So there seems to be a fundamental difference in the sentiments being created by these two remembrances.  One tells a people their shared history of survival through the will of God.  The other tells a people of the survival of their God, in SPITE of the will of the people. Strange, huh?  Both reveal that God is more powerful a force than death and oppression, but in very different ways… Anybody else have any thoughts on the difference between these two?

Eric Thompson: “And Peter said to him, ‘Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death!’” ought to about cover it.

Wed Feb 17: host-Caleb, cook-Caleb, ritual-Katie. This Ash Wednesday, we will be making ashy soap for use throughout Lent. See our post from last year for more details.
Sat Feb 27: Planning meeting at Caleb’s house

Wed Mar 3: host-Mabel, cook-Katie, ritual-Johannes
Wed Mar 17: host-Elaine, cook-Dan, ritual-Isaac. We will be blessing Elaine’s new home and celebrating St. Patrick’s Day.
Wed Mar 24: Planning meeting at Johannes’s home
Wed Mar 31: Planning meeting at Dan’s home

Holy Week
Sun Mar 28: Interfaith Seder at Church of St. Francis Xavier, Mary Chapel. If you are interested in attending, you must RSVP by Wed, March 24. Please contact us for more information.
???? ? ???????Fri Apr 2: Stations of the Cross around NYC?
Sat Apr 3 – Sun Apr 4: Easter Vigil? We had a very successful vigil last year, and we are searching for a space for our Easter ritual redux. We have also discussed doing a hike, heading up-state, or traveling to a church in New Jersey.

Wed Apr 7: game and movie night, host-Mabel, cook-local pizza place
Wed Apr 21: host-Johannes, cook-Isaac, ritual-Sarah

If you would like to come to any of these events, get on our mailing list by clicking on the Contact link. We hope to see you soon!

I have always rather liked the gruff robustness of the first rubric for baptism found in a late fourth-century church order which directs that the bishop enter the vestibule of the baptistry and say to the catechumens without commentary or apology only four words: “Take off your clothes.” There is no evidence that the assistants fainted or the catechumens asked what he meant. Catechesis and much prayer and fasting had led them to understand that the language of their passage this night in Christ from death to life would be the language of the bathhouse and the tomb – not that of the forum and the drawing room.

So they stripped and stood there, probably, faint from fasting , shivering from the cold of early Easter morning and with awe at what was about to be consummated; years of having their motives and lives scrutinized; years of hearing the word of God read and expounded at worship; years of being dismissed with prayer before the Faithful went on to celebrate the eucharist; years of having the doors to the assembly hall closed to them; years of seeing the tomb-like baptistry building only from without; years of hearing the old folks of the community tell hair-raising tales of what being a Christian had cost their own grandparents when the emperors were still pagan; years of running into a reticent and reverent vagueness concerning what was actually done by the Faithful at the breaking of bread and in that closed baptistry . . . . tonight all this was about to end as they stood here naked on a cold floor in the gloom of this eerie room.

Abruptly the bishop demands that they face westward, toward where the sun dies swallowed up in darkness, and denounce the King of shadows and death and things that go bump in the night. Each one of them comes forward to do this loudly under the hooded gaze of the bishop (who is tired from presiding all night at the Vigil continuing next door in the church), as deacons shield the nudity of the male catechumens from the women, and as deaconesses screen the women in the same manner. This is when each of them finally lets go of the world and of life as they have known it: the umbilical cord is cut, but they have not yet begun to breathe.

Then they must each turn eastwards toward where the sun surges up bathed in a light which just now can be seen stealing into the alabaster window of the room. They must voice their acceptance of the King of light and life who has trampled down death by his own death. As each one finishes this, he or she is fallen upon by a deacon or a deaconess who vigorously rubs olive oil into his or her body, as the bishop perhaps dozes off briefly, leaning on his cane. (He is like an old surgeon waiting for the operation to begin.)

