Midweek Faith Lift
April 7, 2021
Resurrection is Transformation
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
“If we all carry a little of the burden, it will be lightened. If we share in the suffering of the world, then some will not have to endure so heavy an affliction. It evens out.”
— Dorothy Day in Dorothy Day: Selected Writings by
Robert Ellsberg, Dorothy Day
To Practice This Thought:
Find a way to carry your share of the burdens of the world.
Good morning and Happy Easter! It is a glorious and beautiful day. I began with the above quotation because it captures the true essence of the Easter message. It is not about a resuscitated physical body. Suffering is redemptive and if we share in the suffering of the world, we contribute to what also will redeem the world and what will redeem and transform us. That is the true message of Easter, that our suffering is redemptive, both collectively and individually. Last week our quotation was “Whatever comes, good or bad, don’t make a move to avoid it.” The message this week is that when we lean into the suffering experience and share it, we participate in the awakening of the world.
In the Christian story, the Easter story, much is made of the story of Jesus dying for our sins and then beating the rap by rising from the dead as the ultimate escape from the human condition. The story then evolved in traditional Christianity that if we just believed in Jesus as our personal savior, we too, can beat the rap and escape death. And even more, we can go to Heaven where there is no longer any suffering. The whole idea was about how to escape suffering, to escape the consequences of our very human behaviors, forgetting that it is our very human behaviors that actually have the power to free us when we lean into the experiences, no matter what they bring.
Over the centuries, that traditional message has been a very appealing message: escape the rap and avoid suffering by being saved and letting someone else, in this case, Jesus take the blame. WHEW! That was a close one, right? There was a long tradition of this in the formal Jewish practice of literal “scapegoating” which was done every year during Yom Kippur. On the Day of Atonement, the Rabbi would find a goat and ritually heap all the sins of the people for that year on the head of the goat. This innocent animal would then be beaten and driven into the wilderness to carry off the sins of the people and die. Then the people, relieved of their sins would rejoice and begin a new year, free and clear, no longer carrying the burden of guilt for their choices and behaviors from the year just ended. Pretty slick, huh? Except it isn’t.
Blaming someone else is a time honored human ritual which is a cheap ticket out of taking responsibility for all they ways we have contributed to human suffering, our own and that of our neighbors and loved ones. We have all done it, more than once! It was a natural fit to just extend that narrative to the suffering and death of Jesus with the added bonus of resurrection and heaven to boot! When we do that, however, we miss the whole point and the true opportunities of the Easter story. As Richard Rohr states in his March 29, 2021 blog, “A Temporary Solution”
Jesus became the scapegoat to reveal the universal lie of scapegoating. He became the sinned-against one to reveal the hidden nature of scapegoating….In worshiping Jesus as the scapegoat, Christians should have learned to stop scapegoating, but we didn’t. We are still utterly wrong whenever we create arbitrary victims to avoid our own complicity in evil. It seems it is the most effective diversionary tactic possible. History has shown us that authority itself is not a good guide. Yet for many people, authority soothes their anxiety and relieves their own responsibility to form a mature conscience. We love to follow someone else and let them take the responsibility….
we think our own violence is necessary and even good. But there is no such thing as redemptive violence. Violence doesn’t save; it only destroys all parties in both the short and long term. Jesus replaced the myth of redemptive violence with the truth of redemptive suffering. He showed us on the cross how to hold the pain and let it transform us.
We are to hold the pain and let it transform us! What we have experienced during this COVID pandemic is that we are all a part of this experience, this story of suffering whether we want to be or not. We may have wanted to deny it, ignore it or escape it, but worldwide, that was not to be. We are still looking for someone to blame for how it started as if knowing that could prevent any future suffering of this kind. That is clinging to an illusion, the illusion that we can avoid suffering. So how has, and how can our collective suffering be redemptive? That is the true measure of our Easter experience.
What I like to say about the symbol of the cross is that it is a powerful representation of our human condition. The horizontal beam is our human timeline and represents our human life here and now. The vertical beam is our Christ consciousness, which is always a part of us, actually holding us up even when we don’t realize it. We live at the intersection of the two and as each of our crucifixion experiences happens, we are lifted ever higher on the vertical beam in consciousness. I like to think we actually start out with the cross upside down, with the horizontal beam at the lowest point of consciousness. Then as each lived experience of redemptive suffering breaks our hearts open, we come up a bit higher and a bit higher.
The cross actually represents the evolution of our human/spiritual life if we allow ourselves to experience and learn from the inevitable suffering of our poor choices and limited thinking, our worries and our fears. When we allow these experiences, whether chosen or not, because some we do not choose, to inform who we are and who we are becoming, then we know that our past does not define us. Our past, whatever it has been allows us to be who we truly are. Our true heart’s desire for each other is that we become the best, most loving, caring and compassionate versions of ourselves that we each can be. That is God’s wish for each of us, and all that has happened to us to this point has allowed us to come up this far in consciousness.
Easter is the recognition and celebration of what we have released, forgiven and the freedom that we now feel. When you have that moment of recognition, of awareness that what used to really bother you, what you might have picked a fight about is now neutral and is no longer troublesome, you are having an Easter moment. When you realize you are free of an addiction to a substance, an activity or a person, you are having an Easter moment. We give medallions and recognition to people for years of sobriety and being addiction free. We give spiritual medallions or today, it is carnations, to everyone to celebrate the freedom of living a resurrected life.
That is what Jesus meant when he told us that he came so that we could have Life and have it abundantly: John 10:11
John 10:10-11
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
(NRSV)
What Jesus is teaching us in his life and in his death is that love is a practice, not an idea. Love is what makes suffering redemptive especially in the act of forgiving. When we are willing to give up the idea that we can get something for nothing, like the thief, then we too can become good shepherds and actively love in a manner that is redemptive. When I can tell the truth, that I said or did something that I knew was hurtful or harmful but I did it anyway, then the suffering does not destroy, it does not kill and harm. Instead, it becomes redemptive and brings life. The good shepherd is awake and aware of all the opportunities for crucifixion, the experiences that allow her to let go of what does serve the highest good for all and she embraces them.
It is not easy and it is not fun. It is looking at our human selves with as much clarity and compassion as we can muster. Often we need support, prayer and assistance to do this. It is usually a moment of great humility. My own lived reality is what I shared with you last week. I like to think of myself as generous and “self-less” and willing to lay down my life for my friends, but I am not that, not on any grand scale, for sure. What is true is that it was only during a sleepless night in Mexico that I wrestled with my desire to get on a plane and go home at the first possible moment or stay and care for my sister. I would like to say it was a “no-brainer” but that would not be true or honest.
It is only when we are up against it in a lived reality, which we cannot escape that we find out where we really are in the evolution of consciousness. What is true is that each crucifixion experience brings us up higher in consciousness. The horizontal beam of our human life moves up a bit higher on the vertical beam of our divinity and the next crucifixion event is less of a crucifixion than a reminder. When we can live in this freedom, then we truly can live life as abundantly as God, as Love would have us live it. Then we can truly see that all things, no matter how we perceive them are truly working together for good for those who serve the Lord, for those who serve love.
May you have life and may you have it Abundantly! Happy Easter!
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb