Questions on the Theology of the Cross

As we approach Holy Week and the Triduum I am beginning to get some questions about the theology of the cross, etc. Here is an email I received from a long-time friend.

[[Dear Laurel, I feel sort of negative about the crucifix and communion. Here are the reasons: I know the church teaches that Christ died for our sins, but the crucifix also represents a very violent and bloody act. What kind of example is that to set in front of our already troubled youth? I know the church teaches that communion is the body and blood of Christ, but the idea of drinking human blood and eating human flesh seems very savage and cannibalistic to me. Again this seems like sick thinking to me. What can you say about this? Now that I have had my say, how are you and what is going on in your life? Love and Peace,]]

Hi there!
Regarding your questions: It is important to remember that in the events of the cross the violence and evil done were human acts (or, more accurately, literally inhuman acts unworthy of God or humankind). They tell us what happens when the sacred (and truly human) is put into our sinful hands. Part of the redemption God achieves on the cross is the redemption of our horrific treatment of one another and of God himself. Part of it is the redemption of our inhumanity and the making possible of authentic humanity in Christ.

Secondly, it is important to remember that Jesus' physical and psychological suffering per se was not salvific. What was salvific was that in the midst of this terrible suffering, injustice, shame, failure of mission, and betrayal, he remained open to God (the One he called Abba) and to whatever God would bring out of it. The word we use for this openness and responsiveness is "obedience". It does NOT mean that God willed Jesus' torture by venal, cruel, ambitious, and frightened human beings. What God DID will, however, was to enter into all of the moments and moods of human life including sinfulness and death so that he could redeem and transform them with his presence. Jesus allows God to do that by remaining open to him even in such extremity. (He does not shut down, nor does he try to assume control, for instance.)

Neither is Jesus' death by itself salvific. Again, even in death and beyond natural death in what the NT calls "godless" or "eternal death" Jesus remained open to what God would bring out of this. Because he did, God was able to enter into these godless realms and for that reason they no longer are signs of God's absence. Instead, because of Christ obedience unto "death, even death on a cross" as Paul puts it, even in sin and death we will meet God face to face and God will bring life not only out of the unexpected place but the unacceptable place --- the place where human reason says God should never be found.

God never changes his mind about us. He loves us --- actively, passionately, without reserve. (He IS love-in-act; this creative, dynamic, unceasing love is God's very nature!) What God changes through the events of the cross is reality itself. Unless once we are face to face with God we actually choose eternity without God there is no longer sinful or godless death. Even should we choose this I think it will mean we choose an eternity facing  a Love we have been offered without reserve, but which we have definitively refused. (It is hard for me to think of a worse situation than to be locked inside one's own hatefulness while faced with a Love which frees and gives eternal life.)  What we have to teach our youth is exactly what Paul says in Romans 8: neither life nor death nor powers nor principalities, nor heights nor depths, etc etc will EVER separate us from the love of God. God has made sure that he is present in even the unacceptable place (in this case, the realms which are properly called godless); he has assured the truth of what Paul asserts in Romans 8 and it is Jesus' openness and responsiveness to God in the face of human evil of unimaginable lengths and depths that spurred Paul's profession of faith.

One other note: The NT speaks of divine wrath. This does not mean anger in the sense we know it ourselves. It means something akin to a tough love that allows the consequences of our choices to catch up to us. God respects our choices even if he does not respect WHAT we choose. He allows the consequences of our choices to catch up with us. However, at the same time, if we choose sin and death (knowing we cannot fully conceive what we are choosing in this way), he makes sure we will find him even there. 

The Church has never asserted a single interpretation of the cross nor a normative theology of the Cross. Unfortunately what we hear too often is Anselm's interpretation. Anselm's world was a feudal one where notions of shame and honor were driving forces. Thus he saw God as infinitely offended by human sin and wrote that an infinite price had to be paid for God's honor to be regained. Further, that price had to be paid by a human being since human beings had caused the infinite offense while only someone divine COULD do so. The biggest problem though was that he saw God as needing to be reconciled. This is exactly the opposite of what Paul says in 2 Cor 5:19: [[God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.]] In other words, it is the world which needs to be reconciled to God; in Christ God brings everything home to itself and to himself. He sets all things right. This is the nature of divine justice. He asserts his rights or sovereignty over a broken creation by letting nothing stand between us and his creative love (himself). It is not God's honor that needs to be appeased but a broken and estranged world that needs to be healed and made one with God (the ground of existence and meaning). That is what happens through Jesus' crucifixion, death, and resurrection. In Christ God takes the worst human beings can do and brings divine wholeness and life out of it.

2) Regarding Communion: The Church does not and has never taught that Jesus is PHYSICALLY present in the Eucharist. In order to speak about the Real presence she uses the terms real, true, and substantial. She does so to avoid crude physicalisms like those we sometime hear associated with private visions, etc --- things like munching on toenails and the like. Further, the Church teaches that the Eucharistic presence is the presence of the Risen Christ not Jesus of Nazareth per se, and so, this involves a resurrected body/self which, though really present and consistent with the historical Jesus, is not subject to the conditions of space and time. In the NT the Gospel writers speak of the Risen Xt as walking though walls or being in two places at once (Road to Emmaus and Galilee, for instance) or of eating fish in order to be able to convey all of these things. The Risen presence is real, true, and substantial but NOT physical in the sense cannibalism (or munching on toenails) requires. It is a transcendent presence, a mysterious presence, not a strictly historical one. 

I hope this helps.

Divine Mercy, Must it be balanced with Divine Justice?

[[Dear Sister, doesn't God's mercy have to be balanced by his justice? I hear you speaking of mercy as justice and that seems to me to be incomplete and kind of irresponsible. Can God just forgive us all we have ever done without serious consequences? Are you saying there is no hell? That no one ever commits a mortal sin?]]

Thank you for the questions. They are good and I am sure a number of people reading recent posts here are asking similar ones. To be clearer (I hope) --- HUMAN mercy and justice require the balance provided one by the other. On the other hand, DIVINE mercy DOES justice. DIVINE justice IS mercy. Where God loves, mercy and justice are both done simultaneously because God is one. Human beings are broken, divided, ambiguous, and sinful. The result for us is a mercy that is not as effective as God's, a justice which is not as loving or creative, and a love which is also not as powerful or reality-changing as God's own love is. Our own human justice tends towards distributive or retributive justice, meaning we give everyone what we judge they deserve according to law, but not sufficiently towards setting reality to rights in terms of the Gospel which, in Christ, transcends and is the goal and end (telos) of law. God's justice is what happens when love (God's own self) triumphs and brings everything to perfection or fullness of being. Our own justice falls far short of that and so it must be balanced with mercy, love, equity, and other things which themselves must be completed or balanced with other elements because in human terms these are all much more partial and less effective than God's justice.

Consider that God is love-in-act and love-in-act is creative. When God loves, God does justice. He sets things right --- he recreates them as he wills them to be. When God does justice he sets people free, he makes freedom real and this implies God creates and gifts us with a Future. God is Absolute Future and life in and with God is the perfection of human freedom. When God makes us free or creates human freedom, God is forgiving and merciful, freeing us from the bondage of sin and death and reconciling us to ourselves, others, and to himself. This involves a yes to us and a no to the powers of sin and death --- as well as to our complicity with these. Love-in-act (God) does all of these things at once. They are really a single thing in God though we, in part due to our own brokenness and limitations, may use different words to refer to these depending upon how we experience them. Thus God does not have to balance mercy with justice, nor vice versa. His love, which we can never deserve, is merciful, it does justice and thus changes the whole of reality in the process.

Can God just forgive us without serious consequences? Maybe a better way to ask this is can we simply sin without serious consequences? The answer is no. The choices we make have very serious consequences both personally and for our larger society and world. It would be hard to point to one segment of human life where the consequences of human sin are not prevalent. At the same time they have very serious consequences for God and are costly in the extreme. This is the message of the cross --- the story of what is demanded for God to deal effectively with sin and death, to bring them "under his feet" --- so that God might one day be All in all and bring everything to the perfection he wills. We most often see Jesus' Passion as a merciful act, but we must also be very clear that this is God doing justice, God setting things to rights; it is God paying the ultimate price of an eternal and inexhaustible love for his creation. Here God accomplishes his will and reconciles all things to himself; here God empties himself entirely of divine prerogatives precisely so sin and death may not have the last word.