When all the catechumens have been thoroughly oiled, they and the bishop are suddenly startled by the crash of the baptistry doors being thrown open. Brilliant golden light spills out into the shadowy vestibule, and following the bishop (who has now regained his composure) the catechumens and the assistant presbyters, deacons, deaconesses and sponsors move into the most glorious room most of them have ever seen. It is a high, arbor-like pavillion of green, gold, purple and white mosaic from marble floor to domes ceiling sparkling like jewels in the light of innumerable oil lamps that fill the room with heady warmth. The windows are beginning to blaze with the light of Easter dawn. The walls curl with vines and tendrils that thrust up from the floor, and at their tops apostles gaze down robed in snow-white togas, holding crowns. They stand around a golden chair draped with purple upon which rests only an open book. And above all these, in the highest point of the ballooning dome, a naked Jesus (very much in the flesh) stands up to his waist in the Jordan as an unkempt John pours water on him and God’s disembodied hand points the Holy Spirit at Jesus’ head in the form of a white bird.

Suddenly the catechumens realize that they have unconsciously formed themselves into a mirror-image of this lofty icon on the floor directly beneath it. They are standing around a pool let into the middle of the floor, into which gushes water pouring noisily from the mouth of a stone lion crouching atop a pillar at poolside. The bishop stands beside this, his presbyters on each side: a deacon has entered the pool, and the other assistants are trying to maintain a modicum of decorum among the catechumens who forget their nakedness as they crowd close to see. The room is warm, humid and it glows. It is a golden paradise in a bathhouse in a mausoleum: an oasis, Eden restored: the navel of the world, where death and life meet, copulate and become undistinguishable from each other. Jonah peers out from a niche, Noah from another, Moses from a third, the paralytic carrying his stretcher from a fourth. The windows begin to sweat.

The bishop rumbles a massive prayer – something about the Spirit and the waters of life and death – and then pokes the water a few times with his cane. The catechumens recall Moses doing something like that to a rock from which water flowed, and they are mightily impressed. Then a young male catechumen of about ten, the son of pious parents, is led down into the pool by the deacon. The water is warm (it has been heated in a furnace), and the oil on his body spreads out on the surface in iridescent swirls. The deacon positions the child near the cascade from the lion’s mouth. The bishop leans over on his cane and, in a voice that sounds like something out of the Apocalypse, says: “Euphemius! Do you believe in God the Father, who created all of heaven and earth?” After a nudge from the deacon beside him, the boy murmurs that he does. And just in time, for the deacons, who has been doing this for fifty years and is the boy’s grandfather, wraps him in his arms, lifts him backwards into the rushing waters and forces him under the surface. The old deacon smiles through his beard at the wide brown eyes that look up at him in shock and fear from beneath the water (the boy has purposely not been told what to expect). Then he raises him up coughing and sputtering. The bishop waits until he can speak again, and leaning over a second time, tapping the boy on the shoulder with his cane, says: “Euphemius! Do you believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, who was conceived of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was crucified, died and was buried? Who rose on the third day and ascended into heaven, from whence he will come to judge the living and the dead?” This time the boy replies like a shot, “I do,” and then he holds his nose . . . . “Euphemius! Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the master and giving of life, who proceeds from the Father, who is to be honored and glorified equally with the Father and the Son, who spoke by the Prophets? And in one holy, catholic and apostolic church which is the communion of God’s holy ones? And in the life that is coming?” “I do.”

When he comes up the third time, his vast grandfather gathers him in his arms and carries him up the steps leading out of the pool. There another deacon roughly dries Euphemius with a warm towel, and a senior presbyter, who is almost ninety and is regarded by all as a “confessor” because he was imprisoned for the faith as a young man, tremulously pours perfumed oil from a glass pitcher over the boy’s damp head until it soaks his hair and runs down over his upper body. The fragrance of this enormously expensive oil fills the room as the old man mutters: “God’s servant, Euphemius is anointed in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Euphemius is then wrapped in a new linen tunic; the fragrant chrism seeps into it, and he is given a burning terracotta oil lamp and told to go stand by the door and keep quit. Meanwhile, the other baptism have continued.

