Easter Is Not Easy

Last updated on: March 26, 2016 at 10:48 am by Guest Contributor

Easter Is Not Easy 2016-03-26T10:48:27-05:00 Guest Contributor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

by Peter Gathje

“Hey Jim, I’ll get my two cups of coffee.” Where he came up with “Jim,” I do not know. He took to calling me “Jim” from his first day at Manna House. I have chalked it up to his mental illness. He is very agitated and often loud. He never makes sense for more than a minute or two (and that is on a good day).

About three weeks ago he became verbally abusive and physically threatened another volunteer at the More on the Monday meal at Manna House. He was asked to be away for a while. He seemed to understand why. Last Thursday we allowed him to come back on a kind of probation. He is welcome for two cups of coffee and then he has to leave. So he checked with me when he arrived.

Another guest has imposed a kind of probation on herself. She always arrives right after we close. As we sit down for our time of reflection together as volunteers, her face appears at the front door window. Then she knocks.

“I just need a pair of socks” is her request as I open the door. When she is given the socks she will inevitably make another ask, sometimes for shoes, sometimes for a shirt, sometimes for a hat, sometimes for some hygiene items. She will not come when we are open because she cannot be in a crowd of people. She does not do well with others around.

It is Holy Week, a time when disciples of Jesus remember his betrayal, trial, torture, and execution, and also, thankfully, his resurrection on Easter Sunday. A few of us talked at Manna House today. Why it is that churches offer big meals for people on the streets for Thanksgiving and around Christmas, but not at Easter?

“Easter doesn’t seem like as big of a celebration.”
“Even the sales and business promotions seem half-hearted.”
“Maybe it is hard to celebrate somebody being tortured and put to death.”
“There’s not one big day; it is a whole week. I think our attention span is too short.”
“There’s not a cute baby or people dressed up like Pilgrims and Indians having a meal. There is a guy on a cross.”

Explaining God’s love in becoming a baby is a lot easier and more appealing than explaining God’s love in becoming a guy on a cross. I know there are many different ways of understanding the cross. Theologians have made a living writing books on the cross and “atonement.” The complicated discussions sometimes can be helpful.

But what I find fundamental in the cross is that in Jesus, God joins with those whose suffering and death are planned and carried out by the powers that be. The sin of the world crucifies Jesus and the same sin crucifies the poor, the vulnerable, the marginalized.

So today I saw the cross in the guest who calls me “Jim” and the guest who comes for socks when we are closed. There are others at Manna House like them who also bear the cross. They are the guests who linger in the house on slow days because they have no other place to go. They are the guests who are “strange.” They are on the margins of the marginalized.

The cross was a method of torture and execution. Our society’s approach to these guests who are “strange” follows that method. Their pain, their illness, is left unaddressed, and so they slowly die on the streets.

I find myself in a difficult relation with the cross. When the Passion is read on Good Friday, it is often in “dialogue” form. Those of us in the congregation become the crowd that yells, “Crucify him!” I do not like being in that role. But insofar as I am part of a society that relegates people with mental illness to the streets, the role is accurate. Insofar as I am a sinner, the role is accurate.

At Manna House I try to claim a slightly different role: that of Simon of Cyrene. Remember him? He was the man forced into helping Jesus carry his cross. He lightened Jesus’ load a little bit but the execution went forward. I hope Jesus appreciated the effort, as small as it was.

But then again, my complicity in the cross is not the last word. God’s love takes me further. God in the resurrection overturns that execution, overturns the powers that be, overturns my death-dealing sin, and crosses out my complicity to call me to a new life.

It is Holy Week. It is a time for me to be honest about sin, to be repentant, and to recognize that resurrection requires resistance to sin in myself and in the powers that be. To get to Easter requires joining in the cross of Christ, dying to the sin that brings the cross and rising in renewal to the long haul struggle for justice, for God’s way of life.

Justice for the man who calls me “Jim” and for the woman whose face appears late at the Manna House door, requires not only coffee and socks along the way of the cross, but also something more. Justice requires living the resurrection, living a revolution of the heart (as Dorothy Day said) where the different politics and different economics Jesus lived and taught and died for can take hold. Easter sure is not easy, but it sure is life-giving.

Peter Gathje also blogs at Radical Hospitality

Donate to the Work of R3

Like the work we do at Rhetoric Race and Religion? Please consider helping us continue to do this work. All donations are tax-deductible through Gifts of Life Ministries/G’Life Outreach, a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization, and our fiscal sponsor. Any donation helps. Just click here to support our work.

Previous Post

March 25, 2016

Good Friday and the Lynching of Ell Persons

Next Post

March 29, 2016 Why Did White Mobs Burn Black Churches in the Memphis Massacre

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Amy Steele Andre E. Johnson Book Reviews/Series Brian Foulks Call for Chapters Carol Howard Merritt Classes Conferences Contributors Crystal St.Marie Lewis Daniel White Hodge Earle Fisher Eulogy Fredrick Robinson Guest Contributions Henry McNeal Turner Institutes Interviews Joseph Boston Katherine Whitfield Kimberly Peeler-Ringer Lectures/Roundtables Natalie Bullock Brown R3 Book Series R3 Contributor Rashad Grove Readers Reflections Symposiums Teaching Traci Ellis Travis Harris Uncategorized Video

Select a Month June 2020 February 2020 December 2019 November 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 October 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz