Instead of a sermon on Sept. 11, 2016, we saw a brief clip of the film Divided We Fall and did an interactive dialogue exercise called "Crossing the Line." Below is the letter Mother Tracy sent out to the congregation before that Sunday:
What do you do when the 15th anniversary of 9/11 falls on a Sunday?
This is the question pastors all over the country have been asking this week. Do you acknowledge it in the sermon, in the prayers? Do you pray for first responders and have a special blessing for them? Do you just go on with life as usual, not wanting to draw too much attention to what may be too traumatic to remember for many? Has enough time passed that we don't "need" to acknowledge it anymore?
Since the events of 9/11 and its aftermath profoundly changed my life and influenced the way I do ministry, and since this anniversary falls on a Sunday and is a significant number (15 years), and since the lessons for this Sunday seem in some way related to the themes of 9/11, I've decided to observe the anniversary in this way:
This Sunday, at the sermon time, we'll have an opportunity to share with each other about our own 9/11 experiences. Instead of a sermon, I'll show the opening 3 minutes of the film "Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath" (www.dividedwefallfilm.com), the documentary film on hate crimes after 9/11 that I've mentioned to you before, that I worked for as communications director. After that clip, I'll lead the congregation in a participatory dialogue exercise designed to illustrate our shared experience of 9/11 and also the ways in which our experiences of that event highlight our differences.
Because time won't permit during the service, the debrief and discussion of this exercise will take place after the service in the parish hall. As we make sandwiches for the outdoor church for the homeless in Hayward (as we do every second Sunday of the month), we'll share reflections about how the dialogue exercise during the service and our own experiences with 9/11 relate to our scripture passages for this Sunday, which have a theme of sin and repentance.
I hope you'll join us, and bring friends: the more diverse the crowd we do this exercise with, the better.
To prepare for Sunday, if you'd like, you can actually watch the entire film online (1.5 hours) -- the filmmakers have partnered with the Sikh Coalition, a civil rights group, to make the film available to the public online for FREE from now until Election Day, to showcase one way in which love can overcome fear and hatred.
Watch the film here:
http://dividedwefallfilm.com/
You can also read the scripture passages ahead of time, here:
http://lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Pentecost/CProp19_RCL.html
These passages call us to think about our own sinfulness and God's great mercy. They call us to remember that "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners," that Jesus "welcomed sinners and ate with them," that "all are corrupt and commit abominable acts." How do you hear these passages with the memory of 9/11 in the forefront of your mind? How do you hear them in light of our current context, fifteen years later?
Some may ask, why even commemorate the "anniversary" of a horrific event, anyway? Shouldn't we focus on remembering positive things?
Certainly, an "anniversary" is often something we celebrate, but not always. Consider the ways in which you mark the months or years after the death of a loved one or another traumatic event in your life. Yes, sometimes it can be best not to dwell on it, but sometimes the healthiest thing to do is to dig into it and process the remaining grief and find a way to hold on to the relentless hope and optimism that is at the core of our faith. To find a way to look at the darkness and say, in the words of the Gospel of John, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
On this 15th anniversary of 9/11, we'll both see the darkness and affirm the strength of the light. Join us in worship this Sunday, at 10 a.m.
Many blessings,
Mother Tracy+
Showing posts with label Divided We Fall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Divided We Fall. Show all posts
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Sunday, May 29, 2016
In a world divided into 'us' and 'them,' who counts as 'one of us'?
Sermon delivered Sunday, May 29, 2016 (Second Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 4, Year C) at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA. (1 Kings 8:22-23, 41-43; Psalm 96:1-9; Galatians 1:1-12; Luke 7:1-10)
Shortly after 9/11, I worked on a documentary film about the backlash that happened in the weeks and months following the attacks on New York and D.C. As you may know, the increase in anti-Muslim sentiment after 9/11 led to a wave of violence against people perceived to be Muslim. People were told to “go back to your country,” their homes and places of worship were vandalized or burned, and 19 people across the U.S. were killed in a misplaced attempt at revenge against our “enemy.”
Muslims experienced their share of this, but so did Sikhs, followers of a religion from northern India whose turbans and beards reminded people of Osama bin Laden. South Asians of all religions were attacked, whether Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Sikh, or Muslim, and so were Native Americans and Latinos – basically anyone with brown skin was seen as “the enemy” and thus became a target. We titled our documentary Divided We Fall, and its “tag line” was, “In a world divided into ‘us’ and ‘them,’ who counts as ‘one of us’?”
In that context, that question was a question about national identity, but that same question can be asked about religious identity. That question runs throughout our Scriptures and the history of the church. Who counts as “one of us”? Who are “we” and who are “they”? It’s not always explicitly stated like that, but defining religious identity always involves drawing boundaries between those who are part of the group and those who are not. Today’s scripture readings all have to do with Israel’s complicated relationship with the “other,” the foreigner, the outsider.
In our first lesson, from 1 Kings, chapter 8, we have an excerpt from the prayer King Solomon prayed when dedicating the Temple in Jerusalem. As part of a long prayer to God asking God to hear the people of Israel when they come to the Temple to pray for various things, he also says this:
“Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel… comes and prays toward this house, then hear in heaven… and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you.” (1 Kings 8:41-43)
The psalm speaks about telling God’s glory among “the nations” and among “all peoples,” repeatedly saying that the “whole earth” should sing and praise the God of Israel.
In the second reading, Paul is passionately scolding the Galatians for “turning to a different gospel” – and although the passage does not explicitly identify what that “different gospel” is, a complete reading of the letter to the Galatians reveals that it is the instructions some Christians have given Gentile converts – they told the Gentiles that if they wanted to be “one of us,” they had to first be circumcised and obey the Jewish law. Paul is adamantly against this idea, asserting that those who do not bear the physical marker of group identity and do not obey the same religious rituals are still “one of us,” since, as he says in one of the most famous passages from Galatians, “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
And finally, in the Gospel, we have another question about the boundary between Gentile and Jew. A centurion, a soldier in the Roman army, asks Jesus to heal his slave. Although he is a Gentile, Jesus grants his request, and the scriptures tell us that Jesus was “amazed” by this man, saying, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith” (Luke 7:9).
All of these passages speak favorably toward “them” – the “other,” the “foreigner,” the Gentile – but we all know that there are plenty of biblical passages that do not. One commentator points out that Israel’s relationship to the “foreign” “is usually marked by an attitude ranging from cautious to defensive,” and probably for good reason: there was always the potential of violent conflict breaking out between the people of Israel and their neighboring countries.
