Take up our cross

My first year of seminary I took a January class on the works of German pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Other than the fact that we had to read seven of his books during the span of four weeks - yes, seven books, by a German theologian, in four weeks! - it was an amazing class.  Much of my own theological reflections, especially on the nature of the Church as the community of faith united in and by the Risen Christ, come from my readings of Bonhoeffer, especially The Cost of Discipleship.

Over the years I have continued to read things by and about Bonhoeffer.  Currently I am reading an insightful biography about him - Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, by Charles Marsh.  It's well written and enlightening, chronicling the life of this influential Christian thinker who wrestled with how one can be faithful to Christ while living in a country that demanded ultimate obedience from its citizens: Germany under the Nazis.

Among other things, Bonhoeffer was well-traveled.  In 1930 he came to the United States for a year of post-graduate studies and a teaching fellowship at Union Seminary in New York.  There he met, among others,  Frank Fisher, a Black fellow seminarian who introduced him to Abyssinian Baptist Church and the African American church experience. Bonhoeffer heard Adam Clayton Powell preach the Gospel of Social Justice there and he formed a life-long love for Black Gospel music.  This was a profoundly formative experience for a young Bonhoeffer.

In June 1939 he returned a second time to the United States, but realized almost immediately that it was a mistake.  He believed that he needed to be in Germany and to walk with his fellow citizens during the increasing insanity and barbarity of Hitler and the National Socialists.  However, during his few weeks here that summer, Bonhoeffer drew observations about the American Church.  Here is part of what Marsh wrote in his biography of Bonhoeffer:

"The American churches had surely produced thrifty churchmen, earnest theologians, and revivalist preachers, but they had failed as yet to reckon seriously with the'scandal of the Cross.' Some of (Bonhoeffer's) criticisms bore sharp resemblance to ones he had leveled against the German Christians. According to Bonhoeffer, the American Christian had never learned to trust God fully, or to know what it means to stand under the judgment of the Word, for he (sic) had never had to learn the lesson."  (Marsh, Charles (2014-04-29). Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (p. 283). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

In our nation, Christians in general have not had to endure suffering and persecution for our faith.  In other parts of the world, discipleship is incredibly "costly," to use Bonhoeffer's expression.  Especially in areas where the so-called Islamic State and other terrorist groups have taken control, Christians are increasingly being targeted for arrest, torture, and death.  Other than being shocked by the idea of Christians bearing the cross of Jesus, sometimes even to death, how can we possibly know how to respond?

We are still at the beginning of our journey through Lent.  During this time each year we are given the opportunity to consider the cross, to ponder sacrifice and suffering, to walk with Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, to Gethsemane, to Golgotha. Other Christians have had to take that same road; some are walking that path as you read these words.  What does it mean for us to "take up our cross" and follow Jesus?

Lent and the cross

A little over two weeks ago I traveled to Union Theological Seminary in New York City to participate in the Synod of the Northeast's "Summit on Race."  During the morning session, we had the opportunity to listen to a lecture by Dr. James Cone. Cone became well known - and quite controversial - with the publication in 1969 of his first book, Black Theology and Black Power.  Although he views that book as pivotal for him, he feels that his most recent book is the most important book he has written.  He believes that he has been working on this book all of his life, and it took him 20 drafts to get it to its final form.  His book, which participants in the Summit read beforehand, is entitled The Cross and The Lynching Tree.  His contention is that Christians, especially white Christians in this country, cannot look at Jesus hanging on the cross without seeing the parallels with all of the black Americans who were hung on trees from the Civil War well into the 20th century.

Cone believes that the true power of the Christian gospel is its unambiguous call of liberation from oppression.  Until we can see the cross and the lynching tree together, until we can identify Christ with the re-crucified black body hanging from the lynching tree, there can be no deliverance from the brutal legacy of slavery and white supremacy.  Just as the German people have had to work hard to come to grips with what happened during the rise of the Nazis, just as both black and white South Africans have had to work hard to come to grips with what happened during apartheid, so our country will never be healed from the legacy of slavery and lynchings until we work hard ourselves to acknowledge this terrible heritage and to address continuing vestiges of racism in this country.  (For example, there are more black people in prison in this country today than there were slaves in 1850!)

There were nearly 5,000 African American men, women, and children who were lynched since the time of the Civil War.  Many descendants of those people still wrestle with the implications of what happened to their family members.  And it is in the cross that so many African Americans have found hope and salvation.  After all, the cross inverts the dominant value system, demonstrating that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering and death do not have the last word.  The cross is God's defeat of power, of white power, of powerless love that snatches victory out of defeat.

We are in the middle of Lent.  The cross is our focus.  So what do we see when we see the cross?  It has been too easy for us to turn the cross into an ornate carving hanging in our sanctuaries.  It has been too easy for us to turn the cross into beautiful pieces of jewelry.  But if that's all we see, we miss the message and we sell short the power - and the challenge - of the cross of Jesus.  The cross stands tall in our world, shouting to all who would hear that the powers of this world are defeated... that the powers of domination are overcome by this symbol of weakness... that the powers of oppression are shattered by this symbol of suffering... that the power of sin in our lives is vanquished by the love that calls us, claims us, and envelopes us from the cross.

So what do you see when you look at the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord?

Lent is here - again

For years I've had a love-hate relationship with Lent.  There were years I'd actually look forward to those preparatory weeks leading to Holy Week and Easter.  I'd anticipate times set aside for silent prayer and meditation as I would engage - sometimes alone, sometimes with others - in Lenten disciplines of silence and prayer.  However, there were those other years... years when I wouldn't quite dread Lent, but I clearly did not look forward to it.  I remember once even describing Lent as "the ecclesiastically sanctioned liturgical season of depression."  I know.  Harsh, wasn't it?

The challenge of Lent for me, especially during those years when God would seemingly have to drag me into the season, is that it really is a time when we're asked... invited... charged to face ourselves.  We're called to follow Jesus into the desert, where we must candidly look at ourselves without the pretenses in which we sometimes clothe ourselves.

Lent is the season of the Church year during which we are summoned to more intentionally follow Jesus.  That is hard, partly because we know that Jesus' path led to the cross.  That also is hard because, in the desert, Jesus had to face his own fears, his human frailty, his mortality.  So during Lent, as we are called to walk in "The Jesus Way" (to borrow the title of Eugene Peterson's powerful book), we are called to strip away all the superficial veneer in our lives and be brutally honest and vulnerable... with ourselves... before God.

This Wednesday will be the first time in decades that I will not stand before a worshiping congregation and invite people into the Lenten journey.  However, I still am moved - and challenged - by these words from our Book of Common Worship:

Friends in Christ, every year at the time of the Christian Passover we celebrate our redemption through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lent is a time to prepare for this celebration and to renew our life in the paschal mystery. We begin this holy season by acknowledging our need for repentance, and for the mercy and forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We begin our journey to Easter with the sign of ashes. This ancient sign speaks of the frailty and uncertainty of human life, and marks the penitence of this community.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of Christ, to observe a holy Lent by self-examination and penitence, by prayer and fasting, by works of love, and by reading and meditating on the Word of God.

The invitation is extended... to each of us.  Let the journey begin again.