The Meaning of the Cross

Part I Rev. Roger Fritts

• Last Friday, in Jerusalem, as Israeli soldiers with assault rifles looked on, thousands of Christian pilgrims, many carrying crosses, commemorated Good Friday by retracing the traditional last steps taken by Jesus. One elderly man was dressed in a loincloth with a crown of thorns on his head and his face dripping with fake blood. He carried a heavy wooden cross on his shoulder.
• Last Friday, at the Colosseum in Rome, the Pope turned to a couple from Yugoslavia to help him carry a cross in a Good Friday procession before a crowd of thousands.
• Last Friday, in Washington, D.C. about 4,000 people crammed into a huge tent near the Washington Monument for a noon
• time program of gospel singing and preaching. A special light outlined a huge white cross on the tent ceiling.

All this attention given to this symbol by so many people. But what about us? What about Unitarian Universalists? Where is our cross this morning? Does the cross have any meaning to us -- given that we are educated, rational, and skeptical human beings? Is it relevant to us at the end of the twentieth century?

By way of answering these questions, I want you to consider the case of a woman who was born the United States in 1967. She grew up in a two story Spanish style house in Newport Beach, California. Her father was a business consultant and her mother worked as a manager at the local Neiman-Marcus department store. In high school the young woman was co-valedictorian. She entered Stanford University in 1985, where she was an honors student and captain of the schools championship women's swimming and diving team. Her name was Amy Biehl.

In 1993 this blond, blue-eyed woman became a Fulbright scholar, and traveled to South Africa to do research at the University of the Western Cape. She also worked with the African National Congress on a series of voter-education workshops, to prepare the country's black majority for the first non-racial elections in South Africa's history.

August 25, 1993, Biehl was driving three black friends home through one of the black townships in the Cape Town area. Youths lining the street stoned the car, then pulled Biehl out and hit her in the face with a brick. When she tried to flee, they stabbed her in the chest, the knife striking her heart. She became the first American to die in South Africa's racial violence.

In the months that followed, the South African Court convicted four black males for Amy Biehl's murder and gave them eighteen year prison sentences. The court dropped the charges against three other defendants because a witness said he was afraid to testify against them. The defendants who were convicted refused to confess and they showed no remorse. When Biehl's parents came from California to observe the trial, the defendants' supporters yelled at them "Kill Americans," and "One [White] Settler, One Bullet."

However, in the months after Amy Biehl's death and the enormous publicity that surrounded it, something remarkable started to happen. Political violence in South Africa lessened. The country seemed more at peace. When Amy Biehl's parents Peter and Linda came to visit South Africa, people on the street looked them straight in the eye and thanked them for coming to their country and for the gift of their daughter.

In memory of their daughter's work, Peter and Linda created the Amy Biehl Foundation, dedicated to empowering people who are economically or politically oppressed. These Southern California Republicans now spend half their time in Cape Town, where they run the Foundation. Their projects included a community bakery and a literacy program. A year and a half ago, the United States Agency for International Development agreed to provide 1.9 million dollars to the Foundation in support of its work to reduce community violence in townships and settlements around Cape Town.

During the negotiations that led to the transfer of power from the all white National Party to Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, National Party leaders pushed for blanket amnesty. The African National Congress agreed to an amnesty provision, but it insisted on a reckoning. Amnesty applicants must make a full disclosure of their crimes.

Two years ago the youths who beat and stabbed Amy Biehl applied for amnesty from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Amy's parents, Peter and Linda Biehl, attended the amnesty committee hearing and listened as the four men for the first time, admitted being involved in the mob attack. The mother of one of the young men could not stand to look at her son while he was confessing and describing what he had done. The Biehls sat silently in the front row as the youths pleaded with the commission that their motive for killing Amy was political and not merely racial. The youths asked for forgiveness from Amy Beihl's parents. Before the hearing, Peter and Linda Biehl, shook hands with the parents of their daughter's assailants and said they did not oppose amnesty for the four youths. As South Africans watched on television, Amy's mother hugged the mother of the young man who had stabbed Amy. Desmond M. Tutu said of the gesture, "The message that was sent out, sent electric shocks down your spine."