A former parishioner of mine who is a biologist says that discrimination is a biological construct, one that is necessary for survival. Discrimination between “us” and “them” allows us to decide very quickly, based on appearance, what is safe and what is not. These decisions are based on memories and experience: sometimes individual memories, but sometimes collective memories passed down through the species. For example, if I’m a gazelle and my only experience with tigers is that they try to eat me, I will probably not approach the tiger and try to be friendly with it. And even if I’m a baby gazelle and I haven’t had any experience with tigers yet, I’m probably going to be instinctually afraid of them because I’ve inherited the instincts of my ancestors who have had experience with tigers. Being afraid of them is evolutionarily advantageous for me; taking a “cautious and defensive” attitude toward the tiger will likely help me stay alive.
Although human beings are more complex intellectually than our other mammal relatives, we still have a part of our brain that operates out of that base, instinctual fear toward anything that is different. If something is unknown to us, we have no way of knowing whether it is safe or dangerous -- and on the off chance that it might be dangerous, we have to be ready to protect ourselves. Distinguishing between different groups of people is not the problem. The problem is assuming that if something is different, it is threatening – that is what leads to the kind of racism and violence that we saw after 9/11, and that we continue to see any time there is a terrorist attack against Westerners that is attributed to Muslims, or when political rhetoric intensifies a sense that Muslims are our enemy (or whoever the "enemy" happens to be at the moment).
Given the evolutionary advantage of being “cautious and defensive” toward anyone who is not “one of us,” any embrace of the “foreigner” must be an intentional act, one that will involve controlling our “reptile brain,” that part of us that instinctively sees otherness as a threat and wants to fight or flight. My personal view is that the passages of scripture that play in to the “foreigner is the enemy” concept are evidence of the sinful nature of the scriptures’ very human authors. The scripture is inspired by God, yes, but I also believe it is tainted by the humans through whom the message was filtered. Sometimes they allowed the Spirit to flow through them without any interference, and sometimes their particular biases colored how they expressed the message God was sending. Our scriptures for today remind us that there is a divine mandate to welcome the foreigner, the stranger, the outsider, to break down the walls between “us” and “them” – and I happen to believe that that is the unadulterated divine message – one that is certainly not “of human origin,” because it goes against our very biology.
In our redeemed state, we are called to rise above the reptile brain, to acknowledge that “they” might actually have a lot in common with us, that “they” might not seek to do us harm, that we don’t need to defend ourselves against “them.” We are called to realize that our relationship with “them” can be one of collaboration rather than competition, and that “they” can even become “one of us” – as the Gentiles did when they joined the Jewish followers of Jesus to form what became the Christian church – a new “us” that was different than the “us” that had existed before.
But even when “we” stay distinct and separate from “them” – even when we don’t ultimately come to share the same religion – we can work to move our relationship with “them” from our natural state of fear and suspicion to one of trust and respect. Through my work in interfaith dialogue, I have learned to acknowledge the sacred and holy when I find it among “them” just as joyfully as when I find it among “us.” In dialogue with other religious communities, I often find myself remembering today’s Gospel reading and saying, “Not even in the church have I found such faith!”
Shortly after 9/11, I worked on a documentary film about the backlash that happened in the weeks and months following the attacks on New York and D.C. As you may know, the increase in anti-Muslim sentiment after 9/11 led to a wave of violence against people perceived to be Muslim. People were told to “go back to your country,” their homes and places of worship were vandalized or burned, and 19 people across the U.S. were killed in a misplaced attempt at revenge against our “enemy.”
Muslims experienced their share of this, but so did Sikhs, followers of a religion from northern India whose turbans and beards reminded people of Osama bin Laden. South Asians of all religions were attacked, whether Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Sikh, or Muslim, and so were Native Americans and Latinos – basically anyone with brown skin was seen as “the enemy” and thus became a target. We titled our documentary Divided We Fall, and its “tag line” was, “In a world divided into ‘us’ and ‘them,’ who counts as ‘one of us’?”
In that context, that question was a question about national identity, but that same question can be asked about religious identity. That question runs throughout our Scriptures and the history of the church. Who counts as “one of us”? Who are “we” and who are “they”? It’s not always explicitly stated like that, but defining religious identity always involves drawing boundaries between those who are part of the group and those who are not. Today’s scripture readings all have to do with Israel’s complicated relationship with the “other,” the foreigner, the outsider.
In our first lesson, from 1 Kings, chapter 8, we have an excerpt from the prayer King Solomon prayed when dedicating the Temple in Jerusalem. As part of a long prayer to God asking God to hear the people of Israel when they come to the Temple to pray for various things, he also says this:
“Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel… comes and prays toward this house, then hear in heaven… and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you.” (1 Kings 8:41-43)
The psalm speaks about telling God’s glory among “the nations” and among “all peoples,” repeatedly saying that the “whole earth” should sing and praise the God of Israel.
In the second reading, Paul is passionately scolding the Galatians for “turning to a different gospel” – and although the passage does not explicitly identify what that “different gospel” is, a complete reading of the letter to the Galatians reveals that it is the instructions some Christians have given Gentile converts – they told the Gentiles that if they wanted to be “one of us,” they had to first be circumcised and obey the Jewish law. Paul is adamantly against this idea, asserting that those who do not bear the physical marker of group identity and do not obey the same religious rituals are still “one of us,” since, as he says in one of the most famous passages from Galatians, “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
And finally, in the Gospel, we have another question about the boundary between Gentile and Jew. A centurion, a soldier in the Roman army, asks Jesus to heal his slave. Although he is a Gentile, Jesus grants his request, and the scriptures tell us that Jesus was “amazed” by this man, saying, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith” (Luke 7:9).
All of these passages speak favorably toward “them” – the “other,” the “foreigner,” the Gentile – but we all know that there are plenty of biblical passages that do not. One commentator points out that Israel’s relationship to the “foreign” “is usually marked by an attitude ranging from cautious to defensive,” and probably for good reason: there was always the potential of violent conflict breaking out between the people of Israel and their neighboring countries.
A former parishioner of mine who is a biologist says that discrimination is a biological construct, one that is necessary for survival. Discrimination between “us” and “them” allows us to decide very quickly, based on appearance, what is safe and what is not. These decisions are based on memories and experience: sometimes individual memories, but sometimes collective memories passed down through the species. For example, if I’m a gazelle and my only experience with tigers is that they try to eat me, I will probably not approach the tiger and try to be friendly with it. And even if I’m a baby gazelle and I haven’t had any experience with tigers yet, I’m probably going to be instinctually afraid of them because I’ve inherited the instincts of my ancestors who have had experience with tigers. Being afraid of them is evolutionarily advantageous for me; taking a “cautious and defensive” attitude toward the tiger will likely help me stay alive.
Although human beings are more complex intellectually than our other mammal relatives, we still have a part of our brain that operates out of that base, instinctual fear toward anything that is different. If something is unknown to us, we have no way of knowing whether it is safe or dangerous -- and on the off chance that it might be dangerous, we have to be ready to protect ourselves. Distinguishing between different groups of people is not the problem. The problem is assuming that if something is different, it is threatening – that is what leads to the kind of racism and violence that we saw after 9/11, and that we continue to see any time there is a terrorist attack against Westerners that is attributed to Muslims, or when political rhetoric intensifies a sense that Muslims are our enemy (or whoever the "enemy" happens to be at the moment).
