Crucify Him

The problem is that in ordinary human relationships, boundaries are very fluid indeed. Even in a single relationship, I may be both oppressor and victim (consider the immense manipulative power exerted by the 'longsuffering' mother of a large family in certain circumstances: genuinely exploited and victimized herself, she is capable of doing great psychological damage in return), and I can also be involved in all manner of subtle collusions with both my oppressors and my victims. The human world is not one of clearly distinguishable bodies of oppressors and victims, those who inflict damage and those who bear it. Where is a 'pure' victim to be found?

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The resurrection [is] an invitation to recognize one's victim as one's hope.

The crucified is God's chosen: it is with the victim, the condemned, that God identifies, and it is in the company of the victim, so to speak, that God is to be found, and nowhere else. And this is not simply to say, in the fashionable phrase, that God makes his own the cause of the poor and despised. We are not talking of 'the' poor and despised, 'the' victim in the abstract. The preaching of the resurrection, as we have seen, is not addressed to an abstract audience: the victim involved is the victim of the hearers. We are, insistently and relentlessly, in Jerusalem, confronted therefore with a victim who is our victim. 

When we make victims, when we embark on condemnation, exclusion, violence, the diminution or oppression of anyone, when we set ourselves up as judges, we are exposed to judgement (as Jesus himself asserts in Matt. 7:1-2), and we turn away from salvation. To hear the good news of salvation, to be converted, is to turn back to the condemned and rejected, acknowledging that there is hope nowhere else.

― Rowan Williams, "Resurrection: Interpretation of the Easter Gospel"

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Dear Kate,

I have zero interest in the Meghan and Harry story, but since their building of a fairy tale has kinda forced itself on me, especially since Sunday, I cannot pretend it didn't intrigue me.

Let me clarify.  I still have not read a word about the melodrama beyond the headlines; what intrigued me is how the story is being played out.

You and I grew up watching Chinese soap operas about palace intrigues, or those played out in families big enough to be seen as a microcosm of human kingdoms, lands and houses large enough as societies and palaces, where matriarchs and patriarchs, generations of powerful and powerless people work out their fate with and against each other.

Now, what if, instead of these stories, we were given only court room trials, one after one, day after day, people going up the stand to persecute each other, some wealthy, powerful, famous, and self-important enough to hire Oprah as their moral advocate, to appeal to us, in the name of democracy, for populist opinion as the final and definitive judgement of right and wrong?  Well, welcome to 2021, when moral ambiguity is no longer welcome because we are all very sure about the righteousness of our kneejerk reactions.

What are the implications of this current state of our moral being?

Take away the story, all we have is taking sides.  Your great, the greatest country, is divided neatly in half, with each side looking on the other as an estranged family member who no longer (or, more like, should have never) belong to the great togetherness.  There is no common destiny, only winning and losing, with God on my side.

But who am I to judge your country?  Look at my land.  I don't know Gassy Jack, but it seems to me many of my people do.  We have seen the faces of the Victimizers and their Victims, and now are doing the right things to administer swift justice by pushing this land through a quick morality carwash.  All the circumstantial evidences are good enough for us to skip the proper trials: drag the Victimizers to hell so that we can raise the Victims to heaven.  If we are to follow through with our moral indignation, we should start getting ready to burn down our own houses too, but, easy now, that's no longer necessary, because by siding with the Victims, I no longer see myself as in that the other binary moral category of being a Victimizer.  By redressing the wrongs with my moral outrage (mostly done online reclining in my easy chair), I am keeping my address intact, my conscience sparkling.

Today's quote is a longer one.  I wish you will read it slowly and care-fully.  We can't afford to be care-less and naive: our civilization hinges on our growing up and going down with Jesus.  "When we make victims, when we embark on condemnation, exclusion, violence, the diminution or oppression of anyone, when we set ourselves up as judges, we are exposed to judgement."

What are the implications to a person who can only see herself as a victim? is known to others only as a victimizer? to a society that can see nothing in a person but the simple category we give to everyone?

This Easter, let's come to the foot of the cross, not to the judgement seat of Man.  Ironically, I have just made the most naive statement that shall forever scandalize even the little, "innocent" children in a playground fight.

So, what I am telling you is, get ready to be persecuted.  No faithful Christian ever goes unpersecuted.

Yours, Alex