Am I saying there is no hell? No, I am not saying that, however, I am saying that hell is transformed with God's presence. It is no longer godforsaken space, though it is that space or dimension of reality where God, despite his immediate presence is ultimately forsaken by human beings. I admit that I cannot personally imagine a person facing Love-itself at the moment of death and rejecting it definitively, that is, for all eternity, but it certainly seems the possibility must exist for human beings to also be able to choose Love freely. And what about mortal sin? I do not personally accept that any single choice I make during this life, no matter how serious, can cut me off from God's love in an ultimate way. So long as we are this side of death, God can bring us to repentance and works to do so. I do believe that during our lives we make patterns of choices to accept or reject the love of God and thus either create the persons we are called to be or reject and betray this basic vocational task .

These choices are serious and can enlarge us as persons or whittle us down and hollow us out leaving us less and less capable of love, compassion, truth-telling and being, and all things truly human. They are death-dealing or life-giving depending upon whether they are rejections of, responsive to, or close or open us to divine grace. Such choices thus prepare us for the final and definitive choice we are faced with in death. At the same time I thus believe that at the moment of death we each meet God face to face and are called to make a final or definitive choice for or against God which ratifies for all eternity the choices we have made throughout our lives and the persons we have become in one way or the other. It is this last choice, part of the very event of death, which could be a truly mortal, unforgivable, and eternal sin --- a decision for hell.

I do, therefore, believe that everyone commits serious sin at various points in their lives and that some make such sin more or less a way of life. I also have noted that such sin is death-dealing, and in this sense it is "mortal" but this is different than suggesting such sins actually and individually cut us off completely from the life of God. After all, God is the ground and source of our very being; he is partly constitutive of us even while he transcends us and is distinct from us. Thus I prefer to speak of grave or serious and less grave or serious sins rather than mortal and venial sins. But I would speak of the final or definitive choices we make to reject God as "mortal" because even in hell we continue to exist though in some less-than-truly-human, less-than-truly-alive sense. We may also be aware of the Love-in-Act we have now eternally rejected --- though I hope that is not so, to my mind, that would truly be hell.

I hope this is helpful.

Followup to Jesus' Descent into Hell: How Love does Justice

[[Dear Sister,
how does your essay on the descent into hell take seriously the reality of sin and death? There are so many notions of Jesus' death which seem to say that what human beings do are of little consequence and which forget that the Gospels speak of God's wrath as much as they speak of God's love. Doesn't your version of things fall into this camp of contemporary theology that fails to do justice to God's justice?]]

Thanks very much for the questions. Remember that the essay I posted (cf Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Jesus' Descent into Hell) was an attempt to state the heart of the matter in a single page. For that reason some aspects of it had to be cut out. (Indeed, had I been writing an article of a dozen pages much would have been inadequately covered or never mentioned!) For instance, in the first paragraph I had to edit out a reference to the fact that while God says an emphatic NO to sin, death, and all that are obstacles to his love, he always says a resounding YES to the sinners themselves. Similarly I had to cut out any explanations of God's wrath as a function of his love, not as something in opposition to or in competition with it. I believe your questions are answered by recalling what it means for God to say NO to sin and death, to all that is ungodly and that allies with death and godlessness. In reflecting on that NO we come face to face with the wrath of God. At the same time it is a no, it is a wrath which is dependent on as well as an expression of the very love I wrote about in the essay already posted on the descent into hell.

God's NO is a costly one, but in the main, it is costly for God. It demands a self-emptying which takes him into the depths of inhumanity and death, into the very abyss of godlessness created by human choices to live and therefore to die without Love itself. It demands a subjection to the very powers of sin and death precisely so that they might be given exhaustive play in this event and, in the process, be encompassed and transformed by Love itself. It is no small thing for God to say a final NO to sin and death. It costs Jesus the quite literal suffering of the damned, not to mention the torture of the very worst that human beings could do to him to strip him of his humanity and reduce him to nothingness. We have difficulty with this in part because the costliness is assumed by God. Our own notions of justice would like it to be costly in an ultimate way to us instead. But in this version of the atonement, the entire cost of doing justice (having mercy!) is borne by God himself. The consequences of our own sinfulness are both real, serious, and painful --- but the largest share in the consequences of our sin is taken on by God.

Perhaps we would also be more comfortable if God were simply to destroy sin and death by fiat, but in bringing even the realms or dimensions of godlessness and anti-life into subjection to Godself hasn't God done something even more wondrous? Our own notions of God destroying by fiat almost always involve God simply obliterating whatever is tainted by sin or death (and this includes human freedom if not human life itself). But here, in the events of Jesus' passion (which includes his descent into hell), we have a very unique act of harvesting, an ultimate teasing apart of the wheat from the chaff --- something we are told only God can do without destroying the wheat. Here God says a powerful, effective, and transforming NO to anything which opposes him in order to say a transfiguring YES to those in bondage to these powers --- those persons whom he loves with an everlasting love. Here, he does it from WITHIN the very realities of sin and godless death in a way which effectively destroys them while rescuing those subject to them. (This is the process echoed in icons such as the "harrowing of hell" or in the scant Scriptural texts which refer to Jesus proclaiming the gospel to the dead in sheol or hades.) We are speaking not so much of rescue from a physical place with such language (though I believe there are meaningful ways of this being so) as the teasing apart and harvesting of the living and true from the powers of sin and death. As a result, those who are baptized into Christ's death become a "new creation" --- literally a creation for whom death is abolished and has no real power any longer.

God's love without his wrath is meaningless or empty in the face of the realities of sin and death. Real love must take these with absolute seriousness --- and it must overcome them. On the other hand, God's wrath as a competitor to his love is a destructive and blasphemous reality because it makes of God an image of an alienated, broken, and divided humanity rather than its creator who summons it to and effects a unity and communion which transcends such estrangement. The only solution, or perhaps better said, the divine solution is the paradoxical one where wrath is exercised in a way which allows love to have the final word --- where, that is, wrath and love are expressed in a single act which says NO to sin while saying YES to the sinner, and where God's mercy for the sinner effects a cosmic justice which sets all things right. We might think of this as a single merciful command, LET THERE BE LIFE which is at once a NO to sin and death and a YES to those who require redemption from these.

In the essay I posted on Jesus' descent into hell (cf Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Jesus' Descent into Hell) I said that "God asserts his sovereignty (i.e., God's Lordship) precisely in refusing to allow enmity and alienation to remain as lasting realities in our lives or world." In other words, our God does divine justice (sets all things to right) precisely in having mercy on us; this is because genuine mercy will always mean the effective condemnation of anything which separates us from the Life and Love we are made for and which is God's own will.

I hope this, brief though it also is, is of some assistance to you.

The Death of Death: Jesus' triumph over Godless death (Reprise)

What is it we celebrate today in proclaiming CHRIST IS RISEN, INDEED HE IS RISEN!!? In particular, what does it mean to say that Jesus has conquered death? Isn't death still with us? What has changed? A couple of people have written about the article I posted last week and asked for some clarifications. Since the explanatory notes that accompanied the original article in Review For Religious did not translate into the blog entry it is more than likely the article left readers in general with questions and the need for clariifcations. I will try to answer or address them here as they are raised in email.

As I noted in that earlier post (A Theology of the Cross), in the Scriptures death has two meanings. There is the normal kind of perishing, the kind of perishing our pets do, the kind of perishing which is completely natural and untainted by sin. Presumably it is the kind of dying which is, for us, a natural transition to eternal life, the kind of death Mary suffered prior to her assumption, and the kind of death we might have known had sin never been introduced into our world. But there is also a second kind of death, the kind which we humans beings know and fear because it is unnatural, sinful, and therefore, by definition, Godless. It is a more characteristically PERSONAL reality created by human sin. It is also a power at work in the world, but twisted, distorted and made malignant through sin. For this reason it is variously described as sinful death, godless death, or the second death; it is symbolized by death on the cross, and what makes it horrific for us is the absence of God. It is completely antithetical to what we are made for or called to. When Paul writes that the sting of death is sin, this is what he is referring to --- death which is rendered Godless --- for we are rightly terrified of this death, and yet, every time we choose to live without God, we choose Godless death as well, for to choose life without God, is necessarily to choose death without him.

This second (kind of) death is the death which Jesus died for us, the death which he experienced in all of its depth and horror. It is marked, as his cry of abandonment tells us, by his loss of all contact with his Father. Jesus enters the realm of Godlessness, not simply that of death but of SINFUL death, the uniquely personal realm and power created by human sinfulness, and he does so OBEDIENTLY, that is, remaining open and responsive to his Father and the Holy Spirit, not turned in on himself or rejecting the dependence of faith by attempting to save himself or despairing of God. When Paul says Jesus was obedient unto death, even death on a cross, this is what Paul is talking about. Crucifixion symbolized godlessness, and being completely cut off from both human and divine communion. To die such a death while remaining obedient to God is to open this ultimate sinful and personal reality to God. It is, in fact, to implicate God into this reality thus transforming it forever.