Given the evolutionary advantage of being “cautious and defensive” toward anyone who is not “one of us,” any embrace of the “foreigner” must be an intentional act, one that will involve controlling our “reptile brain,” that part of us that instinctively sees otherness as a threat and wants to fight or flight. My personal view is that the passages of scripture that play in to the “foreigner is the enemy” concept are evidence of the sinful nature of the scriptures’ very human authors. The scripture is inspired by God, yes, but I also believe it is tainted by the humans through whom the message was filtered. Sometimes they allowed the Spirit to flow through them without any interference, and sometimes their particular biases colored how they expressed the message God was sending. Our scriptures for today remind us that there is a divine mandate to welcome the foreigner, the stranger, the outsider, to break down the walls between “us” and “them” – and I happen to believe that that is the unadulterated divine message – one that is certainly not “of human origin,” because it goes against our very biology.
In our redeemed state, we are called to rise above the reptile brain, to acknowledge that “they” might actually have a lot in common with us, that “they” might not seek to do us harm, that we don’t need to defend ourselves against “them.” We are called to realize that our relationship with “them” can be one of collaboration rather than competition, and that “they” can even become “one of us” – as the Gentiles did when they joined the Jewish followers of Jesus to form what became the Christian church – a new “us” that was different than the “us” that had existed before.
But even when “we” stay distinct and separate from “them” – even when we don’t ultimately come to share the same religion – we can work to move our relationship with “them” from our natural state of fear and suspicion to one of trust and respect. Through my work in interfaith dialogue, I have learned to acknowledge the sacred and holy when I find it among “them” just as joyfully as when I find it among “us.” In dialogue with other religious communities, I often find myself remembering today’s Gospel reading and saying, “Not even in the church have I found such faith!”
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Seeing with "kingdom eyes"
Sermon delivered Sunday, Sept. 1, 2013 (15 Pentecost, Year C, Proper 17), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN (Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Luke 14:1, 7-14).
Both our readings from the New Testament today focus on the themes of hospitality and solidarity with both neighbors and strangers.
The author of the letter to the Hebrews encourages us to “let mutual love continue,” and reminds us “not to neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” We are also encouraged to “remember those who are in prison, as though [we] were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though [we ourselves] were being tortured.” In the Gospel passage from Luke, Jesus encourages us to choose humility over arrogance, and to invite and include the most vulnerable and marginalized members of society in our community gatherings.
We should give to others and extend hospitality not only when we can expect to receive it in return, but even when we know the recipients cannot reciprocate. For in doing so, we mirror God’s love to us – God gives to us freely, despite the inability of human beings to “repay” God for the gift of our life.
And we also offer a foretaste of that kingdom to come where all people will stand equal as children of God, where we will treat one another with love and respect not out of a desire to receive anything in return, not out of an attempt to lift ourselves up, but out of a recognition that we are all brothers and sisters in the family of God. With our worldly eyes, we see inequalities, separateness, and divisions, but with kingdom eyes, we will be able to see the oneness of humanity and the equal value of every human being.
Our faith gives us the opportunity to see with kingdom eyes now; we don’t have to wait for the kingdom to come. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray for God’s will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven.” As we strive to live out our faith and follow the teachings of Jesus, God will use us to bring a glimpse of that kingdom to the world here and now, on earth as it is in heaven.
Because our natural tendencies as human beings can be so contrary to kingdom values, in order to do this, we must be intentional about our behavior. We must choose to see with kingdom eyes. We must choose to offer hospitality to strangers and neighbors alike – to push against our natural inclinations to speak only to those people we already know, to invite only our friends to our parties, and instead, choose to see the stranger as a brother and a friend.
The letter to the Hebrews tells us that we should “remember those who are in prison, as though [we] were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though [we ourselves] were being tortured.” The kingdom reality is that all Christians are one body in Christ, and when one member suffers, the whole body suffers with it. The kingdom reality is that all people – Christians and non-Christians alike – are God’s children and thus part of the greater family of God. When one of us is hurting, we all hurt. But so often, we don’t even know that one of us is hurting, because we don’t know one another. We see each other with worldly eyes, as “other,” as “different,” as “stranger,” as a statistic rather than a human being, and our empathy fades. But if we take the time to get to know one another as fellow human beings, as brothers and sisters in the family of God, we begin to hurt when others hurt, to care when our brothers and sisters are in prison, or tortured, or murdered, or deported, or slandered. When we know one another, when we hear one another’s stories, we can begin to see with kingdom eyes – we can recognize one another as a brother or a sister.
Allow me to share an example of this with you from my own life. Shortly after 9/11, I heard that a Sikh man had been murdered at a gas station in Arizona. I had never heard of Sikhism, and when my religion professor explained that Sikh men wear turbans and beards as part of their religious faith and that this man had been mistaken for a “terrorist” because his shooter thought he looked like Osama bin Laden, I shook my head at what sounded like an awful situation, but it quickly faded to the back of my mind. Two years later, I happened to be at a conference where a young Sikh woman presented a collection of video footage of interviews with the relatives of this man, as well as interviews with other people who had experienced discrimination and hate crimes in the weeks and months after 9/11. As I listened to story after story of people who had been yelled at, beaten, shot, and killed simply because of the way they looked, I felt like the Apostle Paul when the scales fell from his eyes at his conversion experience (Acts 9:18). I had had no idea about what had been happening to the Sikh community, the Muslim community, the Hispanic community – really, anyone with brown skin – in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, because I didn’t know them. Our paths never crossed, and so I had never heard their stories. I had been seeing with worldly eyes rather than with kingdom eyes. I hadn’t known that my brothers and sisters were suffering.
After the screening, I introduced myself to the woman who had shown the footage, whose name was Valarie Kaur. Her goal was to take this footage, which she had collected for a project as a college student in the year after 9/11, and turn it into a feature-length documentary film. I offered to help in whatever way I could, and eventually became the film’s communications director through a second stage of production and its eventual national tour. It was my work with that film that made me so sensitive to the shootings that happened last August at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin, that motivated me to buy those sympathy cards for you all to sign and to take a group of you to visit the gurdwara here in Nashville.
In the middle of the film, which we titled “Divided We Fall,” there is a scene where a college-aged Valarie and her 18-year-old turbaned cousin Sonny, who was her cameraman for the project, discuss what the turban means to them as Sikhs. When it is Valarie’s turn, she says, “I see somebody with a turban, and I say, ‘There’s a sadar, he’s a Sikh man. He’s like my uncle, he’s like my brother, he’s like my grandfather. I know him. We come from the same place. He probably speaks Punjabi. He says the same prayers that I do.” She looks down, with a pensive look on her face. Her cousin pauses, then asks, “Why are we making this documentary?” Valarie looks away thoughtfully, smiles, then looks directly into the camera and says, “So other people don’t look at the turban and see fear, hatred, something laughable, something less than human… so that other people don’t look at the turban and see an enemy where I see a brother.”
I wonder if that isn’t why Jesus asked us to invite “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind,” to our luncheons and dinners – so that we wouldn’t look at them and see something laughable, something less than human – so that we wouldn’t look at them and see fear where Jesus sees a brother. So that, as we ate together, we could hear their stories, stories that would make us human to one another, stories that would allow us to see each other with kingdom eyes, as brothers and sisters in the family of God.
This is what we’re about as a church whenever we go to Church in the Yard and listen to the stories of people who are experiencing homelessness, or when we sit down at Spring Street to share a meal with our African-American neighbors, or when we visit the mosque or gurdwara and share tea with Muslims and Sikhs. We are intentionally connecting and building relationships with people we might not otherwise get to know. We are pushing back against the default mode of society that keeps us apart in separate circles of community that never touch one another. We are choosing to see one another with kingdom eyes, so that we will know when one of our brothers and sisters is suffering and remember them as if we were suffering ourselves.
Jesus says that if we show hospitality to those whom society separates from us, we will be blessed, and will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. But, as I’m sure anyone who has participated in any of the ministries I just mentioned could tell you, the blessings are also available here and now. Because as we extend hospitality to both neighbors and strangers, we discover that there are no strangers in the kingdom of God, and we are able to touch a glimpse of the kingdom, breaking in to our everyday lives, on earth as it is in heaven.
Both our readings from the New Testament today focus on the themes of hospitality and solidarity with both neighbors and strangers.
The author of the letter to the Hebrews encourages us to “let mutual love continue,” and reminds us “not to neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” We are also encouraged to “remember those who are in prison, as though [we] were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though [we ourselves] were being tortured.” In the Gospel passage from Luke, Jesus encourages us to choose humility over arrogance, and to invite and include the most vulnerable and marginalized members of society in our community gatherings.
We should give to others and extend hospitality not only when we can expect to receive it in return, but even when we know the recipients cannot reciprocate. For in doing so, we mirror God’s love to us – God gives to us freely, despite the inability of human beings to “repay” God for the gift of our life.
And we also offer a foretaste of that kingdom to come where all people will stand equal as children of God, where we will treat one another with love and respect not out of a desire to receive anything in return, not out of an attempt to lift ourselves up, but out of a recognition that we are all brothers and sisters in the family of God. With our worldly eyes, we see inequalities, separateness, and divisions, but with kingdom eyes, we will be able to see the oneness of humanity and the equal value of every human being.
Our faith gives us the opportunity to see with kingdom eyes now; we don’t have to wait for the kingdom to come. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray for God’s will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven.” As we strive to live out our faith and follow the teachings of Jesus, God will use us to bring a glimpse of that kingdom to the world here and now, on earth as it is in heaven.
Because our natural tendencies as human beings can be so contrary to kingdom values, in order to do this, we must be intentional about our behavior. We must choose to see with kingdom eyes. We must choose to offer hospitality to strangers and neighbors alike – to push against our natural inclinations to speak only to those people we already know, to invite only our friends to our parties, and instead, choose to see the stranger as a brother and a friend.
The letter to the Hebrews tells us that we should “remember those who are in prison, as though [we] were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though [we ourselves] were being tortured.” The kingdom reality is that all Christians are one body in Christ, and when one member suffers, the whole body suffers with it. The kingdom reality is that all people – Christians and non-Christians alike – are God’s children and thus part of the greater family of God. When one of us is hurting, we all hurt. But so often, we don’t even know that one of us is hurting, because we don’t know one another. We see each other with worldly eyes, as “other,” as “different,” as “stranger,” as a statistic rather than a human being, and our empathy fades. But if we take the time to get to know one another as fellow human beings, as brothers and sisters in the family of God, we begin to hurt when others hurt, to care when our brothers and sisters are in prison, or tortured, or murdered, or deported, or slandered. When we know one another, when we hear one another’s stories, we can begin to see with kingdom eyes – we can recognize one another as a brother or a sister.
Allow me to share an example of this with you from my own life. Shortly after 9/11, I heard that a Sikh man had been murdered at a gas station in Arizona. I had never heard of Sikhism, and when my religion professor explained that Sikh men wear turbans and beards as part of their religious faith and that this man had been mistaken for a “terrorist” because his shooter thought he looked like Osama bin Laden, I shook my head at what sounded like an awful situation, but it quickly faded to the back of my mind. Two years later, I happened to be at a conference where a young Sikh woman presented a collection of video footage of interviews with the relatives of this man, as well as interviews with other people who had experienced discrimination and hate crimes in the weeks and months after 9/11. As I listened to story after story of people who had been yelled at, beaten, shot, and killed simply because of the way they looked, I felt like the Apostle Paul when the scales fell from his eyes at his conversion experience (Acts 9:18). I had had no idea about what had been happening to the Sikh community, the Muslim community, the Hispanic community – really, anyone with brown skin – in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, because I didn’t know them. Our paths never crossed, and so I had never heard their stories. I had been seeing with worldly eyes rather than with kingdom eyes. I hadn’t known that my brothers and sisters were suffering.
After the screening, I introduced myself to the woman who had shown the footage, whose name was Valarie Kaur. Her goal was to take this footage, which she had collected for a project as a college student in the year after 9/11, and turn it into a feature-length documentary film. I offered to help in whatever way I could, and eventually became the film’s communications director through a second stage of production and its eventual national tour. It was my work with that film that made me so sensitive to the shootings that happened last August at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin, that motivated me to buy those sympathy cards for you all to sign and to take a group of you to visit the gurdwara here in Nashville.
In the middle of the film, which we titled “Divided We Fall,” there is a scene where a college-aged Valarie and her 18-year-old turbaned cousin Sonny, who was her cameraman for the project, discuss what the turban means to them as Sikhs. When it is Valarie’s turn, she says, “I see somebody with a turban, and I say, ‘There’s a sadar, he’s a Sikh man. He’s like my uncle, he’s like my brother, he’s like my grandfather. I know him. We come from the same place. He probably speaks Punjabi. He says the same prayers that I do.” She looks down, with a pensive look on her face. Her cousin pauses, then asks, “Why are we making this documentary?” Valarie looks away thoughtfully, smiles, then looks directly into the camera and says, “So other people don’t look at the turban and see fear, hatred, something laughable, something less than human… so that other people don’t look at the turban and see an enemy where I see a brother.”
I wonder if that isn’t why Jesus asked us to invite “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind,” to our luncheons and dinners – so that we wouldn’t look at them and see something laughable, something less than human – so that we wouldn’t look at them and see fear where Jesus sees a brother. So that, as we ate together, we could hear their stories, stories that would make us human to one another, stories that would allow us to see each other with kingdom eyes, as brothers and sisters in the family of God.
