Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center, American University
January 20, 2008
Acts 10:34-43; Mark 15:21-32
Acts 10:34 Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ–he is Lord of all. 37 That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40 but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Mark 15:21 They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. 22 Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull). 23 And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. 24 And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take.
25 It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. 26 The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” 27 And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. 29 Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 save yourself, and come down from the cross!” 31 In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32 Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.
I. BEGINNING
We’re king of low church here, so it may not be obvious to you, but a lot of the symbols in ordinary Christianity are symbols of glory and power. Much of what the church does and how the church looks and even the language that the church uses owes itself to the Roman Empire.
The garment I am wearing is called an “alb”–Latin for “white thing”. It is fourth century Roman street wear. The stole, however, is the sign of ministerial office–of an official of the Empire. Theologically we understand it as a yoke, a burden that the clergy carry around their necks, but historically, it comes from the halls of power of Rome.
Processionals into the church follow the patterns of processionals of Roman magistrates into the courthouses or other important buildings. The practice of processing with the acolytes carrying the cross in front of them evokes Roman processions where the standards of the Emperor were carried. They never did this kind of thing when Christian congregations met in house churches.
Even our church buildings are built on the design of the basilica, Greek for “King’s building.” Basilicas were the public buildings, the government buildings of Rome–city hall, superior court, etc.
There is much in our tradition that owes itself to glory and power.
II. THE CROSS
Is the cross such a symbol? It often seems that way, doesn’t it? Just think about the hymns of the church: In the Cross of Christ I Glory, Lift High the Cross, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, and so on. The crosses on our altars are often gilded and shining. Cokesbury charges a lot of money for them. They are carried in processionals in front of the acolytes and clergy. They were worn on the shields and the tunics of the armies that went to the Holy Land in the middle ages to fight the Muslims. So prevalent was the symbol that then named the kind of war they were waging–a crusade– after the crosses on the armies. They are a sign of the Church in all its glory. Crosses are a sign of kingly and imperial power. They are beautiful. We wear gold and silver crosses around our neck.
Is the cross really glorious?
There is nothing to suggest that it is glorious when we read the Gospel of Mark.
25 It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. 26 The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” 27 And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. 29 Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 save yourself, and come down from the cross!” 31 In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32 Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.
Jesus is nailed to the cross. The soldiers gamble over his clothing. He is derided. He is mocked. He is taunted. There is little glory here.
The cross is glorious only ironically. And not Alanis Morissette kind of irony, actual irony, where to claim the cross is glorious is to actually point out how inglorious it is.
III. THE LYNCHING TREE
No, the cross of Christ is not a symbol of glory. It is a symbol of violence and death. And not just death, but injustice as well.
James Cone, Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York, says that in order to truly understand the cross, Christians need to see it not as a sign of glory, but as a lynching tree:
One has to have a powerful religious imagination to see redemption in the cross, to discover life in death and hope in tragedy. “Christianity,” Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, “is a faith which takes us through tragedy to beyond tragedy, by way of the cross to victory in the cross.” What kind of salvation is that? To understand what the cross means in America, we need to take a good long look at the lynching tree in this nation’s history — “the bulging eyes and twisted mouth,” that “strange fruit” that Billie Holiday sang about, “blood on the leaves and blood at the root.” The lynched black victim experienced the same fate as the crucified Christ. 1
The cross, then, becomes a symbol of injustice. It is a sign of Christ’s solidarity with all the oppressed. The cross is not a pleasant symbol. It is meant to upset us, to challenge us. It is meant to remind us of where God’s solidarity lies. Not with the powerful. Not with the mighty. With those who have nothing–even to the point where they have been unjustly deprived of their very lives. That is the meaning of the cross of Christ.
Cone continues by noting that viewing the cross in this way, Christians in America have to come to some important conclusions about race and racial justice:
The cross and the lynching tree need each other: the lynching tree can liberate the cross from the false pieties of well-meaning Christians. The crucifixion was a first-century lynching. The cross can redeem the lynching tree, and thereby bestow upon lynched black bodies an eschatological meaning for their ultimate existence. The cross can also redeem white lynchers, and their descendants, too, but not without profound cost, not without the revelation of the wrath and justice of God, which executes divine judgment, with the demand for repentance and reparation, as a presupposition of divine mercy and forgiveness. Most whites want mercy and forgiveness, but not justice and reparations; they want reconciliation without liberation, the resurrection without the cross. 2
Jürgen Moltmann is a German theologian who as a teenager was conscripted into the German army in the latter days of World War II. After his capture by American troops he was given a Bible by a military chaplain and began to reflect on Christ’s suffering and death, particularly his cry of anguish from the cross: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” In his book The Way of Jesus Christ, he writes that Jesus’ death upon the cross is the death of the oppressed.