And here is the key to understanding Jesus' triumph over death, sinful, godless death. God cannot force his way into a strictly personal reality. He must be ALLOWED in. That is true in our own hearts, and it is true of this uniquely personal reality as well. In our own lives, we are called to obedience, which means we are called to remain open to and dependent upon God and the life and meaning he gives. We are called to do that in all of life's moments and moods so that God is implicated in them --- our contribution to God's becoming "All in All"! And yet, in our own lives, when faced with threatening situations, we typically do NOT remain obedient to God. Instead we do what the crowd challenged Jesus to do: we attempt to save ourselves. This may mean doing all we can to extricate ourselves altogether from the situation APART FROM THE GRACE OF GOD, but it may also mean shutting down emotionally, doing all we can to prevent ourselves from really feeling what is happening to us or being vulnerable to all it implies. Unfortunately, we also cease to be vulnerable to or dependent on the grace of God at such times

Jesus, however, does not shut down emotionally; he does nothing to ease his own vulnerability, and he certainly does not act to extricate himself from the situation. Even his request that this cup might pass from him is a way of remaining open to the will and grace of his Father and dependent upon that; it is an expression of vulnerability. His is truly an obedient death, and he remains open and responsive to God right to the depths of all this sinful, godless death implies. And it is here the miracle occurs. Because of this openness, this complete or exhaustive dependence and self-emptying, God is able to enter the situation just as exhaustively and transform the reality of godless death with his presence. Where once sinful death would have had the final word, it no longer does. Instead God will bring life and meaning out of even this reality. When Paul speaks of the death of death this is what he is speaking of: the triumph of self-emptying (kenotic) Love over sinful death. When he asks, "death where is your sting?" he is pointing to this transformation.

In light of this, for those baptized into Christ's death and faithful to that baptism, death is what it can be for us: more truly a matter of natural perishing, a kind of transition to eternal life. It is no longer something we must fear in the way we once did for it lacks the sting it once had. It is instead, in light of Christ's death, the place or event in which we may meet God face to face. God forgives our sins, but he acts to reconcile us to himself, and part of that reconciliation is to defeat those realities which remain as obstacles between us and himself. Both death and godless death are among those. The post-resurrection world is not the same as the one that existed before Jesus was raised, for life has broken into some of the darkest most inaccessible places in light of Jesus' OBEDIENT death and resurrection. More precisely, heaven has broken in upon us and we are asked to be ITS citizens (that is, Daughters and Sons of God) right here and right now as a result of our baptisms into Jesus' death.

On Bearing the Crosses that Come our Way (Reprise)

[[1) Are there such things as "unworthy" crosses, or "unholy" crosses? 2) Is God only able to use "holy crosses", or "worthy crosses" in our lives?? 3) Does he simply remove these ["unworthy"] crosses for us??]]

Well, it's an interesting couple of questions, but the answer to the first one is no (or potentially so), and the answer to the second question is a definite no!! The third one is a bit more nuanced, so see below. Let me start with the second question, (Can God only use Holy crosses?) which is more straightforward, and more clearly theological. It will provide the basis for answering the first and third questions as well.

To begin we must start with the central paradigm and symbol of our faith, the Cross of Christ. When we think of the Cross of Christ and Christ's passion it is critically important to remember that what was most significant about it was not the agonizing physical torture associated with it, horrific as this was, but rather the shame, offensiveness, and scandal of the cross. There was nothing holy, or worthy, or respectable about the cross Jesus assumed as his own. Quite the contrary. It was in every way the cross formed and shaped from and by human sinfulness, depravity, cruelty, inhumanity, and shamefulness --- not from human nobility, compassion, integrity, or anything similar. This cross represented the antithesis of the holy, the good, or the noble. It was understood to represent Godlessness (anti-life, anti-holiness, etc.) in as absolute a way as anything could. And of course, it is THIS shameful, unholy cross that God uses to redeem and reconcile his entire creation! (I am not going into this theology of how that happens in detail here; I have done that other places so please check the tags in the right hand column to find those articles re how the cross works, or the "Theology of the Cross".)

With this in mind, I think I can now approach the answer to your first question. There is no doubt that many of the crosses that afflict our lives are the result of unworthy choices, whether our own or another's. Not all the crosses we are called to bear are the result of an unchosen illness, for instance. People hurt one another, sometimes deeply and in ways which leave wounds which are difficult to work with or treat. Children are abused by parents and their capacities to love, trust, or live can be badly impaired. Adults sin seriously and impair their own and others' physical and emotional health in the process. In so many ways we carry the scars of these events, sometimes for years and years, sometimes our whole lives long. When you refer to unworthy or unholy crosses I think you are probably referring to these kinds of things, crosses that are the result of sin, inhumanity, cruelty, and the like. They are not unworthy in and of themselves, but they are the result of choices which are unworthy of both God and mankind, so let me go with that understanding for the moment.

So, what are we to do with such crosses? And further, can God use these for his own purposes even if he does not "send them"? Well, as with any cross we are to bear them patiently and courageously. HOWEVER, to bear them in this way does not mean simply to carry on without treatment, therapy, necessary personal work, healing and the like. To bear these kinds of crosses REQUIRES we work to allow the healing we need to live and love fully as human beings. This correlative work is actually a piece of bearing our cross patiently and courageously, ironic or contradictory as that may initially sound.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. A child who is abused will grow up scarred; it is a cross she will have to bear for her whole life, though not necessarily always in the same way. However, it is a cross which will need to be borne precisely by taking on therapy and the hard work of healing. Were she to refuse this work and allowed her life to be dominated or defined completely by the past, she would not be embracing her cross or bearing it patiently, but denying and rejecting it. One does not embrace one's cross by refusing to live fully. To bear a cross patiently means to take on LIFE in its shadow, and marked by its weight and imprint, but also to do so with the grace of God which brings life out of death, wholeness out of brokenness, joy out of sorrow, and meaning out of senselessness. It does NOT mean to forego the challenges of living fully in the name of some piously-rationalized cowardice and "victimologization". For instance, the abused person would not be bearing her cross patiently if she said, "Well, God sent this cross, so I will simply accept all the consequences, dysfunction, crippled human capacities, and distortions that come with it. Don't talk to me about therapy, or moving out of this abusive relationship, or working hard to change the situation, etc. This was God's will!"

Prescinding from the idea that God sent this cross for the moment (a notion which I personally reject and explain below), what this attitude describes instead is capitulation to what Paul calls the powers of sin and death which are so active in our world. It is the refusal to allow God to redeem the situation, the refusal to be free in the Christian sense, and represents the embracing of bondage or slavery instead. It is an act of collusion with the destructive effects and process of the cross. Whether one is motivated by cowardice, hopelessness, masochism, or some other similar thing, in this case the pious sounding, "God sent this cross so I will accept it, all its consequences, dysfunction,. . ." is a refusal to live fully, to seek genuine holiness and humanity. It is a refusal of God's grace as it usually comes to us as well, for God's grace here ordinarily comes to us through things like the processes of therapy, spiritual direction, personal work, and all the relationships and changes which bring hard won healing and wholeness.

Can God use these "unworthy" crosses for his purposes? Of course. Why would he not be able to? To suggest otherwise is to say that God is incapable of redeeming certain aspects of his creation, or of making all things work for good in those who love him and let him love them. It is to suggest the Christ Event was a failure, and today's passage from Romans 8 is hyperbole at best, and a lie at worst. God may not have sent this cross, but there is no doubt that he can use it as a unique source of grace in one's life. We grow in all kinds of ways when we embrace the unavoidable difficulties life throws our way, but especially when we do so in faith and in concert with God's grace. This points up another way of refusing to carry one's cross, an unusual way I think, but one nonetheless.

It is a refusal to carry one's cross to say, "God did not send it, so let's just be rid of it (or ignore it, etc). I cannot grow in this virtue or that one in light of this cross because it is unworthy, unholy, and God did not send it." In fact, God ordinarily does NOT send the crosses that come our way. They are forged instead in the workshops of human sin, stupidity, cruelty and violence --- just as Jesus' cross was. And yet, he expects us to take them on with his grace so that he might redeem us and our world. I don't for an instant believe that God sent chronic illness, injury and pain for me to live with, however, he can use these with my cooperation to transform both me and my world. I don't for an instant believe that God sends the crosses that are the result of abuse, neglect, carelessness, cruelty and the like, but there is no doubt that he can use these to transform their sufferers and our world.

Your last question was a bit more of a surprise than the other two and you may need to say more about it for me to answer adequately. Let me take a stab at it though. Does God simply remove these crosses for us? My first answer is no, though I am sure he COULD do. My second or related response is a question, "why should he?" I suppose in some way this question stems from your other two: if a cross is unholy and unworthy and God did not send it, then why shouldn't he simply remove it? But the simple fact is that crosses become holy and worthy in the bearing of them! They are "worthy" or "holy" crosses only when the one afflicted by them bears them worthily and in holiness. These crosses become something other than the result of human sinfulness and cruelty only when they are borne with grace --- and here grace does not simply mean superficial equanimity (or something less noble like grudging resignation!); it means "with and open to the life-giving life and power of God's accompanying love."

God has chosen to redeem this world by participating in its crosses, but as with Jesus, that means that one has to take the cross on in a conscious way and walk with it. Of course we will fall under its weight from time to time. Jesus did as well. But he remained open to what God would bring out of it all. This is why Paul's summaries of Jesus' achievement focuses not on his pain but on his obedience: "Jesus was obedient unto death, even death on a cross." In the end, it is only in this way that God can take on sin and death, enter into them exhaustively, and transform them with his presence. We take these things on as a piece of Jesus' own redemptive work; we cannot eschew such a burden and be true to our callings.

Theologically, it makes no sense to me to try and distinguish between those crosses which are sent by God and are worthy of being borne, and those which are not. Partly that is because I don't believe God sends crosses so much as he sends the means by which they may be redeemed and become redemptive. Partly it is because it is precisely the unholy and unworthy that God takes on WITH US (and in us!), in such cases, transforming them into something of real worth and holiness. Did God send Jesus the cross he took on! NO, it was entirely a human construct made with our own bloody hands and twisted, frightened hearts, but absolutely he did send Jesus into our world to TAKE IT ON! Do you hear the difference? Does he send us the crosses that come our way? No, but he sends us into the world so that we might be part of its redemption and fulfillment and that means he sends us into the world to take on the various crosses that COME OUR WAY "naturally" (and by "naturally" I mean that come our way through the human sinfulness, cruelty, and violence we meet everyday).

No cross is worthy or holy until it is borne with grace and courage. God does not send crosses per se, but he sends us into a world full of them expecting to help us in their redemption, and he certainly commissions us to carry the crosses that come our way. The only other point that needs to be reiterated is that we bear crosses patiently only when we choose to live fully in spite of them, and in taking them on with the grace of God accompanying and empowering us.

That means we take on the therapy, medical care (including appropriate medications for pain, etc), personal work of healing, and so forth that are part of these crosses. If someone has hurt us, even if they have hurt us very badly, it also means taking on the work and the PROCESS of healing we call forgiveness. This can take years and years of course; it is not simply an act of will even though it involves such acts (sometimes many of them in renewed intentions to let the past go). It requires assistance, not only of God, but physicians, psychologists, confessors, spiritual directors, and friends. The bottom line is there are many ways to refuse to carry a cross including labelling them unworthy or unholy and waiting for God to simply remove them, but to carry them means more than to simply accept the events that forged them initially; it means to accept everything necessary to transform and redeem them and ourselves as their bearers as well.

I hope this answers your questions; if I misunderstood them in some way, please get back to me and clarify.

We are People of the Cross

I received a notice of a new book by Joan Chittester today. It began with the following quotation: [[Christians are not people of the cross. Christians are people of the empty tomb who know that every step on the way to light is Light.]]

Now, I greatly respect Sister Joan Chittester's work and life. I also think I understand what she is trying to say here; had she not said, "Christians are not people of the cross," I would simply agree with her comment and move on. But the assertion that Christians are not people of the Cross is wrong. Just as one does not have a sound theology of the cross without resurrection, neither does one have a sound theology of resurrection without the continuing presence of and focus on the cross. As Paul once rightly said, "I want to know Christ crucified and only Christ crucified."

There is an approach to Jesus' death and resurrection which divides the two events and treats resurrection as the undoing of what happened on the cross. It as though the cross was ONLY some sort of tragedy and not also revelatory of God and authentic human existence. What I have written here before is a second approach to the cross. It says that resurrection makes eternally valid what was revealed on the cross and that is something we must always bear in mind. Unfortunately, despite the fact that this is only a partial quote, Sister Joan's bald statement makes me think she has missed this basic point. Ours is assuredly a God which darkness cannot overcome, and one who regularly transforms darkness into light. We know this because darkness has indeed been transfigured in our own lives. Even so, as yet unredeemed darkness is also real in our world.

Therefore we are people of the cross; it is simply that we are people of the paradoxical cross of triumph as well as that of tragedy. We are people of the cross because it is the cross which reveals who we are in light of sin: we are the ones who, if our own autonomy or honor is threatened, will do whatever we can to destroy life, castigate innocence, and profane the sacred. We are people of the cross because the cross reveals that authentic humanity depends totally on God, even in the face of the worst injustice, shame, and horror we might experience. The cross makes this kind of humanity real in space and time, and baptism initiates us into THIS particular death and the new life it revealed (made known and real). But we are also people of the cross because it is the cross that reveals (again, makes known and real) the fact that our God is one who enters into the deepest, darkest, most godless places in our lives and world; he is a God who refuses to allow anything separate us from him.

Had the crucifixion remained the last word, it is true that we would not be people of the cross. But the empty tomb allows the cross to say that death did not and will never have the last word. Still, it is precisely for this reason that we cannot allow the cross to simply fade into the past as a terrible accident or a tragedy which God corrected and expunged with resurrection. In light of the resurrection the cross is capable of revealing us to ourselves --- both the horrors we become under the sway of sin and the saints we become under the sway of grace. An empty tomb does not and cannot do this. The cross is similarly capable of saying that godless death does not have the last word; God's love does. An empty tomb may merely speak of the righteous (or the messianic!) and the fact that God rescues them from death. The cross, however, reveals not only that sin and godlessness are powerful realities, but that our God loves all of us in spite of our participation in these realities and died for us while we were yet sinful, godless people.

God forbid that we become pseudo Christians somehow subtly enamored with the horror, blood, criminality, torture, shame and suffering of the cross. Pseudo-mystical misery is not what we or the cross is about. Self-proclaimed and self-absorbed "Victim souls" who, it seems, cannot begin to imagine the real degree of suffering existing in the lives of their neighbors and who seem to believe the cross was ineffective in dealing with sin, may be "into" this kind of thing, but Christians are not. While it is possible to find instances of people even today offering to suffer so that God might save someone else from cancer or other serious illnesses, such a God and such bargaining with God is contrary to the revelation of the cross itself. The empty tomb certainly helps remind us we are not people of the cross in these distorted senses. Yet, the authentic cross is the symbol of a God who will not abandon us and instead will enter exhaustively into our lives and world to redeem and recreate them. In forgiveness and mercy his justice-creating love will bring life out of death, meaning out of meaninglessness, triumph out of tragedy, honor out of shame, and vindication out of failure. In this sense we are indeed people of the cross and therefore of the empty tomb.

Thomas called Didymus: What's his Doubt Really About?

Today's Gospel focuses on the appearances of Jesus to the disciples, and one of the lessons one should draw from these stories is that we are indeed dealing with bodily resurrection, but therefore, with a kind of bodiliness which transcends the corporeality we know here and now. It is very clear that Jesus' presence among his disciples is not simply a spiritual one, in other words, and that part of Christian hope is the hope that we as embodied persons will come to perfection beyond the limits of death. It is not just our souls which are meant to be part of the new heaven and earth, but our whole selves, body and soul.

The scenario with Thomas continues this theme, but is contextualized in a way which leads homilists to focus on the whole dynamic of faith with seeing, and faith despite not having seen. It also makes doubt the same as unbelief and plays these off against faith, as though faith cannot also be served by doubt. But doubt and unbelief are decidedly NOT the same things. We rarely see Thomas as the one whose doubt SERVES true faith, and yet, that is what today's Gospel is about. Meanwhile, Thomas also tends to get a bad rap as the one who was separated from the community and doubted what he had not seen with his own eyes. The corollary here is that Thomas will not simply listen to his brother and sister disciples and believe that the Lord has appeared to or visited them. But I think there is something far more significant going on in Thomas' proclamation that unless he sees the wounds inflicted on Jesus in the crucifixion, and even puts his fingers in the very nail holes, he will not believe.