The Commission made its decision a few months ago. Five years after Amy Biehl died at the hands of a mob, her killers walked free, receiving amnesty. The Biehls said "We hope these young men will receive the support necessary to live productive lives in a non-violent atmosphere. We hope the spirits of Amy and of those like her will be a force in their new lives."

When I see the cross at Easter, I think of bravery and fortitude. I think of the courage of a young woman working in South Africa to create a fairer system of democracy and expand the freedom of people. I think of her parents' incredible strength in being able to forgive her killers and support amnesty for them. It is a model of reconciliation that we desperately need all across the world this Easter.

"She wanted to give herself to the African people," said Linda Biehl, speaking about her daughter. "She wanted to do whatever she could to help them."

"I was very worried about her, but she would say, `Mom, I'm okay. I'm doing this because I want to do this. I can't live my life in a shell.'"

The Meaning of the Cross Part II Rev. Kathie Davis Thomas

It is the time of balance between darkness and light, the moment in the earth's seasonal cycle when we are poised between these two experiences, winter and summer, death and transfiguration, between who we were and who we want to be. In Catholic churches between good Friday and Easter, the bells of the church are stilled. Following a 12^th century European custom, the place of the bells is taken by instruments des tenebres (instruments of darkness), wooden clackers and other noisemakers that remind the faithful of the terrible sounds that were presumed to have happened at the death of Christ. How could a divine being die and the heavens remain silent? The earth should quake, rocks split, the veil of the Temple tear asunder, all in fortissimo, in terrifying cacophony. Indeed, when anyone dies, anyone who has walked among us, taking the spark of divinity that lives within and fires it into the flame of passion -- when one such dies, how can the heavens remain silent?

When I was in seminary, each student was required to choose a cross-cultural experience in which to learn about the challenges that cultures, other than our own, must face. Most of the Unitarian Universalist students that year chose to go to Mexico to study the issues along the border of the meeting of American culture with Central American culture. I chose instead to go to Jordan and Israel to study the Palestinian/Israeli peace accords and to learn about the life of Jesus with my Christian classmates. As one who was brought up Unitarian Universalist, I wanted to understand what come-outers to our religion from a Christian background might have experienced. What they appreciated from their journey as Christians that they bring into a new path. It was a deeply meaningful experience in which I came to understand better the larger meaning of the Christ experience. In this land of Biblical stories, I felt the teachings of Jesus, I felt the presence of this great Rabbi walking with us. I didn't become a Christian in the traditional sense, but I experienced more of what the Christian faith meant for the spiritual journey of those with whom I lived for two weeks, and what those teachings could mean for my own spiritual journey. I walked the path of the Christ, through the joys of the Sea of Galilee, through the Cup of Sorrow in the Garden in Gethsamane, and up the last path Jesus walked in Jerusalem. "Be a fisher of people," Jesus said to the fishermen on the shores of the lake. "Take this cup from my lips," Jesus begged in the Garden of Gethsamane. "Help me, take this burden from me," Jesus groaned, struggling to walk narrow streets enclosing a rocky and steep way, a heavy cross upon his back.

So it is for us. We have known joy -- we see it in the flowers popping out of the ground, hear it in the song of a meadowlark. We are newborn babies, learning to breathe all over again. But then comes the time when we weep for the tragedies of the world. For children who are subjected to violence and never feel the soothing balm of love; for those driven from their homeland, separated from all those they love; for the hungry, the poor, the ill. Bowed down under the heavy load, we ask our Creator, our Sustainer, our Guide, our Wisdom, to help us find our strength. And so often, our companions are bowed low as well -- by the demands of work and family, or personal illness and tragedy. And then an experience, such as my colleague, Rev. Sydney Wilde-Nugent describes in an Easter Prayer, can open the way.

