Today I read an interesting article by a progressive spiritual writer named Diana Butler Bass. I subscribe to her weekly newsletter. She articulates much of what I have sensed, but never fully perceived until she clarified it -
Thus, on the night of the resurrection, Jesus showed up there. With his friends. At the scene of the Last Supper. On Easter, Jesus goes from the tomb back to the table.
If you are writing a play about this, the scenes would be table, trial (with its various locations), cross, tomb (burial), tomb (resurrection), and table. The table is the first setting, and it is the final setting of the story. Indeed, when the disciples want to meet Jesus again the next week, they return again to the upper room to meet him at the table.
They never return to the cross. Jesus never takes them back to the site of the execution. He never gathers his followers at Calvary, never points to the blood-stained hill, and never instructs them to meets him there. He never valorizes the events of Friday. He never mentions them. Yes, wounds remain, but how he got them isn’t mentioned. Instead, almost all the post-resurrection appearances — which are joyful and celebratory and conversational — take place at the upper room table or at other tables and meals.
Table - trial - cross - tomb/tomb - table.
What if the table is the point?
Years ago I came to believe that Jesus didn't die to save us from eternal damnation, to atone for our sins. With study, I learned that not everyone subscribed to the various versions of atonement theology. Unfortunately the Catholic church chose that theology as opposed to some of the alternatives. But, learning about the other views, other theological explanations, was a relief! A lot of very fine theologians had rejected atonement theology. I found myself in respectable company! I came to believe that Jesus came to teach us how to live. And that living as God would have us live could mean a lot of sacrifice. Even death.
Years after not seeing one another, I discovered that one of my college friends, whom I had lost touch with, had not only become a "bad" Catholic like me, she, like me, had finally left the Catholic church. She was one of 7 children in a devout Catholic family. Catholic schools for 14 years, through her Master's degree. After leaving, she continued her spiritual and theological search, eventually was ordained, and became pastor of a United Church of Christ. After reconnecting 40 years after our college graduation, we learned a lot more about one another. One comment she made to me has stuck with me - as pastor, she refused to have a crucifix in her church. Most Protestants don't - they have an empty cross to emphasize the resurrection. She, like me, had been slowly repelled by the Catholic church's focus on sin, hell, and especially on its fixation on Jesus' horrible suffering. (She, like me, refused to see The Passion of the Christ.) We can be aware of it, the suffering, but dwelling on the horror does not seem to be what Jesus would have wanted. He wanted us to learn how to live in a Godly way.
I had always hated Good Friday, the stations of the Cross. About 25 years ago I realized that I could choose to not go. Nobody around to "make" me go. I was an adult, but since I had always been a rules-following, compliant, docile,"good" Catholic I did what was expected for years after I didn't "have' to. I can be a slow learner at times. During Holy Week I began experimenting with different ways to commemorate that part of Jesus' journey. Although I still don't like the foot-washing ceremonies on Holy Thursday (including at the Episcopal parish) at least participation was voluntary and I never chose to participate. In spite of the foot-washing, maybe, just maybe, Ms Butler Bass had hit the nail on the head - and she is right that the focus should be on Maundy Thursday.
Duns Scotus was one of the theologians I found who helped me begin to think in new ways so that I didn’t reject Christian theology completely. Here is a short essay by Richard Rohr, OFM on Duns Scotus and Franciscan spiritual thinking.
ReplyDeletehttps://cac.org/incarnation-instead-of-atonement-2016-02-12/
Anne, I have never believed the substitution atonement theory. There are many ways of looking at the mystery of the cross, I am somewhat familiar with Scotus' theology of it. I liked your linked article, this line seems to say it all: "It is and has always been about love from the very beginning."
DeleteAbout The "Passion of the Christ ", I have never watched it in its entirety, either. The parts I have seen seemed more like violence porn. Not a Mel Gibson fan, anyway.
I do go to Stations of the Cross sometimes, mainly when I am on to play the accompaniment. We do Stations and Benediction together. I love the Benediction hymns but "At the Cross Her Station Keeping" is a penance. At least it's easy to play, two lines 14 times. There are many versions of the stations. We do a Scripture based one, mostly taken from the Psalms and the suffering servant part of Isaiah.
