Candles in the Dark--Charting a Way in A Tough Time

Cleaning off my desk—I came across some wonderful articles that I wanted to share. I have a file in my mind called: “Wish I’d Said That.” The following writings are superb and looking back they all deal with inclusion, in community, in trying to discover the all-ness that this country has always dreamed about. Let’s face it—we have not lived up to it by a long shot—for the fiftieth anniversary of Martin King’s “Letters to Birmingham Jail” reminded us how very far we were (and are) from the American dream. We all know that we are living today in a fractured society. We cannot continue this way. To segment any group—even if they are Muslim—and isolate them and say they are not welcome is certainly at counter purpose with what it means to be a United America. The Boston attack has left us all heartsick. But we must not make the terrible mistake as we care for the wounded and bury our dying to take actions that would make us more like the terrorists than the free people we are supposed to be.

The New York Times reported this morning just underneath the sad picture of the chaos and maiming in Boston should give us pause to think. The headline reads: "U.S. Practiced Torture After 9/11 Nonpartisan Review Concludes.” A nonpartisan independent review of interrogation and detention practices after September 11, 2001 concludes, “It is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture.” And that the nation’s highest officials bore ultimate responsibility for it. It is a 577-page report and hammers the point that brutality is not to be the American way. Surely we need to ponder this report as we search for terrorists once again.

The three articles I recommend all deal with community and the challenge of inclusion. Wendell Berry has written a splendid article “Caught in the Middle,” about his troubled feelings about abortion and homosexuality. He takes on the right and the left and says that we must come to some agreement on these issues and live together. He talks about the difficulties raised by both abortion and homosexuality and in a fair manner calls for us to move beyond the politics of mutual estrangement.

Mark Schloneger is Pastor of a Mennonite Church in Goshen, Indiana. He writes an article entitled, “Altar Politics.” On the eve of the national election for President he planned what he called an Election Day Communion service. He had the strange idea that the table of the Lord ought to bring us together despite however we vote or do not vote. This Pastor has caught a vision of the way Church is to be. A safe place for everyone. The Church everywhere needs to consider the wideness of God’s mercy for all God’s people.

The last article found in the secular Harper’s Magazine deals with the thorny problem of immigration. Ted Genoways has written a piece asking how do we decide who belongs in America. It is a question we have struggled with from the beginning of our nation. In telling terms,  Mr. Genoways points to where we are today.

I wish I had written each of these articles. In a dark time—we still have those that hold up the candles in the dark. 

It's Hope Time for us All

"Here's what I've decided: the very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is to simple I almost can't say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That's about it. Right now I'm living in that hope, running down its hallways and touching the walls on both sides. I can't tell you how good it feels."
  --Barbara Kingsolver,  Animal Dreams

We had a crisis in the church. A real crisis. We couldn't keep a Sunday school teacher in the third-grade classroom. We had resignation after resignation. "I"m sorry I can't do this anymore," the teachers would moan. They'd turn in their Sunday school books, shake their heads and just walk away. The next year we had trouble in the fourth grade and the next year the fifth. It was sort of like a virus that moved from grade to grade. Every teacher would say the same thing. "It's Henry. I can't do anything with him. He won't sit down and when he finally does, at his convenience, he's always pinching somebody or disrupting the whole class." One teacher said: "Why one Sunday he set the trash can on fire." Another teacher said: "I was a little late one Sunday morning and when I got there, there wasn't a single child in the room. Henry had forced them to climb out that second-story window and just sit on the roof. Why, they could have fell off and been killed." He went through teachers the way those South American fish could strip the bones clean in three minutes. Everybody shook their heads. "Why," they said, "He's either going to be a serial killer or in prison before he's sixteen."

When we left there Henry was in High School. Older, wiser, smarter--he was still chewing up teachers and spitting them out. And the poor Nominating Committee was still meeting, wringing their hands and saying: "What are we going to do?"

