"And They Keep On Sacrificing Us": Christa on the Subway

(Photo by Anglocat)

Sometimes events crystallize unrelated things into perspective. Yesterday, having arrived at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine early for the ordination of a very good friend, I decided to have a look at the installation The Christa Project, which, as described in the NYT, was originally installed in 1984:

Edwina Sandys had seen this before: the 250-pound bronze statue of a bare-breasted woman on a translucent acrylic cross being installed in the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.

This time around, however, she does not expect to see something else she had seen before: the statue being packed up after a call from a ranking church official telling her it had to go.

That happened the first time “Christa,” Ms. Sandys’s sculpture of a crucified woman, was shown at the cathedral in Manhattan during Holy Week in 1984.

A controversy erupted, complete with hate mail attacking it as blasphemous. Overruling the dean of the cathedral at the time, the suffragan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York called the statue “theologically and historically indefensible” and ordered Ms. Sandys to take it away.

This time, it is being installed on the altar in the Chapel of St. Saviour as the centerpiece of “The Christa Project: Manifesting Divine Bodies,” an exhibition of more than 50 contemporary works that interpret — or reinterpret — the symbolism associated with the image of Jesus.

When I read the article, I wasn't sure how I felt about this, not as a work of art, but as an altarpiece and thus a focus for devotion.

Not because I have any discomfort with the Imago Dei being represented as female (I always think of the Holy Spirit in that way). Certainly not because I believe in complementarianism--I'm rather forcefully on the record to the contrary.

Not that I would censor it, or press for its removal, or criticize anyone moved by it. I just wasn't sure how I felt about it, for me.

And not that I thought it blasphemous (it patently isn't), or scandalous, or bad art (it's very good indeed, beautifully fashioned, evoking old Rosary crucifixes, rather like the one I wear on a chain, given to me by my parents, who received it from my maternal grandmother on their wedding day).

No, my ambivalence stemmed from my discomfort with theologies that distinguish the "Jesus of History" from the "Eternal Christ." (Yes, that means much of the 20th Century, and almost all (to date) of the 21st. You're surprised? I wasn't dubbed "the Valid Victorian" in college for nothing, you know, and my classmates knew who they were dealing with.) That's because I believe that Christianity's primary claim is a historical one as well as a theological one, one that focuses on the life and nature of one person, Jesus of Nazareth, and when we begin to step away from the man who lived and died and was seen again, well--we run into the danger of rendering him abstract. I need flesh and blood, not pretty stories.

But when I saw the work twice, first with a fellow-deacon who showed it to me, and then later that day when I showed a friend, the wife of a deacon, I was struck by the fact that both women had the same reaction: they saw it as depicting the sacrifice of women in society, analogous to that of Jesus. One of them even murmured, on viewing the sculpture, "And they keep on sacrificing us."

I began to see that my theological beliefs might not need to drive this particular train, even for me.

All well and good, but what about the envisioning Jesus on the Cross as female? How did I feel about Christa?

This afternoon made up my mind for me. After serving at St. Barts, I took the shuttle, so I could get the A Train. As the packed train pulled in, and I left it, I heard a woman say, "Get your hands off me." I turned around, and near to the back of the platform, a young man and a young woman were standing next to each other. I couldn't tell if the words I'd heard were spoken in anger, fear, or as banter.

Their body language ruled out banter pretty clearly, and, with people brushing by them with that NYC three-mile-wide-stare, he grabbed her arm.

I'd like to say that I walked over, in my clericals, and intervened. I hope and trust that I would have, had it come to it, but what I in fact did do, was quickly walk down the tracks, looking for police officers, and, thank heaven, I found two of them. As I was pointing out the man and woman to the officers, two young women joined me, and corroborated my account, and the two officers moved in before things could escalate. When it was clear the all was under control, I left.

No wonder both of my friends had seen "Christa" as capturing their reality! In a full, bustling vibrant public space, here was a young woman being bullied, forcefully seized in a possessive way against her will. None of the men around her stopped, or even looked back. The women mostly just kept on, grim-faced.

We're in the last throes of the most vicious political campaign of my lifetime, and how men treat women has come to be central in that campaign. No; that's sugarcoating it, and I won't traffic in lies here. Women's right to be free from assault is, apparently, up for debate at this election, and the seeming public acquiescence in violating that freedom.

The Incarnated Christ, the Historical Jesus, you know what?--they're both big enough to embrace Christa. Julian of Norwich, who was a lot more theologically astute than I'll ever be,wrote of Jesus as Mother, and I defer to her wisdom. Christa crucified reminds women that their experiences are embraced by God, encompassed in God's love, and that they, every bit as any man, are fully invited to partake in the fullness of God's love and redemption of Creation.

I'm with her.

Drop and Give Me Twenty : A Sermon on Luke 17:5-10

[Preached at the Deacon's Conference of the Episcopal Diocese of NY, October 1, 2016]

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

So since this is a deacon’s conference, I can probably ask this: How many of you here give your sermons titles?

