When God Is Edged Out

Holy Saturday... a contradiction in terms.

Saturday is the day most people do errands or relax or do housework and yard chores.

But in Holy Week, it's the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

It's a day of sadness followed by joy and hope.

It's a godless day... we commemorate the day when Jesus, our God incarnate, was dead and gone.  We were hopeless.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood this hopelessness.  See excerpt below from Letters and Papers from Prison, written during the year before he was executed by the Nazis for being part of a plot to kill Adolf Hitler.

Bonhoeffer was indeed at a place of, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

He wrote, 

"The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us.  Before God and with God we live without God.  God allows Godself to be edged out of the world and on to the cross."

The Rev. Dr. Lynn Cheyney quoted that last line in her sermon on Palm Sunday.

The Rev. Nate Rugh quoted it in his sermon on Good Friday.

Many have debated "the problem of pain": if God is good, why does that God allow so much evil in the world?

The answer lies in those words: "God allows Godself to be edged out of the world and on to the cross."

The Transcent, Original Good allows evil to happen but suffers as we do when humans do evil.

http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Suydam/Reln220/Bonhoefferex.htm

Excerpts from Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison

Is there any concern in the Old Testament about saving one's soul at all? Is not righteousness and the kingdom of God on earth the focus of everything, and is not Romans 3:14 too, the culmination of the view that in God alone is righteousness, and not in an individualistic doctrine of salvation? It is not with the next world that we are concerned, but with this world as created and preserved and set subject to laws and atoned for and made new. . .
Barth was the first theologian to begin the criticism of religion. . . but he set in place the positivist doctrine of revelation which says, in effect, "Take it or leave it": Virgin Birth, Trinity, or anything else, everything which is an equally significant and necessary part of the whole, which latter has to be swallowed as a whole or not at all. That is not in accordance with the Bible. . .
It is a long way back to the land of childhood
But if we only knew the way!
There isn't any such way, at any rate not at the cost of deliberately abandoning our intellectual maturity. . . God is teaching us that we must live as humans who can get along very well without God. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us. The God who makes us live in this world without using God as a working hypothesis is the god before whom we are standing. Before God and with God we live without God. God allows Himself to be edged out of the world and on to the cross. God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is exactly the way, the only way, in which God can be with us and help us. Matthew 8:17 (he took up our infirmities, and bore the burden of our sins) makes it crystal clear that it is not by his omnipotence that Christ helps us, but by his weakness and suffering.
This is the decisive difference between Christianity and all religions. Man's religiosity makes him look in his distress to the power of God in the world; he uses God as a deus ex machina. The Bible, however, directs us to the powerlessness and suffering of God; only a suffering God can help. To this extent we may say that the process we have described by which the world came of age was an abandonment of the false conception of God, and a clearing of the decks for the God of the Bible, who conquers power and space in the world by his weakness. . .
Humans are challenged to participate in the sufferings of God at the hands of a godless world. One must therefore plunge oneself into the life of a godless world, without attempting to gloss over its ungodliness with a veneer of religion or trying to transform it. . . To be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to cultivate some particular form of asceticism. . . but to be a human being. It is not some religious act which makes a Christian what he is, but participation in the suffering of God in the life of the world.. . .
During the last year, I have come to appreciate the "worldliness" of Christianity as never before. . . I don't mean the shallow this-worldliness of the enlightened, of the busy, the comfortable or the lascivious. It's something much more profound than that, something in which the knowledge of death and resurrection is ever present. . . One must abandon every attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, a converted sinner, a churchman . . . This is what I mean by worldliness-taking life in stride, with all its duties and problems, its successes and failures, its experiences and helplessness. It is in such a life that we throw ourselves utterly in the arms of God and participate in his sufferings in the world and watch with Christ in Gethsemane. That is faith, and that is what makes a human and a Christian.

Questions on Easter

Beautiful, but
would we decorate an electric chair?

For me, the question of where to worship this Easter Sunday was complicated.

1)  Brentwood Presbyterian Church?  I'm a member there but haven't been able to stomach sermons by men since the Nov. 8 election.  

I can only take so much male dominance in my life.  

After Hillary Rodham Clinton won the presidency by 2.8 million votes but lost because of the Electoral College--and because of Russian interference, FBI Director James Comey's interference, and voter ID requirements in some states--I can't enter a church and sit meekly in a pew while a man talks at me.

Well, actually, I did that for the first time on Good Friday.  I went with my husband to visit St. Augustine by-the-Sea Episcopal [see footnote], thinking there wouldn't be a sermon.  Many times a Good Friday service just offers a dramatic re-enactment of the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus, but this time the rector, Nate Rugh, gave a sermon.  I didn't walk out when he began to speak.  I stayed, thinking it would be good penance.  It's always good to suffer on Good Friday, right?  I was fasting for the occasion--why not win a few more points by enduring a male sermon?

It wasn't bad.  I heard good words spoken by a representative of the male domination that surrounds me in the US and the world.  Not bad but not a positive experience, all in all.

Nate said that the death of Jesus on the cross shows us two things: 

• that God loves us and in fact took on human form and human suffering, and
• that God confronts human evil with a NO that ultimately defeats evil.

Good enough to be memorable, I admit that.

2)  Thus, St. Augustine by-the-Sea was my second option. I could celebrate the Resurrection there and sit with my husband (earning a few more points for good behavior, in the eyes some people), but I'd have to sit through another sermon by a male pastor and watch him parade in followed by two female assistant pastors.  As it turned out, this service was almost two hours long, including a 30-minute sermon.  If length is one of the criteria by which you choose, avoid this one.

