going downhill fast: March 2013

Friday, March 29, 2013

repost: TGIF

Why Good Friday Matters: Over the years it has become clear that there is a disconnect – a BIG disconnect – between the marking of Good Friday and the way people of faith enter the mystery of this hard day. Most people avoid it like the plague – partly because it has to do with our mortality – but partly because it calls us to see our complicity in the oppression, wounds and hopelessness of our generation. What’s more, the language of the liturgy is either shame-based or else empty liberal platitudes. Most people know their pain – even if they hate it – and don’t need more bullshit… so they stay away.

A different Good Friday expression: ...we are going to use our gifts and imaginations to wrestle with the horror and hope of the Cross. What does it mean, for example, to follow a Messiah who is a total loser in the eyes of the world? What does it feel like to have all your expectations destroyed by the Lord? Or to feel abandoned, alone and forsaken as Jesus did? ...Consequently, we have tried to remove any false or misleading distinctions that so often separate the secular from the sacred: That’s why we have chosen mostly secular songs that have spoken to us part of the wisdom of the Cross. “Isn’t It a Pity” is pure lament.
When the “Long and Winding Road” is set alongside the story of the Cross we see how often we find ourselves at a crossroads aching for help in choosing the most compassionate road home in the midst of often terrifying options.. When we deconstructed Paul Simon’s song, “The Boxer” it pointed to Christ’s own discouragement and shame on the Cross. And then we discovered a taste of the fear the disciples themselves must have felt in a song called “On the Way Home.” That will be a hard song for some to hear – it is dissonant and harsh – and all about losing faith, being shamed by trusting Jesus and living for a time without any clear foundation. But like St. Paul taught, “the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’