Good Friday is mainly a quiet day for me. Our priest suggested turning off our devices and just detaching from media that day, which seems like a good idea. We do have a service at 7:00 pm, and the choir is singing some acapella music.
I think the cross and passion can also be understood in view of Jesus' solidarity with human suffering. The wounds of war, hunger, and disease are also the wounds of Christ. He was a human like us in all things but sin. When we are suffering we can unite ourselves to Christ. I think of the agony in the garden as a union with all who suffer mental and spiritual anguish.
The Orthodox do not emphasize the passion as much as the West does (both Catholic and Protestant).
ReplyDeleteFirst they do not accept Augustine’s theory of original sin. Yes, humanity lost its original glory with the sin of Adam, and the world is full of personal sin. But they do not teach that we each have original sin at birth.
Second, the Incarnation is as important as the Cross, Resurrection, and Pentecost. God becoming man altered not only all humanity but also all creation. It is not simply part of a plan B to undo the damage to mankind caused by sin. Rather it is a step toward the divinization of mankind. The Orthodox are not content with notions of redemption (having our sins forgiven) or even of salvation (having our original humanity made whole) but rather that, with the incarnation of the Son and the giving of the Holy Spirit, we have been welcomed into the very life of the Trinity.
Western theology and liturgy tend to analyze and separate things whereas Orthodox theology and liturgy integrates salvation history. In our Western liturgy it is like we pretend Christ has not become Incarnate during Advent, and that during Lent Christ has not yet died and risen from the dead, and that we have not already been given the Spirit. Rather the Pascha (the Passover of Christ and us) into the Risen life in the Spirit is the only reason for undertaking fasting, prayer and almsgiving. We are not engaging in a self- improvement project but rather we are dressing up in our Sunday best to celebrate the Heavenly banquet.
The Orthodox Divine Liturgy begins with the salutation “Blessed is the Kingdom of God, of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” It is primarily an eschatological banquet. Orthodox always use a golden, jeweled Cross of the Resurrection, never the crucifix. While there are portrayals of the crucifixion in icons, that is only one of the many heavenly mysteries celebrated in them.
I agree with you about the importance of the Incarnation, that it wasn't ever Plan B. And that all of it is of a piece, and needs to be taken together.
DeleteYes, the Resurrection as the main plan is the crux of the biscuit for me. Without it, Jesus is just another good man slaughtered by evil, and evil gets the final say. The Cross gives us the humiliation, injustice, pain, confusion, doubt, and fear we all live with every day. The Resurrection gives us the assurance that God can make us whole again.
DeleteSadly, the promise of the Resurrection seems too good to be true for some people. Their fuming over the sins of others gets imputed to God, and they feel justified inventing hundreds of little rules and regulations that would bar most people from the glory to which they believe they themselves are entitled.
Every rule that turns people away from the love of God or conveys the notion that God's love is conditional is itself a sin.
Happy Easter, everyone.
ReplyDeleteBlessed Easter to you, too, Stanley.
DeleteWishing Easter joy to all my NewGathering friends.
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter to you all!
ReplyDeletePeace and joy to all!
ReplyDeleteHello everyone, and happy and blessed Easter to all. I'm just catching up to this.
ReplyDeleteThat Diana Butler Bass article is pretty good - a lot of good thoughts in it. I didn't click around enough to see what faith tradition she's from, but I assume she is a mainline Protestant of some sort (as I see she's invited to preach, so guessing she is clergy). Perhaps Good Friday traditionally is the "main event" for them, but I've never perceived the Catholic tradition that way. For us, it's Easter. This is scientifically demonstrable: in our Catholic way, we actually have a table of liturgical precedence which lists which holy days rank higher than which others, and Easter is right there at the top.
But the Resurrection can't be fully appreciated without Good Friday.
To be sure, chronologically I'm a post-Vatican II Catholic, so this may be a case of my not picking up some of the "baggage" that pre-Vatican II Catholics apparently did.
