April 6, 2012

Clay Nelson

Good Friday

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I invite you take a step back in time. A time before Paul had his conversion. A time before any Evangelist had written a Gospel. A time before bishops had composed creeds. I’m asking you to do the impossible. Let go of anything and everything you have been told to think about Jesus. Experience him instead. Imagine you have been walking the labyrinth with Jesus for the last three years wending and winding your way through the Judean hills. You have no idea where you are headed, but it is enough to be hanging out with him. Over time you have come to wonder if he is the long awaited Jewish Messiah. Is he the one to free your homeland from Roman domination? Of course you have never heard him claim such a role or intention.

Along the way you’ve pondered his parables, listened intently to his private lessons, watched the crowds grow to hear his words; witnessed his healings. More importantly you have eaten with him, laughed with him, prayed with him, cried with him. You have been totally enveloped by his loving and gracious manner. You admire his honesty and integrity and deep, deep compassion. You’ve never known anyone quite like him. He is as close to God as anyone you’ve ever met. If anyone can take on the emperor, he can.

The path of the labyrinth has grown ever closer to what seems to be the end of the beginning. You have arrived in Jerusalem and the people seem to be supportive. The moment is at hand. He has called you all together to celebrate the Passover with an intimate meal. During the meal you hear the announcement you’ve been waiting for. The time has arrived. He is coming into his kingdom. You wonder what your role will be.

Then quickly the wheels start coming off the bus. Jesus says he is about to be betrayed by one of your friends. It can’t be, but a few hours later the Romans arrest him. In confusion and fear you and your friends scatter. You hear in the morning that the governor has condemned him to death. Not any death, but the most shameful and cruel of deaths, crucifixion. As you begin working your way out of the city’s labyrinth to seek safe haven before the centurions come for you as well, you see him in the distance on the cross. Disbelief and despair overwhelm you. This has not been a “good” day.

Now stay in that moment. I think that was the moment Christianity was born. It was personal. It was born out of shock, dismay and surprise. You thought you were headed in one direction and suddenly you are twisted into another. How do you make sense of it?

There was no talk yet of sacrifice for others, no doctrines of atonement, no creedal statements. No one was singing about a green hill far away or a wondrous love. In fact, it would be some time before his followers would begin to tell stories about how Rome could kill the man but not his love.

Is this the end or a beginning? Where is God in this moment? How do you keep walking the labyrinth of life, to salvage some remnant of the dream?

For two thousand years Jesus’ followers constructed a religion trying to answer these questions. The path they took looked a lot like a labyrinth. A whole new scripture was written to answer those questions. People were killed for their loyalty to him. Rituals were developed re-enacting his life. His followers squabbled over their beliefs about him. The winners wrote creeds. Emperors co-opted his followers for purposes of maintaining power and control. A whole new class of society was established. Bishops and priest were imbued with both spiritual and political power. Great cathedrals and basilicas were built to his glory. Amazing art and music was created in his name. The western world became Christendom sending armies against the nonbelievers to “save” them. Inquisitions were established to purify the faithful on the rack. Reformers split the church in two in his name. Then they fought wars against their cousins in the faith, sometimes for a hundred years, taking turns burning each other at the stake to the glory of God. They finally settled for peace out of exhaustion. Depleted, the religion Jesus’ death inspired, found it struggling to answer questions raised by Galileo, Copernicus and Darwin. The spirit of democracy further challenged its hierarchy and dominance. In response to the incredible technological changes modernity brought, fundamentalism rose to protect Jesus. It backfired, repelling many in the church who had not already left.

When the majority in our country state their religious preference as “None of the above,” we know Christendom is now a secular society. The Church’s influence has waned spectacularly in my lifetime. Many congregations struggle to support a professional clergy and question their survival beyond the present generation. The earthquake in Christchurch not only demolished a cathedral it reduced the number of ministry units in the diocese from over 40 to 19. The resulting rise in cost for earthquake insurance threatens the survival of many congregations throughout Aotearoa New Zealand. Those that remain are threatening to split with one another over the ordination of gay and lesbian people. A religion conceived in death is dying.

But my question is: Does that mean we are witness to Jesus dying again? Where the labyrinth of faith will take us from here future generations will have to answer. But surely, my faith tells me, we are not at the end, but only a new beginning.

On July 28, 2010 novelist Anne Rice, famous for her vampire novels, posted her resignation on Facebook: “Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ, as always, but not to being “Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

Within 24 hours, more than 4000 people gave her declaration a thumbs-up and tens of thousands more shared or re-tweeted it. Major papers, online news sites and television stations carried word of her rejection of Christianity. Within days, her anti-profession of faith was all over the Internet, on talk shows, in sermons, on blogs, and the subject of café conversations. At St Matthew’s we can relate to her experience of going viral.

Church historian, Diana Butler Bass, has noted, “Rice’s confession did not go viral just because she is famous. Rather, popular discontent is such that millions… could relate to her words. She struck a cultural chord. She said what others suspect or feel or secretly think — that there is a profound and painful disconnect between what Christianity has become and what we perceive that it should be.” [i]

In her book, Bass documents the discontent: Quoting a 40-something woman, “I increasingly find the Catholic Church and mainline Protestant churches to be irrelevant. Many churchgoers seem to be content with the status quo and uncomfortable being challenged, especially on issues of social justice.” An Anglican from Sydney states, “I’m continually being disappointed by (bordering on disillusioned by) the institutional church. Institutional self-preservation seems more important than those on the front line who still minister to the physically, emotionally, and spiritual needy.” Another bluntly observes, “Christianity has become a culture unto itself and has merely skimmed over what Jesus has said and is saying.” [ii]

As you view a dying religion from a green hill faraway, do you recall the twisting turning path you have walked with it most of your life? What do you feel? Stay in this moment. This is personal. Do you feel shock, sadness and dismay? Maybe you feel more relief than grief. I wonder if Jesus does. Will you stay with the institutional church offering palliative care or will you walk on, leaving the dead to bury the dead, in search of what has been lost? Or will you try to do both like we attempt at St Matthew’s.

No, it is not a “good” day, but not one without hope.

Unlike Jesus, the Church is dying by its own hand. But while it can kill itself, it cannot kill the spirituality that resides within each of us. There is a difference between religion and spirituality. Bass quotes one minister who puts it succinctly: “Religion seeks conformity and control — scriptural infallibility and literalism, imposition of beliefs upon others — and cannot abide any other way of encountering God that falls outside of its defined boundaries. Faith seeks freedom and life for all to experience God on their own terms and in their own ways — and then allows for communal experiences and collaboration to build a better world.”

There is no straight path from here. But I invite you to walk it in confidence that the love Jesus embodied walks with you. Trust the inherent spirituality that resides within you. When set free I believe it will be a creative force like rarely we have seen before.

[i] Bass, Diana Butler. Christianity after Religion: the End of the Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening. Harper One: 2012. P. 21.

[ii] Ibid. p. 23.