe and Death, be the bright light that comes into this day to reveal the life that makes us all followers of Jesus who are not too afraid to venture out into the adventure that come when we walk along your gracious way . Amen.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
26 July 2006
Today begins a look at how Douglas John Hall looks at the Character of Christian Suffering. He writes about two observations we will consider over the next week.
If I were asked to state a single thesis what this theme is all about, I would borrow a sentence from the first Christian theologian who talked about it more than anyone else, Paul: "While we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifest in our mortal flesh" (2 Corinthians 4:11). ...I shall elaborate on this thesis in two observations: (1) The end (telos - inner aim) of the suffering into which faith is plunged is life-oriented, not death-oriented. (2) This suffering is a necessity that comes with faith, but it is not merely a foregone conclusion, as though it were predetermined or destined; moreover, it has more to do with the suffering that is outside the community of discipleship than with our own personal or ecclesiastical suffering.
Though death is around us we look to life! We do not seek to avoid death; we expect it and in the face of death and its threats we expect life. Remember though that this is included in every relationship in which we enter. Things will die - demands, wants, preferences, traditions - and yet what comes through those deaths is new life. Too often, I'm impatient about that. Then again, I can be too self-absorbed to be willing to face what life comes beyond the death of my own way and my own view. The Lord of Life - is all about life creating even when we are people focused or anxious about death and its many faces. Sometimes it is good to remember that there is time between the crucifixion and death of Jesus and Easter morning. In the meantime - between these two events - is that dark, all-consuming death. Sometimes that is all we are able to see and at other times it is what we avoid viewing and acknowledging. In both of these cases, death has us and owns us. And yet, we are invited to know death well...know its powers, its tricks, its lies, and its inability to win the day. Unfortunately, this is a place of suffering that comes to us in many ways. The followers of Jesus do not look to avoid this time. We are called to walk through it with one another - the whole body of Christ that knows how to suffer for/with/alongside the whole world.
Connection: Nothing is ever going to stay the same. We may want that to happen but...in reality if it does, the creativity we need in our world and our own lives will never take place. Today we must remember to find ways to stay within a dialogical spirit that is willing to experience death and life...and then experience it...again...and...again.
Be present with us, O Lord. Be present with us as we face all that this day will place in our path. Do not let our fear cause us to run away from other and the opportunities we are given to grow into the beloved community of your saints. Amen.
If I were asked to state a single thesis what this theme is all about, I would borrow a sentence from the first Christian theologian who talked about it more than anyone else, Paul: "While we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifest in our mortal flesh" (2 Corinthians 4:11). ...I shall elaborate on this thesis in two observations: (1) The end (telos - inner aim) of the suffering into which faith is plunged is life-oriented, not death-oriented. (2) This suffering is a necessity that comes with faith, but it is not merely a foregone conclusion, as though it were predetermined or destined; moreover, it has more to do with the suffering that is outside the community of discipleship than with our own personal or ecclesiastical suffering.
Though death is around us we look to life! We do not seek to avoid death; we expect it and in the face of death and its threats we expect life. Remember though that this is included in every relationship in which we enter. Things will die - demands, wants, preferences, traditions - and yet what comes through those deaths is new life. Too often, I'm impatient about that. Then again, I can be too self-absorbed to be willing to face what life comes beyond the death of my own way and my own view. The Lord of Life - is all about life creating even when we are people focused or anxious about death and its many faces. Sometimes it is good to remember that there is time between the crucifixion and death of Jesus and Easter morning. In the meantime - between these two events - is that dark, all-consuming death. Sometimes that is all we are able to see and at other times it is what we avoid viewing and acknowledging. In both of these cases, death has us and owns us. And yet, we are invited to know death well...know its powers, its tricks, its lies, and its inability to win the day. Unfortunately, this is a place of suffering that comes to us in many ways. The followers of Jesus do not look to avoid this time. We are called to walk through it with one another - the whole body of Christ that knows how to suffer for/with/alongside the whole world.
Connection: Nothing is ever going to stay the same. We may want that to happen but...in reality if it does, the creativity we need in our world and our own lives will never take place. Today we must remember to find ways to stay within a dialogical spirit that is willing to experience death and life...and then experience it...again...and...again.
Be present with us, O Lord. Be present with us as we face all that this day will place in our path. Do not let our fear cause us to run away from other and the opportunities we are given to grow into the beloved community of your saints. Amen.
