“The Cross as a Symbol: What Meanings Does It Hold?”
Part 2 in a 2-part series on Atonement Theologies
Crestwood UCC
April 2, 2006
Rev. Jean Morrow
Two weeks ago, twelve Crestwoodians
traveled to the Joslyn Museum in Omaha to see the St. John’s Illustrated
Bible exhibition. St. John’s Abbey of Collegeville, MN, commissioned
a handwritten, illustrated Bible…something that hasn’t been done
in over 500 years…and a large number of finished pages were on display.
It was incredible. The
illustrators and calligraphers used ancient methods to produce it.
Turkey, goose and duck quills. Hand ground materials for ink.
Vellum or calf skin for the pages.
But, in the illustrations,
they’ve done something unheard of, as far as I know. A group
of historians and theologians got together to interpret text, discuss,
dream and create a new vision in the illustrations.
The first illustration I saw
as I began to walk around the exhibit was of two faces of Africans…tribal
looking, with cropped hair and African jewelry. And the colors
in the illustration were the colors of Kente cloth. Their images
illustrated an OT text.
Then there was the illustration
of the woman with the alabaster jar. It was rich and deep with
color…she looked Brazilian…or Guatemalan…and the colors reinforced
that…it was breathtaking.
Lazarus, from the story of
Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, looked like the back of a Buddhist
Monk at prayer, sitting in a Zen Lotus position, wrapped in a prayer
shawl.
Now, I’ve never traveled
beyond North America…why did I think that first illustration was of
Africans? Why did the woman with the alabaster jar make me think
of Brazil or Guatemala? Why did the seated Lazarus immediately
conjure up the image of a Buddhist monk? Well, the answer is easy.
I have known Africans and South Americans. I have seen Denny Pearson’s
pictures of Guatemalans in their native dress. I have touched African
kente cloth. I have hosted a Tibetan Buddhist Monk in my home.
We are no longer a local or
regional culture. Through the marvels of travel and technology, and
the willingness of people from all over the world to move and share
their culture, we are global. We can access current information
about science, medicine, world governments, world religions, art and
music with our fingertips on a keyboard. With so much knowledge available
to us, how can we not interpret and
illustrate biblical text in a new and different way?
Marvelous scholarly things
have happened in recent history. The Dead Sea scrolls were discovered
in 1947. Prior to that, the oldest biblical manuscripts we had
were from the 9th century. Now we have text that is
1000 years older…from the 3rd century BCE. Tremendous scholarly
work followed that finding.
With the civil rights and feminist
movements in the 60s and 70s, we saw a broadening of theological discourse
with new voices…voices we hadn’t heard from. Liberation movements
all over the world introduced new perspectives on the Bible, Jesus and
God. Process theologians introduced us to a God that pulls us from the
future, instead of pushing us from the past.
And, of course, there are the
scholarly gifts of the Jesus seminar. Thirty scholars who gathered
in 1985 to research the historicity of Jesus, with a commitment to make
those results known beyond a handful of biblical scholars.
Because of the richness and
diversity of religious traditions and modern theological voices and
the scholarly endeavor of biblical historians made so readily available
to us…is it not time to reconsider, and perhaps let go of some of
our old teachings and theological understandings? Last week we
considered two ancient and historic theories of atonement and we looked
at the cultures from which they emerged. Today, we move into the
present to look at contemporary ideas and understandings about atonement.
Let’s begin by getting a
historical grounding about Roman and the cross. Roman rule was brutal
and dominating politically, economically and religiously. Except
for a very few wealthy elite, Jews were incredibly oppressed.
In those days, the cross had
two meanings: first, it represented execution by the Roman empire;
and second, it was used for one crime and one crime only – denial
of Roman imperial authority. That was it. It wasn’t used on
common criminals…it was reserved for runaway slaves and rebels who
had the audacity to subvert Roman law and order. Remember the
two guys who were hung beside Jesus? They weren’t thieves…a
better translation of the Greek is freedom fighter, rebel or insurgent…Jesus
was executed on a cross as a rebel against Rome between two other rebels
against Rome.
Modern progressive theologians
see the cross for what it is: a violent social deterrent used by the
domination system to maintain control. They reject the notion
that there is something salvific, or saving, about Jesus’ death on
the cross. They ground the saving power of Jesus and the theory
of being at one with God in Jesus’ life and teachings and death, but
the emphasis is on his life as a model for us.
The funny thing is that this
contemporary theory has historic roots. In 12th century
France…the very same era that produced the Satisfaction Theory…Peter
Abelard, an abbot and theologian, fully developed an atonement theory
that sounds like modern atonement theories. It is called the Moral
Influence Theory and it teaches that atonement is not attained through
a payment to Satan or a payment to restore God’s honor. Rather,
God’s limitless love overrules God’s need for justice and Jesus’
life and death becomes an inspiration and an example for Christians
to follow. Jesus’ life and death was intended to inspire and
influence the individual Christian believer who is seeking wholeness.
Well, in 1141, the church deemed
Abelard a heretic, ordered his books burned, forbade him to write…and
he was lucky to escape with his life.
Peter Abelard: heretic
or man before his time?
If he lived today, he would
have had lots of conversation partners. Liberal Theologians of
the late 19th century suggested that Jesus’ death on the
cross was to be an example of courage and self-giving love, which all
Christians are called to emulate.