When all have been done in this same manner (an old deaconess, a widow, replaced Euphemius’s grandfather when it came the women’s time), the clergy strike up the Easter hymn, “Christ is risen from the dead, he has crushed death by his death and bestowed life on those who lay in the tomb.” To this constantly repeated melody interspersed with the psalm verse, “Let God arise and smite his enemies,” the whole baptismal party – tired, damp, thrilled and oily – walk out into the blaze of Easter morning and go next door to the church led by the bishop. There he bangs on the closed doors with his cane; they are flung open, the endless vigil is halted and the baptismal party enters as all take up the hymn, “Christ is risen . . . .” which is all but drowned out by the ovations that greet Christ truly risen in his newly-born ones. As they enter, the fragrance of the chrism fills the church: it is the Easter-smell, God’s grace olfactorally incarnate. The pious struggle to get near the newly baptized to touch their chrismed hair and rub its fragrance on their own faces. All is chaos until the baptismal party manages to reach the towering ambo that stands in the middle of the pewless hall. The bishop ascends its lower front steps, turns to face the white-clad neophytes grouped at the bottom with their burning lamps and the boisterous Faithful now held back by a phalanx of well-built acolytes and doorkeepers. Euphemius’s mother has fainted and been carried outside for air.

The bishop opens his arms to the neophytes and once again all burst into “Christ is risen,” Christos anest . . . . He then affirms and seals their baptism after prayer, for all the Faithful to see, with an authoritative gesture of paternity – laying his hand on each head, signing each oily forehead once again in the form of a cross, while booming out: “The servant of God is sealed with the Holy Spirit.” To which all reply in a thunderous “Amen,” and for the first time the former catechumens receive and give the kiss of peace. Everyone is in tears.

While this continues, bread and wine are laid out on the holy table; the bishop then prays at great length over them after things quiet down, and the neophytes lead all to communion with Euphemius out in front. While his grandfather holds his lamp, Euphemius dines on the precious Body whose true and undoubted member he has become; drinks the precious Blood of him in whom he himself has now died; and just this once drinks from another special cup – one containing milk and honey mixed as a gustatory icon of the promised land into which he and his colleagues have finally entered out of the desert through Jordan’s waters. Then his mother (now recovered and somewhat pale, still insisting she had only stumbled) took him home and put him, fragrantly, to bed.

Euphemius had come a long way. He had passed from death into a life he lives still.

In any case, in the grand tradition of Fight Club, we’ll be making soap as a penitential act (although we’ll be using goatsmilk, honey, and palm oil rather than animal fat). We’ll be providing burnables (paper, palm leaves, etc), but you’re welcome to bring things of your own that might having meaning to you – just be sure that anything you bring to burn is free from chemicals, plastic, etc. Through the course of the evening, we’ll turn our confessions, transgressions, and deconstructions into a cleansing, frothy, ritual bar which we can use for the next forty days. Seriously, it’s hard to find time in our busy days for prayer and meditation, and shower time seems as good a time as any.

Also, remember that we’re trying a move to Friday nights after this month, so the next Transmission after his will be March 6th. Finally, we’re on for an Easter Vigil retreat on Holy Saturday, so put April 11 on your calendars, all day and all night.

See you soon!

-or-

Meeting the Devil’s Advocate in the Desert

By j. Snodgrass

Presented 3 February, 2008

READERS :

Narrator (Bible Student)

“Luke” (Author of the Gospel According to Luke)

Jesus (Live Free or Die)

Devil (Advocate of Alternate Strategies)

Moses (Supposed Giver-of-the-Law in Deuteronomy)

NARRATOR : Today, in honor of the Lenten Lectionary, we’re going to take a look at my all-time favorite Biblical passage – The temptation of Jesus in the desert, in the Gospel of Luke, Chapter four, verses one to thirteen. As a matter of fact, I love this passage so much, we’re going to hear it twice!

