Beautiful Story vs. Shame, Empire and Original Sin
By Rev. Debra McKnight

It’s the same story as last year. For more than 2000 years Christians have gathered, some at dawn and some at great risk and I think that is because the story is beautiful. Death and darkness, the gore of the cross, the violence of the state are not the end of the story. There is life when Mary expected death. 

Every gospel tells the story with it’s own nuance and unique details but in all of them, it is the women who have stuck it out. In every gospel Mary Magdalene and some combination of women some of whom are named Mary get their first. They have the women’s work of caring for the body and they are prepared to face down the Roman empire to do what they need to do for this beloved child. 

In the Gospel of John, Mary goes for her own grief because she doesn’t have women’s work to do. Jospeh of Arimathea and Nicodemus who comes to Jesus at night, these secret disciples  who have been balancing their power and privilege with following Jesus are the ones who do the work. They deploy their privilege and take care of this sacred moment so when Mary goes, it is for herself. 

Quick and annual Mary PSA: Mary Magdalene is a leader and despite the efforts of Pope Gregory the Meh to tell us otherwise, she is not a sex work and frankly if she was fine but the church deploys this narrative to minimize her leadership. She is also not likely a spicy age contemporary in the style of Dan Brown but as scholars like John Dominic Crossen have suggested, she is a wise, older woman, with more experienced and more money than the rest of the crew, likely from the fishing communities where Jesus was organizing.

This Mary goes to grieve and realizes something is not quite right. Jesus is gone, she goes back and seeks help, another set of eyes perhaps. Then Peter and the Beloved Disciple have a foot race which allows the Gospel of John to include a hilarious dig in that Peter loses.  But, true to form, he rushes past the threshold, probably huffing, hand on one knee he confirms that Mary’s eyes were right breathing heavy and catching his breath between every word. This huge revelation…and then they leave. They leave. Once again, Mary is left alone. Perhaps she is spiraling down into her shame and grief and loss, perhaps she has had it with Peter or wondering if Joseph and Nicodemus were really trust worthy…she should have done it herself…what will she do next? And then she sees a stranger and when seeking help she sees the face of Christ and senses the presence of love. This hazy, uncertain moment is transformed, she is transformed into bold preacher and she tells the others, “I have seen the Lord.” 

The resurrection encounters are beautiful. Mary is transformed. Folks on the road do what Jesus taught; they invite a stranger in and are overwhelmed with a sense of Love’s presence when when they break bread together. Spaces of death are filled with new life, the people who despair have hope, the lost find their footing and take action. There is even a sunrise beach barbecue…it does not get much more beautiful than that.

We have a beautiful story. And yet, some how Christians have made is so ugly. Look around at the people who hold up hateful signs or send mean emails or troll with Bible verses in the name of Love. Some how the beautiful story prompts “Christians” to disown their queer children or reject their grandchildren for being honest about who they are. Folks who proudly name us, a “Christin Nation” are pro-wall and unwilling to welcome strangers, refugees and immigrants (even though the Bible does not present welcoming the stranger as a metaphor). Christian leaders seem certain that tax cuts for the wealthy are more important than investing in schools, early childhood education, universal family leave and just about anything else that might help everyday folks. We follow a healer but our health care isn’t for everyone and we allow insurance companies to make a profit on the backs of our doctors and nurses. American Christianity is cozy with white nationalism and loves guns. That’s right some churches bless guns, even through Jesus was pretty clear with Peter about putting his sword away and Isaiah dreams of turning weapons into farm equipment; plow shares and pruning hooks. Our beautiful story has become malicious, a tool of the powerful in their quest for domination and death. Even in our churches hospitality and church growth becomes a way to of coercion and control. 

How did this happen? How is our beautiful story so prone to ugliness? 

I believe this has something do do with SHAME. That’s right SHAME. We so easily spiral down into shame and I don’t think that is a modern phenomenon. Thanks to Brene Brown, we know there is a difference between shame and guilt. Shame comes from a place of unworthiness, we are not lovable but guilt comes from a place of love. Guilt says, “I am loved so I can grow, I am loved so I want to change how I love myself and my community and my family.” Guilt may not be comfortable but it comes from a place of being loved. Shame is being unlovable and unworthy. And when we spiral down into shame we wonder if we will be worthy if we are skinnier or faster or smarter or stronger or richer or more powerful. We wonder if we can buy our way out, earn our way out? When we are spiraling down into our shame, we judge ourselves and when we judge ourselves it is easy to start judging others…and all you have to look hard to find reasons to judge other people. People are a trip to put it nicely. I catch myself wanting people to ‘go to hell’, and I don’t even believe in hell or God sending people to eternal damnation. Judgement and shame comes so easy to us, all of us. 

But shame isn’t a part of the Easter Story. Shame deals death and Easter is about new life so how did we not shake shame after 2022 Easters? It could seem like no one is doing the inner work they need to be doing to break free. But I think it’s not just an individual issue. It’s a systemic failure and I don’t think it is an accident.

313 years after the first Easter the Church becomes apart of the Roman Empire. Emperor Constantine lifts a Christian banner, marching into battle and wins. It’s a bold move for the folks that killed Jesus to do this but no one seems to stop them. Christianity goes from being violently oppressed to in charge with all of the power that comes with being the principle religion of the state. Thanks to Constantine, church councils start debating the theology more than the practice, there has to be clear beliefs and rituals to enforce. Being apart of the empire means defining everything and sometimes in the terms of Greek Philosophy and Mediterranean religious rhetoric. So what does it mean to say, “Jesus is the Son of God,” is he like Caesar or Hercules? What exactly does it mean to ‘love your neighbor’ or ‘enter the kingdom of heaven’? Suddenly the the rich lawyer is at the table and no one is asking him to give everything he has to the poor and sending him away sad. After 325 Easters we have our first creed, which comes not only with debate but with Orthodoxy. 410 year after the First Easter, Rome is sacked but the church is woven through with the trappings of Empire, everything can be defined and heretics can be sent away (to put it nicely).