Monday, July 24, 2006
25 July 2006
Pressing on with Douglas John Hall as he looks at "The Church and the Cross."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's writings, especially his first major book, The Cost of Discipleship, were a poignant and searing cry to his fellow Christians in both Europe and the West in general to realize at last that the discipleship of Jesus Christ is a serious business; it is not all the sweetness and light of Sunday morning ritual, confirmation at age twelve, pretty weddings, solemn funerals, the pageantry of state occasions. It is a quest for and a witness to truth in the midst of societies that lie, for authentic goodness in the midst of societies that reward duplicity, for true beauty in the midst of societies that celebrate kitsch and sentimentality. Above all, it is a call to obedience in the midst of a society and church that offer "cheap grace." For many of us it was Bonhoeffer's work more than any other that caused us to consider anew - or for the first time, really - this unmistakable claim of the New Testament that the discipleship of Jesus Christ entailed suffering.
When "special interests" demand allegiance lies begin. When those special interests find a more dominant place in the life of a community of people, the best of what a people can be is easily lost. Such things as common goodness are easily dismissed. The excuse is often that there is a greater good that is needed. What was that greater good in Nazi Germany...a return of land...a return of respect...a return to moral integrity...Hum...and that came through such a process of annihilation called the holocaust?!? As we all know, as this was taking place...as things were being made "better" in Germany, the churches did not stand up against this form of self-centered interests that were willing to remove a whole people from the face of the world simply to have the world as they wanted it - not as it actually was. To speak up in such a time as this was not something done without costs. To speak up within the radical love and justice and mercy of the Reign of Jesus was to live contrary to the powers who wanted to maintain and increase control. For the Reign of peace to be established among any country means that those who claim to be followers of Jesus need to be blessed with voices that will cry out in resistance. This will mean the church that likes to simply go along with the powers that be and the world they would build will become a part of those powers and the followers of Jesus will have to speak out against the powers in all forms.
Connection: Today, return to the one who calls us beloved - all of us. In the middle of that journey, watch to see how many times we will see how the powers of our world act quite contrary to that reality and attempt to win our hearts and minds and lives.
Lord be for us the power of life that will give us insight and then courage and then the life that will indeed live contrary to the powers of our day so that there will be a living presence of your love available and willing to be vulnerable for the sake of all. Amen.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's writings, especially his first major book, The Cost of Discipleship, were a poignant and searing cry to his fellow Christians in both Europe and the West in general to realize at last that the discipleship of Jesus Christ is a serious business; it is not all the sweetness and light of Sunday morning ritual, confirmation at age twelve, pretty weddings, solemn funerals, the pageantry of state occasions. It is a quest for and a witness to truth in the midst of societies that lie, for authentic goodness in the midst of societies that reward duplicity, for true beauty in the midst of societies that celebrate kitsch and sentimentality. Above all, it is a call to obedience in the midst of a society and church that offer "cheap grace." For many of us it was Bonhoeffer's work more than any other that caused us to consider anew - or for the first time, really - this unmistakable claim of the New Testament that the discipleship of Jesus Christ entailed suffering.
When "special interests" demand allegiance lies begin. When those special interests find a more dominant place in the life of a community of people, the best of what a people can be is easily lost. Such things as common goodness are easily dismissed. The excuse is often that there is a greater good that is needed. What was that greater good in Nazi Germany...a return of land...a return of respect...a return to moral integrity...Hum...and that came through such a process of annihilation called the holocaust?!? As we all know, as this was taking place...as things were being made "better" in Germany, the churches did not stand up against this form of self-centered interests that were willing to remove a whole people from the face of the world simply to have the world as they wanted it - not as it actually was. To speak up in such a time as this was not something done without costs. To speak up within the radical love and justice and mercy of the Reign of Jesus was to live contrary to the powers who wanted to maintain and increase control. For the Reign of peace to be established among any country means that those who claim to be followers of Jesus need to be blessed with voices that will cry out in resistance. This will mean the church that likes to simply go along with the powers that be and the world they would build will become a part of those powers and the followers of Jesus will have to speak out against the powers in all forms.
Connection: Today, return to the one who calls us beloved - all of us. In the middle of that journey, watch to see how many times we will see how the powers of our world act quite contrary to that reality and attempt to win our hearts and minds and lives.
