Liturgies for Lent: The Cross

"But today, our self-righteousness, our fear, and our anger have caused even the Christians to hurl stones at the people who fall down, even when we know we should forgive or show compassion. I told the congregation that we can't simply watch that happen. I told them we have to be stonecatchers."
-Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

Image by Whitney Leigh Carlson. This image is from a series of Holy Week Art cards for sale here.

Scripture for reflection

"Two others, both criminals, were led out to be executed with him. When they came to a place called The Skull, they nailed him to the cross. And the criminals were also crucified—one on his right and one on his left.

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”  And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice.

The crowd watched and the leaders scoffed. “He saved others,” they said, “let him save himself if he is really God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” The soldiers mocked him, too, by offering him a drink of sour wine. They called out to him, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”  A sign was fastened above him with these words: “This is the King of the Jews.”

One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!”

But the other criminal protested, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die?  We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.”  Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”

And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
-Luke 23:32-43

"Identify with those who are in prison as though you were there suffering with them, and those who are mistreated as if you could feel their pain."
-Hebrews 13:3

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
-John 8:7

Meditation: On the cross

I sometimes tell my Dad he taught me to love all the wrong people.

I was six years old when I stumbled upon the papers, deep in a drawer, unsure now what I was looking for.  PROBATION written in bold, black letters.  I ran to my Mom to ask what this word meant, and it was then that I learned my brother was in prison.  And to this day, I become fiercely protective of how people talk of prisoners, because what they say of them, they say about my brother. 

Perhaps it was these and other family experiences that led my Dad to run a support group out of our church for men and women in recovery.  People, whose addictions led them in and out of prison.  Soon enough, there were cigarette butts on the church grounds, something the upstanding church folk were less than thrilled about.  He humbly implored them to consider that these were signs of sacredness, symbols of lives transformed of the ashes, outposts of what Sarah Bessey calls, the Kin-dom of God.

I've worked with a number of men and women who were formerly imprisoned throughout my social work career, and one thing is clear: No one teaches me more of grace, of dignity, of the beautiful inbreaking of re-making our lives anew.  Their stories are living testaments that all of life is holy; there are no throwaways, no bad people, no one incapable of redemption.  The formerly incarcerated, who feed the unsheltered in their communities, take in kids that aren't theirs by blood but by choice, accompany those with disabilities, who heal from their unspeakable trauma, learn to love themselves- and the world with wide open arms.

Anthony Ray Hinton, in his critically acclaimed book The Sun Does Shine writes of his experiences on death row, having been wrongfully convicted of a crime that he was not exonerated from until nearly thirty years into his sentence.  He formed a friendship with Henry Hays, a KKK member who lynched Michael Donald, a Black teenage boy in March, 1981 in Mobile, Alabama.  ARH writes, "Henry was taught to hate, but once Henry came to death row, the very people that he was taught to hate taught him love, compassion. Henry changed and I saw the change."

When Henry's mother died, his fellow inmates grew quiet as they heard him wail, and extended hospitality to his cell, their own funeral procession, passing soup, chocolate, and chips, the little luxuries of the canteen, to comfort and honor the bereaved.  Even in a man who was serving a crime that denied their humanity, they dignified his, the loss of a loved one, a common connector.  On the evening of his electrocution in 1997 , Henry told Anthony that his Dad lied to him, and "that now he knows what love is."

Jesus, in his dying breath, shows us what love is.  Love is receiving the full humanity of the thief on the cross next to him.  A thief who was given the death penalty under a harsh and unforgiving empire.  A thief who saw the mystery of Christ, the weight of love in arms stretched out, for a criminal like him, and was instantly captivated.  Jesus, who died by capital punishment for being a threat to the way things are.  Jesus, who lived and died in solidarity with all the wrong people.  

Snacks given to a man who harmed his fellow human for the color of their skin.

Cigarette butts scattered across a church parking lot.

Keys tossed to a prisoner to enter paradise.

The thief who is our brother.

The Kingdom of God is like this.

Proclaim belovedness practice

Prisoners, along with so many others who live in the margins of our society, are so often dehumanized by the narratives we tell.  This practice is for our enemies, for anyone who lives outside our empathy, as Osheta Moore is fond of saying.  We must learn to tell a better story of anyone we condemn, that captures the why not just the what, the sickness, not just the symptom.  And we do this first through radical re-humanization. 

After the murder of George Floyd, I went to bed praying for my 'enemies,' for those who made it his fault, those who sided with the officer, those who sided with a system that works just fine for them.  My prayer was: (insert name here), is created in imago Dei.  It was a declaration, a remembrance to not bend toward dehumanizing those who dehumanize, to not thingify them as MLK said.  Jesus taught us to pray like this: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."  And on the cross, he pleaded, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."  Who is just outside your empathy today?  As hard as it is, how might you proclaim their belovedness again?

Breath prayer

Inhale: You created them in imago Dei.

Exhale: There is no them in God.