Being
so immersed in Holy Week activities doesn’t always give me space to actually
reflect much on what it means.
This
blog is about justice and beauty. Where
are justice and beauty found in a crucifixion?
I
grew up in a very religious family, and I carry in me wonderful memories,
beautiful memories of special services of Holy Week. The long procession around the church on Holy
Thursday, the power of stripping the altar that night, the darkness and
emptiness of Good Friday, the flowers and candles of Easter Vigil.
But
I also grew up, in many ways, with a punishing God. I was told, along with lots of other
impressionable youth, that “every time I sinned, I drove another nail into
Jesus’ hands”. (How many nails are
there?) I’m not trying to minimize my
sin, but what a terrible thing to say to a child! That they are co-conspirators in a capital
punishment carried out by an oppressive empire.
As
I have grown to know a God of grace and mercy, whose love extends to me and to
all creation beyond what we can imagine, I have also grown to know a God of
justice, who hears the cries of the poor, and whose justice will triumph over
evil.
Walter
Bruggeman talks about the crucifixion being the ultimate prophetic criticism of
a system of death. A system that turns
human beings into objects. That is what
torture and capital punishment are (which is exactly what the crucifixion is):
the treating of the human body and the human spirit as objects to be broken
into, violated, humiliated and discarded.
It’s
easy for those of us who are Christians to recognize the forgiveness of our
sins. It’s not as easy for us to
recognize that we are the executioners.
When we torture, when we kill—as we have and as we continue to do in our
wars—we become that punishing God I was taught to fear, and ultimately,
hate. We can say that we don’t torture
“personally”, but in today’s global society, we all share responsibility for
the evils done in our name, by our system.
What
then is the liberation from this? All
too often, I think we stop at a forgiveness that is incomplete. I know that God forgives me, and that even
from the cross Jesus cried, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what
they are doing.” But it’s too easy to
see that announcement of forgiveness as the end of the issue, when what is
really called for is a reconciliation of humans with humans, humans with the
earth and ultimately humans with the Creator.
Yesterday,
I walked with people from five other churches in a Community Way of the Cross
in our Phillips neighborhood. We stopped
at different places in the neighborhood—housing for elders, a drug treatment
program, a community garden—and prayed for issues that effect us: racial
divisions, gun violence, immigration reform, the desire for healing. I led the reflection at a mural on Chicago
Avenue and 25th Street, on the side of a corner store. The mural was done by Waite House, Hope
Community and other groups that work with youth in Phillips.
I
shared a line from one of Robert Frost’s poems: “there’s something about a
wall”, and talked about how walls can protect and support us, and also how they
can divide us. This past week—which
included Frost’s birthday—saw a number of artistic actions for justice at walls
meant to divide us. A demonstration at
the Berlin Wall, where art that flourished during the fall of the Stasi state
was being dismantled to make room for “development”. Ongoing demonstrations and prayer vigils at
the beautiful murals dividing Palestinians from Israeli citizens. And when some
of the “Gang of Eight” went to the border fence between Mexico and the US, they
saw a woman trying to scale the fence, who was then arrested for “breaking the
law”. You could look at it from the view
of the United States’ side of the wall, and talk about “protecting the border”,
“illegal immigrants”, “national security”.
You could look at it from the Mexican side of the wall and see “family
reunification”, “justice for the poor” or “following the harvest, as people
have for centuries.” I hope for
reconciliation across this wall (or rather, it being torn down as an act of
prophetic reconciliation), but that is a hope seed still planted deep in frozen
ground. Which does not relieve us of the
joy or responsibility to water the seed.
There
is an imbalance at these walls. To my knowledge there are no bright, beautiful
murals on the US or Israeli sides of the dividing walls. There are lights and dogs and men with
guns. On the side of those clamoring for
freedom and opportunity, there are beautiful murals of hope. Why is it that those who have more—more
power, more money, more freedom—cannot find any aching beauty to put upon the
wall? Why is it that those who have
less—can paint such joyful, hopeful and yet challenging images that speak louder
than bulldozers or bullets?
Our
church, St. Paul’s Lutheran in Phillips, has done 17 murals in the
neighborhood, a part of more than 30 that make the community a living
artscape. One of those is a mosaic mural
on Hans Christian Andersen School a couple blocks away. The school was built in the US in the early
‘70’s, but it has the feel of late Stalinist architecture! Masses of concrete, a very few small windows. With the school children, their parents and
the neighborhood, we’ve been building a living colorful Semilla—a seed of hope that dares to be beautiful. Mosaic as an art from lends itself to that
hope so well, because its very action of taking what is broken to make beauty
is an act of prophetic imagination. We
have used pieces of broken plates, cups, mirrors, even a broken communion
chalice to add to the beauty.
At
the mural in Phillips, I shared that most of the murals in Phillips were done
by youth in the community, who paint not only the reality that they know, but
also the reality that they need. (I
stole that from Eduardo Galeano, the Uruguayan writer). An artistic vision that sees the inequality
and violence that exists, but sees the seed of new life arising out of that
death.
That,
I think, is what Jesus saw from his death when he said, “Father, forgive them…”
As
we left to march to the next stop on Friday, I looked down at the ground and
saw a beautiful piece of blue ceramic.
It looked like one of our mosaic pieces from one of our murals. Then I saw that there were others around it,
and they were indeed mosaic pieces; pieces of the mosaic that is Phillips,
pieces that we will use in a mural this summer.
President
Reagan famously told Gorbachev: “Tear down this wall!” It’s time for us to take that advice and tear
down our walls. And in the meantime,
while the chisel of justice takes its slow and steady time, let us paint them
with the beauty we need, the beauty we believe in.
Be
justice. Be beauty. Be holy.
Patrick
See
Semilla Project at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Semilla-Project/148670385198684?fref=ts
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