We’re continuing our theme of “PRAYING” today, with the second to last letter, “N,” reminding us this morning to “Never forget.” When the theme was being put together, this seemed to be an obvious phrase to fit the day. What do you think of when you hear it? “Never forget.” After just over a year living here, marching in the Memorial Day parade and going to the firefighter’s dinner, praying only a month ago at the funeral of a veteran of war where the national flag was offered in thanks for the man’s sacrifice for this country, I know that “never forget” is a phrase which brings to my mind images of the Wounded Warrior Project, or that Prisoners of War flag, black and white and solemn. Sad eyed children left orphaned by war. Wreckage of towns and villages after bombs have been dropped. Shadows of people left burned on the walls in Hiroshima. Amputees, suicidal soldiers, violent spasms of PTSD, which we used to call ‘shell shock’ and ‘battle fatigue.’ Well, I can tell you I am fatigued by the battle, and I’ve never put on a soldier’s uniform. But in High School I played taps for the funeral of a Marine who died while in training, and the both of us were just kids. And, yes, living on the south side of Chicago as long as I did felt a bit like a warzone at times, the stories of kids shot on their way to or from school just as collateral damage to someone else’s anger or anxiety or hysteria or fear. Those stories don’t reach very far, aren’t told very often, not if there isn’t a personal connection to them. They’re too common. They happen almost every day. Soldiers and children dying and killing, parents weeping… never forget.
We’ve had a long and arduous journey in today’s reading, so I’ll keep this short and to the point: we’ve made an entire day to glorify and celebrate this one particular death among hundreds of thousands, only because it is God who is on this cross. The way Jesus died was nothing special, hardly out of the ordinary. Loads of people are publicly and privately thrown away like so much garbage every day. It can be overwhelming to think about it all, and draining, too. There’s this thing called ‘compassion fatigue’ that happens when folks get pulled in too many directions, trying to help too many causes, and just run out of steam. Why try and do anything about it? The cycle of violence has been spinning since Cain killed his brother Abel. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” he asked God. I imagine God weeping, “Yes.” Of course you are. If you’re not, who is? The creation story tells us that from the beginning, the very first thing God said was *not* good was that it was not good for a person to be alone, and so, from the rib of Adam, God created Eve to be a helper. And it was *very* good, until their first children lost themselves to the system of sacrifices and earning favor from a God who already loved them.
See, we’ve gotten to the point where we think ‘sin’ is something we choose to do, willfully. Should I steal that DVD? No. But even if I buy it, will the person at Wal*Mart who sold it to me profit enough to eat a decent meal tonight? Should I feed every hungry person who comes to my door? Sure, why not? But even if I have the resources to do that, what about the world we have made keeps people hungry in the first place? We’ve been talking in Confirmation class about the ten commandments, and how hard, no, how impossible, it is to truly keep them. Even if we’re just talking about the letter of the law, and not even the spirit behind it, we can not by our own strength or will keep the law of God. We can not by our own strength or will make the world better. We can not fix the world by stopping one crime or another, by making more laws. It’s been a lifetime since the Civil Rights Act, and we know you can not legislate a change of heart. Sin is not a choice, it is a hereditary virus, and we all suffer from it, because we are all one humanity.
It is this one, terribly fallen, reality, that God has stepped into, has taken on, has come to redeem. You know the word ‘redeem,’ yes? When you get a code on those little cards at Starbucks you can redeem them for a free song online. Or redeem points from your Discover card to get cheaper plane tickets. Or redeem an entire life traded for another entire life. Trade over one’s position and power and riches to enter the depravity and bloody mess of the day-to-day lives of those very people who would thoughtlessly steal your life from you if you hadn’t already gladly and willingly laid it down. That’s one way to look at it, anyway. Jesus could have argued his way out of this very ordinary sort of death, died a hero in the midst of battle, even, but he didn’t do that. There was no worldly glory in just another systematic murder of an innocent person to make a political point. These sorts of things happen every day, never make the news unless we suddenly care about the one or two famous people who spoke up in a sound bite and then disappeared again.
Today is about Jesus. Today is also about us. Our world. Our habits of destruction and how stuck we are taking care of our own without knowing or caring that we are all one anothers’ keepers. We would not have cared about any other crucifixion, lynching, or gas chamber, if it did not involve someone who promised to give us something. Granted, Jesus came riding in on that donkey with a great kingly procession, seeming to promise a new way of living, but it wasn’t what we thought we needed, so we threw him to the dogs, not realizing we ourselves were the dogs.
Because, and I can’t stress this enough, we are not separate one from another. We can not claim to be so different that we would never get depressed and fly a plane into a mountain, or get angry and desperate and destroy property or another person, or so prideful that we would shun those who have been living with less housing or hygiene than we find acceptable. This is the great sin, after all, the great rending of the world that Jesus comes to heal. We are not alone by ourselves in our suffering, nor is anyone else’s suffering separate from us. Not even on the level of cause and effect, but on the level of basic humanity. Black or white, male or female or transgender, rich or poor, Republican or Democrat or Independent, American or Iranian or Palestinian or Australian… Who is welcome at God’s table? Everyone. Hunger knows no distinction. Thirst is basic to survival.
Today is about Jesus, giving himself into the mundane violence of our world, bleeding his life back into our weariness, restoring us from the depths of life and death, his own life and death, so that for every one of our deaths there is now the promise of resurrection. The sure and certain promise of it. No need to prove our losses are more worthy, no need to show the higher value of our needs over anyone else’s, no need to offer sacrifices any more to win God’s favor. God’s love and justice rain down upon us in the very moment that we are rejecting it. God’s peace and grace walks among us even while we clamor for saving. God’s forgiveness and mercy are broken open upon us on the cross, which Jesus took up willingly and out of love for us. That’s what we’re about today. It’s about Jesus, and it’s about us, because at the root it’s about the love Jesus has for us, and the lengths to which that love goes to reclaim and restore us.
We can not turn away from the suffering of the world, because it is our world. God never turns away from our suffering, because it is God’s own good creation. Never forget, it is God’s world, God’s love, God’s perfect gift, given and shed for you.
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