This is what we’re about as a church whenever we go to Church in the Yard and listen to the stories of people who are experiencing homelessness, or when we sit down at Spring Street to share a meal with our African-American neighbors, or when we visit the mosque or gurdwara and share tea with Muslims and Sikhs. We are intentionally connecting and building relationships with people we might not otherwise get to know. We are pushing back against the default mode of society that keeps us apart in separate circles of community that never touch one another. We are choosing to see one another with kingdom eyes, so that we will know when one of our brothers and sisters is suffering and remember them as if we were suffering ourselves.
Jesus says that if we show hospitality to those whom society separates from us, we will be blessed, and will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. But, as I’m sure anyone who has participated in any of the ministries I just mentioned could tell you, the blessings are also available here and now. Because as we extend hospitality to both neighbors and strangers, we discover that there are no strangers in the kingdom of God, and we are able to touch a glimpse of the kingdom, breaking in to our everyday lives, on earth as it is in heaven.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Adjusting to a new identity
Today, I wore my collar to school for the first time.
I hadn't worn it since my ordination day just over a month ago. The day after the ordination we boarded a plane for two weeks in Costa Rica, and then came back to GOEs and one more week off... and having had no official "deaconing" duties scheduled during that time, I had had no reason to wear it.
At the seminary, there is a tradition of "dressing up" on Wednesdays, which is our main community day. (When I was visiting as a prospective student, someone explained it to me by saying, "Wednesdays are our Sundays at the seminary" -- since many of the students are working in churches on Sundays as part of their field education experience, there isn't an opportunity for the community to gather on Sundays, so the principal worship service of the week is on Wednesdays instead of Sundays at the seminary.) Part of that tradition of dressing up includes those seniors who are ordained to the diaconate in December wearing their collars on Wednesdays for the spring semester, even if they're not scheduled to serve as deacon at the Eucharist that day.
Today was our first Wednesday of the new semester. All five of us who were ordained in December who were on campus (there were six of us total, but one of our deacons is currently on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land) wore our collars today. It was exciting to me to look around the chapel and see my classmates in their collars, looking very official and clerical. Every one of them looked natural and normal in the collar, not a bit out of place, even though this was the first time I'd seen some of them in a collar in real life (I'd seen pictures from the ordinations). My emotion upon seeing them in the collar was pure, unadulterated joy, but my emotions around walking around campus in a collar myself were more mixed.
When I wore the collar for my ordination day, it didn't feel strange at all. I was excited for that day and had tried on the collar several times that fall as I tried to find a clergy shirt that fit me properly in preparation for ordination day. I was excited to wear the collar and it felt natural, I thought, to wear it. But there was something unique about that day -- it was a special day, a special ceremony all about ordination and ordaining. The collar was highlighted that day, literally and symbolically. But today was just another day. A "business as usual" day. And suddenly I was walking around, in normal life, not just on a special day, with a strip of white plastic around my neck that symbolizes an ordained office in the church.
I changed my email signature to "The Rev. Tracy Wells Miller" the day I was ordained, as well as all references to myself on my blog and other areas where my name is listed, and I've had a month to get used to looking at that, and it hasn't felt entirely strange. But somehow it was easier to adjust to the title than to the change in dress. The title was abstract, words on a page. The collar is physical and visible, an outward sign that makes me stand out. And as much as I love attention, there was something unsettling about becoming a physically-marked religious symbol in the world.
As I walked around campus, some classmates and professors commented on the collar. "Lookin' good in that collar!" or "I like the collar on you. It's a nice look." or "Congratulations on your ordination." Others didn't say anything, but I watched their eyes make a brief dip down to my neck before they made eye contact and said hello. Others just interacted with me the same as they ever had, seemingly not noticing the collar at all. But I was aware of it. Every move I made felt different, felt public and scrutinized in some way. I began to think about Muslim women who wear headscarves and Sikh men who wear turbans as outward symbols of their religious faith, and who know what it is like to live as a physically-marked religious symbol in the world.
I thought of Amardeep Singh, Director of Programs for the Sikh Coalition, who appears in the documentary film about post-9/11 hate crimes that I worked with, Divided We Fall. In the film, in speaking about why wearing the turban is important to him, he says,
"Every day when I get up and tie my turban, I'm thinking, 'Be true to the articles. Be a good person.' Because I'm representing not just myself, but my entire community."
I also thought about my friend Susan Werner, an amazingly talented songwriter who calls herself an agnostic but spoke powerfully about faith in her 2007 album, "The Gospel Truth." After writing songs with a Gospel twist, she once told me in an interview for a church magazine,
"Since doing the Gospel project, I’ve had to hold my tongue a few times -- I had to live up to the better messages of the project -- and be a good 'Christian' because I knew I was going to sing these songs that night and I could not let myself be a jerk. Really."
I thought of Susan when I felt myself choosing my words more carefully as I felt the grip of the collar on my neck and thinking twice before I made careless comments or used curse words that have slipped into my vocabulary over the past several years, despite my "goody two shoes" upbringing and my time among evangelicals. I hadn't thought much of it, but now I thought twice. Is this really the image I want to project as a deacon, and as a future priest? Susan's words came back to me. I'm going to have to live up to the faith I profess with my words, the faith I will soon sing as well (in chanted Eucharists!), and be a good priest because I know I'm going to have that collar around my neck and I cannot let myself be a jerk. Really.
Unlike Amardeep, I'm fortunate enough to wear a religious symbol that will be largely respected in this culture, not make me a target for hate crimes. A classmate greeted me today with a respectful nod and a simple, "Reverend." He must have noticed my subtle internal recoil as I laughed, because he responded, "Get used to it!"
In much of the U.S., a collar brings with it respect and deference, sometimes excessively so. "Oh, here, Father, have the best seat in the house," or "let me pay for your lunch," or somehow you wind up with a warning instead of a speeding ticket. These kind of stories I've heard about "special treatment" for the clergy make me uncomfortable, but perhaps I'm naive to think the responses I get will be entirely positive. There are enough people who have been hurt badly by priests and there is enough controversy over women priests that I may need to expect the collar to bring me some animosity. A male clergy friend of mine once told me about a female priest friend of his who was shopping in a Christian bookstore with her collar on and had someone come up to her and say, "Take off that costume, Satan!" I certainly won't be mistaken for a Roman Catholic priest, as my male colleagues will be.
Maybe one day I will be so used to wearing the collar that I won't even notice it. Maybe it will become the "new normal," it will be business-as-usual, just part of my regular identity and I won't think twice about my words or my actions while I'm wearing it. But I hope not. I hope it always rests a bit uncomfortably on my Adam's Apple as I swallow, reminding me, "Be true to the faith. Be a good person. Because I'm representing not just myself, but my entire community."