Lord be for us the power of life that will give us insight and then courage and then the life that will indeed live contrary to the powers of our day so that there will be a living presence of your love available and willing to be vulnerable for the sake of all. Amen.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
24 July 2006
You can expect that I will stay with Douglas John Hall for some time now as he writes of "The Church and the Cross" in The Cross in Our Context.
...I think it behooves Christians today to admit finally that if some of us have at last begun to grasp this reality of our identity and our mission (a suffering community), it is because the whole people of Israel has suffered so excruciatingly in our own time - and, what is worse, has suffered on account of a climate of spiritual suspicion created by Christendom itself. On account of the Holocaust of the Jews, sensitive Christians have
had to ask not only how their faith could have contributed to such an event but also why the Christian faith could have contributed to such an event but also why the Christian faith in its established form has been so conspicuously devoid not only of any sustained suffering but of the very contemplation of that biblical theme.
It is our history to be intolerant. It has been a part of our history to be oppressive. The Church as institution has had its way since it was blended with imperial structures and then the structures of states. We cannot separate ourselves from this history and it is most obvious in the role Christendom played in the Holocaust. What I find of some interest today is how looking back at the Holocaust for some Christians is done in a way to show how the Church is being persecuted, somewhat like that, from the government of our country. In that same conversation is the talk that Christianity is being wiped out or disregarded among us. That seems odd. Don't folks understand that the Church cannot be wiped out by persecution. Do they have no hope beyond hope? Cannot they see beyond their own wants into something more the Church can be? Have we forgotten the suffering of the way of the cross - just as Hall notes? Have we developed amnesia again so that we cannot remember how in the years before we were aligned with the Empire, Christians continued to go out and become a contrary community in the middle of whatever was the atmosphere of the day? There is much to much whining going on among us in the name of Jesus. It is as though we have become so comfortable in the halls of power we can only see ourselves in a dominant position and nothing else. What happened to images of the suffering servant...who suffers on behalf of the welfare of others...who suffers for standing with the beaten and rejected? I think we sometimes want our faith to be a ticket to the "good life" however we define that.
Connection: We would do well to listen closely to the movements of our society. Hidden in the making of rules and the rhetoric of the prevailing powers is the hint of intolerance and special interests. Who will we be interested in as the Church alive today?
When we face this day, O Lord, we see little of the Church on the way of the cross. Rather, we are privileged and use that privilege for ourselves rather than the for the care and healing of a broken world that is lost in its self-concern. Remind us of your way of love that pulls us out to serve rather than to rule. Praise to you, O Compassionate and Just God of New Life. Amen
...I think it behooves Christians today to admit finally that if some of us have at last begun to grasp this reality of our identity and our mission (a suffering community), it is because the whole people of Israel has suffered so excruciatingly in our own time - and, what is worse, has suffered on account of a climate of spiritual suspicion created by Christendom itself. On account of the Holocaust of the Jews, sensitive Christians have
had to ask not only how their faith could have contributed to such an event but also why the Christian faith could have contributed to such an event but also why the Christian faith in its established form has been so conspicuously devoid not only of any sustained suffering but of the very contemplation of that biblical theme.
It is our history to be intolerant. It has been a part of our history to be oppressive. The Church as institution has had its way since it was blended with imperial structures and then the structures of states. We cannot separate ourselves from this history and it is most obvious in the role Christendom played in the Holocaust. What I find of some interest today is how looking back at the Holocaust for some Christians is done in a way to show how the Church is being persecuted, somewhat like that, from the government of our country. In that same conversation is the talk that Christianity is being wiped out or disregarded among us. That seems odd. Don't folks understand that the Church cannot be wiped out by persecution. Do they have no hope beyond hope? Cannot they see beyond their own wants into something more the Church can be? Have we forgotten the suffering of the way of the cross - just as Hall notes? Have we developed amnesia again so that we cannot remember how in the years before we were aligned with the Empire, Christians continued to go out and become a contrary community in the middle of whatever was the atmosphere of the day? There is much to much whining going on among us in the name of Jesus. It is as though we have become so comfortable in the halls of power we can only see ourselves in a dominant position and nothing else. What happened to images of the suffering servant...who suffers on behalf of the welfare of others...who suffers for standing with the beaten and rejected? I think we sometimes want our faith to be a ticket to the "good life" however we define that.
Connection: We would do well to listen closely to the movements of our society. Hidden in the making of rules and the rhetoric of the prevailing powers is the hint of intolerance and special interests. Who will we be interested in as the Church alive today?