In my nearly 18 years as a Catholic deacon, I don't think I've given a single homily, ever, that dwells on sin and damnation. If we detach those things from grace, reconciliation and resurrection, we're not preaching the fullness of Catholic belief. Or so it seems to me. I think the church commissioned me to preach Good News, so I try not to dwell overmuch on the bad news.
Bass (Butler Bass? I'm sorry, I'm not sure how she refers to herself) makes a good point about seeing the *liturgical* progression as a sort of a progression of scenes. I guess the powers-that-be who arranged the lectionary are agreeing with her, because, on the Sunday immediately following Easter every year. (And like her, I seem to get invited to preach on that reading every single year. I have to preach on it next Sunday, too.)
All that said: I think she's a *little* too pat in asserting - or at proposing - that we've got the emphasis wrong. In Luke's telling of the Gospel, after the women report the resurrection to Jesus's followers, the "scene" shifts to the great story of the Road to Emmaus. In that story, Jesus engages in, yes, table fellowship. But before that, he admonishes his two disciples:
"And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”"
Thus, according to this evangelist, the resurrected Jesus himself introduces the theme of the necessity of his suffering.
Much more could be said about this: the New Testament isn't only the Gospels, and there are other passages (including in Acts - this surely was a Lukan theme) that talk about the Good News of the forgiveness of sins. These passages suggest that the very early church (consisting of some members who had personally known and followed Jesus) were reflecting on the meaning of his Crucifixion.
And this isn't even getting into the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist as the memorial (the anamnesis, the not-forgetting) of Jesus's sacrifice.
I'll make a pastoral comment. I can easily believes that there are Catholics (and other Christians) so drenched in the spirituality of Good Friday that it becomes out of proportion - it gets out of whack. But in my view, the temptation to simply hurry past the cross and get to the resurrection is the greater spiritual problem of our day. (As apparently it was even in the earliest church as well, as the Gospels include Jesus's admonition that we must take up our cross and follow him.) And it's not just a little more of a problem - it's magnitudes more. It manifests itself two ways: those who think sin isn't really a thing and spend little or no time examining themselves. In my view, lots of us fall into that category. And then there are those who find unhealthy, dysfunctional ways of attacking others for their sins. Cf. "cancel culture".
The sinfulness of humanity is self-evident.
ReplyDeleteHannah Arendt’s article and book on the Eichmann “A Report on the Banality of Evil." describes him as a technocrat without convictions who stylized himself as a mere tool of his superiors. The banality of evil is characterized by organized thoughtlessness and irresponsibility.
I was reminded of “the banality of evil” yesterday when on my news feed appeared a WaPo article on “The nuclear missile next door” which describers a rancher's life with a minuteman missile silo on a piece of his property bought by the government. For decades now we have lived with the Mutually Assured Destruction thoughtlessness and irresponsibility. Surely this is not what we were created for.
Beyond the nuclear holocaust, we have what Pope Francis has called World War III in progress. The Ukraine is but the latest chapter of war after war going on around the world, fed by a huge arms industry. Again, a lot of organized thoughtlessness and irresponsibility.
Then there is the huge maldistribution of wealth in the world. And all the environment costs of “progress” and the threat to humanity and the planet. All of it accompanied by massive amounts of organized thoughtlessness and responsibility.
Humanity as a whole and our participation in it through organized thoughtless and responsibility needs Divine Forgiveness. We, as a church and as a nation are very sinful, and greatly in need of conversion and salvation.
However, when people think about personal sin they rarely think about the everyday banality of evil. We usually think about adultery, theft, lying, etc. Most of the time we can safely assign those to other people. But we also recognize that we make mistakes: a poorly chosen word to a spouse or colleague, ignoring the needs of others right in front of us, gossip, and slander. Those things obviously need to be changed but that usually does not require that wholesale change of lifestyle implied by recognizing the thoughtlessness and irresponsibility of MAD, the arms race, maldistribution of wealth, and environment catastrophe.
Simply criticizing others and engaging in cosmetic self- improvement projects fails to recognize the extensive problem of human evil. Such “sinful witch hunts” are likely to be distractions rather than helps. Such religion is part of what Marx called the opium of the people.