Sunday, August 19, 2007

• The Public Spectacle

  Currently Listening Come Now Sleep By As Cities Burn see related

  Colossians 2:15 "Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them."
  
       In the ancient world, victorious armies made 'public spectacles' of their defeated opponents.  These spectacles involved parading the defeated soldiers and generals through the main center of the town, naked and shackled, humiliated and utterly defeated, trailing behind the glorious, victorious, conquering army dressed all in white and reds, mounted or marching proudly.  The cultural effects of this sort of parade cannot be missed: the victors are strong, unconquerable, glorious.  The enemy is weak, defenseless and beaten.  The Other is unable to stand before the We.
       As I read Paul's words in Colossians, I thought of Jesus' parade through the streets of Jerusalem.  I thought of how he was tried as a traitor to Rome and condemned as a rabble-rouser, an insurrectionist, for daring to claim kingship of a kingdom other than Rome.  For this crime, Rome reserved its most heinous, brutal, and humiliating punishment: execution by crucifixion.  Jesus was tortured, then stripped naked and strapped to a crossbeam.  Led by brightly dressed, exquisitely disciplined Roman soldiers, he was paraded through the town and out of the city, then hung naked from a cross for all to see until he died.  Rome's message was clear: see, Judea, your king, your messiah.  We have made a public spectacle of your savior, your christ.  Such a pitiable thing cannot stand before the glory of Rome.  Rome is mighty.  Rome is powerful.  And because of this, Rome is glorious.  Rome is able and willing to strike down all who dare to dream of another kingdom, for Rome is eternal.  See the consequences of your folly.  See and worship Rome.  This is Rome's parade.  This is Rome's spectacle.
       But Easter Sunday revealed Rome's spectacle to be Jesus' spectacle, God's spectacle.  Rome did not take Jesus; Jesus gave himself.  Rome did not torture Jesus; Jesus submitted to Rome.   Rome did not lead Jesus down the city streets to display his weakness; Jesus gave himself to the soldiers to expose the ultimate failings of Roman justice - the innocent are punished, the oppressed are destroyed, and evil assaults good.  In Jesus' parade, Rome is seen to be a sad caricature of God.  Where Rome flaunts its power and might, God offers arms spread in love.  Where Rome crushes those who are it enemies, God submits to them and dies for them so that God may redeem them.  In submitting to the violence and death-consumed politics of the "rulers and authorities", Jesus subverts them and turns their spectacle back upon themselves, revealing them for the ineffectual parodies they are.
       And, of course, he ultimately triumphs over them.  By inverting their spectacle, Jesus (re)creates a new possibility for humanity.  No longer must we abide by the laws of "philosophies and empty deceits according to human tradition and the elemental spirits of the world" as Paul says earlier (2:8).  Rather, we are free to live in a community conformed not to the world, but transformed into the image of Jesus himself.  We call this community the Church, and as his body, Jesus has invited us into his Parade.  As Rodney Clapp has elaborated, our communal worship is to be the time when we as the Body of Christ join together and participate in Jesus' Parade of the Cross.  We are to come together and affirm (through the songs we sing, through the sacraments we observe, through the teachings we hear and discuss, through the prayers we pray, etc.) the Way of Jesus rather than the way of the world.  We are to remind ourselves (and the world in which we live) on at least a weekly basis of the radical way Jesus triumphed over the rulers and authorities of this world.  We are to join with Jesus in becoming a public spectacle that will expose the violence and evil of the world for what it is.
  
       How often do our worship services do this?  That is, how often do we engage in Parades that challenge the ways of the world?  And how often do we allow our Parades to become nothing more than reinforcements of the violence, opulence and oppression that so characterizes our "Christian Nation"?  I think of our Independence Day services, of our Battle Hymns of the Republic and crying out, "Onward, Christian Solder, marching as to War, with the Cross of Jesus going on before".  I think of these and wonder what we plan to do with that cross that goes before us.  Do we plan to die on it?  Or are we, as Rome, going to crucify the Other so that We can feel strong?
  
       May we remember that ultimate Other, who "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave... and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."  He "was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross."  This is what true Glory looks like.  And that's something Rome cannot understand.
  
  
  What new mystery is this?  What blessed backwardness?  The Immeasurable One is held and does not resist.  Struck by wicked words and foolish fits of senseless men, the Almighty One does not defend.  -- mewithoutYou
  

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