‚ÄúLUKE‚Äù : Jesus…was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil said to him,

DEVIL : “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

JESUS : “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.’”

“LUKE” : The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.

DEVIL : “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.”

JESUS : “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’”

“LUKE” : The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.

DEVIL : “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written:
‘He will command his angels…to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

JESUS : “It [is written]: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

“LUKE” : When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left [Jesus] until an opportune time.

NARRATOR : Great. Man, there’s a lot in there. What we’re going to do now, is hear this scene again. But this time, we’ll have a running commentary track, from a Bible Student, and also from Moses. Now what’s Moses got to do with this? Well, throughout this scene, it seems like every line Jesus says begins with ‘it is written’ – these are all references to the book of Law РDeuteronomy, which is said to be the transcript of Moses’s farewell speech. So, if we’re all ready, let’s press play again, this time with commentary…

‚ÄúLUKE‚Äù : Jesus…was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil [came] to him,

NARRATOR : When the author says ‚Äúthe devil‚Äù here, it’s probable he was talking about…Satan… And it’s worth taking a quick look at this character of‚ĶSatan‚Ķ Or, Ha-Satan (Pronounced Hah-Sah-Tahn) as the case may be. If you were an Ancient Near-Eastern King, your word was law ‚Äì you were considered a God to your people. And you had a council of advisors, but basically it was their job to say…

ALL READERS : ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

NARRATOR : And if they said no, you chopped off their thumbs and big toes. But there‚Äôs only so many times the King can decree that ‘Friday shall be Hawaiian shirt day’ or ‘From henceforth we shall all speak in Jamaican accents, man’ or whatever, before the populace gets antsy. So there was one person in the King‚Äôs court whose job it was to say ‚ÄúMmmmm…No.‚Äù And no matter what the king decreed, this person had to come up with an argument against it ‚Äì let‚Äôs call it ‚ÄòPlaying Devil‚Äôs Advocate.‚Äô

This person‚Äôs job-title was a word meaning ‚ÄúAdversary‚Äù or ‚ÄúAccuser‚Äù ‚Äì ‚ÄúSatan.‚Äù This name or title only appears in three books of the Old Testament ‚Äì brief cameos in Chronicles and Psalm 109, and then a scene in the book of Job. In first Chronicles, 21:1: ‚ÄúSatan…incited David to take a census of Israel. So David said… “Go and count the Israelites…Then report back to me.”

Sounds innocent enough. But why would King David take a census of Israel? The same reason as now – taxation and the draft. So in a way, it makes perfect sense to say the Devil tempted him to do this, and of course the result was a disaster. The Lord was so furious with David that he sent a plague to kill seventy thousand men. (1 Chronicles 21:14)

[The Lord was so furious with David, that he offered the king three options: 1 Chronicles 21:12 “three years of famine, three months of being swept away before your enemies…or three days of the sword of the LORD - days of plague in the land, with the angel of the LORD ravaging every part of Israel.' (David chose three days of attack at the hands of the merciful God, who killed only seventy thousand men – 1 Chronicles 21:14). This is what King David got for listening to his Satan.]

But even the King of Kings, Lord of Lords – even the Most High God, was thought to have such an advisor. As we read in the book of Job…

Job 1:6-12

One day the Heavenly Beings came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered… “From roaming through the earth…”

Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

Some of Job’s eleven thousand animals were stolen, the rest were destroyed by fire from the sky. His servants were slaughtered, a house collapsed on his seven sons and three daughters, and his skin was stricken with boils. Even his wife said ‚ÄúJust curse the Lord and die ‚Äì get it over with!‚Äù (Job 2:9) But Job‚Äôs response was not what the Satan expected. In Job 1:21, Job looked out over the devastation of all he once had and said ‚ÄúNaked was I born and naked will I die. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, his name be praised.‚Äù (Job 1:21) And at the end of the book, Job’s fortunes are restored, with new children and more animals than he had before.