The Son of man from Galilee, without power, without rights and without a home suffered the fate of a slave in the Roman empire. When the Spartacus revolt was crushed, more than 7,000 slaves died on crosses set up on the Via Appia. Astonishingly, the pre-Pauline hymn about Christ in Philippians 2 says that the form of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who humiliated himself, was ‘the form of a slave.’ If this is a reference to Jesus’ humble origins among the humiliated people of Galilee, then in his suffering and death Jesus shared the fate of these enslaved people. Wretched and stripped of their rights as they were, it was their misery which Jesus experienced in his own body. … Jesus was one of these people, the poorest of the poor; a tortured, abused and crucified slave. In this sense ‘the sufferings of Christ’ are also the sufferings of the powerless masses of the poor in this world, who have no rights and no home; and in this sense their sufferings too are Christ’s sufferings. 3
The cross is a sign of injustice and suffering. It, no less than the lynching tree, is meant to remind us of everything that is broken in the world. Of the poor who have no food. Of the populations who are discriminated against. Of the disenfranchised. The marginalized. All of them. But it also reminds us of the radical solidarity that God has demonstrated with the oppressed through the Cross of Christ.
IV. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
As Christians, we are meant to be in solidarity with the oppressed. We are meant to be in solidarity with those who are disenfranchised, who are the victims of injustice, inequality, violence, or fear. In this country, it means that we are committed to racial justice–to erasing the systems built upon racial prejudice and establishing systems that treat everyone with justice.
Martin Luther King, Jr. embodied what that Christian commitment to racial justice looks like. And his life is instructive as to howthe Christian works for racial justice.
Non-Violence. The way of Jesus Christ is the way of non-violence. As he understood, “freedom from violence” does not mean that we become depoliticized. 4 Rather, it requires our involvement in the political order to ensure that violence–the unjust application of force–cannot take place. It does not shun power, rather it seeks to use power–the just use of force–in the cause of justice. For us in this country, it means a commitment to use the political processes to achieve lasting racial reconciliation. Not to sentimentalize race in this country, or to talk our way around it with a never ending stream of politically correct terminology, but to speak plainly and demand justice and equality.
Rooted in the Gospel. Martin Luther King was grounded in his Christian faith and in the hope that it gave. It was his firm conviction in the love and grace of God that gave him the courage to look death in the eye and to press on. For he knew that the power of the Resurrection meant that there was always hope–that no life was beyond redemption, that no death was to great to overcome. That crucifixion–the lynching tree–is triumphed over by resurrection. And it was with that conviction that he could say these words at Memphis, Tennessee the day before he was assassinated:
And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
A willingness to give one’s all. Dr. King paid for his commitment to justice with his very life. What are those aspects of our faith we find the most important–the ones that define our understanding of Christianity the most? Are we willing to give our all for the calling of the kingdom? It is not a pretty business. But this is what it means to ‘take up one’s cross’. Martin did that and showed us what true discipleship is.
V. END
The cross is ugly. Ugly as a lynching tree.
And it is beautiful. As beautiful as gold. Its beauty does not come from what it is but what it means. What it is is a brutal method of execution, designed to torture the condemned and serve as a warning to all who opposed the Empire.
What it means is something extraordinary. In the book of Acts, Peter is giving a speech to the people of Judea and says:
39 We are witnesses to all that [Jesus] did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40 but God raised him on the third day
Jesus was put to death ‘by hanging … on a tree’. But “God raised him on the third day…” That even the cruelest, shameful, most unjust death can be transformed by the loving power of God.
And so it is with us. God can transform our country. The sins of the past and the present can be redeemed by the hope of the future. The vile cruelty of slavery, the shameful legacy of Jim Crow, the disgrace of segregation, all of it–from our own individual bigotries to the systemic modes of racial injustice–all of it can be transformed by the power of God.
That was something that Martin Luther King understood. That was something that all the great witnesses of the church have understood–the Bonhoeffers and the Romeros. And they understood that to witness to that promise and that hope would take our all.
As James Cone said, “God took the evil of the cross and the lynching tree upon the divine self and transformed both into the triumphant beauty of the divine.” There is, then, hope for us, a profound hope.
One worth giving our all.
Notes
1 http://lou9587.blogspot.com/2007/12/cross-and-lynching-tree.html
[2] Id.
3 Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, Fortress Press (1993), pp 168-9.
[4] Moltmann, p. 129-30.