3) Westwood Presbyterian Church?  I'd gone to the Maundy Thursday service there and was deeply moved by the brief meditation spoken by the Reverend Dr. Lynn Cheyney, who is head pastor there.  Bingo--WOMAN PASTOR.  I may not have a woman president, but for an hour or two I can have a woman pastor.  Both St. A's and Westwood were guaranteed to have wonderful music from the choir with a small orchestra.

I've visited there several times since November 8, but twice I was jarred by one of the associate pastors rising to give the sermon.  I'd come specifically for the comfort of a woman preaching, so the sound of a male voice drove me out.  I quietly left in tears.

The quality of the meditation on Thursday was the deciding factor.  Why torture myself on Easter?  Just go for the joy.

 I was not disappointed.  All three services-- 8 am, 9:30, and 11 am-- offered fine choral music accompanied by two trumpets. two trombones, violin, and drum.  

Best of all, I watched a female pastor march in, trailed by two male assistants.  And she spoke for only 13 minutes--each of them golden.

Here's how the service went:

• "Resurrection Prelude from Symphonie-Passion pour Grand Orgue" [Organ], Op. 23 by Marcel Dupre played by Dr. Namhee Han, organist and pianist.
• 
  
• "Prelude" from the soundtrack to the 1953 film The Robe written by Alfred Newman
• 
  
• "Song of Resurrection" from The Robe sung by Nandani Maria Sinha
• 
  
• "Resurrection Fanfare" by Maria Newman, Composer and Choir Director
• 
  
• "Jesus Christ Is Risen Today" sung by all of us. -- I was pleased that we sang the newer, more inclusive words Jesus Christ is risen today / Our triumphant holy day / Alleluia! rather than the older version Christ our Lord is risen today / Sons of men and angels say / Alleluia!  Both St. A's and Westwood Pres sang these words, probably BPC too, so I would have been safe on this count at any of the three Easter services.  
• 
  
• Readings of Scripture, confession of faith, passing the peace
• 
  
• "Worthy Is the Lamb" from the Messiah by Georg Friederich Handel
• 
  
• "The Day of Resurrection" sung by all of us.
• 
  
• Prayers
• 
  
• "My Eternal King" by Jane Marshall (b. 1924) performed by the choir. --  I enjoyed hearing this fascinating and difficult anthem composed by a woman.
• 
  
• Easter Meditation by Pastor Lynne Cheyney  -- This humorous but profound 13-minute reflection moved me to tears.  I will provide a link to the full text when I get it or else type from my notes.
• 
  
• "Alleluia" by Randall Thompson (1899-1984).
• 
  
• Offering
• 
  
• "I Danced in the Morning" --  In this delightful song written in 1963 Sydney Carter takes the tune of "Tis a Gift To Be Simple" and writes Jesus's life as dance. We sang "with the devil on your back" as originally written, but some performers change it to "the world on your back."  I first sang it with women at Women-Church Convergence.
• 
  
• Benediction -  Pastor Lynn repeated the last line of her sermon: "Live resurrection.  Do resurrection.  Be in the resurrection."
• 
  
• "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah.  
• 
  
• Postlude -- "Resurrection Toccata" from Symphonie-Passion Pour Grand Orgue [Organ], Op. 23 by Marcel Dupre.

I left church uplifted and filled with the intention to "Live... do... be in the resurrection."

You can't ask for more on Easter Sunday.  I made the right choice for me, led by the Holy Spirit, I'm sure.

Footnote:  I was a member of St. A's, but when the vestry decided to rent the church school facilities to the "Church" of Scientology, I left.  I fled to Brentwood Presbyterian, the church attended by my two younger kids during their high school years.  As of last summer, the Scientologists' lease expired, and St. A's did not renew it, so I now have the option of attending church there--except that during the interim eight years, I have made friends at BPC.

Death on Palm Sunday

I was sitting in church when I heard news of the bombing of two Coptic Christian churches in Egypt, killing 44 people as they worshiped on Palm Sunday. 

Pastor Lynn Cheyney was reviewing the serious events of the past week: the gas attack in Syria and now the suicide bombings in Alexandria and Tanta.  (Did she mention the US bombing?  I'm not sure.)

We had just observed the traditional procession carrying palm branches--adults standing in the pews waving their palms as the children marched and waved.  

We heard the news, and then we sang:
All glory laud and honor 
To thee, Redeemer, King,
To whom the lips of children
Made sweet hosannas ring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3a8fTTrAdE

It was incongruous, but in her message a few hymns later, Pastor Lynn spoke about Palm Sunday as "A Most Perplexing Day," containing both joy and ominous tension.  

The procession is a triumphal parade but also a march toward the execution in Jerusalem that Jesus knew was coming.

She quoted Fleming Rutledge, one of the first woman ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church:

"Palm Sunday has always been a crowd pleaser: the festivity of the procession, the stirring music, the repeated 'Hosannas.'  And then we are plunged into the overwhelming drama of the passion... It is not for the faint of heart."

In Egypt 44 people paid for their faith on Palm Sunday by following Jesus into martyrdom.  They join many other Christians killed by the Islamic State and others in the last ten years.

They join Muslims killed in their mosques and Jews killed in their temples.  

For a few decades after the Holocaust, we did not hear about people being killed because of their religion.  Wars were fought for territory, for political beliefs, and for control of natural resources.

Territory and power are still the root causes of killing, but today religion is being used to cover up the true sources of conflict.  

Priests and imams bless those who kill in the name of God, as God grieves.  

"In this week of sorrows, grant us tender hearts, that they might break over the things that break your heart," we recited in the "Prayers of the People" at Westwood Presbyterian Church.