I admit it; I always do. I’m a little compulsive that way…so every one gets a title.

Which, today, may be something of a problem. Because today’s sermon takes its title from the movie Animal House: “Drop and Give Me Twenty.”

As this is the first time I’ve ever preached in front of our bishop, this title makes me uneasy.

But—famous last words--I can explain.

The Gospel for tomorrow morning, which we’ve just heard read, is Luke 17, verses 5 through 10. Now, this reading contains two separate pericopes:

First, we revisit the parable of the mustard seed in verses 5 and 6, and then, in the second pericope, the rest of the reading, Jesus tells his disciples—that’s us—that when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done.”

Which of course put me in mind of Niedermeyer, the ROTC bully, hectoring his cadets with “you’re all worthless and weak. Now drop and give me twenty.” Push-ups, that is. Twenty push-ups.

So, I’m confessing, in front of my bishop, that at first glance, this gospel has me worried. Almost as worried as the opening of this sermon.

Because Jesus sounds like a really harsh taskmaster here, doesn’t he? Oh, you’ve done all that you were told to do. Great. So what? Any slave does that. Now impress me.

Yikes. How? Where’s “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” when I need him?

And what else are we to do? How else are we to serve Jesus, other than doing what he has told us to do?

Maybe you know, Shirley, with the Soap Closet Ministry you founded at St. John’s in Kingston? Or Denise, bringing the Eucharist and lunch to the park through Ecclesia?

Maybe we all know, with our various ministries, each of which brings us in a special way to the service of God’s people where we find them.

See the two things needed there? Us, and the people of God. We find the people of God, where they are, and respond to their needs as we perceive them. Each of us, by being out and about among God’s people, as one of God’s people, spots the need that we are equipped to do something about, today. It may not be the need we envisioned addressing, but we’re there, we see it, we step in. We use initiative, and instinct, and we step in.

And there it is.

We’re not called to be slaves, merely following direct orders. We are called to be active. We’re called to use what we have to help where we can.

As deacons, we are out in the world, the secular workaday world. That gives us a very different ministry from those of our sisters and brothers who are priests. We have the challenge and the honor of filling in the gaps in that secular workaday world. Often, we get to think through how to respond to those gaps, and create an ongoing ministry. Like Shirley, like Denise. Like all of us, really.

But sometimes it comes at us hard and fast.

We are just a few days after the anniversary of one such experience for me, so let me share it with you. Three work colleagues from my day job and I were driving south from Saratoga to Albany after a work function. I was in the back seat with another lawyer; an administrator from my office, Kim, was driving. Kim saw a motorcycle come off the ramp, and the rider lose control. The bike skidded under an 18 wheeler, the driver went flying.

Even in the back seat, I could see that. I was stunned, but Kim wasn’t. She slewed the car diagonally across the highway to stop traffic. And when the traffic stopped, and other cars joined her, she started to cross the Thruway to get to the rider.

I followed her.

Not that I’m brave; I’m not. I just couldn’t let her go alone. So I followed her.

When I got there, it was clear that the rider was dying or dead. Two young women were standing by him, horror struck.

I felt so useless. There was nothing I could do.

Then I realized there was one thing I might do: Last Rites. I didn’t have my prayer book, or anything to guide me, but I had to perform last rites once during my Clinical Pastoral Training. I didn’t know the words, of course, but I had the sense of it—the topics and the flow of it.

As I fished out my crucifix to help center me, I heard Kim—who knew I’d been ordained just three months before this—ask, “John, will you pray?”

I knelt next to Andrew—that was the rider’s name—and lay my hands on his arm. I prayed for him, and felt Kim and the two young women draw around into a semi-circle. We prayed together.

In this room, we all know that I didn’t do anything praiseworthy that day; I showed up. That’s all. I filled the gap. I answered the call. I did what was required of me at that moment, in that place. I didn’t fail. That’s all.

But the choices we make as deacons to be available to step into those gaps—those choices to be vulnerable to the needs of God’s creation are not the choices of slaves. We have chosen to be accountable, to be responsible, to be present for the needs of the people of God, even if we can only stand vigil.

So we’re not worthless or weak, and not unprofitable slaves who only do the minimum and work to rule. Jesus isn’t looking for slaves, who need to be ordered to perform each task.

The whole point of the pericope is that we aren’t slaves at all. Paul in his letter to the Galatians helps to clarify the point of Luke’s story: We are not called to be slaves but children of God, and through God, heirs. [Gal 4:3]. Or, put it another way; in traditional art apprenticeships, the learner goes from being alunno (pupil) to amicus (friend).[1] In John’s Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples, “I no longer call you servants but friends.” [Jn 15:15]. They have graduated from their apprenticeship. We are walking the same path, following in the same Way, from pupil to friend, from foster child, to heir. And the more we embrace our calling, use our initiative and gifts, the more we leave behind the fear-based life of the slave for the full life in Christ that we are called to live. Never attaining perfection, but growing more and more every day.

In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[1] See Robertson Davies, The Lyre of Orpheus (1987).