When we face this day, O Lord, we see little of the Church on the way of the cross. Rather, we are privileged and use that privilege for ourselves rather than the for the care and healing of a broken world that is lost in its self-concern. Remind us of your way of love that pulls us out to serve rather than to rule. Praise to you, O Compassionate and Just God of New Life. Amen
Friday, July 21, 2006
21 July 2006
The week draws to an end with more about a suffering and real church by Douglas John Hall.
A purely doctrinal or theoretical theology of the cross is a contradiction. This theology is only authentic - only "for real" - insofar as it gives birth to a community that suffers with Christ in the world. Nowhere does Christendom's difference from the New Testament church show up more glaringly than in the fact that the birth of Christendom in the fourth century C.E. brought about a species of Christianity that with rare exceptions could be practiced without any threat or hint of its being a process of identification with the one who was "despised and rejected."
It is no wonder that the Church has such a difficult time being anything but what the world is. We have been knit within its fabric for such a long time. "Despised and rejected" has become an internal event through which Jesus will lead us. Therefore, the story is all about me who somehow suffers in many ways simply by being human. The notion of Christians suffering for the sake of others is almost considered an absurdity. When that does happen, we remember those people. Like Bonhoeffer and others who resisted the rule of the Nazis or the freedom marchers who resisted the law of the land in the U.S so that the brutality against some of us would stop. The way "despised and rejected" is stated these day has to do with people who say they are being oppressed because others want to take a few words out of the pledge of allegiance or take the manger scenes off civic center lawns. That is not suffering folks. That is a spoiled and pampered people who have lost all sense of what it means to suffer. Try this. The next time you see a group of Christians in our country complaining and wailing about how they are suffering and being oppressed here, take a look at them. They look quite a part of the privileged of the world to me. They look like they are used to having the world as they have had it. To suffer for the sake of others is not even in the game plan. They see themselves as the suffering ones...and yet they suffer not like the one they say they follow - Christ, Jesus.
Connection: There are so many people that need to be uplifted by the love of Christ. Now, having said this, I do not mean simply telling them the story...I mean being the love of Christ. The love that will risk caring when we really could simply walk away and care about ourselves alone.
Blessed Lord, open our hearts so that we will have the courage to venture forth along the way of your cross that becomes our cross as we enter into solidarity with the lost, least, and the lowest who long for an abundant life but are so often denied it. Remind us to give thanks for all that we have and then to be willing to give our lives away to those around us. Amen.
A purely doctrinal or theoretical theology of the cross is a contradiction. This theology is only authentic - only "for real" - insofar as it gives birth to a community that suffers with Christ in the world. Nowhere does Christendom's difference from the New Testament church show up more glaringly than in the fact that the birth of Christendom in the fourth century C.E. brought about a species of Christianity that with rare exceptions could be practiced without any threat or hint of its being a process of identification with the one who was "despised and rejected."
It is no wonder that the Church has such a difficult time being anything but what the world is. We have been knit within its fabric for such a long time. "Despised and rejected" has become an internal event through which Jesus will lead us. Therefore, the story is all about me who somehow suffers in many ways simply by being human. The notion of Christians suffering for the sake of others is almost considered an absurdity. When that does happen, we remember those people. Like Bonhoeffer and others who resisted the rule of the Nazis or the freedom marchers who resisted the law of the land in the U.S so that the brutality against some of us would stop. The way "despised and rejected" is stated these day has to do with people who say they are being oppressed because others want to take a few words out of the pledge of allegiance or take the manger scenes off civic center lawns. That is not suffering folks. That is a spoiled and pampered people who have lost all sense of what it means to suffer. Try this. The next time you see a group of Christians in our country complaining and wailing about how they are suffering and being oppressed here, take a look at them. They look quite a part of the privileged of the world to me. They look like they are used to having the world as they have had it. To suffer for the sake of others is not even in the game plan. They see themselves as the suffering ones...and yet they suffer not like the one they say they follow - Christ, Jesus.
Connection: There are so many people that need to be uplifted by the love of Christ. Now, having said this, I do not mean simply telling them the story...I mean being the love of Christ. The love that will risk caring when we really could simply walk away and care about ourselves alone.
Blessed Lord, open our hearts so that we will have the courage to venture forth along the way of your cross that becomes our cross as we enter into solidarity with the lost, least, and the lowest who long for an abundant life but are so often denied it. Remind us to give thanks for all that we have and then to be willing to give our lives away to those around us. Amen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)