Diocesan
Life Columns
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Bishop Paul's writes a monthly column for the Diocesan Newspaper, Diocesan
Life, edited by Communication
Minister, Bill Lewellis.
For more features from the life of our diocese, check Diocesanlife....ONLINE; and Bethlehem
News.
Are you an enemy of the cross?
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Diocesan Life, April 2003
I suspect that if Jesus listened to well-fed people with roofs
over their heads who in this world of terror and violence dissolve
into tears as they relate how someone hurt their feelings or
insufficiently stroked them, he would throw a Boston cream pie
and continue to do so until they figured it out. Jesus wants
to save us, not reinforce habits of dependency and emotional
blackmail.
St. Paul had considerable powers of invective - if he insulted
you, you were well and truly insulted - ask Peter or the Galatians.
The criticism he once leveled that frightens me most, however,
was an observation that a particular group of people were "enemies
of the cross of Christ."
I can think of nothing worse. The cross! Why would the apostle say that some
Christians were the enemy of that sacred symbol on which the central act of
the world's redemption was played out? I suppose there are many ways to work
against what God was doing on that tree. One stands out for practicing Christians:
the refusal to be reconciled, the refusal to seek reunion with other human
beings. Every cherished wound, every unreleased injury to dignity, every obsession
with insult, is a refusal to be on the side of Christ's cross.
This is not optional piety for the spiritual elite. The most accurately nuanced,
if lumbering, translation of the Lord's Prayer would read: Forgive us our trespasses
to the extent that we here and now forgive those who trespass against us.
Jesus was trying to teach his followers - that would be us - that we cannot
have the forgiveness business, the compassion and justice business, two ways.
In fact, he said we would be treated with exactly the same measure of forgiveness
we extend to others.
This newspaper should arrive in your mailbox during the last weeks of Lent.
As we get closer to our annual encounter with the cross, we might look at ourselves
from the viewpoint of the cross, challenging ourselves with the question: Who
goes there, friend or foe?
Our answers to that question may play a role in our growth as Christ's people.
Who are the people from whom we keep distance, with whom we refuse to be reconciled?
If it is a matter of pride, dignity or principle to remain unreconciled, we
are the enemy of the cross.
As the epistle will remind us on Palm Sunday, it was precisely to reconcile
the world that the One who was at the right hand of God absolutely emptied
himself of all pride, dignity, and principle and let himself be tortured to
death on that cross.
You cannot have it two ways: if there are people to whom you wouldn't be caught
dead speaking, people with whom it would cost you too much to get back together,
people for whom you choose not to have compassion, you are the enemy.
Do not evade the question by asking if you should take a mass-murderer to lunch
or dive back into a victimhood relationship. I am talking about the people
you have come to casually despise, fear, or marginalize because they have insulted
you or injured what you call your feelings - the people your neurotic focus
on your fragility does not feel safe around.
You know who they are. You can probably see their faces now, particularly if
you try not to. As the most casual reading of the New Testament will reveal,
Jesus has no time for hurt feelings.
I suspect that if Jesus sat and listened to well-fed people with roofs over
their heads who in this world of terror and violence actually dissolve into
tears as they relate how someone hurt their feelings or insufficiently stroked
them, he would simply throw a Boston cream pie, and continue to do so until
they figured it out. Jesus wants to save us, not reinforce habits of dependency
and emotional blackmail.
Getting over this, getting past this, involves coming closer to the cross,
not withdrawing to a place of safety. It involves looking hard at what is going
on. It was, after all, the pretense of goodness, respectability, dignity, and
outraged decency that was used to crucify Jesus, as Mark's gospel has been
laboring to teach us these past weeks. What is redemptive is that Jesus absorbs
all this nonsense and continues to love.
I think it is when we recognize that Jesus loves and forgives us precisely
when we pretend to be standing on principle, precisely when we are pouting,
precisely when we turn other people into ogres rather than look at our own
twisted-ness. When we recognize that, we can let go. We all rather rely on
God to love us when we are outrageous. Discovering that God loves us even when
we are outraged is the beginning of redemption and the seed of reconciliation.
St. Paul once pointed out, perhaps generously, that anybody would die for a
good person. He went on to say that, in our case, it was when we were at our
worst that Christ died for us. Paul said this to get the message across that
it is safe to be you, safe to reconnect with those from you are alienated and
those whom you have alienated.
On Long Island, there are about 150 Episcopal Churches. Along the two colonial
post roads on the north and south shores there is an Episcopal Church in just
about every village or town.
When I was a rector there I knew people whose spiritual dodge was to join a
parish and, when the going got tough, rather than do the work of reconciliation,
move to the next church down the line.
Some had crossed county lines by the time they got to me. I learned, not quickly
enough, that when people move to one church because of complaints about their
previous church or rector, the odds are very good that the new church and or
rector will soon become the bad guy.
Holy Week will ask us to rethink behavior like that, and invite us who know
ourselves to be forgiven of all our pretense to be in the right, to retrace
our spiritual steps and again connect with those from whom we have chosen to
stand far off.
If we do this, we will know why it is only a couple of days from Good Friday
until Easter.
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