This may not be my most popular blog ever. I’ll be sharing a prayer for Good Friday. It seems most non-Christians assume that if I’m inspired by the stories of Jesus’ life that I must therefore also believe he was God incarnate. They are allergic to that notion and stop listening. Then there are Christians who love to hear about my interpretation of the Jesus’ story until they hear the part where I say that I always perceived Jesus to be fully and only human. It’s quite possible that Christians and non-Christians alike will react negatively to this blog post. But I feel moved to share what inspires me with whoever might also get inspired.
First, a word on what is most life-enhancing to me about the Jesus of the Gospels: he kept right on seeing and loving the very best and most holy in everyone around him no matter what. He saw what was holy in them regardless of their tendency towards betrayal, cowardliness, and doubt. He saw their divine worth in spite of racial, class, and gender differences. He may not have been God, but he saw God in everybody. He saw it so clearly that he helped them see God in themselves, too. Imagine what the world would be if we all had such vision.
He may not have been identical with Yhwh; he may have been as human as the rest of us. But he surely was divine. Like the rest of us.
Here is my prayer for Good Friday. As always, take what (if anything) works for you and leave the rest behind:
Dear God,
Please remove the beam from my eye, so that I can see clearly enough not to worry about the speck that is in my brother’s eye. Remove that beam so that I can see and love what is best and most holy in everything under the sun, and nurture the growth of that.
Once the beam is removed, please use it to crucify that which in me which is contrary to life, wholeness, health and happiness. Today I ask God to crucify my judgments against myself and others—the big ones and the small ones—because they all keep me from loving the world with my whole heart. Please help me to see that it is my judgment that condemns, and not yours. Please help us all to see that.
Crucify my fears. They lead me to act smaller than I am, meaner than I am. If my fears must remain, then please help me to live out my best self even when it's scary.
Crucify my hopelessness and despair about the state of the environment and humanity’s failure thus far to step up to the plate and fix the problems. My hopelessness keeps me from doing what I can from where I stand. There is always something I can do to help—help me see that action and give me the courage to take it.
Crucify my fears. They lead me to act smaller than I am, meaner than I am. If my fears must remain, then please help me to live out my best self even when it's scary.
Crucify my hopelessness and despair about the state of the environment and humanity’s failure thus far to step up to the plate and fix the problems. My hopelessness keeps me from doing what I can from where I stand. There is always something I can do to help—help me see that action and give me the courage to take it.
Crucify my Ego—my need to say “I Am” and make a god of myself; that’s the root of human suffering. This leads to a tendency toward self-preservation at any cost. Sometimes I overestimate the cost, and I forfeit what is best in me for the sake of friendships, jobs, or status. I will outlive all of those circumstances. Help me to hold to what is best in me even when it’s not popular, trusting that I will survive.
Crucify my anger and pain at life’s many betrayals. My life may have been temporarily diminished by those setbacks. But my darkest days have always been followed by some greater good that would not have happened had the darkness not come my way. But the new day doesn’t dawn while I’m still angry at the night. So please, God, crucify the anger and pain that keeps the light from shining through.
Crucify my frustrations with human failure. Maybe this arises from my great hope for the world, hope that is continually frustrated by the failure of humans to live out their best selves. But nonetheless, help me to love what is more than I love my vision of what could be. Somehow I think that’s the secret not only to inner peace but to world peace. After all, how can you find peace in a world you’re always trying to change?
God, I ask you to crucify these qualities within me—to lift them up so that I may see them more clearly. Let them die and be buried so that they may no longer live in me and so that I may see the world more clearly. In dying, let them be transformed into Divine Love so that they may rise again to light the world.
These things I pray. So may it be.