What Thomas, I think, wants to make very clear is that we Christians believe in a crucified Christ, and that the resurrection was God's act of validation of Jesus as scandalously and ignominiously Crucified. The resurrection, I think Thomas knows on some level anyway, insofar as it really occurred, does not nullify what was achieved on the cross. Instead it renders permanently valid what was revealed (manifest and made real) there. In other words, Thomas knows if the resurrection is really God's validation of Jesus' life and establishes him as God's Christ, the Lord he will meet is the one permanently established and marked as the crucified One. The crucifixion was not some great misunderstanding which could be wiped away by resurrection. Instead it was an integral part of the revelation of the nature of truly human and truly divine existence. Whether it is the Divine life, authentic human existence, or sinful human life --- all are marked in one way or another by the signs of Jesus' cross. For instance, ours is a God who has journeyed to the very darkest, godless places or realms human sin produces, and has become Lord of even those places. He does not disdain them even now but is marked by them and will journey with us there --- whether we are open to him doing so or not --- because Jesus has implicated God there and marked him with the wounds of an exhaustive kenosis.

Another piece of this is that Jesus is, as Paul tells us, the end of the Law and it was Law that crucified him. The nail holes and wounds in Jesus' side and head -- indeed every laceration which marked him -- are a sign of legal execution -- both in terms of Jewish and Roman law. We cannot forget this, and Thomas' insistence that he really be dealing with the Crucified One reminds us vividly of this fact as well. The Jewish and Roman leaders did not crucify Jesus because they misunderstood him, but because they understood all-too-clearly both Jesus and the immense power he wielded in his weakness and poverty. They understood that he could turn the values of this world, its notions of power, authority, etc, on their heads. They knew that he could foment profound revolution (religious and otherwise) wherever he had followers. They chose to crucify him not only to put an end to his life, but to demonstrate he was a fraud who could not possibly have come from God; they chose to crucify him to terrify those who might follow him into all the places discipleship might really lead them --- especially those places of human power and influence associated with religion and politics. The marks of the cross are a judgment (krisis) on this whole reality.

There are many gods and even manifestations of the real God available to us today, and so there were to Thomas and his brethren in those first days and weeks following the crucifixion of Jesus. When Thomas made his declaration about what he would and would not believe, none of these were crucified Gods or would be worthy of being believed in if they were associated with such shame and godlessness. Thomas knew how very easy it would be for his brother and sister disciples to latch onto one of these, or even to fall back on entirely traditional notions in reaction to the terribly devastating disappointment of Jesus' crucifixion. He knew, I think, how easy it might be to call the crucifixion and all it symbolized a terrible misunderstanding which God simply reversed or wiped away with the resurrection -- a distasteful chapter on which God has simply turned the page. Thomas knew that false prophets showed up all the time. He knew that a God who is distant and all-powerful is much easier to believe in (and follow) than one who walks with us even in our sinfulness or who empties himself to become subject to the powers of sin and death, especially in the awful scandal and ignominy of the cross --- and who expects us to do essentially the same.

In other words, Thomas' doubt may have had less to do with the FACT of a resurrection, than it had to do with his concern that the disciples, in their desperation, guilt, and the immense social pressure they faced, had truly met and clung to the real Lord, the crucified One. In this way their own discipleship will come to be marked by the signs of the cross as they preach, suffer, and serve in the name (and so, in the paradoxical power) of THIS Lord and no other. Only he could inspire them; only he could sustain them; only he could accompany them wherever true discipleship led them.

Paul said, "I want to know Christ crucified and only Christ crucified" because only this Christ had transformed sinful, godless reality with his presence, only this Christ had redeemed even the realms of sin and death by remaining open to God even within these realities. Only this Christ would journey with us to the unexpected and unacceptable places, and in fact, only he would meet us there with the promise and presence of a God who would bring life out of them. Thomas, I believe, knew precisely what Paul would soon proclaim himself, and it is this, I think, which stands behind his insistence to see the wounds and put his fingers in the very nail holes. He wanted to be sure his brethren were putting their faith in the crucified One, the one who turned everything upside down and relativized every other picture of God we might believe in. He became the great doubter because of this, but I suspect instead, he was the most astute theologian among the original Apostles. He, like Paul, wanted to know Christ Crucified and ONLY Christ Crucified.

We should not trivialize Thomas' witness by transforming him into a run of the mill empiricist and doubter!! Instead we should imitate his insistence: we are called upon to be followers of the Crucified God, and no other. Every version of God we meet should be closely examined for nail holes, and the lance wound. Only then do we know this IS the God proclaimed in the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul, the only one worthy of being followed even into the darkest reaches of human sin and death, the only One who meets us in the unexpected and even unacceptable place, the only one who loves us with an eternal love from which nothing can separate us.

To See with New Eyes: Elie Wiesel's, "Night"

Throughout Lent many of the readings have presented us with symbols we see rather differently than non-Christians, and that has intensified as we near Holy Week itself. Further, the praxis we have each adopted for Lent with its penance, prayer, and almsgiving has been done with the intent of allowing us to come to see and understand our own needs and excesses a bit better, as well as the needs of others. All of this is meant to allow us to see the world with new eyes, in particular, with the eyes of faith, the eyes of Christ who finds (and creates) hope in the apparently hopeless, and meaning in the apparently absurd. Unfortunately, as we approach the passion we are in danger, I think, of failing to see its wonder precisely because it has become too familiar to us. 

The cross is not the scandal or offensive stumbling block to us it was to the Jews; it is not the foolishness it was to the Greeks, to men of philosophy and wisdom. We do not see the presence of God here as strikingly as we ought, because we have never seen the absence of God here -- we have never seen this as the place where no true God of majesty and power COULD or SHOULD be found; neither then can we really see his scandalous presence anew or afresh as easily as nonbelievers are capable of as they are confronted for the first time by the awesome paradox involved in the cross. We do not see the wisdom and foolishness of the world turned on its head here so clearly as we might because the cross has been domesticated for us; this happens with familiarity --- and with theologies of the cross uncomfortable with paradox. For this reason each year before Passion/Palm Sunday and Holy Week, each Good Friday, I reread sections of Elie Wiesel's book, Night. I want to enter these days with a sense of "the wisdom of this world" Christianity rejects, with fresh images of the passion in my head and heart, with the world's question, "Where is God in all of this?" ringing in my ears and heart, and this book helps me to do this. 

The answer some give to this question when faced with the brutal execution of innocence is vastly different than the answer a Christian will give --- even if they use the exact same words when they respond. In the following passage, one boy (the author) loses his faith. He concludes that all he sees and experiences is a sign of God's absence or death. A just God is not to be found here. He cannot be. It is scandalous (offensive) foolishness to find God here in the face of such human barbarity and cruelty, such depravity and inhumanity. But for Christians the answer is different. We do not merely find God in the unexpected place, we find him in the unacceptable, offensive place, asserting his rights over every moment and mood of sinful human existence in a power the world despises because it is perfected in divine self-emptying and weakness. He IS here in this place of sin, death, and godlessness, and because he is, nothing will ever look nor be the same to us. 

[[I witnessed other hangings. I never saw a single one of the victims weep. For a long time those dried up bodies had forgotten the bitter taste of tears. Except once. The Oberkapo of the fifty-second cable unit was a Dutchman, a giant, well over six feet. Seven hundred prisoners worked under his orders, and they all loved him like a brother. No one had ever received a blow at his hands, nor an insult from his lips. He had a young boy under him, a pipel, as they were called --- a child with a refined and beautiful face, unheard of in this camp. (At Buna, the pipel were loathed; they were often crueler than adults. I once saw one of thirteen beating his Father because the latter had not made his bed properly. The old man was crying softly while the boy shouted: "If you don't stop crying, I shan't bring you bread anymore. Do you understand?" But the Dutchman's little servant was beloved by all. He had the face of a sad angel.) One day the electric power station at Buna was blown up. The Gestapo, summoned to the spot, suspected sabotage. They found a trail. It eventually led to the Dutch Oberkapo. And there, after a search, they found an important stock of arms. The Oberkapo was arrested immediately. He was tortured for a period of weeks, but in vain. He would not give a single name. He was transferred to Auschwitz. We never heard of him again. But his little servant had been left behind in the camp in prison. Also put to torture, he too would not speak. Then the SS sentenced him to death, with two other prisoners who had been discovered with arms. 

