For the Love of Good Friday

Friday, April 18, 2025

Good Friday

The Rev. Judy A. Alston, PhD (she/her)

Associate Pastor, Woodland Christian Church (Columbus, OH)

Queer Christian

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

For Queer Christians, Good Friday has great significance. Though often seen through the lens of sorrow, this day can also symbolize hope, resilience, and the transformative power of love. In 1 Corinthians 13:13, Paul writes, “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” This message resonates deeply within Queer communities, offering a lens through which to understand both personal and communal faith journeys. Good Friday reminds us of Jesus’ embrace of the marginalized and oppressed. His ultimate sacrifice reflects a profound love that transcends societal boundaries and can empower Queer individuals, affirming that our experiences of love and identity are valid in the eyes of a compassionate God.

In the face of adversity, Queer people of faith can draw strength from the three-fold cord of faith, hope, and love

found here in the verse. Faith encourages us to trust in a loving God who affirms our existence, while hope inspires us to envision a future free from discrimination and prejudice. Most importantly, love serves as a guiding principle, urging us to foster inclusive communities that celebrate diversity.

While we lament the crucifixion of the Christ, remember that lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust. Lament is a pathway to praise when life gets hard – when life is sad, and we are grieving. Ultimately, Good Friday can be a day of liberation for Queer individuals, inviting us to embrace our identities as integral to the tapestry of faith. It serves as a reminder that love—embodied in the sacrifice of Jesus—remains the greatest truth, affirming that all are worthy of belonging and grace. In this light, Good Friday becomes not only a day of mourning, but also a celebration of love’s enduring power.

Reflection

How have you experienced the love of God for you in your Queerness?

How can your lament on Good Friday now lead to praise and gratitude?

Action

Read more on lament, praise, and the power of love:

•       https://www.markvroegop.com/blog/lament- leads-to-praise

•       https://guideposts.org/angels-and- miracles/miracles/discover-the-power-of-love-in- good-friday

•       https://www.abbi.org.au/2014/04/easter-gay- journey

Jesus Loves Your Stinky Feet

Thursday, April 17, 2025

Maundy Thursday

The Rev. Jim Keat (he/him)

Minister of Digital Worship and Education, The Riverside Church (New York, NY)

Allied Christian

I still remember the day, coming home from Junior High basketball practice, and my mom hands me a bottle of Febreze. “Here,” she said. “Spray this on your shoes.

And your socks. And your feet.”

Not entirely understanding why, I took the bottle to do as I was told. But before I could my older sister walked by, held her nose, and said, “Ewwww, you stink.”

Apparently, my adolescent body was exerting some new abilities, specifically stinky feet.

I always think of this moment every year as we make our way through Holy Week, landing on Maundy Thursday, the night we hear Jesus giving a new commandment (or mandate): love one another. This seemingly simple command goes deeper than just three words, because offers this challenge immediately after washing his disciple’s feet. Their stinky feet.

The image, here, is that the one in authority kneels down to serve, modeling what love in action looks like in practice and not just in theory, giving up your power and privilege to serve those around you, especially those most marginalized by society. But did Jesus really need to wash their feet to make his point?

If my post-basketball practice adolescent feet carried a particular odor, a dozen grown men living in sandals and walking on dusty roads are not going to be any cleaner or smell much better. And yet this is the act that Jesus takes, this is the way he embodies his command, this is the method that is his message: even the parts that you might want to hide or cover or spray with Febreze, Jesus embraces. There is nothing too stinky, no matter what my older sister might say, that can cause Jesus to turn away.

Jesus loves your stinky feet. And Jesus commands us to do the same: “Just as I have loved you, you

should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

Who are the people that are hardest for you to love? What does it mean to love someone, even if they have stinky feet? Or stinky theology? Or stinky political views? And what does it mean to love our own stinky feet, the parts of ourselves that we would rather sanitize or keep out view? If Jesus can wash the feet of his disciples, even the one who would betray him, perhaps we can do the same.

Now, to be clear, this does not mean we allow those with harmful theologies and worldviews to

continue without any confrontation. After all, “justice is what love looks like in public,” Dr. Cornel West reminds us. And the love of God is so radical that it is extended even to those for whom we might want to withhold.

