A Walk in Jerusalem

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ, your Son our Lord. Amen. (A Collect for Fridays, from The Book of Common Prayer, page 99) 

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you, for the honor of your Name. Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer, page 101) 

It has been said more than once that if you want to understand Anglican/Episcopal theology, then come and pray with us. Lex orandi, lex credendi, loosely translated, means "the law of prayer is the law of belief."

Getting to a theology of the Cross is not easy and many, many books have been written on this subject. Too many of them are, for this priest, profoundly unhelpful. Atonement theology - that is to say, asking how the Cross reconciles God and humankind - is a very tricky business.

But I would offer this as a starting point: the message of the cross is not about convincing God to love a sinful humanity. Rather, it is evidence of the extent to which the God of love is willing to go to embrace us: God so loved the world. How much? Enough to accept death on a cross. The reason for this is to convince a sinful humanity that God really is all about love.

For me, the two collects above are very solid prayers that can help shape a life-giving theology of the cross. The contours of these prayers, and I believe of our theology (lex orandi, lex credendi) are that when we choose to take up our own cross(es) as followers of Jesus we discover that it really is the way of life and peace. Pain and death never get the last word. And second, that Jesus' arms are stretched forth for a reason: love. God's loving embrace on the cross is meant to inspire us, who walk in the way of the cross, to love our neighbors. All of them. My understanding of the second half of the second prayer is NOT that we must convert everyone in the world to Christianity, but rather that they see, in us who have been claimed by Jesus in Baptism, the face of Jesus. And in that face, they see love.They will know that we are Christians (even if they are not) by our love.

On the last day of our recent pilgrimage to the land of the Holy One, we walked the Way of the Cross. Our guide was The Rev. Canon John Peterson, who was formerly the dean of St. George's College in Jerusalem for many years. John literally wrote the book that many Episcopalians use to pray the Stations of the Cross - called A Walk in Jerusalem. I've done this walk, and used this book, many times before. But walking this path with John as our guide was one of the highlights of this most recent pilgrimage for me.

As we gathered in the courtyard at St. George's at 5:30 a.m John asked us to please not take pictures but to be open to everything on the way. "Take it all in," he said, "and let it be part of your prayer this morning. I tried to do that. Along the way we met other children of Abraham. Some Muslims coming back from The Dome of the Rock where they had spent the night in prayer. Some Jews, on their way to pray at the Western Wall. Fellow Christians, from around the world - also carrying their crosses, and others who came and touched our cross with reverence and still others who made the sign of the cross as we passed by.

We saw the city begin to wake up as all cities wake up on a Saturday morning: trash collectors and shop keepers and all the rest as this amazing city prepared to face a new day. We walked through these streets as countless other pilgrims have done at least since the eleventh century. The fourteen stops along the way invite reflection and commitment to open our eyes to see God's hand at work in the world around us. Too often in my "normal" walking I am focused on destination. Actually, too often I'm not walking at all but driving on a highway. The invitation to open our eyes as we walked has profound implications for what it means to be followers of Jesus. Indeed, our whole pilgrimage was about following in the footsteps of Jesus who was always on the move, always on "the Way."

John told us that he wrote the book in order to preserve the powerful prayers of his former colleague at St. Georges, Brother Gilbert Sinden, SSM, who was the director of courses at St. George's from 1979-1989, and was an editor of the Australian Prayerbook. He describes Brother Gilbert as "a beloved figure of wide girth with a gift for revealing the Bible and the Church so that 'you suddenly understood what you had not known before.'" These prayers are, to paraphrase Walter Brueggemann, prayers that are rooted in earth, and awed to heaven. One of those prayers, at the 8th station (where Jesus meets the weeping women of Jerusalem) goes like this:

For all women everywhere;
Especially for those who have to watch husbands, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, friends, or lovers go to war; for those who mourn loved ones killed or wounded in violence not of their own making; for the women of Jerusalem today: Jews, Christians, Muslims, Palestinians, Arabs, Israelis, Armenians and others; And for the women we know in our own lives who are standing beside us;
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. 

Our rising to pray at 5:30 am with a 12-hour homeward flight at midnight from Ben Gurion Airport made for a very long last day. Yet I would not have it any other way. For me the entire pilgrimage came together in this final walk through the city streets. Jesus said often, "let those with eyes to see, see and those with ears to hear, hear." It takes practice to keep our eyes and ears (and hearts) open to what is happening in our very midst.

I pray for that kind of awareness as I walk through the streets of Worcester, and Springfield, and the towns where my work will take me in the days that lie ahead in Southwick, and Pittsfield, and Holden, and Wilbraham. I pray for the wisdom and the courage to keep my eyes and ears open, in order to reach forth my hands in love, so that others may see and know the love of God made flesh in Jesus.