Now let’s turn to our Scripture for today. John wrote three letters at the end of the First century. We think these 3 letters were first a general letter, not written to a specific congregation as much as a word to all the little fragile churches in that part of the known world. John, hoped in writing to help them in a hard, hard time.

Scholars tell us that by the end of that first century the honeymoon was definitely over. Rome, the Judaizers, and just plain pagans made it increasingly difficult to be a Christian. Most of the eyewitnesses had died or been martyred. Apostasy--falling away--was in every church. They would begin with these stars in their eyes--but hard times came and you wouldn't see them as often on Sundays. And then one day, they stopped coming altogether.

Some believed that Jesus would come back in their lifetime. And when that did not happen many of them fell into a deep depression. And so, in a time when much of the church was in despair, John wrote these three letters. Mostly they were a challenge to deepen the spirituality of those fragile believers. They are as practical words as we will find anywhere in the Bible.

   In reading John’s words I have discovered something in the third verse of the third chapter that I have seen before. This is what he said:” We have this hope” and this becomes the central theme of what he was trying to say to his troubled friends.

Listen to what he said in I John 3.2-3: "Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him purifies themselves as he is pure.”

What does it mean to give each other this hope? What does it mean for any of us to uncover this hope and put it down before the things of our lives? Three things shine out for me in these verses.

John says, first that we are God's children now. In that first verse he had already said: We have been called children of God. But here, in the very next verse he followed it up with: we are God's children now.

Linguists tell us that the Greek here is in the indicative case. What does that mean? Hope is found in what is. We are God's children right now. Moody Smith, a very fine New Testament scholar has said that Christianity has always suffered from an inadequate sense of the indicative. This is what God has done in the here and the now. This indicative tells us that right now, with whatever it is we carry around with us, good or bad, weak or strong: we are God's children right now. Or as we day in the deep South: “Right chere.” Not future. Not you will be some day. No. This is present tense. Indicative. You are God's children now. On April 14, 2013 on Augusta Road..

Most folk I know forget that when God called us his children right where we are--that he was, as the text says, lavishing his love on us. Wendell Berry once said that one of the characteristic diseases of the twenty-first century is the suspicion that they would be greatly improved if they were someplace else. It isn’t only a 21^st century problem—John knew in that first century it was hard to believe that God works right where we are.

In the present tense of their lives they were touched by a love that changed them forever. When they realized whom they belonged to they lifted their heads up high and began to walk tall and straight. That story could be repeated a hundred times in the Bible. Start anywhere: Zaccheus, the lame man on a pallet, the woman taken in adultery, Saul murderer of Christians, or even the little children who would weave their way through the crowds and look up and tug at his robe to get his attention. "Jesus," they would say, "Jesus look down here. Look at me. Look at me." And when he looked they giggled and giggled, laughed and laughed. Why? Because their began to see that they were, even little six, seven and eight year olds--children of God. That’s why they loved him so much. 

I love the story about the young black man that lived in the wrong part of town with his grandmother in a three-room white-frame house on a dirt road. Life had been hard. But he was given this gift. He could play football. He was the best player ever to play in that county. And as he moved on up to high school the scouts from all the schools began to take notice. By his Sophomore year the recruiters were making their way down to that tiny little house on a dirt road one by one by one. Finally, he graduated. The first person in his whole family to finish high school. He had already signed with one of the great Universities. On the day in late summer when he was to leave home for the first time and go off to school it was a time of pride and deep emotion for the whole family. His grandmother had invited all the relatives in for a big breakfast before he left. She got up early, started cooking on the wood stove. Grits, country ham, red eye gravy, biscuits as big as saucers, home-made syrup, eggs, lots and lots of eggs.  When breakfast was over and it was time for the boy to leave, he went back to the room and got his little old battered suitcase that held his belongings. Members of his family surrounded him and hugged him and kissed him and slipped a dollar or two in his pocket. His grandmother waited until last. She followed him out on the porch. And then that little wiry woman reached up and grabbed that huge giant grandson in her arms and held him tight. And as she held him, someone heard her whisper: "Son, remember who you is. Always remember who you is." And she kissed him and he picked up the old suitcase, walked down the steps to begin a new life.

