Here we are at the end of the road: the end of our 40
days in the desert of Lent, the end of the Via Dolorosa, the last of the seven
words from the cross. And now, we stand
at the foot of the cross, waiting, desolate, lost, expecting nothing more after
His words, ‘It is finished,’ but He speaks one last time, to the Father He so
recently accused of forsaking him: ‘Father, into Thy hands, I commend my
spirit.’
Christians often treat that sentence as if it is novel or
peculiar to Our Lord and the cross, but that isn’t, in fact, the case. The
exclamation is a strong reminder of His Jewishness, drawn from Psalm 31 and woven
into the piyut, Adon Olam, said on
Shabbat and often, before bed: B'yado
afkid ruchi - To Him I commit my
spirit.
Also quintessentially Jewish is His relationship with
G-d, able to encompass ‘What, you’re going to just leave Me hanging here in the
dark?’ as well as that cry of the trapeze artist to the catcher, ‘Into your
hands…’ and everything in between: from the agony in Gethsemane to the
tenderness of ‘Father, forgive them.’ It is the intimacy and depth that comes
from the familiarity of everyday togetherness, of sharing the little things as
well as the large; the pain as well as the joy. A more modern example of this
Jewish closeness to G-d can be found the late Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker:
Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker
We kill the flame
Hineni, hineni – I’m ready, my Lord
Shocking as those lyrics may seem to us, they are
underpinned by the sentiment: I trust you
so much, I dare to say this to you, I
dare to challenge you, as Martha did to Jesus when she said, ‘If you had
been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.’ Though I’ve yet to get there, it’s a
relationship style I strongly resonate with, since my spiritual life can be
summed up by a favourite quote: I live my life between ‘Jesus, take the wheel,’
and ‘Oh yeah? TRY ME.’
It was my relationship with G-d I was pondering this Lent,
as I walked or led the Stations at least once a week. The idea of surrender had
popped up many times in various situations, heart to heart discussions – with
Jewish or non-religious friends, and in various materials that would just
appear: cards, books, even gravestones. I worshipped a G-d who became human and
died for me, so why was letting go so hard, even AFTER I’d worked on my stuff;
why did it feel like that resistance was woven into the very fabric of
Christianity I was trying to live?
The answer came unexpectedly when Lynne Hutchings of
Wyoming defended the death penalty by saying that without it, Jesus couldn’t
have saved humanity from its sins. We don’t have time to get into just how
deeply heretical that is, so let’s just say someone should have checked her
mushrooms before she ate them. I, of course, couldn’t resist putting it out
there, posting it with the headline: When substitutionary atonement goes too
far. Anyone who really knows me will be able to guess just how much earthy
language & first class snark hit that thread. But it was my theologian
friend, Sara, who summed it up for us all when she drily noted,
‘Substitutionary atonement overreaches simply by existing.’
Why does the form of atonement we believe in matter?
Because it is the lens through which we view our faith and so, it becomes the
way we live our lives. Substitutionary atonement is problematic for a whole
host of reasons, but the ones I want to point out today include how it
diminishes G-d’s nature by imagining the Almighty can only forgive sins when
someone (Christ) is punished for them and how it turns relationship into a
series of transactions – debt, payment. It makes unforgiveness, cruelty, and
transactional relationship a feature, not a bug, of Christianity. Donald Trump
is supporting white supremacists and grabbing women indiscriminately? That’s
ok, he’ll give us the judges we want to impose the Christian version of sharia
law. Children being caged then trafficked through adoption agencies such as
Bethany Christian to white saviour parents? Substitutionary atonement – their
parents had the nerve to show up at our border asking for asylum (which, for
those of you inclined to think otherwise, *is perfectly legal*), so we punish
their children.
I’m supposed to surrender to a G-d who enables that? Hard
pass. Lucifer’s got a party in the basement that looks like a better option,
thanks. And frankly, I don’t think Jesus would surrender to a Father like that
either. Substitutionary atonement reduces the cross – and Jesus’ life – to the
unremarkable: debt owed & paid, rather than a sacrifice of love. Through
that lens, the life that we know Jesus lived and the relationship He had with
His Father makes no sense at all, not
least His teachings on forgiveness. And though this may be a minor point, I
find substitutionary atonement lazier than a three-toed sloth on Ambien and, as
an Enneagram 8, that just irimtates me.
And so it was that I discovered that my resistance to
surrender was based in this sense of transactional relation – debt, payment –
that made trust difficult.
Peter, a Dominican friend, and I had long discussions
about models of atonement afterwards, but nothing settled for me until I
thought, ‘Wait, what if we’ve got the question at the Trinity Redemption
meeting wrong? What if the Father wasn’t asking, how do I get satisfaction, but
rather, how do I bring them home? And the big J’s response was, well, what if I
go down and show them how to live a fully human life – which can only be lived
in you? We know what that will mean, but I will gladly accept that price for
love.’
The kaleidoscope shifted and it all made sense: the
Incarnation into a vulnerable human baby, living with his parents – and talking
back to them, a ministry of healing, challenging teaching, miracles, and
unutterable love, and finally, the sacrifice upon the cross and those words of
complete surrender to a loving father who wants to bring his children home, a
father whose arms are always open: to catch His Son – and us. If we start from *here*,
then we are meant to live our lives as Christ lived His.
Now, there’s no doubt that the imitation of Christ is
much harder than the idea we’re paid for once and all: for one, it means my
fantasy of rounding up Jacob Rees-Mogg, Donald Trump, and their hate-spewing
authoritarian buddies around the world, dropping them on an uninhabited
Marshall Island to live Lord of the Flies style, and restarting nuclear testing
in the area…is off the table. Instead, I have to learn to love them, to see
G-d’s image in them, bearing in mind that love doesn’t mean just being nice and
letting them do what they want; it means finding a way to prevent them from
further hurting themselves and other, from going deeper into sin.
How in the universe am I supposed to do that? Jesus told
me: Father, into Thy hands, I commend my spirit. But I’m human and I can’t let
go of the anger, the hurt, the need to control, to let my spirit operate
through my own good but twisted nature. It feels impossible. Perhaps that is
why we are told:
Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide
is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there
are who go in thereat.
Far
too often, we use that quote to impose whatever set of rules we want on others,
meaning that narrow gate is for us and those like us, but I suspect that’s not
the case. The gate is narrow because we have to let go of everything, to let go
of our lives, to walk through:
He’s hurt me; I want him to pay. Father, into Thy Hands, I commend my
spirit.
I can’t do this. Father, into
Thy Hands, I commend my spirit.
I can’t live w/o
this thing/person. Father,
into Thy Hands, I commend my spirit.
We often talk about closing our eyes and breathing in
G-d. But the only way through the narrow gate is to let G-d breathe us – to
throw ourselves back on Him over and over again, despite our Gethsemanes, our
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani moments, our broken humanity.
I was in Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral last autumn, on
my knees during the Eucharistic prayer I’d heard thousands of times, when I
heard these words for the FIRST time: May He make us an everlasting gift to you,
and was yet again overwhelmed by His sacrifice of love and the Father’s
commitment to bring us home. In that moment, I understood that surrender meant
not loss of self, but a return to communion.
All I know is that I’m light years away from being that gift
and right now, the best that I can do is to make a vow, perhaps best summed up
as follows:
For as long as I
shall live, I will testify to love,
I’ll be a witness
in the silences when words are not enough,
With every breath I
take, I will give thanks to G-d above,
For as long as I
shall live, I will testify to love.