So now we jump forward again to Jesus in the wilderness, full of the spirit. He’s got a plan ‚Äì speak out against authority, and get himself killed in the most agonizing, humiliating, excruciating way possible ‚Äì and when I say ‚ÄúEx-Cruc-iating,‚Äù I mean EX-ecution on the Cruce/Crux/CROSS, in more pain than it would take to give birth to septuplets EIGHT times in a row. And in comes Satan, or the Sah-Tahn, to tell Jesus he has another option…

DEVIL : “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

JESUS : “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.’”

NARATOR : Moses?

MOSES : Deuteronomy eight, two to five – Remember how the LORD your God led you…in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know…whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you…to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

“LUKE” : The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.

DEVIL : “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.”

JESUS : “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

NARRATOR : Aaaand let’s pass the mic to Moe…again…

MOSES : Deuteronomy six, thirteen to fifteen – Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods…for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land.

“LUKE” : The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.

DEVIL : “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

NARRATOR : Here the devil quotes from Psalm 91, a battle-hymn of courage for those who believe in the Lord.

Psalm 91 [Wildly Abbreviated]

5 You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day,

6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys [in the afternoon].

7 A thousand may fall at your side…but…

9 If you make the Most High your dwelling— even the LORD, who is my refuge-

10 then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.

11 For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;

12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra…trample the great [beast] and the serpent.

JESUS : “It [is written]: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

NARAROR : One…Moe…time…

MOSES : Deuteronomy six sixteen – Do not test the LORD your God as you did at Massah.

NARRATOR : “Massah” was where the Israelites, weary and thirsty from being led through the desert, cried out against Moses. The Lord caused water to flow from a stone for them, and they named the place “Massah,” which means “Testing” because there they had put the Lord to the test. (Exodus 17:3-7)

“LUKE” : When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left [Jesus] until an opportune time.

Now we’ve heard two very different versions of this story. First, we heard a story in which God’s ultimate messenger for Good, Jesus, faced off against God’s ultimate messenger for Evil, the Devil. A classic struggle, a clash of titans, an ideological battle with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Righteousness prevails.

But it’s the second story we heard that interests me more. A young person, guided by faith, has chosen to speak out against authority, to do what he or she believes in, even at the cost of his or her own life. And someone else ‚Äì maybe someone evil…or maybe a friend or lover, an trusted advisor, even a caring parent…says ‚ÄúWhat about food? Security? What about climbing the corporate ladder? Why don’t you run for president? If you’re so righteous, so faithful ‚Äì why not let God take care of you? Don’t you want to live?‚Äù

My father is an Episcopal priest. His great goal in life is to die for what he believes in ‚Äì to stand against unjust authority, and be executed for it. But that’s not his goal for me. He’s always telling me to take the safer path, get a middle-class job with insurance and whatnot. That doesn’t make him evil, it makes him a responsible parent. My goal is also to fight the system, and if need be, to die for what I believe in. But now I’m a father too, and the minute my son shows any sign of rebellion I’ll be saying ‚ÄúMy son ‚Äì go with the flow. Get a job, settle down, take it easy, and live.‚Äù Don’t get me wrong ‚Äì I’m not condoning sympathy for the devil, or saying we’re all Luke Skywalker today and Darth Vader tomorrow. The point is that even for Jesus, light of the world, no choice was ever truly black and white.