It is an old benediction. Remember who we is. It is the best hope I know. John said it years ago. Not only are we called children of God. We are God's children now. In the knowledge of that strong word we can walk into any future there is. For we remember who we is.

But John did not stop there. And I am grateful for this. For to a troubled, troubled church and to Christians surrounded by a world that tested their values everyday--he gave them a further word. And this is the second part of the hope we have. John said: "We are God's children now, but it does not yet appear what we shall be."

Along with the indicative: we are--John places an imperative word: we shall be. "It does not yet appear what we shall be..."Or another translation puts it: "What we will be has not yet been revealed."

We are all works in progress. And this is what it means to be children of God. That here where I am, with the little on-again-off-again commitment there comes this hopeful, hopeful word. So when Paul, from prison would write to his favorite congregation in Philippi, words of hope and thanksgiving and warning. Do you remember what he said there in the opening words: "And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion as the day of Jesus Christ.” And then he continued: "It is right for me to feel thus about you all...for you are all partakers with me in the grace...of the gospel." But he still expanded these words: "And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment..."(Phil. 1.6,7, 9)

Those little house-churches scattered all over the known world were afraid of the future. Doesn’t it all sound like the church today? Look at any denomination and you will find a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety. While we sit here, why down the road cars and streaming into that new thing—policeman everywhere directing traffic—you can’t find a place to sit. What’s wrong with us? Peter Steinke, who works with systems and the church, says that when people become anxious they become rigid and inflexible and seek certainties. This anxiety cuts off hope. They can't see anything but today’s headlines or somebody else’s jazzy church. They have no future. They live on dead-end streets. They are immobilized. They have forgotten the resurrection and its powerful, powerful implications. Why, Easter was just two Sundays ago.

Luther used to say when we got down in the mouth: “I have been baptized!” He would remember his baptism. But baptism, like birthing, is only the beginning. If you ever had a little one you know how wonderful it is. We call everybody we know. We run down to the gift shop and buy balloons that say: "It's a girl!" or "It's a boy"! We put them on the door in her hospital room. We buy twenty-two more balloons and ribbons and put them on the mailbox at home for all the neighbors to see. We order Pizza and have it delivered to the hospital room and we pig out in the afternoon. Your Mama takes off work and cleans your house from top to bottom. The house has been rearranged. The centerpiece, of course, is the baby's room that used to be your office. It has been freshly painted and there is a new baby bed and borders everywhere. It looks like some kind of a shrine. And you will take pictures and video every single moment the baby even twitches.

But none of this holds a candle to that moment, years later, when you sit in the darkness and listen to her or him sing a solo in that choir. Or that night, with a thousand people cheering, your son runs down the field with the ball. Or the day, after all the shuffling of money and priorities, he or she walks across the stage and gets that diploma. It was good back there--but nothing compares to having an adult child sit across the table and you learn from them and they tell you stories of what you don't know and places you will never go. It was wonderful back there--but it doesn't hold a candle to all the wonderful progressions along the way.

What is it that you still can't handle? What parts of you are as pagan as the day you were baptized at age ten? What temptations still trip you up even after all these years? What is it in this church that we have never, ever quite dealt with and left behind? And sometimes we say: "Well, that's just who we are."

But John says: Oh no. We have this hope. This incredible hope. Us—right here—in this place. "We are God's children now. But it does not yet appear what we shall be." And then John gives us a third word: "But we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

Do you see what he said? As we get a little older and we change, if you look closely you can see this resemblance forming like a Polaroid picture slowly coming to life. This is the hope that John holds out for all God's children. You may have seen the book with this title: O Lord, I Sound Just Like Mama. And, as we get older we begin to look more like Daddy. Act like him, too.