Slowly, the dawning comes, as I take one faltering step at a time, I creep steadily up the hill. Others have been here before. I follow their trail of sweat, tears and blood; I can see the way. With each wavering step I gain in confidence. My strength is fed by my own resolve. Here is my purpose. Here is my meaning: to live the life which is handed to me with courage. To carry my burdens with dignity. To focus the strength which is my inner being rather than squander my resources on outward despair.

We saw that focusing in Roger's story of life of Amy Beihl. Another one who saw such focusing was Jim Barrett, member of the Pensacola, Florida UU congregation and husband of our own June Barrett. June gave me permission to share this story with you this morning, for it tells us of a deep faith, of carrying the heavy burden of the cross for what we believe. Many of you know this story -- Jim and June both have worked for the right of women to choose whether they will have a child, for access for all people to reproductive rights and information. It is something our Unitarian Universalist faith calls us to -- to right of conscience, the right to information to make choices about our lives.

One morning, on July 29, 1994, almost 5 years ago, Jim and June were doing the work their conscience and their faith called them to, their ministry to escort women coming to the Lady's Center clinic.

A lone gunman, Paul Hill, an open advocate of violence, decided they did not have that right and opened fire. He killed James Herman Barrett as well as the clinic's physician, Dr. John Bayard Britton and injured June. With horror, June heard him speak of the deaths and injury with satisfaction, that he felt he had a right to take lives because he did not agree with reproductive choice. In sharing this story recently, June said, "He assassinated my husband." June is still grieving deeply. But she goes on with her life with courage. She still works for the causes she holds so dear. And though we would not wish the burden of losing a loved one, or losing our life, for the causes and beliefs we espouse, we know that we can learn, painfully and patiently, from suffering. We know that we are doing something of significance, something that has deeper meaning. We find capabilities in ourselves we didn't know we had. We become more responsive to human suffering and strengthen our resolve to help others. We are renewed by a new sense of meaning and purpose -- we are needed. We become more tolerant of the mundane annoyances of our lives. We know, in the words of Burton Carley:

If winter can become spring,
and sand turn into pearls;

If the season cracks a seed on time
and the earth yields up daffodils;

If worms transform into butterflies
and giraffes exist;

If the spider can spin a web
and whales sing in the sea;

If a father can welcome back his wayward son
and a thief on a cross can be granted heaven;

If but one of these things be true,
then all things are possible.

And we know, in the very fabric of our being,
that love is stronger than death.

Let us, in the spirit of Jesus, by the inspiration of Amy Biehl and Jim Barrett, and June Barrett through our own Gardens of Gethsamane and burdens of the cross, find the courage to be what we must be. To be reborn and learn how to breathe all over again. To walk together with all those who are carrying their burdens. To look around and know we are not alone.

Spirit of Life, help us to remember all those whose lives have taught us, courage; renew us from the inside out us, that we may be released from the tomb of despair to a vision of a regeneration of the spirit, a resurrection into new life, into a new day of light and gladness. Let us sing.

Closing Words Rev. Roger Fritts

What is the meaning of the cross? It is up to each individual. For some the cross is a symbol of God. For others the cross shows membership in a particular religion. For still others, the cross is a reminder of centuries of conquest and oppression. And for still others, the cross is simply a piece of jewelry, an ornament, a decoration.

When I see the cross at Easter, I think of those who have risked their lives for issues in which they believe. Their memory is not gone. Their ideals are not dead. They have not been defeated. Their love is alive. Their spirit is inside the hearts and souls of all people who believe in the possibility of a better world. For me the cross stands for courage.

• When we help the poor, or care for those in pain, or support those plagued by discrimination . . . faith is reborn in us.
• When we take a stand for equality, or democracy, or freedom . . . hope is reborn in us.
• When we risk our jobs, our status, our comforts to make the world a better place . . . courage is resurrected in us.

Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
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