Reflections by Rev. Joanne Anquist
First an update on the Tent Trailer. I think it’s going to be okay! The roof was secured, the tires were changed. I’m feeling much better about my purchase. (We’ll see what I think after we take it out in August!)
I love the Olympics. What a wonderful celebration of human striving. The opening ceremonies have always been a celebration of humanity and creativity and of the world coming together. This year, as you know, France made it a public piece of art, with tableaus along the Seine. I only saw the last half of the opening ceremonies, but hearing Celine Dion sing again made my day. Singing is my sport as well – I don’t know what I would do if my voice was taken. I wish her beautiful rendition of Hymn to Love had been the talk after the ceremonies, but instead we were dragged into a discussion of the choices the French had made for their celebration.
I’m not a person who is easily offended. I believe that there is no topic off the table, as long as it is approached in the right context with appropriate boundaries. So I was a little surprised at the uproar about the drag show tableau (I did see it live, but without the blue singer!) that featured a table of colorful characters sitting on one side with the central character wearing a kind of halo. I too thought briefly that it looked like Da Vinci’s last supper, but let that go. It was only after I began reading articles about folks demanding an apology for denigrating Christianity that I revisited the display. What I found out was that the tableau was in honor of Jan Harmensz van Bijlert’s painting The Feast of the Gods. I found out that there are many works of art that feature a Baccanalian/Dionysian feast which pre-date Da Vinci’s masterpiece. Not to mention that the 12 Olympians of ancient Greece included Dionysius as one of the Deities, and the early Olympics pre-date Christianity.
As I read further, articles I read argued that Christian art, like Da Vinci’s Last Supper, borrowed heavily from pagan art which had gone before it, so Da Vinci’s last supper was actually an echo of previous pagan works. Although the Olympic Committee did “apologize” it was more because people were offended, rather than for the work itself.
It got me remembering times over my ministry that we worried about people being offended and choosing to avoid certain conversations as a result. Years ago at a different church, we used a clip from Life of Brian, a Monty Python movie about a man who becomes a reluctant messiah figure around the time of a Jesus. The sermon was on the Beatitudes and we used the famous clip “blessed are the cheesemakers” which was a clever send up of what the people in back of the crowd heard when Jesus said “blessed are the peacemakers.” Anyway, there was one profane word in the clip and we agonized over whether to show it in church. I promised I could bleep it out, but wasn’t able to do it digitally, so I thought I would just yell when the word came up, a kind of real time censorship. Unfortunately, I missed the cue – so the word was heard, and the minister made some joke about everyone saying goodbye to me after the service because that would be my last day. Funny thing is, we never worried about the commentary of Jesus as Messiah that Life of Brian portrayed. It was the swearing.
I’ve had people tell me that drums and electric guitars are not “church” music. They’re kind of offended when we sing “secular” music in a religious setting.
And don’t get me started on how carefully we tread around things like sex! I remember showing The Wife on a Friday afternoon as part of our Reel Theology series a few years ago. I had forgotten that the movie started with a couple being intimate. I was watching with a number of people in their 70s and 80s and I immediately wanted to apologize. And then I remembered that by the time you’re 80 you’ve probably had lots of sex in your life, so why was I so worried?
Sex, profranity, drug culture, music – these are the things that keep ministers worrying about who will be offended and how to proceed with these discussions. I confess that even writing this article about being offended I’m worried that I’m offending someone! So much easier to stick with “Jesus loves You!”
Well, they called Jesus and his disciples “drunkards” because they liked to party. The religious leaders were “offended” that he would let a woman wash his feet with her hair. Healing on the sabbath, which Jesus did, was a huge no-no. Jesus was so offensive in his time. And yet, the “sinners” the outcasts and marginalized found hope in his community.
Back to the table at the opening ceremonies, I wonder, even if it was a send-up of The Last Supper whether we could have spinned it as a celebration of the Table Jesus sets for us all? Queer and Straight, all genders and gender expressions, laughing, dancing, singing – isn’t that the kind of feast we all love to be part of? The Table is for everyone – come join us! could have been the Christian response. So much more welcoming, maybe even surprising, to a secular world.
If I think about what offends me (again, so little!) I think it’s more that we continue to build barriers to inclusion. I’m offended that we accept poverty as a buy-product of capitalism. I’m offended that humans think we own the planet and can do with it what we want just because a verse in Genesis gave us dominion over the earth. I am offended that we want to police women’s bodies and don’t provide adequate healthcare for the sick and dying and mentally ill. I don’t have enough energy to be offended by those other things that don’t really make a difference in the end.
I think if we put our energy into how we can transform our world with justice we would be better off. And as for the other things, “sex and drugs and rock and roll” to put it into the language of Ian Drury in the 70s, if we can let go of our discomfort and instead insert our message of inclusion and welcome into the culture – even at those places that “offend” us - we are better positioned to share the love of God and the Table of Jesus with a religiously suspicious western culture.