Back to the story we started this sermon with. Years after I had left that church with the desperate Nominating Committees. I was invited back. In the receiving line after church someone tapped me on the shoulder. "Do you know me?" he asked. I looked up at him. He looked vaguely familiar. He must have been six foot four. Great big man. Handsome. Standing there with this beautiful young woman. She was pregnant. And so you know what he said? This is what he said: "I'm Henry” And I said: "Henry?” And he nodded. "I asked him what he was doing. (Out on parole, I assumed.) And he said, "Well, I graduated from college with honors. Went to Law school and am a lawyer. Got a good job. This is Janie. We got married about two years ago. We're expecting our first baby." Henry and Janie moved on down the line and out the door. Other people filed by. But I couldn't get Henry off my mind. No serial killer. Never even seen the inside of a jail.  Handsome. Contributing citizen. Had on a tie and shoes and looked like he was in his right mind. Acting as civilized as many of the other folk that came through that line.

This is our hope. A hopeful, hopeful word for us all. It reminds me of the prayer of the old slave: “Oh Lord, I ain’t what I should be, and I ain’t what I want to be, but thank you Jesus, I ain’t what I used to be.” "Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."  And friends, I am hanging on to these words for dear life. For this is the hope for us all.

(I preached this sermon in a church in Greenville, SC April 14, 2013)

            

Looks Like the I's Have it--Let's grow Up.

For years we talked about the ‘me” generation. And maybe we never graduated from this word.  Robert Parham, Director for the Baptist Center for Ethics spoke of the current immigration struggle. He said we ought to drop the “I” word from this debate. He was referring to the word illegal which we have heard far too often. I think his suggestion is right. Two years ago, God bless them, the United Methodist Church dropped the ‘I’ word in a national campaign calling for the elimination of this word while discussing immigration. I understand that the Associated Press has already put this word to rest. 

Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor has said that the word, illegal is the first step to the gas chambers. He is right. If we can demonize another—put emotional distance between us and them—we can see them as objects and not subjects.   But it seems to me that we ought to drop the ‘I-word’ on a whole cadre of issues today. Demonization is not limited to immigration.

 Funny how politicians use the ‘I’ word all the time while discussing bones of contention. To Gay rights they say: We have to defend our marriages. What will happen to our families if we give in on this issue? Those keeping an anxious pulse on their constituencies—scared of losing the 2014 elections—are using the ‘I’ word more and more. And if they aren’t using this word—it is just beneath the surface of all their protestations.  Sadly they are wise enough to know where their bread is buttered—like a mirror they simply reflect their constituency.  Most of us are pretty wedded to I and me and mine.

 Point in any direction and it looks like the 'I's" have it. What could be more appalling than those parents from Newtown, their grief fresh from December as if it were yesterday listening to our leaders in Washington? These parents and relatives must be dumbfounded. What do they hear? Nobody can take our guns away. We can’t make any ruling on guns—we need our guns—even at church, even at football games, even in dormitories. Guns don’t kill people—people do. 

 Many scream against Obamacare (I hate this word) because it will hurt our interests. Why our policy rates are going to go up. What about all those 45 million plus who have no health care whatsoever? Never a word is said about them. In South Carolina our state has refused the federal government’s aid that health care would provide for those 389,000 not covered in our state. Nobody mentions these—we just hear worries about how the state cannot afford to pick up the 20% we will have to begin to pay in three years.

In just about every issue we bump into the I word. Take taxes to the stalled economy that the politicians keep blocking. They keep saying us and our. What about the common good—us and not just I. On our recent river cruise in France we ate dinner with a couple from Canada. He was a fine lawyer and talked about how everyone in Canada had health care and wondered why, with so many religious people in this country, there was not more concern from the churches about all these people not covered by insurance. It was a question we could not answer except to say you can be religious and selfish at the same time. We have forgotten that Jesus said that we save our lives when we lose our lives.

