no sign

 

As Confederate Generals descend from their pedestals, and our nation rethinks what it has held up as worthy of secular reverence, I've been thinking. About symbols, but not just of civil religion.

The church I frequently attend has a big crucifix above the altar at the front of the church. What if instead we had something else? A Good Shepherd window perhaps, or an icon of the Trinity.

To me the crucified Christ depicted above the altar was the one who lived and died and rose again on our behalf, whose life was filled with unwavering integrity and absolute obedience to the point of accepting even betrayal at the hand of a friend and execution by the authorities.

To someone else it was a dead Jew, a man pursued and tortured and executed, not a redeeming work at all.

What if something else were at the front of the room? If another symbol focused our worship?

On a break during a conference on the 21st century church some years ago at Washington National Cathedral, I sauntered into the gift shop, where the author of the article cited below told me she was looking for a Trinity symbol, one she could wear. There were plenty of crosses. Helpfully I suggested where she might find some: Irish import stores. Maybe so;  a friend wears a Newgrange Trinity symbol ball cap. But her purpose was not to affirm Ireland, as you can read for yourself. What she was looking for was similar to my inquiry above: what if we went with a different symbol, or no sign at all?

Jesus said, according to the gospel of Matthew (12:39), no sign will be given this generation except the sign of Jonas. Thomas Merton wrote about ‘traveling in the belly of a paradox’, that is, to be in a place of not-seeing, not-knowing, but still moving forward in that divine darkness.

The Sign of Jonah

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, ‘Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.’ But he answered them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was for three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.  

What if that is the sign we need?  

To set aside our ideas of what is what and to look again and be open, and let ourselves see what is not there. And what is.

And what, out of that darkness, is being borne into the light.

Barbara Brown Taylor, "How my mind has changed: Finding God outside the church walls", The Christian Century, July 9th 2020. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/how-my-mind-has-changed/finding-god-outside-church-walls