Public faith

The cross must be raised again at the center of the marketplace as

well as on the steeple of the church. I am claiming that Jesus was

not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross

between two thieves; on the town garbage heap, at a crossroads

so cosmopolitan they had to write His title in Hebrew, Latin, and

Greek. At the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves

curse, and soldiers gamble, because that is where He died and that

is what he died about and that is where churchmen ought to be and

what churchmen should be about.

- George McLeod

Freedom from... / Freedom for...

Archbishop Desmond Tutu makes an insightful distinction regarding the story of our freedom since 1994. We are quick to talk about what we received "Freedom from...", but we have an underdeveloped understanding that we received "Freedom for..."

We can burn the fires high and dance as if in a trance to celebrate our freedom from the ignorance of our past and that we are free from the chains of inhumanity and the brutality that it caused. We are slow to get up the next morning after the euphoria of freedom to realise that we were freed for...

Freed for a new, whole humanity for all people; freed so that we can make sure all our neighbours have opportunities to grow into the potential that has been planted inside of them, freedom to create a new future...

As long as we just celebrate our freedom from...and as long as we misuse our freedom just to enrich ourselves as individuals - we are not free. We remain the slaves of a value-system of the previous regime that preached, proclaimed and sanctified: we are not equal, some are superior, some deserve more, and some should be treated as objects for the comfort of others...

As long as we don’t take up the responsibility of freedom for...a new and whole humanity we are still infected with the cultural disease that the west so wrongly enslaved Africa to. As long as we don’t begin to ask the question what are we freed for we will lose the beauty and wisdom of Africa and the wealth of ubuntu!

An important footnote: I believe the church got stuck through an overdeveloped atonement-theology into the same dilemma. We sing and dance in a trance to celebrate our freedom with hands full of bread and wine...but we never turn the page to discover the fearful beauty of what we were freed for...so we stay slaves of the same system (religiosity) as before and through our cultic freedom-celebration we actually lose life!

Prayer: Easter us - Brueggemann

You God who terrified the waters,

    who crashed your thunder,

    who shook the earth, and

    scared the wits out of chaos.

You God who with strong arm saved your people

    by miracle and wonder and majestic act.

You are the same God to whom we turn,

    we turn in our days of trouble,
            and in our weary nights;
    we look for steadfast love and are dismayed,
    we wait for your promises, but wait in fatigue,
    we ponder your forgetfulness and lack of compassion,
            and we grow silent.

Our lives, addressed to you,
    have this bitter-sweet taste of
            loud-clashing miracles and weak-kneed doubt.
So we come in our bewilderment and wonderment,
    deeply trusting, almost afraid to trust much,
    passionately insisting, too timid to insist much,
    fervently hoping, exhausted for hoping too much.

Look upon us in our deep need,
    mark the wounds of our brothers and sisters just here,
    notice the turmoil in our lives, and the lives of our families,
    credit the incongruity of the rich and the poor in our very city,
             and the staggering injustices abroad in our land,
    tend to the rage out of control, rage justified by displacement,
             rage gone crazy by absence, silence, and deprivation,
    measure the suffering,
    count the sufferers,
    number the wounds.

You tamer of chaos and mender of all tears in the canvas of creation,
    we ponder your suffering,
            your crown of thorns,
            your garment taken in lottery,
            your mocked life,
    and now we throw upon your suffering humiliation,
            the suffering of the world.

You defeater of death, whose power could not hold you,
    come in your Easter,
    come in your sweeping victory,
    come in your glorious new life.
Easter us,
    salve wounds,
    break injustice,
    bring peace,
    guarantee neighbor,
Easter us in joy and strength.

Be our God, be your true self, lord of life,
    massively turn our life toward your life
    and away from our anti-neighbor, anti-self deathliness.
Hear our thankful, grateful, unashamed Hallelujah!
Amen.

Walter Brueggemann, March 29, 1994