 One day when we came back from work we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place, three black crows. Roll call. SS all around us, machine guns trained: the traditional ceremony, Three victims in chains --- and one of them, the little servant, the sad eyed angel. The SS seemed more preoccupied, more disturbed than usual. To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter. The head of the camp read the verdict. All eyes were on the child. he was rigidly pale, almost calm, biting his lip. The gallows threw a shadow over him. This time the Lagerkapo refused to act as executioner. Three SS replaced him. The three victims mounted together on the chairs. The three nooses were placed around their necks. "Long live liberty!" cried the two adults. But the child was silent. "Where is God?" someone behind me asked. At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over. Total silence throughout the camp. On the horizon the sun was setting. "Bare your heads!" yelled the head of the camp. His voice was raucous. We were weeping. "Cover your heads!" Then the march past began. The two adults were no longer alive. Their tongues hung swollen, blue-tinged. But the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive. . . For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red. His eyes were not glazed. Behind me I heard the same man asking: "Where is God now?" And I heard a voice within me answer him: "Where is he? Here he is ---He is hanging here on this gallows. . . ." That night the soup tasted of corpses.]]

Lighten Our Darkness

This is the first paragraph of the introduction to Douglas John Hall's, Lighten Our Darkness, Toward an Indigenous Theology of the Cross Because we are celebrating the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross on Sunday, and because I will be writing more on that in response to some questions I received, I wanted to post this. First, it is a fine paragraph in and of itself. Secondly, the tension between the elements in the paragraph are those present in the cross in so many ways and on so many levels. I hope it will serve to pique interest and also spur some on to meditate on the relation between expectation and experience in the theology of the cross. Perhaps too some will read this book!! Hall is a fine writer, especially on the theology of the cross in terms of the first world and its needs.

[[Human life is a dialogue between expectation and experience. The function of expectation is to deliver us from bondage to the past. When expectation ceases, there occurs what is called, according to the better understanding of it, death. The function of experience is to keep us tied to the life of the body, to history. When experience ceases to make itself heard in the dialogue, the consequence is illusion. Human life is thus a perilous journey between death and illusion. Few are able to reach the end of the journey before they capitulate to one or the other peril. Most people, before their time runs out, are acquainted with both.]]

Some questions for reflection (I will post more if there is interest; give these a shot!):

1) In what ways is the cross built on a clash between experience and expectations/expectancy? Consider all the characters in the passion narratives and all the stages or aspects of the Cross event; (don't forget to include yourself.)

2) When you err (or when you get "off balance" in your life and spirituality) is it on the side of experience or expectancy, optimism or cynicism? How does your faith in the crucified one correct this imbalance?

3) Does our society err on the side of experience (cynicism) or expectancy (optimism)? How is this clear? How would the Gospel "keep our society honest" or serve to rebalance matters?

Questions on Suffering and the Exaltation of the Cross

[[Could you write something about Sunday's feast of the Exaltation of the Cross? What is a truly healthy and yet deeply spiritual way to exalt the Cross in our personal lives, and in the world at large (that is, supporting those bearing their crosses while not supporting the evil that often causes the destruction and pain that our brothers and sisters are called to endure due to sinful social structures?]]

The above question which arrived by email was the result of reading some of my posts, mainly those on victim soul theology, the Pauline theology of the Cross, and some earlier ones having to do with the permissive will of God. For that reason my answer presupposes much of what I wrote in those and I will try not to be too repetitive. First of all, in answering the question, I think it is helpful to remember the alternative name of this feast, namely, the Triumph of the Cross. For me personally this is a "better" name, and yet, it is a deeply paradoxical one, just like its alternative.


(Crucifix in Ambo of Cathedral of Christ the Light; Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, or Cathedral Sunday in the Diocese of Oakland)


How many times have we heard it suggested that Christians ought not wear crosses around their necks as jewelry any more than they should wear tiny images of electric chairs, medieval racks or other symbols of torture and death? Similarly, how many times has it been said that making jewelry of the cross trivializes what happened there? There is a great deal of truth in these objections, and in similar ones! On the one hand the cross points to the slaughter by torture of hundreds of thousands of people by an oppressive state. More individually it points to the slaughter by torture of an innocent man in order to appease a rowdy religious crowd by an individual of troubled but dishonest conscience, one who put "the supposed greater good" before the innocence of this single victim.

And of course there were collaborators in this slaughter: the religious establishment, disciples who were either too cowardly to stand up for their beliefs, or those who actively betrayed this man who had loved them and called them to a life of greater abundance (and personal risk) than they had ever known before. If we are going to appreciate the triumph of the cross, if we are going to exalt it as Christians do and should, then we cannot forget this aspect of it. Especially we cannot forget that much that happened here was NOT THE WILL OF GOD, nor that generally the perpetrators were not cooperating with that will! The cross was the triumph of God over sin and sinful godless death, but it was ALSO a sinful and godless human (and societal!) act of murder by torture. (In fact one could argue it was a true divine triumph ONLY because it was also these all-too-human things.) Both aspects exist in tension with each other, as they do in ALL of God's victories in our world. It is this tension our jewelry and other crucifixes embody: they are miniature instruments of torture, yes, but also symbols of God's ultimate triumph over the powers of sin and death with which humans are so intimately entangled and complicit.

In our own lives there are crosses, burdens which are the result of societal and personal sin which we must bear responsibly and creatively. That means not only that we cannot shirk them, but also that we bear them with all the asistance that God puts into our hands. Especially it means allowing God to assist us in the carrying of this cross. To really exalt the cross of Christ is to honor all that God did with and made of the very worst that human beings could do to another human being. To exult in our own personal crosses means, at the very least, to allow God to transform them with his presence. That is the way we truly exalt the Cross: we allow it to become the way in which God enters our lives, the passion that breaks us open, makes us completely vulnerable, and urges us to embrace or let God embrace us in a way which comforts, sustains, and even transfigures the whole face of our lives.

If we are able to do this, then the Cross does indeed triumph. Suffering does not. Pain does not. Neither will our lives be defined in terms of these things despite their very real presence. What I think needs to be especially clear is that the exaltation of the cross has to do with what was made possible in light of the combination of awful and humanly engineered torment, and the grace of God. Sin abounded but grace abounded all the more. Does this mean we invite suffering so that "grace may abound all the more?" Well, Paul's clear answer to that question was, "By no means!" How about tolerating suffering when we can do something about it? What about remaining in an abusive relationship, or refusing medical treatment which would ease mental and physical pain, for instance? Do we treat these as crosses we MUST bear? Do we allow ourselves to become complicit in the abuse or the destructive effects of pain and physical or mental illness? I think the general answer is no, of course not.

That means we must look for ways to allow God's grace to triumph, while the triumph of grace ALWAYS results in greater human freedom and authentic functioning. Discerning what is necessary and what will REALLY be an exaltation of the cross in our own lives means determining and acting on the ways freedom from bondage and more authentic humanity can be achieved. Ordinarily this will mean medical treatment; or it will mean moving out of the abusive situation. In ALL cases it means remaining open to and dependent upon God and to what he desires for our lives IN SPITE of the limitations and suffering inherent in them. This is what Jesus did, and what made his cross salvific. This openness and responsiveness to God and what he will do with our lives is, as I have said many times before, what the Scriptures called obedience. Let me be clear: the will of God in ANY situation is that we remain open to him and that authentic humanity be achieved. We MUST do whatever it is that allows us to not close off to God, and to remain open to growth AS HUMAN. If our pain dehumanizes, then we must act in ways which changes that. If our lives cease to reflect the grace of God (and this means fails to be a joyfilled, free, fruitful, loving, genuinely human life) then we must act in ways which change that.

The same is true in society more generally. We must act in ways which open others TO THE GRACE OF GOD. Yes, suffering does this, but this hardly means we simply tell people to pray, grin, and bear it ---- much less allow the oppressive structures to stay in place! As the gospels tell us, "the poor you will always have with you" but this hardly means doing nothing to relieve poverty! Similarly we will always have suffering with us on this side of death, and especially the suffering that comes when human beings institutionalize their own sinful drives and actions. What is essential is that the Cross of Christ is exalted, that the Cross of Christ triumphs in our lives and society, not simply that individual crosses remain or that we exalt them (especially when they are the result of human engineering and sin)! And, as I have written before, to allow Christ's Cross to triumph is to allow the grace of God to transform all the dark and meaningless places with his presence, light and love. It is ONLY in this way that we truly "make up for what is lacking in the passion of Christ."

The paradox in Sunday's Feast is that the exaltation of the Cross implies suffering, and stresses that the cross empowers the ability to suffer well, but at the same time points to a freedom the world cannot grant --- a freedom in which we both transcend and transform suffering because of a victory Christ has won over the powers of sin and death which are built right into our lives and in the structures of this world. Thus, we cannot ever collude with the powers of this world; we must always be sure we are acting in complicity with the grace of God instead. Sometimes this means accepting the suffering that comes our way (or encouraging and supporting others in doing so of course), but never for its own sake. If our (or their) suffering does not result in greater human authenticity, greater freedom from bondage, greater joy and true peace, then it is not suffering which exalts the Cross of Christ. If it does not in some way transform and subvert the structures of this world which oppress and destroy, then it does not express the triumph of Jesus' Cross, nor are we really participating in THAT Cross in embracing our own.