Process theologians of the 20th century believe that God suffered that day with Jesus on the cross…and that God suffers with us whenever we suffer for the sake of love and justice. They believe Jesus was killed not so much by the individual sinfulness of particular people but by the principalities and powers of his time. Yet his life and death did break the control of those powers. And his followers found that they could create communities that formed life in a new and different way, enabling them to distance themselves and resist the powers of evil in society, welcoming the creative transformative power of God’s love..
In the 1970s, Latin American
theologians gave us Liberation Theology, which was basically another
protest against the idea that individual salvation was achieved on the
cross…liberation theologies, of which there are many, would argue
that individual salvation theologies are psychologically oriented, rather
than politically or community oriented, a perspective that they believe
is well established in the Bible and in the life of Jesus. They argue
that what happened on the cross was not about alleviating individual
sins, but about Jesus’ desire to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor,
liberate the entire community from systemic evil. They would say that
Jesus’ death should serve to inspire us to stand against systems that
dominate and dehumanize. One of my personal mottos has its foundation
in Liberation theology: No one is saved until everyone is saved.
Liberation theologies tend
to be human being focused. And so ecological theologians have
taken this sense of community salvation one step further. They
ask the question, “Is Christianity ecological?”
One of my favorite ecology-based
theologians is Sallie McFague at Vanderbilt. She calls this focus
on “Jesus did it all for me on the cross” Jesusolatry…the idolatry
of Jesus. She states that it is overly individualistic and over-emphasizes
Jesus. There is so much focus on Jesus, that there really is no
reason to believe that God is present and with us. Jesus did it all!
She proposes a new metaphor
for God. The world as God’s body…God is not separate from
us but is present in and around us…in all of us, the last and the
least…and in nature and all that is life and all that supports life…God
with us. McFague asks, “Wouldn’t we view the earth differently
if we understood it as the body or an essential part of the body of
God?”
She would never say that Jesus
was a nature lover…there just isn’t enough biblical text to support
it. But she makes a very compelling claim that his ministry to
the oppressed, his teachings that overturned conventional hierarchies
and his healing stories can be extended to nature. She also says that
his ministry threatened the hierarchies of power, which resulted in
his death on the cross…and that solidarity with the oppressed, in
its many forms, is likely to end this way. But, through the power
of Jesus’ life and death, and his teachings that live on, nature’s
lesson is affirmed, that from death comes new life. Very intriguing.
I have a favorite Womanist
theologian, Dr. Delores Williams from Union Seminary in New York.
Womanist is a term that came out of the black women’s community.
They felt feminist theologians only addressed white women’s experience
and black theologians only addressed black male experience. Dr.
Williams theological foundation emerges from black women’s experience
of slavery, sacrifice and surrogacy. She rejects the cross as having
anything to do with God. She believes Jesus came to call us to
a Ministerial Vision of Life. She also has a different take on
how Jesus conquered sin in the world. Remember the temptation
stories? Before Jesus’ ministry began, he went into the wilderness
to struggle with temptation. Dr. Williams roots her theological
understanding of Jesus’ conquering of sin in the way he modeled non-violent
resistance to temptation: Jesus resisted the temptation to value the
material over the spiritual; he resisted death of the spirit; and he
resisted the greedy urge of ownership. For Dr. Williams, atonement
is about resisting temptation and living the new ministerial vision
shown to us through Jesus’ life.
There are so many emerging
theologies of atonement that offer rational biblically based explanations
of our being at-one-with or reconciled with God through Jesus that I
could go on and on and on. For me it is clear…we no longer need
to rely solely upon the historical teachings of the cross as the only
teachings on atonement.
This is such an important area
to be talking about because I believe there are so many people for whom
the life of Jesus resonates deeply within, but for whom the historical
church teachings on sin and salvation and Jesus’ death on the cross
no longer makes any sense and is so distasteful that they no longer
participate in the church. We need to begin to develop our own
theological understandings of the power of Jesus’ life and then share
them broadly, because people need to know the progressive church exists.
I believe there are so many people out there who are desperately longing
for a community like this one, but they hesitate to give church another
try because they don’t know we exist…they’ve never heard of a
church that might be studying theology in a new way.
Atonement theories. Well,
we arrive back where began. My friends, we are living in such
exciting and dynamic times with a diversity of theological voices surrounding
us. As I end this sermon series, I can’t help but be reminded
again of that beautiful St. John’s Bible with its creative, courageous
and contemporary interpretations and images. May we be as willing
to peacefully and respectfully let go of the historical teachings on
atonement…and may we be as courageous and creative in our own discernment
of the power of Jesus’ teachings in our own lives. May it be
so for you and for me. Amen.
References:
Marcus J. Borg & John Dominic
Crossan, The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus’ Final
Week in Jerusalem (San Francisco: Harper Collins).
Sallie McFague, Life Abundant:
Rethinking Theology and Economy for a Planet in Peril (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2001) 157-180.
Sallie McFague, Models of God:
Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1987) 59-87.
Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, God,
Christ, Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology (New York: Crossroad,
1989) 101-111.
R.S. Sugirtharajah, editor,
Voices From the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World (Trowbridge,
Wiltshire: Redwood Books, 1995) 1-9, 407-420.
Delores S. Williams, Sisters
in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll,
New York: Orbis Books, 1993) 143-177.