386+ years after the first Easter, St. Augustine, writing in Northern Africa gets the whole church talking about what Eddie Izard calls, “a hellish idea,” Original Sin. And when you look around at our inhumanity….well the idea that each person is born terribly broken and sinful and set apart from God…well that seems reasonable.

529 years after the first Easter, the western church debates Original Sin in a church council meeting…where side note they also banned women’s ordination for the first time. That’s right a doctrine of human brokenness starts and so does the work to silence women in the church. Don’t worry they have to do it again 100 years latter because apparently it was harder to stop women’s ordination that they thought it would be. 

800 years after the first Easter, Charlemagne is crowned Holy Roman Emperor and in the name of Jesus he beheads entire communities that won’t convert to his style of Christianity…that’s right they are already Christians, just not “orthodox.” Church leaders that challenge him are silenced or killed and theologians that can adapt the faith to fit the empire’s needs get a promotion and probably a book deal. Individual sinfulness points towards individual salvation, theology shifts focus to heaven rather than earth as it is in heaven…so it doesn’t really matter if a Christian King is oppressing his people because no one is really into flipping tables or raising questions. The killing of others begins to be understood as malicide not homicide, killing evil rather than killing another. 1100 years after the first Easter the beautiful story is sending crusaders marching across Europe to kill, steal and take control. 

The art of the early church that once celebrated flowing rivers of life and a beautiful “at-one-ment” that comes through baptism is replaced with a bloodied, violated and suffering Jesus on the Cross. Can you imagine putting a bedazzled tool of state torture and destruction in our sanctuaries or wearing a golden electric chair around your neck? The early church would have been shocked. The church sanctifies violence and lifts up suffering as sacred, right there in church. 

Our beautiful story becomes uglier and uglier as it ages; crusades and inquisitions, religious wars across Europe and a tool for global colonization and slavery that leaves no corner of the world untouched. People get rich and powerful and comfortable with violence, control and every “necessary evil” that keep the money flowing into their “Christian Kingdoms.”

The beautiful story of love and connection becomes ugly in the hands of the powerful. It really starts to make sense that humans are so bad, God’s only option is to kill Jesus. His death becomes a get out of hell free card, a tool to manage human sin rather than an act of human sin to which we must bear witness. Our faith of practice that wasn’t always easy becomes one of rules and boxes to check, like God is really into managing a big board of demerits. Conveniently by the middle ages you can even buy your way out with an indulgence. A faith about thinking the right thing means you don’t have to do the right thing and no one pays attention to earth as it is in heaven when you are obsessed with individual salvation and personal morality. Our faith of rebels, activists, peace makers, table turners and outsiders starts keeping folks easy to manage and manipulate. And this is not the beautiful story. It is the story of death. The story of domination. The story of control.

This is not the way Jesus lived. Jesus didn’t dominate, coerce or pressure anyone into any thing, ever. He is all carrots and no sticks. He was direct with religious-political leaders urging them toward justice and while he flipped some tables in the market place and holds a parade to protest, he never once asks them if they want to settle their differences in a street fight. He laments the way they have turned the beautiful story he found in scripture into such ugliness that oppresses his neighbors but he never tells them God hates them. There is no resurrection encounter where he shows up at Caesar’s palace and says, “I’m taking it from here.” There is no smote-ing or smiting, not even the Chief Priests or Pontius Pilate or King Herod or the kid that was bully on the play ground. His only tools are bread and cup, basin and towel, oh and an occasional fish. His time is spent in breaking bread, sharing stories, healing neighbors and washing feet. Every resurrection encounter, shows him with the same old nobody's and he is still urging them, inviting them and loving them back into the work of feeding his sheep and loving their neighbors. 

Every generation has had folks speak up for the beautiful story. Folks who lament that neighbors are burdened with such an ugly God and a faith so prone to violence. I have felt that and perhaps you have too when you hear of the deep cuts and ugly wounds caused by Christians. And every generation has had folks who will speak up for the beautiful story, Bonhoeffer did it in Nazi Germany. Romero did it in El Salvador. King did it right here in the land of White Supremacy. St. Francis found his own way to practice. Hildegard wrote every Pope, Prince and King to shape up. St. Bridget set a table of beer, butter and bread for anyone and everyone. Mary did it at the tomb. And so must we. 

It is time for us to reclaim the beautiful story. To liberate our neighbors from the toxins of empire and start our practice anew. To take up the tools of towel and basin, bread and cup and lay the others aside. Salvation isn’t an bonus for good behavior, it is healing here and now. It is rooted in salve, just like your Great Grandmas ointment for healing wounds. Salve has nothing to do with reciting the right prayer or coercing anyone else to pray the right prayer, it has everything to do with healing what is wounded and nurturing the beauty within us all.  

May we have the courage. May it be so. 

Amen. 

Want to explore more:

Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of this World for Crucifixion and Empire by Rebecca Ann Parker and Rita Nakashima Brock

Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith by Marcus Borg

Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most by Marcus Borg

Resurrecting Easter: How the West Lost and the East Kept the Original Easter by John Dominic Crossan and Sarah Crossan

The Oxford History of Christianity by John McManners