Living the Gospel Cycle together as wolves and lambs
Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 21, 2021
Jeremiah 31:31-34 • John 12:20-33
In today’s passage from John’s gospel, Jesus has raised Lazarus, he has entered Jerusalem on a donkey, and today we find him teaching publicly in the temple for the last time. Everyone is looking for Jesus, they want to see him, to hear him, Jews and non-Jews.
Knowing where he’s come from and where he’s going: from the tomb and resurrection of Lazarus, towards his own tomb and resurrection, it’s not surprising that his teaching is about the abundant life of creation where death and life are intricately entwined in an unending cycle. Jesus says:
“unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain.”
There is no way around it: death is a hard subject for humanity: not being able to see what lies on the other side leaves us agonizingly aware of all we lose when we or a loved one dies. And yet we know from observing the cycle of the vibrant growth and necessary decay in the plants and trees that we live with, that out of death, life will flourish.
The dominant narrative of Christianity, the one that is present both for our liturgical year, and indeed, each Sunday, is this Gospel Cycle from birth to the death on the cross, to the resurrection and back to the birth. And while we might prefer it, in this life on earth, to be one trajectory from birth to resurrection, it’s not: it is this circular journey that happens in large and small ways, every day of our life.
I have found thinking about this Gospel Cycle particularly helpful as I grapple, as we all have, with the issues of the oppression and inequity in this country relating to race. Episcopal priest Eric Law has written a powerful book entitled: ‘The Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb’ (Chalice Press; 1993). In it he addresses how the powerless and the powerful might dwell together in this Gospel Cycle with the wolves always moving toward being lambs in self-emptying love, and similarly, the lambs moving towards being wolves, claiming their power in the love of God.
For the last couple of Wednesdays, with Stephen Siptroth’s leadership, we have been discussing segments of the new PBS documentary, ‘The Black Church’. I was very struck by the story of the vibrant, song-filled, Black Church that refused to accept the narrative of the obedient, subservient Christian that the slave owners intended, and instead chose to identify with the suffering Jesus on the cross, whose journey led to the empty tomb and the resurrection. It is hard to miss the fact that the White Church generally hasn’t been that interested with the Jesus on the cross, and has chosen instead to identify with the triumph of the resurrected Christ.
Whereas the Black Church could be empowered and comforted by a narrative of a God who would not abandon them in their suffering, and a Jesus who knew their suffering and would be with them in their pain, the White Church chose instead to rest in complacency and victory. Not that comfort is any bad thing, life being what it is, but one faction of the White Church has even gone as far as to claim God must love them more because they have been so blessed, unlike those others living in poverty.
In ‘The Wolf shall lie down with the Lamb’, Law addresses how there are both wolves and lambs in every situation. And, that the Gospel Cycle of cross to resurrection recognizes this, and offers two points of entry: one for the powerful and one for the powerless. From this point of entry, there are dynamic consequences. To live the Gospel, as we are all called to, you do not stay in that place.
He writes:
Living the Gospel involves moving through the cycle of death and resurrection, the cross and the empty tomb, again and again. The moment I am resurrected into new life of empowerment, I must begin to think about serving and giving away my power and take up the cross again, or I stand the chance of abusing my power. The moment I take up the cross and become powerless, I must begin to think about faithfulness and endurance and look toward empowerment through the empty tomb. It is in this dynamic of death and resurrection, cross and the empty tomb, Lent and Easter, that the Gospel comes to life in each one of us. (43)
In Friday’s New York Times, David Brooks wrote such an appropriate op-ed piece for this topic of the Gospel Cycle, that I can only wonder if he had looked at this morning’s Gospel passage himself. It’s entitled ‘A Christian Vision of Social Justice’, and in it he shares the conversation he had with Esau McCaulley, a New Testament professor at Wheaton College with its message for both believers and nonbelievers. McCaulley’s vision for social justice begins with the assertion that each of us is made in the image of God, and, to quote:
it abhors any attempt to dehumanize anybody on any front. We may be unjustly divided in a zillion ways but (there is) a fundamental human solidarity in being part of the same creation.
McCaulley goes on to stress the importance of memory, acknowledging that many of us are now engaging in trying to tell the true stories of the American people: stories that don’t whitewash the shameful themes in our narrative nor downplay the painful but uneven progress – realist but not despairing.
At the heart of the conversation is McCaulley’s use of the language of sin to describe the racism in this country. Not a popular or an easy piece of church ‘code’, but the good news is that there are established and powerful ways of addressing sin that can lead to, as he writes, salvation, liberation and reconciliation for all.
Once it has been recognized that we are all equal in the eyes of God, when we have remembered the truth of what has happened over the centuries, the powerful in our society can begin the journey of repentance or turning away from racism, making the necessary reparations, and praying for forgiveness. We, as the wolves in this world, can begin the work of self-emptying love. The self-emptying love that Jesus showed us on the cross that will lead us to a vision of ‘the beloved community and the multiethnic family of humankind’. Then there will be room for those unjustly oppressed to breathe in our recognition of their dignity and humanity, and claim their full rights. If the lambs are able to experience lasting and meaningful social justice, maybe they will be able to forgive the wolves for their appalling track record.
To conclude in the words of this morning’s collect:
Lord of the new covenant, in Christ you draw all people to yourself: may we die with him to the powers of hate and let him show us a world loved by you, through Jesus Christ, the fruitful grain. Amen.