I hadn't worn it since my ordination day just over a month ago. The day after the ordination we boarded a plane for two weeks in Costa Rica, and then came back to GOEs and one more week off... and having had no official "deaconing" duties scheduled during that time, I had had no reason to wear it.
At the seminary, there is a tradition of "dressing up" on Wednesdays, which is our main community day. (When I was visiting as a prospective student, someone explained it to me by saying, "Wednesdays are our Sundays at the seminary" -- since many of the students are working in churches on Sundays as part of their field education experience, there isn't an opportunity for the community to gather on Sundays, so the principal worship service of the week is on Wednesdays instead of Sundays at the seminary.) Part of that tradition of dressing up includes those seniors who are ordained to the diaconate in December wearing their collars on Wednesdays for the spring semester, even if they're not scheduled to serve as deacon at the Eucharist that day.
Today was our first Wednesday of the new semester. All five of us who were ordained in December who were on campus (there were six of us total, but one of our deacons is currently on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land) wore our collars today. It was exciting to me to look around the chapel and see my classmates in their collars, looking very official and clerical. Every one of them looked natural and normal in the collar, not a bit out of place, even though this was the first time I'd seen some of them in a collar in real life (I'd seen pictures from the ordinations). My emotion upon seeing them in the collar was pure, unadulterated joy, but my emotions around walking around campus in a collar myself were more mixed.
When I wore the collar for my ordination day, it didn't feel strange at all. I was excited for that day and had tried on the collar several times that fall as I tried to find a clergy shirt that fit me properly in preparation for ordination day. I was excited to wear the collar and it felt natural, I thought, to wear it. But there was something unique about that day -- it was a special day, a special ceremony all about ordination and ordaining. The collar was highlighted that day, literally and symbolically. But today was just another day. A "business as usual" day. And suddenly I was walking around, in normal life, not just on a special day, with a strip of white plastic around my neck that symbolizes an ordained office in the church.
I changed my email signature to "The Rev. Tracy Wells Miller" the day I was ordained, as well as all references to myself on my blog and other areas where my name is listed, and I've had a month to get used to looking at that, and it hasn't felt entirely strange. But somehow it was easier to adjust to the title than to the change in dress. The title was abstract, words on a page. The collar is physical and visible, an outward sign that makes me stand out. And as much as I love attention, there was something unsettling about becoming a physically-marked religious symbol in the world.
As I walked around campus, some classmates and professors commented on the collar. "Lookin' good in that collar!" or "I like the collar on you. It's a nice look." or "Congratulations on your ordination." Others didn't say anything, but I watched their eyes make a brief dip down to my neck before they made eye contact and said hello. Others just interacted with me the same as they ever had, seemingly not noticing the collar at all. But I was aware of it. Every move I made felt different, felt public and scrutinized in some way. I began to think about Muslim women who wear headscarves and Sikh men who wear turbans as outward symbols of their religious faith, and who know what it is like to live as a physically-marked religious symbol in the world.
I thought of Amardeep Singh, Director of Programs for the Sikh Coalition, who appears in the documentary film about post-9/11 hate crimes that I worked with, Divided We Fall. In the film, in speaking about why wearing the turban is important to him, he says,
"Every day when I get up and tie my turban, I'm thinking, 'Be true to the articles. Be a good person.' Because I'm representing not just myself, but my entire community."
I also thought about my friend Susan Werner, an amazingly talented songwriter who calls herself an agnostic but spoke powerfully about faith in her 2007 album, "The Gospel Truth." After writing songs with a Gospel twist, she once told me in an interview for a church magazine,
"Since doing the Gospel project, I’ve had to hold my tongue a few times -- I had to live up to the better messages of the project -- and be a good 'Christian' because I knew I was going to sing these songs that night and I could not let myself be a jerk. Really."
I thought of Susan when I felt myself choosing my words more carefully as I felt the grip of the collar on my neck and thinking twice before I made careless comments or used curse words that have slipped into my vocabulary over the past several years, despite my "goody two shoes" upbringing and my time among evangelicals. I hadn't thought much of it, but now I thought twice. Is this really the image I want to project as a deacon, and as a future priest? Susan's words came back to me. I'm going to have to live up to the faith I profess with my words, the faith I will soon sing as well (in chanted Eucharists!), and be a good priest because I know I'm going to have that collar around my neck and I cannot let myself be a jerk. Really.
Unlike Amardeep, I'm fortunate enough to wear a religious symbol that will be largely respected in this culture, not make me a target for hate crimes. A classmate greeted me today with a respectful nod and a simple, "Reverend." He must have noticed my subtle internal recoil as I laughed, because he responded, "Get used to it!"
In much of the U.S., a collar brings with it respect and deference, sometimes excessively so. "Oh, here, Father, have the best seat in the house," or "let me pay for your lunch," or somehow you wind up with a warning instead of a speeding ticket. These kind of stories I've heard about "special treatment" for the clergy make me uncomfortable, but perhaps I'm naive to think the responses I get will be entirely positive. There are enough people who have been hurt badly by priests and there is enough controversy over women priests that I may need to expect the collar to bring me some animosity. A male clergy friend of mine once told me about a female priest friend of his who was shopping in a Christian bookstore with her collar on and had someone come up to her and say, "Take off that costume, Satan!" I certainly won't be mistaken for a Roman Catholic priest, as my male colleagues will be.
Maybe one day I will be so used to wearing the collar that I won't even notice it. Maybe it will become the "new normal," it will be business-as-usual, just part of my regular identity and I won't think twice about my words or my actions while I'm wearing it. But I hope not. I hope it always rests a bit uncomfortably on my Adam's Apple as I swallow, reminding me, "Be true to the faith. Be a good person. Because I'm representing not just myself, but my entire community."
Friday, April 6, 2007
Sermon - Good Friday 2007
Good Friday is the most somber and dark day of the church year. Tonight we gather to remember the cruel and gruesome death that Jesus suffered on the cross.
The cross has become such a ubiquitous and over-used symbol that we Christians often become desensitized to the brutality and terror it represented to people in the first-century Roman Empire. For many of us, a cross is something comforting, even beautiful, something we cast in gold or silver and wear around our necks as a fashion accessory. It denotes our Christian identity to others, and perhaps reminds us of Christ's love and sacrifice for us. In the cross, we see a message of love and forgiveness, informed by Christian theology about the meaning of the cross. But to others, it may carry a different message.
Many of you remember Valarie Kaur, the creator/writer/producer of Divided We Fall, the documentary I'm working with that many of you saw at the Omaha Film Festival back in February. Valarie spoke at our first Wednesday night Lenten series and at the 10:30 service the following Sunday. She shared with us a bit of her experience growing up as a Sikh girl in California in a town full of many Christians, Christians who tried very hard to convert her to Christianity. She spoke of family friends performing exorcisms on her, telling her that every time she was confused or distraught over her religious identity, it was the devil speaking to her. By the end of her childhood, the image of the cross struck fear in Valarie's heart. To her, the cross meant judgment, hate, condemnation.
