The Rev’d Stephen C. Holton
Christ Church, New Haven, Conn.
The Second Sunday in Lent
February 28, 2021
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
What do you think of when you hear these words of Jesus?
For me, I often see that image of Simon of Cyrene carrying Jesus’s cross, the fifth station… I imagine him bowed down by the weight, the crossbeam cutting into his shoulder, feeling unsteady moving forward, dragging the heavy cross along with him. I imagine him sweating. I wonder if I could bear the weight, if I would stumble, if I’d give up.
The sheer weight of the cross feels oppressive. Almost self-injuring. Why would I willingly take up the cross—literally like Simon, or metaphorically in whatever way Jesus is asking? How can I understand what Jesus means?
I’m sympathetic with Peter, who tells Jesus to stop talking about the cross. To choose self preservation. Lord, you’ve got to quit talking about dying! The Messiah cannot be tortured and killed! This isn’t good for our movement, Jesus! Frankly, Peter gives good advice.
But Jesus says that Peter has it backwards. That he’s thinking with a human lens, not divine sight. That he’s seeing things inside out. There’s another way to see, to know, to understand the truth.
Have you ever had a moment when you realized the perspective you hold isn’t the only one? Maybe isn’t even the right one? A moment when you have something of an epiphany, that you see a whole different possibility, an opportunity, a change in what you had assumed was the nature of reality?
I experienced a perspective shift like that earlier last week.
I was on a call with a task force last week talking about the impact of substance abuse and the work of harm reduction in New Haven. Especially in the wake of so many overdoses in the past week in New Haven and Fairfield counties, it seemed like an especially opportune time to think about harm reduction.
The invited guest presenter on the call was Dr L J Punch, a specialist in community medicine using a trauma-responsive, patient-centered treatment model. Dr Punch was an undergraduate at Yale and trained for medicine at UConn. Their specialty was initially trauma surgery, but after seeing so many bodies—especially black male bodies—pass through the Emergency Department, Dr Punch grew weary of patching up bodies damaged by the trauma of guns, drugs, and violence—and wanted instead to spend time looking at the systemic trauma of racism and the devaluing of human lives that led to the presenting issues in the Emergency Department.
So they traded in their scalpel and sutures for a van and a hot dog warmer—and set out into the East Loop of Delmar Boulevard in Saint Louis to share a hot dog—and to sit and talk with people—especially black men—there.
By starting with the question, “What’s going on for you?” rather than diagnosing and treating presenting issues, Dr Punch was able to get at the roots of suffering: “I need housing.” “I’m afraid for my safety in my neighborhood.” Each person, each with a different story, each needing to be heard, to be valued, to be seen.
Dr Punch’s treatment modality moved from repairing damage done to bodies—to trying to reduce and prevent harm before it happens.
Their toolkit went from prescriptions and surgeries to housing, trauma tourniquet first aid kits, clean needles, volunteer opportunities, and listening ears.
The organization Dr Punch founded is called “The T,” a network of professionals and volunteers offering support to those “recovering from the impact of trauma”—a network of caring people “bringing harm reduction, health education, wellbeing resources and love to [their] region, one person at a time.”
This was such a shift in thinking for me—moving the locus of authority from the medical professional to the person who was experiencing trauma; moving blame away from the person who may have overdosed to a system, a worldview, that causes trauma that might lead one to seek escape in opioids; moving from merely blaming the one who pulls the trigger to focus on the damage done to the bodies and souls of those who are in the crossfire.
Dr Punch’s work sees those who suffer from trauma, who have experienced trauma, not as victims, but as beloved, valued members of community who deserve help and support to overcome an undeserved situation.
For a child who grew up in the Reagan era, when what we offered best was a philosophy of “Just say NO” to drugs, the work of the T seems to me to be a clear eyed acknowledgement of the world’s evil that is simultaneously undeterred by it. It feels like a move from blaming victims of trauma to offering reckless, wanton mercy to all of Creation.
It feels a little like what Jesus is inviting us into.
I share that story as an example of how my perspective on gun violence, on drug addiction, on overdoses, on homelessness—on all our societal ills—was given a different focus. Maybe even re-oriented. I saw possibilities and hope in hearing Dr Punch’s stories. And my focus changed from the damage, the suffering, the sin, to the value of the individual people themselves.
Perhaps Jesus is inviting us to a shift in perspective; to a different lens; a different focus.
Perhaps that’s why Peter’s remonstrations were rebuked.
What if Lent is more than a mere invitation to be better, to sin less often, to be good? What if Lent is an invitation to see the world differently? To relate to one another differently? To think differently about ourselves and Creation?
What if the cross itself is not the object of our focus—but the inevitable consequence of a fallen world that proclaims sin and death—and the resurrection the last word, the final truth, of the lie that Satan tells.
Get behind me, Satan, Jesus says to Peter.
The radical love that Jesus has for the world, the reckless grace and mercy poured out like the blood from his wounded side, washing all Creation, restoring it, making it whole—that love is so challenging to the lie of sin and death that evil tries to stop it.
But it cannot be stopped. Because only Love is the final truth. Only Love will prevail.
What if Lent is the invitation to believe in the kingdom of God—and to mark, to name, to identify as evil anything that doesn’t square with it. The cross convicts evil, sin, and death—and shows them in stark contrast with the life of God.
Gunshots, overdoses, trauma, and degradation – these are not the will of God. These are not of the kingdom of God.
But bodies are. All bodies. Black and white. Addicted and whole. Poor and rich. Gay, trans, straight, and nonbinary. Suffering and rejoicing. All bodies are beloved.
Suffering is real in this world when we’re looking for the kingdom of God.
But suffering is not the final word.
Trauma can be unmasked for the lies that it tells.
And wholeness and healing, mercy and love, can be offered in its place.
That’s the work of the coming of the kingdom of God.
That’s the lens we’re invited into.
Get behind us, Satan. Let us take up our cross—not out of guilt, or shame, or self-flagellation, but out of the realization that the world puts it on our backs. With the sure and certain knowledge that it’s just for a time. That the kingdom of God is about resurrection.
With Simon we will come to Golgatha. But with Jesus, we will come to heaven—to the very heart of God.