Watch the pronouns. The I’s are everywhere. There are so many wonderful things about our country—but we still have a hard time with this liberty and justice for all. Maybe we ought to change the words to read: liberty and justice for me and mine. We still have a lot of work to do. Developmentally as infants we all begin with this wonderful discovery of who we are. Our hands, our voices, our hungers. The lesson of identity is primary. But to stay at this elemental level is to cut ourselves off from the wonders of the myriad of relationships that God intended for us all. The opening chapters in the Bible say: “It is not good for man to be alone.”

Mr. Parham, Director of the Center of Ethics is on to something by shining the spotlight on this little word, I. Under the spotlight, with all the problems around us, the word shrivels in size even more. 

It's Easter!

"The strife is o'er;
  the battle done;
The victory of life
   is won;
The song of triumph
   has begun:
Alleluia! Alleluia!"
--Latin Hymn, tr. Francis
Pott (1832-1909)

Every Easter the memory comes back. I had a chance to see the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany several years ago. The play opened with Jesus riding into Jerusalem for the last time. The play ended with the Resurrection. For almost six hours the audience followed the story of Jesus’ last days on earth.

 I was not prepared for the Resurrection scene. The crucifixion had been particularly graphic and disturbing. After Jesus’ body was carefully taken down from the cross the stage went dark.  Suddenly a dim light came on which illuminated a small cluster of weeping women. They stood before huge doors that represented the locked tomb. They knocked on the door. Nothing happened. Frantically they tried to pry the doors open. The doors did not budge. Suddenly an angel came on stage and without saying a word began to unroll a white aisle cloth from the closed door down the steps toward the audience. As the women looked on, the door creaked open and dazzling light slowly filled the stage and finally the whole room. Through that open door Jesus came. He walked down the steps. And from left and right laughing children came running forward, hugging Jesus’ legs. In the background a Choir sang.

I can’t improve on that Easter scene. It was as close to the wonder of the Resurrection as anything I know. Who can put this special day into words? Surely not the merchants hawking their Easter wares. Surely not the bunnies, the Easter lilies, the corsages, or those wonderful multi-colored eggs. Surely this day is more than the coming of spring and the end of winter.

Easter is light, hope, new beginnings, love and laughter. Somehow our old nine to five calendar pages are disturbed once again. The predictability of our days is thrown off kilter. And whether it is worry about money or retirement or health or children or just the troubled world-- most of us find ourselves pausing on Easter morning.

People who never darken the door of a church put on our finery and slip into some sanctuary. This is not the time for any preacher to chide those who only come on Easter morning. It hardly matters if they are dragged along by some wife or child. We all need something to shatter life’s flatness. A bad lab report. That funeral last week. Afghanistan, endless Afghanistan.   A disappointment so heavy that we wonder if we can make it. Like those women in the play we all know something about locked doors and sealed-up tombs.

And Easter comes. Saying that despite the darkness which is very real and the trouble we all carry, there is another word. There is light, so blinding it hurts our eyes. There is wonder so strong that we may find it hard to hold back the tears. There is joy and laughter at the heart of life despite its rawness and its difficulty.

What changed those petty, cowardly disciples and turned them inside out? There is no explanation except that Easter brought with it light, hope and new life for them and for their world. They wrote the story over and over until we have four gospels. They founded a church, which has endured despite its all-too-human members and preachers. That little group of first believers passed the torch until the greatest story ever told could be our story, too. Wishful thinking? Some say so. I choose to remember large open doors and a blinding light and at the center Jesus come back from the dead. But what I remember most after all these years is the laughter of all those children.

The 14th Station--Jesus is Laid in the Tomb

In the novel, The Living, by Annie Dillard, is a funeral scene where one of the characters, Norval, reads  pompously from Scripture, "O death, where is thy sting?" To which Hugh, sitting in the pews, thinks, "Just about everywhere, since you ask."

