Month: March 2018

Death on a Friday

Posted in Faith, Grace, Grief, Hope, LoveLeave a comment

Today is known by most Christians as Good Friday. I’m still not sure what’s so good about it. We commemorate Jesus’ death on this day. At this point, we’ve spent the last forty days journeying to the cross. This is the moment towards which we’ve been walking. All this talk about suffering and pain and death leads to this one moment: the death of our God. It seems like the culmination of the last forty days ends in this. It ends with the death of all the Good things we thought were going to come our way. It ends with the death of the One who can bring all Good things into existence, breathe them in our direction, grow new things in the universe. God dying is the most infinite form of death I can imagine. And the most terrifying.

I have put my trust into a God that can be killed by human hands. This God can be tortured and humiliated by people just like me. The love and persistence of a God who bears the symbol of a political death is the God I have chosen to follow. This can seem like a mistake at times, like I have made a mistake by following One so foolish. And yet it will seem foolish in two more days when we celebrate a God who rises from the dead. And we celebrate this on April Fool’s this year. I can think of no better way than to experience my faith. Lead me into the time of Lent with Valentine’s day. How romantic. How dreadfully poetic. And then lead me out of Lent and death with a fool’s day. This might be the best church calendar year ever.

Since today is Good Friday (or rather Bad Friday or Sad Friday), I’ve been thinking about death this week. It’s been particularly easy with all the rain and cloudy days we’ve been having. Go figure that the sun is out today. The weather is not making it easy to participate in the somber nature of today. I’m holding death and life in tension today, trying to make sense of both of them, how they fit together, side by side. But I’m also thinking specifically of death. I’m thinking about Trayvon Martin today. I’m thinking about Sandra Bland. I’m thinking about the seven transgender people killed this year already, about Syrian orphans being denied refugee status, about the death and injustice in the world. And this is where God stands next to us shouting “How long? How long will injustice prevail? How long before we stop killing black and brown bodies? How long will queer people still be rejected and trampled upon? When will refugees be welcomed with open arms? When will the violence and hatred end? When will we see the humanity in each and every individual?”

Today is the day that God says, “Me too.”

And that is something in which I can rest.

This is something I can trust.

This is a God I can follow.

A God who says, “Me too” is a God worth my time, worth my effort, worth my attention. This God is One whom I can wrestle with, stand side by side with, and raise my fist against injustice with.

And for this reason, I will mourn God’s death today. I will mourn it tomorrow. And I will sit in the death and sorrow of these two days, waiting for Easter to come. I will wait for God to wake from the grave and say, “Me too, honey. Me too.” And I will be relieved.

Learning Communal Lament

Posted in Faith, Grief, Native Peoples, RacismLeave a comment

For Lent, our church is going through the book of Lamentations, which consists of five poems all centered around the occupation and exile of Judah by the Babylonians. The temple, which for the people of Judah, is where God resided was destroyed, leaving the people lamenting the destruction of the house of God. Where does God go when there is no home for God? Does God leave a people when there is no dwelling place? Did God leave them before and the Babylonians were their punishment? These are some questions with which Lamentations is beginning to grapple.

Lamentations is a book about grief. It’s a poetic representation of our communal grief. How do we grieve things together? It’s a book that allows us to be angry with God, to blame God, even if God is not at fault. There is room in our grief for anger. There is also room in our faith for this kind of grief and anger. The book is about a group of people who have been destroyed and occupied. It is a book about a group of survivors dealing with trauma.

Our pastor has been bringing out the individual nature of grief. What are we grieving this Lent? What do we need to do in order to properly grieve? This is important. It is important to learn how to grieve and to do it well. It is also important for us to learn how to handle other people grieving, how to give them space to be angry, to cry, to blame God, to question God, regardless of where blame ought to lie. These are all good things for us to learn.

My mind, however, immediately went to thoughts about communal grief, particularly as a white male. I am someone who benefits both from my whiteness and my maleness. How can I, as a white person, identify myself in the story of Lamentations? I do not grieve the destruction of white people. My white ancestors are the ones who destroyed entire nations of Native Americans and have occupied their lands for hundreds of years. My white ancestors are the ones who enslaved Africans and brought them to the Americas. I do not identify with those lamenting in this Scripture. I identify with the descendants of those who did the destroying, occupying, and enslaving.

Therefore, I am left wondering how to grieve the sins of those who came before me. How do I grieve white supremacy? How do I sit with the grief that I benefit in numerous ways because of my whiteness that black and brown skinned people do not? I’m left feeling angry at the injustice. I’m left feeling frustrated with my own complicity in the ransacking of the Temple, in the systematic oppression of black people in the U.S. In the past I have felt defensive and thought things such as: I didn’t enslave anyone. I didn’t kill anyone, incarcerate somebody, or enact racist laws. But, I must contend with the fact that I benefit from white people who did. I am in a place of privilege because white people before me did those things.

While I feel disconnected from white people as a racial identity, I must also acknowledge that I am intricately linked to all the white people who came before me. In lieu of the Old Testament, I must learn what it means to ask for communal forgiveness for what my white European ancestors did to Native Americans and African Americans. I must learn how to claim those as my people and to repent for their sins. I must learn that I don’t get to pick and choose the community I came from, that I don’t get to pretend their sins don’t benefit me now.

While Lamentations doesn’t feel like a book written for me to give lament to my own individual grief, it is a book that is giving me new eyes to see those who are grieving. It is giving me lenses to see those who are lamenting, those who are crying out for justice and for equality and to be seen and heard in a country where their voices have been stifled. Lamentations is giving me the chance to sit down and be quiet while I listen. I pray that this book continue to shape me, to give me eyes to see oppression in new ways. I pray that either this book or another book in Scripture help me find the communal language to ask forgiveness, to repent, and to seek wholeness with those whom my ancestors have destroyed.