We are always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. (2 Corinthians 4:10)
For people who have been oppressed by abusive teachings on sin, say, or judgement, or perfection, or an ever-precarious individual salvation, some biblical metaphors are more useful than others. So we here at Sanctuary spend a lot of time reflecting on the goodness of creation, signs of life in exile, and the power of exodus. We focus on gentleness and grace, freedom and forgiveness, and the love and joy of the garden city. We delight in images of Jesus the jester, playfully skewering the pomp of Rome; or Psalm lullabies; or the mysteries of resurrection life.
But sometimes, we forget the cross. Sometimes, we become so focused on new life and justice and healing and liberation, we forget that failure and death lie at the heart of our faith.
Jesus knew it. He taught his disciples that they must lose their lives in order to save them (Mark 8:36), then embodied this teaching as he walked steadily towards his own betrayal and abandonment, suffering and death.
Paul knew it, too. Despite his dynamic work around the Mediterranean basin, despite all the people he had galvanized into faith, by the end of his lifetime the movement was falling apart. His letters show a man desperately defending the gospel in the face of slick-tongued opponents; a man urging reneging people back to the narrow road to life; a man abandoned by disciples and rejected by churches that he himself had catalyzed into being; a man imprisoned, whipped and ultimately executed by the authorities for his dogged insistence on proclaiming a deeply subversive faith.
Through it all, Paul held onto the profound insight that failure and death are central to the gospel. “Always, we carry with us in the body the death of Jesus,” he wrote, “so that somehow the life of Jesus may be revealed.” (2 Cor 4:10). He knew that it is in our weakness that God’s power is shown, and that the nature of this power is seen in the crucified one (4:6). He knew, too, that we cannot enter into resurrection life without first going through failure and death. For disciples, they’re in our DNA.
Of course, many siblings in faith overseas know this well. Like Paul, they know what it is to be betrayed, imprisoned, tortured and even executed. They are “afflicted in every way” (4:8) as they give their Christ-shaped lives to the struggle for freedom and justice.
But no less real is the failure and death of the church in the West. The betrayals, the humiliations, the protestations, and the profound indignities of belonging to a dying movement affect us all. And as things seem to be falling apart here at Sanctuary, I wonder if we, too, are facing our own moment of failure and death. For we seem unable to convert all that is wonderful, appreciated and life-giving in this project into a just and sustainable structure; unable to move beyond wounds, doubts and fears to a grounded confidence in faith; unable to turn away from hypermobility and hyperbusyness to be formed into an interconnected body; unable to get beyond a consumer approach to work to create the church we want to belong to.
And if failure and death are indeed on our horizon, then I wonder how we will approach them. Will we anxiously defend ourselves against the gathering darkness? Will we make rash promises we cannot fulfil? Will we run away, stop gathering, disappear? Or will we accept that failure and death are central to our faith, and continue to walk towards the cross?
Ched Myers argues that it is only by facing up to death that we can break its stranglehold on history, the world, and our lives—and only then that we will truly enter into the discipleship story. So if closure is our next step, then with Ched I will face up to the death, and with the Apostle Paul I am confident there will be no shame in it. It is in weakness that God’s power is known: so let us be weak. And in the words of an old prayer echoing the Apostle Paul, when the time comes may our dying be done so well that we are raised to new life in his presence (2 Cor 4:14).
Shalom,
Alison
Emailed to Sanctuary 19 July 2023 © Alison Sampson, 2023. Quotes Ched Myers. Binding the Strong Man. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988: 456 (slightly paraphrased). Photo by Duncan Sanchez on Unsplash.
Alison and the whale 