I have never been propositioned by a crimson-red man with horns and a tail, offering me the world on a plate (if choices were so clear ‚Äì why would we even need this cryptic Bible for enigmatic guidance?). But I have been propositioned, offered things, position, power, whatever, by people. Sometimes people I know and trust, sometimes people I don’t ‚Äì sometimes by people who hold worldly authority over me. When I’m faced with temptation, I ask myself the obvious question ‚Äì What would Jesus say? But of course, Jesus couldn’t ask himself this question… ‚ÄúWhat would I say?‚Äù Jesus looked to HIS heroes, often Moses and Isaiah. In this case, he found in the words of Moses the guidance he needed to fend off the Satan’s temptation. But the story does not end there, as we see, the Devil only departs from Jesus ‚Äúuntil the opportune time.‚Äù Worldly temptation will last as long as the world endures, but now as we face it, with the words of prophets in our hearts, we have another hero to consult as well. Jesus, who could not be swayed by temptation, even when it meant his own death.

And, just for fun, have a copy of my favorite Lenten song, sung to the
tune of “my favorite things”…

Sackcloth and ashes,
and days without eating,
Mortification and wailing and weeping,
A hair shirt that scratches,
a nettle that stings,
These are a few of my favorite things.

Penitence, flagellants, memento mori,
Spending nights sleeping on rocks in a quarry,
The sound of a cloak’d solemn cantor who sings,
These are still more of my favorite things.

Tossing and turning and yearning I’m spurning,
Passions aflame like an ember day burning,
Corpus and carnis and wild drunken flings,
Forsaken are they for my favorite things!

When it’s Christmas,
When the tree’s lit,
When the cards are sent,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I can’t wa-a-a-a-it till Lent.

“If only we could get ahead in life we’d be happy.” A similar thought probably went through the paralyzed man’s head at the pool of Bethsaida (John 5:1-9). He thought if only he could touch that pool he would be healed and he would be happy. But as a blind person I know that physical healing doesn’t necessarily mean happiness. There are plenty of people in the world who are not paralyzed and who are just as miserable. What truly makes us happy is our spirit and attitude towards life. But sometimes our spirit is paralyzed and we need someone or something, like Jesus, to come and kick us off our ass.

We ritualized these ideas at Transmission on Wednesday, March 28. As we all gathered together, we each took change and threw it into a pool of water and wished for the things that “If only we had” would make us happy. Then we read psalm 121 and intermixed it with the chorus from the Beatles song “Help.”

After this I gave an abridged version of a sermon I had given at my seminary a week ago, and we then discussed our desires for happiness, how they help us and hinder us, and where our true help comes from. I told a story about a friend of mine who was born blind. Her parents were devastated and they did not know what to do. They assumed that a blind person could never live a happy and successful life so they sat out to make her life as pleasant as possible. They gave her a bedroom with a radio, tv, refrigerator, and microwave, and she stayed there and grew up into a woman weighing over 300 pounds. The whole time she thought that this was as happy as she could get, but if only she could see she could be truly happy, make friends, and go to college. Until one day a worker for the National Federation of the Blind came and told her to get off her bed and follow. The worker taught her how to accept her blindness and use skills such as cane travel and braille as a means not just of coping, but of living. After a year of training my friend had completely changed. She had lost a hundred pounds and is now going for her doctorate of law degree. This was a true transformation, and I believe that Jesus can effect a similar change in people.

After sharing with one another we ended in silent prayer. It was a wonderful time and the food and fellowship we shared before and after the service was incredible. I was particularly excited because we were able to have the service at my apartment, and I was able to welcome the church into my own home.

Paul Grenier.

Well, never fear – I’m bringing you a nice good Friday meditation featuring the poems of Barbara Crafton and the music of, well, me. So turn up your speakers, turn down your lights, and spend some time getting ready for Easter…

Enjoy!

PS a really large chunk of my last album is in the meditation, so be kind about distributing it. If you really, really love it, consider picking up a copy.

Can Jesus console these daughters?

By Bowie Snodgrass
Washington Window
Vol. 75, No. 6, May 2006

Mothers. Whores. Martyrs. Virgins. We’re all daughters. Daughters of Jerusalem.

