cross—self-giving, self-emptying.
And it is a discipline. It is something that needs to be taught to me, that I need reminding of and practice in—because it isn’t the human’s natural predisposition, or at least not the human’s only natural predisposition. We like power, and the power to be found in vulnerability is a little counterintuitive. We like glory, and the glory to be found in giving love is not as self-evident as the glory to be found in wearing pretty clothes, or living in a fancy home where you can throw parties that everyone wants an invitation to, or holding a job that pays you millions of dollars and where you get to employ lots of people and fire a few too.
The bitter envy, the selfish ambition that James mentions in this open letter—these are so common! It might not be so, as James writes, that we want something and do not have it, so we commit murder. It might not even be so that we desire something and cannot attain it and so we engage in disputes and conflicts. No, the reactions to such feelings might not be ours in such extreme. But certainly these feelings, so familiar to me, are familiar to each of us; and certainly they do pose a threat to our relating, to our participating in community. Otherwise, why write an open letter? If envy, if ambition, if competition, weren’t so commonly at work within us, if these are evils that afflict only a couple of people, then why not just write that one guy who has this thing called envy that seems to spoil his relationships; otherwise, why not just write that one girl who is out of the norm because of her ambition?
The disciples didn’t understand the teaching. They didn’t understand what Jesus was saying, and I can relate. Every time I’m to preach on one of these occasions when Jesus has spoken of what awaits him—something I’m to do a lot, since three times in the three synoptic Gospels he speaks of his own coming suffering, which means that three times a year outside of Holy Week the cross is there for us to wrestle with again—my initial thought is, “Oh, I’ve done this before; I’ll whip this sermon out.” But then I sit with the text, and with the formula to which it testifies—that the cross is God’s revelation of good news for us, that the Crucifixion is made a means of God’s grace, God’s amazing grace—and I realize that once again I don’t get it, that I need to start from scratch and figure it out anew. Why is the Crucifixion good news? Why does the cross save? How and why and from what does it save us?
The cross is good news because it means humans even at our worst are little match for God’s goodness—God’s love, God’s forgiveness, God’s peace. The cross is good news because it reveals that God’s glory is in weakness, God’s strength is in vulnerability, God’s might is in self-giving, God’s victory is in self-emptying, and God’s Christ is that guy—not some superstar but just some guy, some gentle, forceful, regular, exceptional guy for whom there is no place in this world of powers and principalities and death-dealing dynamics and might-makes-right, and so who must be expelled from it, yet only to return and to say for starters not this, “I’m back, and I’m pissed, and you’re gonna get yours,” but this, “Peace be with you.” And the Crucifixion saves because it reveals to us humans the power dynamics to which we are enthralled, a revelation that in turn gives us some measure of self-understanding and therefore hope for stepping out of such a downward spiraling. The Crucifixion saves because it lays bare the lie by which we largely live, that violence can and will save us from violence, which in turn gives us some measure of unblindess and unforgetting and therefore hope of ending cycles of violence. Finally, the Crucifixion saves because in it and through it and in spite of it, God has done something—something wonderful, something new (behold!), something miraculous—that plants in the earth a seed of peace, a seed of hope, a seed by which God’s Kingdom will grow even here.
Liz Garrigan-Byerly—our once member and then seminarian and now associate pastor of Wellesley Village United Church of Christ—Liz Garrigan-Byerly and I used to play with this question: The salvation that comes through the cross, does it come because of what we do in response to what we’ve learned in witnessing the cross and resurrection; or is it something God did, has done, continues to do, in the mystery of the cross? And at her ecclesiastical council, when those gathered, having read her ordination paper, might now question her on certain aspects of it, I asked the inevitable atonement question. There’s always one, in every council, someone who asks the dreaded atonement question. “How does the cross save us? It’s not that the blood of Christ is what God required in order to slake God’s wrath. That was our answer once—for about a thousand years; but now we know better. So, does the salvation come of what we do in response to what we’ve seen and heard? Or is it something God has accomplished in Christ and the church?” I asked it, and she smiled back at me knowingly: this was coming. Her answer: “Yes.”
Imagine: an either/or question whose answer is yes.
Okay, so the disciples didn’t understand. Clearly, the more things change the more they stay the same. But they at least had the chance to ask follow-up questions; they at least could have asked Christ, “Could you say that again, and this time slower?” That they didn’t out of fear softens my judgment in their regard. That they didn’t ask because they were afraid to ask has me feeling some compassion for them. I’ve been there. A math teacher stands at the chalkboard and says, “A² + B² = C²,” and I sit at my desk and nod my head because, you know, whatever. Fear comes because I know I have no hope of understanding, and the test is coming up, and this is probably going to be on it.
Jesus, for his part, seeing that the disciples haven’t learned from his teaching, arguing as they were moments later about greatness, decides to give it another go. “Show, don’t tell” is some common wisdom, and so he does, taking a little child and putting it among them—this powerless, voiceless, vulnerable scrap, probably dirty, perhaps disowned. Here is the guest of honor.
It makes a huge difference to me, at least, in whose name I join a group—in whose name and by what spirit. It matters, probably more than it should, in whose name and by what spirit I join in. Alain de Botton has invited us to a meal; so has Jesus. I’ve been to meals of the sort de Botton has in mind. They do nothing to address the cravings that are always at war within me, and (I sort of hope) are always at war within and among us all. (I don’t want to be alone in my insecurities.) They, in fact, tend further to stoke such internal conflict: to tell the funniest story or to listen graciously while awaiting your turn, to amuse and sparkle in conversation or to try to blend in with the wallpaper, to impress or to come across as someone who really couldn’t care less. I’ve also been to the meal Jesus had in mind—been to it in sanctuaries of stone and stained glass, been to it kneeling at an altar and sitting in a pew and standing at the table myself breaking the bread, been to it in conference rooms at annual meetings and in this plain sanctuary of restrained beauty. It always addresses that which is at war within me and us—the things James’s letter means to address and Jesus’ self-giving and servanthood do clearly address. It addresses it by spelling out and laying bare just exactly who I am (frail, foolish, in need of confession) and having me at the table anyway. It addresses it by saying implicitly if not outright, “Come as you are; serve as you can; eat as you need; taste and see that the Lord is good.”
If you can get that self-emptying spirit into a restaurant dedicated to a secular agape meal, then God bless it. Take it away, Alain. But if you can’t, then we’re here. Just look for the sign of the cross and you’ll find us.
Thanks be to God.
11. McThenia, “A Missionary Vocation.”
12. de Botton, Religion for Atheists.
13. de Botton, “Religion for Everyone.”
14. Woods, “‘Religion for Atheists.’”
15. The agape meal, sometimes also called a love feast, comes to us from early Christianity. The first “followers of the Way” would gather for meals that were distinct from the Eucharist yet