God loves the people who don’t deserve it. Which, by the way, is also you.

Reflection

What does it mean for your love to be bold?

What does it mean for love to move from theory to practice, from idea to action?

What does it look like to follow a Jesus who commands us to love one another, stinky feet and all?

At the Cross

Monday, April 14, 2025

Happy Monday, my friends! Yesterday, we celebrated the beginning of Holy Week during which we commemorate and celebrate the Last Supper, the arrest and interrogation of Jesus before both the religious and governmental authorities, Jesus’ passion and death on a cross, his burial, and finally his resurrection. It’s a rollercoaster of emotions packed into only a special few days, but it’s not without some significant pitfalls and moments when we have to be careful with our language. For one particular example, we have to carefully separate the intentions and fears of the religious leaders of Jesus’ time and place from the members of their community in first century Roman Palestine and from their religious descendants more than two thousand years later. Far too often, Christians have used the events of this week to accuse the entirety of Judaism of “killing Christ.” Yet, the Gospels make it clear that those involved were the leaders of the Jewish community (see Matthew 27:15-23). Their reasons were diverse, yet their primary motivation was fear. They feared losing their influence over their community and they feared that Jesus’ radical message would turn Roman favor against them. Remember, they were still expecting a messiah who would upend the social and political landscape. In short, the Jews both of first century Palestine and the Jews of the 21st century bear no more responsibility for the death of Jesus than residents of 21st century Rome.

Another physical and theological place where Christians often get lost is at the cross. Theology often refers to the “scandal of the cross” because something which was the most feared, terrible, and shameful form of state-sponsored capital punishment became the site of salvation. But the cross and Jesus’ death on the cross have been used as a locus for control by church leaders for centuries. The church has positioned itself as a gatekeeper to the salvation offered through Jesus’ sacrifice and have used our sins to say that we, the people of God, bear a responsibility for “putting Jesus on the cross” or, even worse, for “killing Jesus.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

As a Christian Universalist, the cross remains a theological obstacle for me. Inasmuch as I believe that humanity needed a savior and liberator to come and save us from our sins and from ourselves, I can accept that Jesus accomplished this by his death on the cross. That said, I reject the logic God required Jesus—who is God—to die to appease God’s wrath towards humanity. My perspective on Jesus’ death is twofold and, I concede, still fluid. First, Jesus died to give us an example of what moral courage is and how we can and should stand squarely in our convictions, values, and character even to the point of death. Second, Jesus died to liberate us from the bondage of death. In order to demonstrate that, despite being formed from the earth, we belong to God and death has no dominion over us, Jesus had to die and then return from the dead. Though humans still die, we die knowing that we will be united with God.

Call it a scandal, a theological quandary, or the source and summit of your salvation, we can all stand in awe of the enduring enigma of the cross and how Jesus transformed the cross from a symbol of death to a symbol of life and love.

What are you looking forward to this Holy Week? What about Holy Week conflicts you?

In lieu of a prayer today, I offer you the lyrics from Chris Tomlin’s “At the Cross” which inspired today’s reflection.

There's a place

Where mercy reigns

And never dies

There's a place

Where streams of grace

Flow deep and wide

Where all the love

I've ever found

Comes like a flood

Comes flowing down

At the cross, at the cross

I surrender my life

I'm in awe of You

I'm in awe of You

Where Your love ran red

And my sin washed white

I owe all to YouI owe all to You Jesus

There's a place

Where sin and shame

Are powerless

Where my heart

Has peace with God

And forgiveness

Where all the love

I've ever found

Comes like a flood

Comes flowing down

At the cross, at the cross

I surrender my life

I'm in awe of You

I'm in awe of You

Where Your love ran red

And my sin washed white

I owe all to You

I owe all to You

Here my hope is found

Here on holy ground

Here I bow down

Here I bow down

Here arms open wide

Here You save my life

Here I bow down

Here I bow down

At the cross, at the cross

I surrender my life

I'm in awe of You

I'm in awe of You

Where Your love ran red

And my sin washed white

I owe all to You

I owe all to You

I owe all to You

I owe all to You

Jesus

Where Your love ran red

Your love ran red.

Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

Faithfully,

Ben