Asked to do a Station of the Cross for an alternative Good Friday service, I chose VIII: Jesus Consoles the Daughters of Jerusalem. Thinking about my station, I wondered: who are the daughters that need consolation? Can Jesus, a first-century male, console us?

“A great multitude of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’” – Luke 23.27-29

The barren

Jesus tells the women not to weep for him, but for themselves and for their children. Worse times are ahead. This death is just the beginning. The destruction of the temple is still to come.

Jesus then blesses the barren, and their unused wombs and breasts. Caught between the sin of Eve leading to the female ‘punishment’ of childbirth, and the theme of cursed barrenness in the Hebrew Bible, women’s worth was all too often caught up between being a mother – or not. Jesus transfers the personal “sins” of both motherhood and barrenness away from the individual, pointing rather to larger societal ills.

As a modern daughter of Jerusalem, I see an underlying anxiety among my friends in their 20s and 30s about becoming mothers – or not. About the roles our professional lives play in that equation. About the threat of environmental toxins, and the number of young women we know who have cysts, fibroids, and the worry that when we’re ready, with the right guy, we’ll be infertile (with the option of spending tens of thousands of dollars helping nature along). About the complex and intrusive legal process of adoption for lesbians. About having kids as this American Empire bloats and the green apocalypse threatens an end of natural days, as we knew them.

Jesus doesn’t pity us. He sees us – the barren, the prostitutes, the modern maidens – and reaches out. The ‘con’ in ‘console’ means ‘with.’ Jesus stands with us. Jesus consoles the daughters of Jerusalem.

Fashion victims

Starting my station, I envisioned a collage of women who looked like they needed to be consoled. I ended up with an art installation of pinned-up pages from Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine, both high fashion advertisements and portrait photographs.

These women look like they need some serious consolation. Their skinny, contorted bodies, dressed in ways that would leave you unsafe on the streets, look lost and exposed. My roommate commented on their empty eyes. How uncomfortable they appear in front of the camera – and how they make most of us feel in our own skins.

They are victims to the fashions of the times. Beautiful freaks. We can’t help but stare at the androgynous and the super sexy.

Think of the desert mothers, who starved themselves in an ascetic attempt to shed the weight of the world, or the 13th century female mystics diagnosed with “holy anorexia” by modern scholars of medieval history. Throughout the centuries, in the Christian ethos, that which ties us to this world is suspect, and that includes sexuality and body.

Humans are superficial creatures. Jesus sees the humanity in us all. But, do we see it in him? We have made an icon of his face. In Station VI, Veronica (meaning ‘true image’) captures the first image of Christ’s face with her veil. Later we see paintings of the beautiful Jesus in art, Greek-god-like Jesus in stone, gruesome Jesus on the cross.

In the eighth century, portraits of the crucifixion shifted from portraying Jesus in a long robe to simply in a loincloth. Unclothed images of Jesus are everywhere. He stands naked in icons of the Baptism. Leo Steinberg exposed the Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion, opening our eyes to a period where baby Jesus’ penis was a focal point in art with the theological intention of highlighting his true manhood.

Jesus however, is not presented as a sexual object (neither to be an object of our desire, nor as a subject who felt desire). Naked Jesus symbolizes the power of the incarnation, the undoing of the stain of our original sin (thank you very much, Augustine), a perfect hypostatic union of God and Man. God made Flesh, made manifest.

Yes. We are all created in the image of God. Male and female, God created us. Then God became flesh and dwelt among us. Sexuality is part of being human.

Women’s lives are tied to their bodies, for better or worse. Can they produce children or not? Are they beautiful or not? Are they pure or unclean? Jesus too is sexualized and desexualized with the fashions of the times. But, I believe Jesus sees, knows and loves us all as fully-human natural women.

I can still hope for a day when ministers can wear mini-skirts, when we’re not defined by our wombs and breasts and need not fear being barren, when women no longer need to beat their breasts for the sins of the world. Jesus, you with us?