What do we say when we stand by the grave? Not much. The Preacher offers some word she hopes will comfort. But we don’t hear them. We don’t even see our surroundings. The flowers. The casket. The bright, sunshiny day. We sit there like we’re in a fog. We hardly remember the service at the church. Our loved one is dead and we don’t know what to do.

We’re like those two trudging, slowly trudging as if in slow motion to Emmaus. They had heard the Easter news—but they hadn’t really heard it. “We had hoped,” they told the stranger, “that he was the one to redeem Israel.” Are there sadder words in the Bible than these? We had hoped. But that hope had been shattered by Calvary and that awful death that Jesus should not have had to endured.

I have just finished a Grief Support Group. We sat around in a circle for eight weeks. We told stories about Mamas and babies and Papa’s and wives and husbands. All gone. And so we told stories and shed tears and comforted one another. But grief for some was still raw and they were uncertain of this terrible unknown journey. They identify with this last dark station. Jesus lies in the tomb—sealed shut by Roman guards so his fans would not take the body away and claim he was still alive. That mausoleum, that jar of ashes that grave with the headstone—we know don’t we? We know.

We stand here and ponder this last station. It isn’t the end—but who knows that when the tomb is sealed shut and you are still in shock and the tears come at the strangest times—what it really means. It means that Jesus was in the hands of the Father—the Father whose prayer he prayed toward the end, “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

Years ago a friend lost his little girl with cancer. He was devastated and people from all over surrounded him and reached out. I wrote him a note telling him I did not know what to say but that I lifted him and his family up to the care of the father. Weeks later I received a reply, “Thank you or what you did not say.” So here, as in that little circle of mourners I just finished—there is not much to say. But this we know. He is one with us. He traveled the road we take all the way to the end. Along the way he wept for friends who should not have died. He wept over a city that did not know. And there on the cross, I think between the agony of pain--tears, more even than blood--trickled down his cheeks. So there is not much to say as we stop at this Station. Oh, we can talk about Easter and all its wonder. But not yet. This is the day to ponder our losses and our own finitude. Isaiah was right, “Surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows.”

(My gratitude goes to the First Baptist Church, Aiken, SC for sharing the prints of the Stations of the Cross, by the African artist, Bruce Onobrakpeya whose original work is found in Saint Paul's Church in Nigeria.)

 

  

The Thirteenth Station--Jesus Is Taken Down From the Cross

"It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour, the sun being obscured, and the veil of the temple was torn in two.
  And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, 'Father, into thy hands I commend My spirit.' And having said this, He breathed His last."
                --Luke 23. 44-46

This may just may be the saddest station on our journey. The weight of this death slowly falls on those who loved him. Standing by this station we see the crowds have gone. Even the soldiers have left. Only a handful are there. It is so quiet you don't even hear a bird sing. The only sounds from that hill is the sobbing of women. His mother and the others. Jesus is dead. That body which healed the blind and the crippled is empty. Those arms that stretched out to the needy again and again cannot move. That voice that spoke to troubled hearts and seas and anxious friends is silent. Jesus is dead.

And Joseph of Arimathea comes to supervise the taking down of the body. He has offered his tomb--for the Lord Jesus had nowhere to lay his head. Even in death. And Nicodemus comes back on stage . We thought we'd seen the last of him. I'm glad they put these rich men in the story. For it means that everyone--even the rich and powerful--can find a place in this story. We need to remember that Jesus reached out to everyone. And he had touched something deep inside Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, too.

Tenderly they take Jesus' broken body down from the cross. Did they wince as they pulled his hands away from the nails and the feet, too? Did they pry the nails loose? No one tells us. Leonard Boff has said of Joseph and Nicodemus "their love won out over fear." They anoint the body and wrap it in a cloth of perfumed oils. And Mary comes forward. "Bring him to me,"she said.  I remember a poem, perhaps not the best, but which touches the emotion of that moment.