I am certain I have not completely answered your question, but for now this will need to suffice. My thanks for your patience. If you have other questions which can assist me to do a better job, I would very much appreciate them. Again, thanks for your emails.

Subjective vs Objective Reality in Atonement Theology

[[Sister Laurel, I think I understand what you have said, but could you please clarify what you mean by subjective and objective changes which are caused by Jesus' death?]]

Yes, good question because the distinction between these two is important in theology in many areas and especially in moral theology. It is also especially important in a somewhat different way in theologies of atonement. In the last posts I used "subjective reality" to refer to the reality within the subject himself, his inner perceptions and reality; "objective reality" refers to all that is objectively real outside the subject himself and includes the subject's objective, or externally verifiable  reality).

When I speak of changes in reality effected by the cross and look at Anselm's theology vs Paul's theology one basic difference is that Anselm's theology is rooted in the idea that there is some subjective change in God effected through the process of reconciliation. (That is, Anselm saw that God's inner life and attitudes rather than creation outside of him was the object of reconciliation; it posited a subjective change in God's attitudes towards his creation.) In particular Anselm sees Jesus' death as putting an end to some antipathy (offended state) that exists on God's part because God's honor has been infinitely wounded by mankind.

In Paul's theology however, there is an objective change in the world itself, not in God's attitude towards us. Further God is the subject of the process, the one carrying out the process of reconciliation. In this process of reconciliation, not only do sin and death which were formerly "godless" places or realities become God's new dwelling places where we may meet God face to face, but we ourselves are also changed and our hearts are remade in Christ. Meanwhile, as Paul puts the matter, God acts towards us with an unconditional mercy and love "while we were yet sinners"  and does this always and everywhere. In Paul there is no shift in God's (subjective) attitude towards us, no appeasing of anger, no quieting of his wrath, no reconciling of God. Instead it is is the world which is brought back (reconciled) to God (the subject undertaking this action). Wrath is seen to refer to the consequences of sin, not to a subjective anger on God's part; thus this reconciliation is God's own redemptive work in bringing justice (right order) to the world (the object of God's action).

Again then, too often Paul has been read as though he is speaking of Jesus' passion effecting a change in God's attitude towards us rather than effecting an actual change in the world pervaded and dominated by sin and sinful death (a reality which includes ourselves and our own domination by sin and death). It is seen as reconciling God instead or reconciling the world to God. But what we are actually looking at in Paul's theology is a God who enters into our world by becoming one of us and who transforms that world in an act of guerilla warfare; we are looking at the combating and defeat of sin and sinful death from within by the presence of the God of Life and Love! "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Godself" (2 Cor 5:19) Again, this is an objective change in reality, not a subjective change in God's attitude toward that reality.

I hope this helps. If I was TOO unclear on other things please get back to me.

Followup Questions: Chronic Illness, Victim Souls, God and Suffering, etc

[[Hi Again, Sister O'Neal! Thanks for answering my questions [about a vocation to chronic illness] with more of your own story. You said, "Especially, I am no victim!" Are you familiar with the idea of "victim souls"? Do you think this is a helpful idea? What do you think about the notion that God sends suffering to one person and then eases the suffering of another as a result? I have even read where one person who has been characterized as a victim soul receives some grace and then EXPECTS to suffer because of this grace that was given. That doesn't make sense to me. Yet is it really so awful to be a "victim"? Wouldn't being a "victim soul" be a very special vocation?]]

Victim Soul Theology, an Introduction

First, let me be clear that this whole notion of victim souls is not official Catholic theology. There are some superficial precedents for it in Jewish theology of scapegoating, and superficial correspondence with Sacred Heart theology and the like. For this reason teasing out the legitimate from the illegitimate is not always easy to do. But generally, what commonly passes for "victim soul" theology is a misguided attempt to make some sense of personal suffering which is rooted in a REALLY bad reading of Paul's notion that we are to "make up what was lacking" in the sufferings of Christ. More, it is based on a terribly distorted idea of God as the one who sends suffering, and indeed, who bargains with people to accept additional suffering in order to relieve someone else's, or (worse yet) who even punishes one with suffering after gracing them with something joyful. What kind of God works this way? Not one I could ever believe in, and certainly not one worthy of worship --- at least not if worship is a function of love, as I believe it must be!!!

Also,(with the exception of the Christ Event, where God in Christ took on suffering himself and in the limited sense the word actually applies, was OUR VICTIM) to believe that God causes one to suffer (or sends suffering) and applies it to another means that one believes God is playing some great game with each of us and is in complete control of the suffering in this world. More, and even more problematical, it is a "theology" which believes that God can be convinced to relieve someone's suffering if another person is willing to undertake it in her place. It is as though there is some great quota of suffering in the world as a whole which God needs us to experience in order to be placated or satisfied or something. Even (or perhaps especially!) Anselm's theory of satisfaction never got this crude, and it was already a complete misunderstanding of Paul. Let me explain.


Another look at the Theology of The Cross: Paul vs Anselm

Despite some strands of common piety which hold otherwise, it was not Jesus' suffering per se which was redemptive (though it was absolutely essential), but rather his entering exhaustively into the realms of human sin and death while remaining obedient (that is, open and responsive) to God in spite of the depths of his failure, fear, suffering, etc. This obedience unto death, even death on a cross (that is, not just natural, death-as-transition, but sinful, godless death-unto-oblivion!) meant that God could now enter completely into these realms from which he would otherwise be excluded by human sin in order to transform them with his presence. Once this occurs, their power (which is the power to isolate and separate one from God, and thus from life and meaning) is broken definitively.

In Anselm's satisfaction theology Christ's death makes up for the infinite dishonor done to God. Christ's suffering is not a way to enter exhaustively into our situation so that situation can be objectively changed. Instead the debt of sin, a debt owed to God's honor, is paid in terms of suffering. God is offended and needs to be reconciled, placated, his anger etc, assuaged. But this, despite superficial linguistic similarities, is precisely the antithesis of what Paul provides in his theology of the cross. For Paul, the Christ Event works to overcome the objective chasm that exists between the world and God. It works to bring the world back to God and to friendship with him. It works to overcome the estrangement, alienation, and antipathy towards God, and it does all these things not by appeasing God's anger (which would be a subjective change) but by implicating God in precisely those aspects of his creation from which he has been excluded (i.e.,his death effects an objective change in reality). Thus, Jesus' suffering is necessary for he must plumb the depths of human sin and sinful death; unless he does there will remain depths of Godlessness which are not overcome by his obedience (openness and responsiveness) to God. However, it is not the suffering per se that is redemptive. Instead it is is Jesus' complete dependence on God in spite of everything which might otherwise separate him from God by tempting to sin (that is, to remain dependent upon himself and his own resources) that is salvific.

As in Christ's life, of itself suffering is not redemptive; it is our dependence upon God, our remaining open to God's grace (God's living self) in spite of and within that suffering that is redemptive, for it implicates God into the places or realms from which he would otherwise be excluded. (Realms like sin and death are also personal realms, and God cannot simply force his way into them, or overcome them by fiat; they imply human decisions to live --- and therefore to die --- without God, and thus they come to be embodied realities which are deeply personal. This is why Paul refers to "this body of death," and describes death as a power or principality with influence in our lives. God does not force his way into any area of our lives, though he is present both within and without those lives, and eagerly waits to be allowed to be sovereign over even their darkest regions or dimensions.) This is what Paul is referring to when he writes in 2 Cor 5:19 that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

To reiterate, in Paul's theology of the cross and contrary to Anselm's version, God is not in need of reconciliation: we are. God is bringing the far places we journey in and through, and our own prodigality under his own sovereignty; he is transforming godless realities within and around us into sacramental realities where he may be met face to face. God's wrath is not an all-too-human anger or emotional response, but the fact that God allows the consequences of our sins to run their course. (Dunn, Theology of Paul the Apostle) We use anthropomorphic terms to speak of divine wrath, but they are singularly inadequate. Meanwhile, Jesus' passion is not inadequate; it has dealt a definitive and terminal blow to sin and death. However, that victory must become personal to us; it must touch and redeem the sin and death we have embodied within ourselves, our lives, and all our lives touch. It is only in this sense that we are called upon "to make up for what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ". We allow the suffering and obedient Christ into our PERSONAL realm, and through him in the power of the Spirit work to bring all of it into the life of the Trinity.

