Do We Want to see Jesus?

When Jesus came to Golgotha
They hanged Him on a tree,
They drove great nails through hands and feet,
And made a Calvary.
They crowned Him with a crown of thorns;
Red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days,
And human flesh was cheap.

When Jesus came to Stillwater, (sic)
They simply passed Him by;
They never hurt a hair of Him,
They only let Him die.
For folx (sic) had grown more tender,
And they would not give Him pain;
They only just passed down the street,
And left Him in the rain.

Still Jesus cried, “Forgive them,
For they know not what they do.”
And still it rained the winter rain
That drenched Him through and through.
The crowds went home and left the streets
Without a soul to see;
And Jesus crouched against a wall
And cried for Calvary.

1 This adapted poem comes from the Poet, Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy 1883-1929

Sir, we wish to see Jesus. They said. 

Did they expect to see this troubled soul?  

I want to see Jesus.

But do I really want to see this troubled side that we glimpse today?   

I have been sitting in my own Lenten examination with the promises and renunciations we make at Baptism. 

In Baptism the covenant is written in our hearts, souls and bodies with water, oil and prayer.  

From the earliest of times, Christians facing the dark cold of the western skies just before dawn were asked some pretty daunting questions.  It went something like this:

I have been sitting and examining the ways I have and have not kept these promises, the times I’ve turned away and chosen to only see the dark western sky instead of the sun rising in the east. It has been humbling. But I turn east toward the SON and I say, I  want to see you Jesus.   

And that’s when Jesus turns to me with a troubling presence and says in perfect
Betty Davis style, “Fasten your seat beats; it’s going to be a bumpy night.”  

Seeing Jesus in all his trouble is challenging.  It means we sit with our own fear pride and shame.  

Take if you will, the practice of younger generations using they/them pronouns.   It feels bewildering at best and it sounds like poor grammar.  

And yet,

Turning to Jesus facing the east means that we offer a hospitality of meeting people where they are and offering the best we have.  I love the Rule of Benedict. He writes that we are to listen to the youngest ones of our community.    This is a reminder for me as I age to not be obdurate in my thinking. 

So here’s what happened to me-- I started reading up on they/them pronouns because I realized my own resistance & bewilderment wasn’t enough of a reason to refuse this practice.  My bewilderment was a cop out and an excuse.

It was when I read that Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, and Charles Dickens all used they /them as a singular pronoun in their writings, that I was okay with corrupting my perfect grammar.

Because after all, I am so perfect in how I write!      

If you’ve ever read my writing in the Font, you know I’m being more than a little bit glib right now.  

So I thought… hmm maybe I can use they/them pronouns when people express that need.  Afterall, if its good enough for Shakespeare…

But then Jesus turned to me troubled and said, “Why does it take a dead writer to convince you-- isn’t the living breathing person in front of you making a request to be seen for who they are, more significant than a dead white guy?”

Right.  I’m troubled Lord.   I see your point.  Sorry Jesus.  

I want to see Jesus.  Can I sit in my hidden garbage and examine my being, my shortcomings my pride & blindness? 

What about the time Jesus when a person of color gently pointed out to me that when I, in my privileged ignorance wistfully said, “Someday people of color will come to our church,” and  I was being racist and hurtful to them.  

The reality is, my friend pointed out, people of color are already here and it is painful for folx to not be acknowledged because once again I made bipoc* folx invisible by  NOT seeing their presence here now.

Right.  Jesus.  Right.   I did it again—I was racist.  I didn’t mean to be, but I was and I am.    

And it is so troubling because we can’t get escape our biases.  It is in very air we breathe.    If Jesus brought his brown skinned middle eastern body to Stillwater, he might get pulled over on his way to Ascension.

I rue the awful day my beloved mentor Bishop Patrick told me that both Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa did an in-depth study of the ways the U.S. creates systems of oppression.    He also reminded me that both these points in history were less than 100 hundred years ago. 

Many of us sitting in this church today lived through one or both of those moments in time.  How could we not be infected by that contagious system of oppression?  

My daddy who I love very much, intentionally chose to raise me in a community that was not red lined2 . He taught me to think of myself as color blind. 

But when I think in this vain, am I not turning away from Jesus once again?

Jesus the brown skinned man in his full personhood and identity.     While my intentions maybe good when I say I am colorblind, it is not accurate. We notice each other—don’t we?

When you see me, you see a white lady with blond hair who is past the midpoint of her life.  If we see and know that, how can I say I am color blind?   

Can I turn eastward and sit in the light of that trouble with my fellow bipoc23pilgrims who long to be seen fully for who they are in all of their beauty and all of their trouble. 

There is so much in hidden in our shadows that is troubling to discover and doing this work of Lent is, indeed, a bumpy night. 

But we do the work.  Not because we are woke, or conservative or whatever trend our culture is phasing through.   No.

We do the work because we are called to face the light of the east and see Jesus Christ—even when it is troubling. 

And we are called to see Jesus within ourselves too—even when we don’t love ourselves the way we are called to love. 

Every female bodied person I know has faced misogyny both within and from others. 

It is infuriating and if it weren’t, then I wouldn’t be seeing Jesus fully in myself and other women.  

Jesus who is troubled, Jesus who is angry and overthrows the tables of oppression and yet, one of my greatest sins is that anger is difficult for me as a woman to reconcile and talk about.  I’m supposed to be nurturing and NICE after all and

Not.

Ever.

Angry.    

Right Jesus—I am not called to be a doormat for you rather, I am called to use the energy I can leverage from anger to help the invisible ones be seen. Righteous anger is wisdom & the gentle fierce protection I engender as a mama.

We are called do the work of looking at our own internalized corrosion:  misogyny, racism, homophobia, ageism, ablism and all the rest because we renounce the ways we destroy and debase not just others, but ourselves too.

And I am troubled to confront all of this in myself.

But here’s what I know:  

God’s gonna trouble the waters.  

If I am troubled then that is good because the Holy Spirit troubles us-- calling, crying, imploring, screaming: SEE JESUS.  BE TROUBLED. 

So we turn and face  the East to see the light.  

Sir, we wish to see Jesus. They said. 

I wonder: what do we want to see?

1 This adapted poem comes from the Poet, Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy 1883-1929

2 Redline is a term used to talk about the practice of not allowing people of color to purchase or rent homes in certain towns or communities so that white people could be “safe”.   This was a practice in the Jim Crow North.   See also a term called Racial Covenant.

* bipoc stands for black indigenous person of color