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Notes And News

The Glory Revealed in Us

March 04, 2022

March is Women’s History Month, and this week I attended the Broadway musical, SIX — a delightful retelling of the lives of King Henry VIII’s six wives — Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anne, Kathryn, and Katherine — presented as a rock concert.  The women take turns singing their stories in competition to discern who suffered most due to Henry VIII and should, therefore, become the band’s lead singer.

The resurrected wives ultimately conclude that comparing their sufferings only serves to perpetuate the patriarchy that oppressed them in the first place.  Noting that few can recall anything about Henrys VII, VI, V, and so on, they flip the script, essentially asking, “What if we are the only reason anyone remembers him?” In so doing, the women reclaim their personhood, power, and agency as individuals, through a liberating inquiry and revelation that would have scarcely been possible without the collective whole. 

Comparative suffering remains a popular sport in which we all participate.  Sometimes we downplay our trials as insignificant. In every church I’ve served, parishioners have expressed misguided guilt and reticence about seeking support from the clergy when personal hardship strikes. Other people have "real problems,” after all. But we perhaps more often fear being forgotten or unseen and begin to engage in anxious what-about-isms. I confess in all candor to recently wrestling with feelings of personal indignation at the media attention paid to Ukraine when the news first broke, in light of how relatively little attention was paid to the 2021 coup in Myanmar, where much of my family resides. What about my people?

Similar observations could be made about any number of situations across the globe, and have been.  See for instance H.A. Hellyer’s opinion in the Washington Post, titled, “Coverage of Ukraine has exposed long-standing racist biases in Western media.”  Sometimes “What about my people?” is a question that should be asked. To be sure, the pervasive structural racism that even the most well-meaning among us cannot escape without intentional anti-racist postures and practices has once again been exposed. And to be sure, the people of Ukraine are worthy of our prayers and solidarity. Both are true.

Speaking of all this, it was incredibly moving to see our neighborhood alive in faith on Ash Wednesday.  Hundreds of New Yorkers of all ages, races, and walks of life were marked with ashes on our steps, and our gates were lined with prayers sublime and mundane. Written on bandage cloth as a symbol of healing, the yearnings of our community lay bear in a tapestry of hope, lament, remembrance, and vulnerability:

To not feel alone… 
For world peace… 
To stay sober… 
For freedom…
For my loved ones who are with God…
For Ukraine… 
For Russia…

In the words of the Apostle Paul, “our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).  As much grief and pain is represented by these prayers, it feels almost wrong to say that the effect is something beautiful — glorious, even — but it is. Together our collective prayers transcend the sum of their parts to show forth an emblem of God's in-breaking Kingdom, where all are heard and none are forgotten, for we are all God's people. 

My friends, the season of Lent invites us to draw ever nearer to our God who constantly flips the script on our expectations through Christ Jesus. An instrument of death becomes a symbol of life. The King of Kings becomes a suffering servant, all so that love might be known — neither dismissing, diminishing, or romanticizing our real human suffering and sorrow, but transforming us into something beautiful as we stand, and sing, and work, and pray — together.  

Thanks be to God.  See you Sunday!

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