In early versions of Divided We Fall, Valarie included some of this discussion about her views of the cross in the narration of the film. I remember vividly a conversation we had one day last fall, sitting outside a café in Cambridge, when I told her how incredibly sad and painful it was to me to think that the cross, a symbol that meant so much to me spiritually, had been for her an object of fear and judgment. I was in tears as I spoke to her of what the cross meant to me, a symbol of God's love for us, of God's willingness to die for us. She assured me that she had made her peace with Christianity by now, that through other Christian friends she had made in her college years, she no longer saw the cross only as a symbol to be feared. We left it at that.
Several months later, I was sitting in the pews at St. James Episcopal Church for the Good Friday services, and as the enormous stark wooden cross was brought forward, I suddenly had a moment of revelation. The cross was for Jesus the same thing that it had been to Valarie in her childhood -- an object of judgment, of hate, of condemnation -- an object that struck fear in his heart and the hearts of all who were dear to him. After all, the cross was an object of execution! The modern equivalent would be if we all went around wearing miniature electric chairs around our necks! I think we lose sight of that in all the sentimentalizing we do to the cross. Ironically, my Christian faith and experience had actually blinded me from fully understanding the gravity, the horror and fear, of what Jesus experienced that dark Friday in Jerusalem. On some level, those who have experienced the cross as condemning or hateful are actually closer to understanding Jesus's own experience of the cross than are we Christians who see the cross as comforting or beautiful. It was only through my relationship with a Sikh woman and through seeing my faith through HER experiences that I was able to reach a new level of depth in my own Christian spirituality.
On that Good Friday at St. James, as I knelt at the foot of the life-sized wooden cross, as I pressed my hand against the bare, rough wood, I thought about not only the rejection, hatred, and violence that Jesus experienced that day, but the rejection, hatred, and violence that Valarie and so many others have experienced and are still experiencing today. In a single moment, I felt the weight of both the historical event of Jesus's crucifixion and the ways in which we continue to crucify Christ today, whenever we preach a gospel of condemnation, of hate, and of judgment, rather than a gospel of reconciliation, forgiveness, and redemption. My dear Sikh friend, perhaps unknowingly, had given me one of the most profound Christian spiritual insights I had ever experienced.
It was something along these lines that I was hoping for when I planned the Wednesday night Lenten series this year. By asking people of other faiths to reflect on the traditional Christian stations of the cross, I was hoping that all of you, too, might gain new insight into your own faith through seeing it through the eyes of others. That through others' experiences, you might come to feel a deeper sense of connection with God and with others, that you might come to feel a profoundly sacred human solidarity with others in the experience of suffering.
The interfaith stations project was deeply moving for some of our contributors as well. Valarie herself reflected on the experience, "I discovered that the themes of suffering, sacrifice, and service defined not only the Christian story but the human story - and the way I understand my own life experience. Here I remember the central tenet of the Sikh faith - beneath all husks and labels, humanity is one. Even across the sheer range of human experience, we are bound together by a shared humanity."
What allowed us to connect with the contributors who wrote meditations for the stations out of their non-Christian faith experiences was our shared humanity. As we read their reflections on the universal human themes of the crucifixion -- deep-seated patterns of suffering, cruelty, injustice, and death -- we were able to connect to them on a human level, even when our theologies or beliefs may not agree.
But the connections, at least for me, were not merely human or secular, but profoundly spiritual. The mystery of the incarnation that we proclaim as Christians is that it is precisely in the human that we find the divine. Thus, connecting with someone on a human level IS connecting with them on a spiritual level! I have a quote by Hadewijch of Antwerp, a 13th century Dutch poet and Christian mystic, tacked on the wall in my bedroom that says, "We must love the humanity in order to reach the divinity." This, to me, is one of the central messages of Christianity. In Jesus, the human and the divine are no longer separate. Humanity is fused with the very nature of divinity.
Jesus was indeed human, a particular historical figure who lived at a particular time in history, and his death was an historical event that happened under the Roman Empire around the year 33 AD. But for Christians, Jesus is also the cosmic Christ, the eternally begotten son, one aspect of our Trinitarian God, a God whose very nature is to be found in and with the human. Christ did not just live and die in the first-century AD; he lives and dies continually in our world today. As Christians, we are called by our baptismal vows to "seek and serve Christ in all persons." Every time we fail to see Christ in another person, we crucify Jesus again. Every time our eyes are opened to the Christ in those around us, we feel the power of Jesus's resurrection again.
In our interfaith stations, we confronted hate crimes, poverty, religious persecution, loneliness, abuse of power, suffering and the forces of destruction. Valarie wrote in her depiction of the first station that those who killed Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh man in Arizona murdered 4 days after 9/11, were afraid of him because they did not understand him, because "they could not see the divine in him." Every time we cannot see the divine in someone, every time we are complicit in the suffering of others, even by our inaction -- by those "things we have left undone" -- we crucify Jesus. Our hardness of heart continues to nail Jesus to the cross. "Crucify him!" we all yell together with the crowds of the Passion narrative on Palm Sunday and again during our liturgy tonight.
On Good Friday, we must own our complicity in the violence and suffering of the world. But we do so confident in the mercy and forgiveness of God, for despite the horrors of the cross, despite the human capacities for cruelty, inhumanity, and violence, the message of the cross is ultimately a message of forgiveness. Even as he hangs gasping for breath on a cross, Jesus prays for his executioners -- "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." I can only imagine that Jesus continues to pray this same prayer on our behalf, as we muddle through the world often unaware of how our own actions implicate us in the literal and metaphorical executions of our time, both as a society and as individuals.
The cruelties of this world are difficult to face head-on; it is human nature to close our eyes to situations that seem beyond our control to change, to refuse to see what seems beyond hope. But through his suffering on the cross, Jesus brought the divine into the most gruesome and unbearable aspects of the human experience. Through his Passion, we know that even in the darkest of pain and suffering, even in rejection, betrayal, and violent death, there is the possibility of redemption. And through his resurrection, we know that for the Christian, nothing is beyond hope.
Gracious Lord, may we live our lives in the full knowledge of the forgiveness, hope and redemption of the cross, in the name of the One who forgives even his executioners and reaches through his wounds to transform suffering, Amen.
The cross has become such a ubiquitous and over-used symbol that we Christians often become desensitized to the brutality and terror it represented to people in the first-century Roman Empire. For many of us, a cross is something comforting, even beautiful, something we cast in gold or silver and wear around our necks as a fashion accessory. It denotes our Christian identity to others, and perhaps reminds us of Christ's love and sacrifice for us. In the cross, we see a message of love and forgiveness, informed by Christian theology about the meaning of the cross. But to others, it may carry a different message.