"Did Mary make a birthday cake 

For Christ when he was small,

And think the while she frosted it,

How quickly boys grow tall?

Oh sometimes years are very long,

And sometimes years run fast,

And when the Christ had put away 

Small, earthly things at last,

And died upon a wooden cross

One afternoon in spring,

Did Mary find the little toy, 

And sit...remembering?"

--Helen Welshimer, "The Birthday"

As we stand here pondering the sorrow of all those who have lost someone--this Station is for them. That mother in Chicago who lost her daughter in a drive-by shooting one week after her band played for the Inauguration. All those mothers that sit with heavy grief this Easter because some son or some daughter did not make it back from the war. We could go on and on. The sorrow of mothers this Easter flows like a dark river around the world. And yet--this was not the end. Even if our Lord had not come back the memories of all the good he did and the people he blessed would still remain. But this was not the end. We know it now. 

Dostoevsky reminds us: "What keeps me going is that I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that in the world's finale something so great will come to pass that it's going to suffice for all our hearts, for all the comforting of our sorrows, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity. And I want to be there when suddenly everyone understands what it has all been for."

"All those dead are to be found

in the dead Jesus.

The question of all of them rises as a cry to God:

How long, O Lord, how long?

And the Lord

who is merciful,

resurrects our hope,

transforming the question into a plea:

Thy Kingdom come...

on earth as it is in heaven!"

--Leonard Boff, Way of the Cross

(I am endebted to the African artist, Bruce Onobrakpeya for his powerful renderings of the Stations of the Cross. The beautiful sculptured piece of Mary and her Son can be found in St. Bernard Abbey, Cullman, Alabama.)

Station Twelve--Jesus Hangs on the Cross

"Listen.
Somethings is tearing, hearing a hole
Too wide for measuring
And something is grating, grating
As of a hinge, broken, and a door
Swinging in a deadly wind.
The lynchpin is pulled,
The ridgepole cracked.
Drown through the needle's eye
We are crushed by a weight
With no name, and pray
The world will not lie splintered
By Sunday
When all this will be explained."
  --Arlene De Bevoise, "Good Friday"

The twisting winding road stops here. Jesus is done all that he can do. And so they nail him to the cross and everything is different. The soldiers that day did not understand this. They saw dead criminals nailed up for all to see day after day. The crowds, mostly curious did not understand this. They only came to gape. Off to the side, heartbroken and scared was dear John the only one that came, and the women--always the women. And yet many have come to understand. This cross--this death has become the central symbol of our faith.

The Cross reminds of a story that A.E. Hotchner told in his book, Papa Hemingway. Gary Cooper, famous movie star, winner of a multitude of awards was a good friend of Ernest Hemingway. Cooper, despite his fame, led a notorious life of women and booze. Later in life he suffered a nervous breakdown and as he recovered he slowly began to visit the Catholic Church and became friends with the Priest. After a long time he joined the church and was baptized. Hemingway heard the news and couldn't believe it. He kidded Gary Cooper about getting religion. Cooper made a joke out of it too. They both laughed.

 Later Gary Cooper was diagnosed with lung cancer and toward the end he was very sick. Hotchner, a friend of them both, visited Cooper one day in the hospital. He was very weak and Hotchner knew his friend did not have long to live. But Cooper raised up and said, "I want you to give Hemingway a message for me." And he was hit by terrible racking cough. "Tell Ernest that day when he made fun of me for joining the church and I made light of it too, I want him to know..." And Hotchner that Cooper reached across his bedside table and found a small wooden cross. He kissed it and said, "I want Papa to know this--tell him that this was best thing I ever did." He died not long after this.

"Lamb of God that 

takes away the sins of the world

have mercy on us--one and all."

(The linoleum-cut print, as have all the others on this Journey were done by African artist,  Bruce Onobrakpeya. The original work hangs in St. Paul's Church in Nigeria.)