So suffering does not appease or placate God. Suffering is a consequence of creation's estrangement and brokenness and one which God takes on himself. It becomes the gateway into the realms of sin and death because largely it is the result of the effects of sin and godless death in this world and tempts (or leads) us either to depend upon ourselves or to hand our lives over to God. Therefore, at the same time then, these can be gateways of grace for they open us to the need for God's love and mercy, but they do not come directly from his hand. Especially, God does not send suffering nor engage in some kind of distorted calculus of suffering where SOMEONE must suffer and the question is merely who will be made to do it. Examples of such a perverse calculus would include the following: "If I suffer willingly, God will relieve x's pain," or "If I suffer, a person a world (or era) away (and unaware of me) will be prevented from sinning," or again, "I am suffering this pain so that x's painful dying might be eased (also where x is unaware of me and we are not speaking about her being edified by my own suffering, etc)." These beliefs are superstitious, not expressions of faith.

Beyond being superstitious, what kind of God would such a calculus of suffering reveal? First, it would be a "god" who directly sends both suffering and its relief, and who, for arbitrary reasons might relieve some suffering so long as someone else can be found to take it on. He would be a "god" who bargains with his creatures, a tyrannical torturer or sadist who somehow needs a certain amount of suffering to be "satisfied" and never mind who does it. In such a scheme suffering is not merely the result, the tragic consequence of sin created and exacerbated by our inhumanities or by the brokenness and incompleteness of creation, but is the result of a God who directly punishes his creation for sin. And of course this punishment falls arbitrarily on the heads of the innocent and the guilty alike while asserting that God can PERHAPS be convinced to relieve the suffering of some and apply it to others. The notion you referred to in your question that God will grace a person and then punish them with suffering because they were graced is simply too perverse and unChristian to respond to. It sounds more like a portrait of a paranoid schizophrenic parent dealing with a child than the God of Jesus Christ. Sorry, but in my estimation, these notions are perversions of the idea of divine justice, and parodies of the God of Jesus Christ --- not one whom we can really love or worship.

Legitimate Views of Suffering?

It is one thing to act as Maximillian Kolbe did and give away bread and soup while being fed in other ways, and eventually to even ask to stand in and be executed in another's place so that that man might live and return to his family. It is entirely another to believe that one's own physical pain can/may be used by God to relieve the suffering of someone dying of cancer in a crude kind of substitution for instance. To believe this presupposes a God who could stop or mitigate a person's suffering but does not do so because the suffering is needed to fill some cosmic quota or something. (The idea that God requires our suffering to appease his being offended by sin is certainly no better.) It is one thing to accept the suffering that befalls one with equanimity and courage, and as an opportunity to share in Christ's own cross by remaining open to and dependent upon God therein; when one does this, God is implicated in one's suffering and redeems it. Again, it is entirely another thing to beg God to send suffering so that he might relieve the suffering in another, or to attribute suffering to him which is some sort of payback because he graced one with something wonderful or joyful that day. In the first instance there is some generosity involved we should honor (the willingness to suffer in another's place), but the theology involved is simply unjustifiable and possibly unconscionable.

Magical Thinking is not okay.

It is one thing to know that if one suffers well (that is, suffers patiently in complete dependence on the love and support of God in this suffering), God is allowed to dwell more fully in our world and one becomes a part of Jesus' own work of bringing the Kingdom. In such a case one's suffering may indeed touch and edify others; it may indeed convince them of the grace of a God who enters exhaustively into our reality and transforms it with his presence. It will also contribute to the healing of the whole world in the sense that personal holiness does this. But it is entirely another thing to think in magical terms, or in terms of a religious quid pro quo, or to suggest that God makes one suffer so that he may have mercy on someone else and relieve their suffering. As one friend of mine points out, such a God is not the God of Jesus Christ; he is Moloch! (And, should you doubt that there are those who hold such views, search the web; this kind of nonsense is not hard to find. It is a holdover of some of the very worst French Revivalist piety and deserves a quick and deep burial.)

Rejection of the Term "Victim Soul"

Even when I think of Maximillian Kolbe I can't accept there is a place for the category "victim soul" and I especially doubt it is a phrase or status someone like Fr Kolbe would have applied to himself (or that anyone living should do), particularly given the degree of suffering that went on all around him in Auschwitz. What defined Fr Kolbe was not his suffering, though that was plentiful and profound; what defined him was his love of God, his own experience of God's love, and his authentic humanity and selflessness in spite of his suffering. He was known for and was transparent to being nourished, fed, and consoled in ways which make the term victim particularly inadequate, I think. Ordinarily, as the Bishop of Worster noted in regard to a celebrated case of a comatose girl in his diocese who was "billed" as a victim soul, this is a term the Church herself uses for Christ alone; at best we can use it for others only with very great caution.

Generally, at least when it is self-applied, it is often an arrogant term associated at best with people who simply have suffering in their lives and must deal with it as we all must; too often these persons are unaware of how much suffering others undergo on a regular basis. At worst such a self-applied designation is associated with unstable narcissists struggling to find a way to give meaning to the suffering in their lives (which, historically at least, they often willfully exacerbate) while inadvertantly denigrating or distorting the God of Jesus Christ in the process. This is especially true when it is based on theologies which see God as the sender of suffering who doesn't care who does it just so long as the cosmic quota of pain is met, or when it assumes one's own suffering makes one special and allows one to forego ordinary treatment and prudent behavior to minimize it. It is also especially true today when everyone is tempted to see themselves as a victim in one way and another, and when victim status is one of the most disedifying and truly "worldly" dimensions of our society. Since the phenomenon of the "victim soul" is particularly linked to women, many of whom were completely oppressed in one way and another, and often have a history of self-mutilation, cutting, binding, etc, it is one of those phenomona about which the Church is indeed right to be skeptical, or at least VERY CAUTIOUS.

We ALL Share the Cross of Christ

It should go without saying that we are all called upon to share in the cross of Christ. We are called upon to bear the suffering that comes our way in union with him and in complete dependence upon his Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. Also, we are called upon to believe that our own suffering and its redemption has dimensions and scope which transcend our own private world. It contributes to the perfection and fulfillment of God's creation, and when undertaken in faith, can edify others who come to recognize the victory of God in the transformation of one's life and the transfiguration of one's pain. We join ourselves to the crucified and risen Christ and in this sharing of HIS life our own pain becomes a holy space where light may be brought forth from darkness, life from death, and meaning from absurdity. Suffering in this way implicates God more fully into the pain and brokenness of the world. It allows even pain to become sacramental. This is a completely legitimate theology of suffering.

Once again, Suffering Does not Appease or Reconcile an Angry God

But note that what suffering in this way does NOT do is make up some sort of cosmic (or Divine) quota, as though there is a fixed price for sin which God exacts, and nevermind who pays it.  As I noted above, God does not need to be reconciled; we do. It is not the case that God needs us to suffer to be placated or appeased or in order that "payment" be made for our own or others' sins. (The question of why Paul uses such terms in his theology of the cross is another question, but for now let me say he has been misread more often than not.) If someone is dying of cancer, for instance, I cannot bargain with God to ease their pain and give it to me instead. I cannot treat God as though he is the cosmic distributor of suffering, or some sort of punisher. What I CAN do is sit with the person through the pain of their illness and dying, and share in that. I CAN and SHOULD bring Christ to her in whatever ways possible. Sin has consequences and suffering is certainly one of them, but this does not make God the direct dispenser of pain or the One who demands retribution. This is a completely illegitimate theology of suffering. Much commonly-held Victim soul theology is at least implicitly based on such a perverse notion of God and those who claim to be victim souls need to consider this.

Victim Souls, a Special Vocation?

As for whether this is a special vocation I have to disagree. We are ALL called upon to accept and join our sufferings with Christ so that they and our world may be redeemed (that is brought to wholeness and perfection by being reconciled and transformed). Do SOME suffer more in this world than others? Undoubtedly, but how really are we to either quantify or qualify this? More, are they victims? Of what or whom? Certainly not of God! Personally, I find the entire terminology objectionable. As I noted above, our world (especially the 1st world portion of it) is too enamored of victimhood. Everyone is a victim, and they exalt in it! It becomes their whole identity, and that is truly tragic. The notion of a victim soul in such a milieu is particularly unacceptable or objectionable. What this world needs are martyrs (witnesses to the grace and Gospel of God that brings wholeness and peace in spite of their suffering), or prophets (those who speak God's Word into the present situation with a power that transforms it). What we need are men and women with the courage to be something other than victims!!! We do not need more victims, especially those who dress up such status in perverse piety and the notion that somehow such perversity glorifies the infinitely merciful God of Jesus Christ.