"The cross"-Sermon for Palm Sunday, Mark 15:1-39
At Palm Sunday each year, we are invited to stand, if you will, in the shadow of the cross. And, really this is a week-long invitation, of sorts, as the cross looms large throughout Holy Week…maybe even more so than today…on Friday…when we gather on the day of the week and the very hour that Jesus is hung on the cross. And, one of our traditions today and Friday, is not just to hear the story of Jesus’ passion and death…but to actually participate in the story. Very specifically, we get to join in the chorus, as we just did, of those calling for Jesus’ death. And, though, hard to do…it always sort of takes my breath away to participate in crying out, “Crucify him!”…I believe there is a gift in doing so, which is to remember, both personally and corporately, our complicity in the sin that results in our world’s suffering…for which Jesus goes to the cross. Some of this looks like moments of weakness when we have chosen self over other. Chosen our own desires, our own comfort, our own security, again, over the needs of others…the little lies and omissions, and sometimes big, that give us a leg up in work, school or even in the home to the detriment of strangers and, sometimes, even those we know…ironically…even love. For, if honest, the instinct to self-protect, the desire for pleasure and power, the need for recognition and adulation…that we are all subject to…are powerful, indeed, and often lead people to all manner of hurtful behavior.
And, further, sometimes such sin we are complicit in is even less obvious, maybe even things we have little to no control over, like economic and social systems that give an inherent advantage to those born in certain parts of the world, or with a certain color of skin, or with certain financial or educational advantages inherited by being born into a family with means or a well-resourced community that is relatively affluent. Though that may not be only our fault, so to speak, still some suffer while others thrive…often on the backs of those who suffer. And, I believe such inequities are a product of sin that lives in human created institutions and systems…local and global…because they are human made and supported by people like us. And, such corporate sin, and by corporate, I mean human sin baked into the system and not specifically businesses, must be named and intentionally dismantled, especially by those who directly benefit from them…including us…when we directly benefit from such systems to the detriment of others.
And so, again, this week we stand in the shadow of the cross. Or, as I began, we are invited to stand in the shadow of the cross, and we get to acknowledge our complicity in the sin that it represents. For, the cross…including all the suffering, hate, humiliation, and death endured upon it…absolutely represents, in part, human sin that Jesus willingly, if not wantingly, is hoisted upon to defeat…for all time, for all people, and forever. And, let me be clear, when I say “invitation” and “get to acknowledge”, for, indeed, I mean something positive in the use of the words “invitation” and “get to”…I don’t think this time spent in the cross’ shadow is intended to induce in us some sort of shame. For, certainly shame for mistakes made, even consequential ones, is not what God wants us to experience in this week. For, I think if God wants us to experience anything this Holy Week, even in our contemplation of the cross, it would be forgiveness, healing, connection, and overwhelming love. But…but, maybe, just maybe, though hard to say, standing in the shadow of the cross can and should create in us some level of sorrow or guilt. And, so it is important to say that shame and guilt are not the same thing. As Dr. Brene Brown suggests…shame is the feeling or belief that I am bad. I am inherently bad. I am at my core bad. Shame makes us small. It is debilitating. It leads to negative self-talk. It leads to isolation and not forgiveness, healing, connection and overwhelming love. Nothing good can come from shame. I might even suggest that shame is an expression of sin…of the self…turning in…on itself. At its worst then…shame can even be a sort of mis-guided self-hatred.
But, guilt, on the other hand, can be the reasonable, maybe even good and Godly, feeling of sorrow that results, not from inherently being bad, but from doing something bad or benefiting from something bad…like the unjust systems I previously mentioned. Friends, we were not created by God in the image of sin…but the image of love. And, the sorrow resulting from a reasonable guilt is an expression of that love. It is a feeling and acknowledgement of a wrong done that then provides a love inspired power that leads us to the very opposite of shame…that is not to turn in on ourselves…but to turn out toward others…to make things right…to seek forgiveness, to make amends, to grow, to learn, to improve, to reconnect and be reconciled with God and others and, even, at times, with ourselves. Guilt can be powerfully good, for all positive change begins by naming what needs to be change. And, guilt, though not the most fun of all feelings, is the place from deep within where we first, for ourselves, acknowledge and name what needs to be changed…what needs to be righted in our lives and relationships.
And, it is the desire for change, the desire to turn our lives and the world right side up that Jesus goes to the cross in the first place. We say that in Jesus’ death on the cross that sin and death are defeated, reconciling each one of us to God and to one another. To this end, I have personally come to see, not just sin, but reconnection and reconciliation also represented in the cross. That vertical beam of the cross symbolizing our unbreakable connection to God, earth to heaven, heaven to earth, us to God, God to us…and that horizontal beam, like arms outstretched, symbolizing our connection one to another…as we reach out our arms to embrace all those we encounter along our life’s path…strangers and beloved ones alike. Therefore, the cross, whose shadow we stand under this week, also represents and provides the power to be who we are made to be…the rainbow-colored people of God standing shoulder to shoulder, reconciled one to another and all to God.
Thus, I would suggest guilt and reconciliation are inexorably connected. For the sorrow that the cross elicits in us, for the harm we have done, intended and unintended, is a gift…a gift that leads, if willing to do the work of repentance…the work of contrition and reconnection, leads to reconciled relationships and communities. The people of God standing shoulder to shoulder, deeply connected and madly in love with each other, which is a foretaste of what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross…that we will fully know and experience in the fullness of time…in the heights of heaven, with all of creation reconciled…one to another and all to God…that await us on the other side of glory.
At about 30 years old, our own St. Julian was very sick and thought to soon die, so a priest was called to offer last rights. And, that priest held above Julian a cross on which the dying Jesus hung. So, Julian was, indeed, lying in the shadow of the cross. It was then that she was given by God her visions of God’s never-ending, meaning-making and life-saving love for all of us. She was healed…entirely. And, she spent the next thirty years of her life reflecting on those visions, which we are now blessed to have in the great spiritual work of hers, “Revelations of Divine Love”.
And, in the beginning of her writings, she tells us that, as she lay under the shadow of the cross, she asked God for three wounds. Which, I believe means three things deeply felt in her bones…and the very first wound she asked for was the wound of contrition…a sort of guilt not leading to shame…but to a holy sorrow. And, from that, we developed the very first part of our Vision Statement, which defines who we believe God is calling us together, in this family of faith, to always be and become. Our translation of Julian’s wound of contrition in our Vision Statement reads “Growing in Relationship”. For, I have come to believe that we, indeed, grow in relationship when we practice contrition. That is a sort of sorrow for wrongs done, which we acknowledge, as we, like Julian before us, stand under the shadow of the cross…that then leads us to the work of repentance…the work of reconnecting and recommitting one to another…and our relationships always then grow…we become more deeply connected…we fall more in love with each other…through our work of contrition…of sorrow…of a holy sort of guilt.
So, perhaps this week, as we stand in the shadow of the cross, we might take some time, in a spiritually edifying practice, to pay attention to where sorrow, a holy sort of guilt, might be rooting around in us. For in doing so, as we acknowledge and name our wrongs, and allow it to lead us to seek each other’s forgiveness, make amends, grow, learn, improve, reconnect and be reconciled…we will grow in relationship…we will fall more madly in love with each other…we will become a living expression of the power of Jesus’ cross which sets this world to rights…that not only this week…but always stands over us…not a sign of death…but the power of contrition and the promise of reconciliation…the promise of a joyful, meaningful, adventurous life lived together…with the cross’ blessed shadow…connecting and reconciling us up to God and out to each other…always, always over us. Amen.