Many of you remember Valarie Kaur, the creator/writer/producer of Divided We Fall, the documentary I'm working with that many of you saw at the Omaha Film Festival back in February. Valarie spoke at our first Wednesday night Lenten series and at the 10:30 service the following Sunday. She shared with us a bit of her experience growing up as a Sikh girl in California in a town full of many Christians, Christians who tried very hard to convert her to Christianity. She spoke of family friends performing exorcisms on her, telling her that every time she was confused or distraught over her religious identity, it was the devil speaking to her. By the end of her childhood, the image of the cross struck fear in Valarie's heart. To her, the cross meant judgment, hate, condemnation.
In early versions of Divided We Fall, Valarie included some of this discussion about her views of the cross in the narration of the film. I remember vividly a conversation we had one day last fall, sitting outside a café in Cambridge, when I told her how incredibly sad and painful it was to me to think that the cross, a symbol that meant so much to me spiritually, had been for her an object of fear and judgment. I was in tears as I spoke to her of what the cross meant to me, a symbol of God's love for us, of God's willingness to die for us. She assured me that she had made her peace with Christianity by now, that through other Christian friends she had made in her college years, she no longer saw the cross only as a symbol to be feared. We left it at that.
Several months later, I was sitting in the pews at St. James Episcopal Church for the Good Friday services, and as the enormous stark wooden cross was brought forward, I suddenly had a moment of revelation. The cross was for Jesus the same thing that it had been to Valarie in her childhood -- an object of judgment, of hate, of condemnation -- an object that struck fear in his heart and the hearts of all who were dear to him. After all, the cross was an object of execution! The modern equivalent would be if we all went around wearing miniature electric chairs around our necks! I think we lose sight of that in all the sentimentalizing we do to the cross. Ironically, my Christian faith and experience had actually blinded me from fully understanding the gravity, the horror and fear, of what Jesus experienced that dark Friday in Jerusalem. On some level, those who have experienced the cross as condemning or hateful are actually closer to understanding Jesus's own experience of the cross than are we Christians who see the cross as comforting or beautiful. It was only through my relationship with a Sikh woman and through seeing my faith through HER experiences that I was able to reach a new level of depth in my own Christian spirituality.
On that Good Friday at St. James, as I knelt at the foot of the life-sized wooden cross, as I pressed my hand against the bare, rough wood, I thought about not only the rejection, hatred, and violence that Jesus experienced that day, but the rejection, hatred, and violence that Valarie and so many others have experienced and are still experiencing today. In a single moment, I felt the weight of both the historical event of Jesus's crucifixion and the ways in which we continue to crucify Christ today, whenever we preach a gospel of condemnation, of hate, and of judgment, rather than a gospel of reconciliation, forgiveness, and redemption. My dear Sikh friend, perhaps unknowingly, had given me one of the most profound Christian spiritual insights I had ever experienced.
It was something along these lines that I was hoping for when I planned the Wednesday night Lenten series this year. By asking people of other faiths to reflect on the traditional Christian stations of the cross, I was hoping that all of you, too, might gain new insight into your own faith through seeing it through the eyes of others. That through others' experiences, you might come to feel a deeper sense of connection with God and with others, that you might come to feel a profoundly sacred human solidarity with others in the experience of suffering.
The interfaith stations project was deeply moving for some of our contributors as well. Valarie herself reflected on the experience, "I discovered that the themes of suffering, sacrifice, and service defined not only the Christian story but the human story - and the way I understand my own life experience. Here I remember the central tenet of the Sikh faith - beneath all husks and labels, humanity is one. Even across the sheer range of human experience, we are bound together by a shared humanity."
What allowed us to connect with the contributors who wrote meditations for the stations out of their non-Christian faith experiences was our shared humanity. As we read their reflections on the universal human themes of the crucifixion -- deep-seated patterns of suffering, cruelty, injustice, and death -- we were able to connect to them on a human level, even when our theologies or beliefs may not agree.
But the connections, at least for me, were not merely human or secular, but profoundly spiritual. The mystery of the incarnation that we proclaim as Christians is that it is precisely in the human that we find the divine. Thus, connecting with someone on a human level IS connecting with them on a spiritual level! I have a quote by Hadewijch of Antwerp, a 13th century Dutch poet and Christian mystic, tacked on the wall in my bedroom that says, "We must love the humanity in order to reach the divinity." This, to me, is one of the central messages of Christianity. In Jesus, the human and the divine are no longer separate. Humanity is fused with the very nature of divinity.
Jesus was indeed human, a particular historical figure who lived at a particular time in history, and his death was an historical event that happened under the Roman Empire around the year 33 AD. But for Christians, Jesus is also the cosmic Christ, the eternally begotten son, one aspect of our Trinitarian God, a God whose very nature is to be found in and with the human. Christ did not just live and die in the first-century AD; he lives and dies continually in our world today. As Christians, we are called by our baptismal vows to "seek and serve Christ in all persons." Every time we fail to see Christ in another person, we crucify Jesus again. Every time our eyes are opened to the Christ in those around us, we feel the power of Jesus's resurrection again.
In our interfaith stations, we confronted hate crimes, poverty, religious persecution, loneliness, abuse of power, suffering and the forces of destruction. Valarie wrote in her depiction of the first station that those who killed Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh man in Arizona murdered 4 days after 9/11, were afraid of him because they did not understand him, because "they could not see the divine in him." Every time we cannot see the divine in someone, every time we are complicit in the suffering of others, even by our inaction -- by those "things we have left undone" -- we crucify Jesus. Our hardness of heart continues to nail Jesus to the cross. "Crucify him!" we all yell together with the crowds of the Passion narrative on Palm Sunday and again during our liturgy tonight.
On Good Friday, we must own our complicity in the violence and suffering of the world. But we do so confident in the mercy and forgiveness of God, for despite the horrors of the cross, despite the human capacities for cruelty, inhumanity, and violence, the message of the cross is ultimately a message of forgiveness. Even as he hangs gasping for breath on a cross, Jesus prays for his executioners -- "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." I can only imagine that Jesus continues to pray this same prayer on our behalf, as we muddle through the world often unaware of how our own actions implicate us in the literal and metaphorical executions of our time, both as a society and as individuals.
The cruelties of this world are difficult to face head-on; it is human nature to close our eyes to situations that seem beyond our control to change, to refuse to see what seems beyond hope. But through his suffering on the cross, Jesus brought the divine into the most gruesome and unbearable aspects of the human experience. Through his Passion, we know that even in the darkest of pain and suffering, even in rejection, betrayal, and violent death, there is the possibility of redemption. And through his resurrection, we know that for the Christian, nothing is beyond hope.
Gracious Lord, may we live our lives in the full knowledge of the forgiveness, hope and redemption of the cross, in the name of the One who forgives even his executioners and reaches through his wounds to transform suffering, Amen.
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