The Practicing Progressive

Issue 17
April 9, 2007

A man I very much admire included this verse from the new Lutheran Hymnal in his Easter message:

Come to the table of mercy, prepared with the wine and the bread.
All who are hungry and thirsty, come and your souls will be fed.
Come at the Lord's invitation; receive from his nail-scarred hand.
Eat of the blood of salvation; drink of the blood of the Lamb.

I believe I understand and appreciate his message but I find his method, well, repugnant. Surely there are more theologically authentic ways of announcing God’s grace than ones that rely on this strange, and repulsive to many, obsession with blood.

I know, I know, blood is the source and symbol of life, the nectar of the gods, without it we could be folded up and carried in a suitcase, etc.…I know all that but I still don’t like it. And I continue to wonder why it maintains such a hold on Christians.

In a recent interview, Wes Craven, a movie director who has nearly perfected the blood-drenched horror film with “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Scream”, was asked about his profuse use of blood in his movies. He immediately began to talk of Christianity and its fascination with that same bodily fluid. He was enthralled, he said, by the fact that Christians drink it, save it, wear it, sing about it and more…and concluded his own obsession with it couldn’t be all that abnormal.

He may be right but I never go to horror films and I can only watch violent-prone movies through the gaps in my fingers clasped tight across my face. (Many years ago, I was working on a film as an assistant make-up man. The scene we were shooting that day took place in a bar and involved a machine-gunning massacre. I was assigned the job of filling condoms with stage blood, tying them off, attaching a small electrode to the tip and then taping these blood-filled beauties onto the actors who were about to be executed. This important work took the good part of the day and involved lots of laughter and black humor. But when the time came to shoot the scene and the machine guns went off and the blood burst forth, I had to put my head between my knees to keep from fainting at the sight of all that FAKE blood!) So you see I’m probably not the most objective critic here. Nevertheless, I believe I speak for more than just me on this common albeit disturbing Christian image and can offer a helpful criticism or two.

For instance, if we have moved away from the bizarre theory of Jesus having to appease God by atoning for the sins of humankind by being tortured and slowly killed, isn’t it about time we carefully scrutinize our liturgy and hymnody for vestiges of that discarded understanding? Certainly the death of Jesus must have been a bloody affair and, yes, the image of that blood letting is a powerful one as we ponder its unjust occasion but must we continue to equate Jesus’ loss of blood with our spiritual gain? Besides, didn’t Mel Gibson do enough of that already?

On this past Palm Sunday, I listened to a carefully constructed sermon that had as its main thesis the proclamation that “Jesus didn’t die for the sins of the world but because of the sins of the world.” The preacher made clear his conviction that Jesus’ death was not ordained by God but was the result of a commitment to live a Godly life, a life of compassion. It was, I thought, a most helpful invitation into Holy Week. Unfortunately, the liturgy in which this sermon sat was filled with very different images. Over and over again, the hymns that were sung resonated with the archaic atonement thinking that the preacher had just rebuked.

I recognize that the wheels of change turn slowly, especially those bearing the church, but surely I was not the only one who was troubled and confused by the incongruity. The time has come for our liturgy to support our theology. Sentiment should not be confused with sanctity. Much of what we continue to cling to in Christian worship has little to do with assisting Christians in the world today. It is time to move on.

Humbly, I offer a revised version of my friend’s lyrical Easter sentiment with the hope we continue to find new ways of proclaiming the authentic message of Jesus:

Come to the table of welcome, prepared with the wine and the bread.
All who are searching and seeking; hear what the master once said.
Come at the Lord's invitation; receive from his compassionate soul
The gift of a joyous friendship; the gift of a life made whole.