Her child hung dying on a cross, Mary the mother of Jesus.

Her child was snatched off the road and said to have hung herself, Geneva Reed-Veal the mother of Sandra Bland.

Her child was slaughtered in a maelstrom of forty-one police bullets, Kadijatou Diallo the mother of Amadou Diallo.

Her child hung dying on a fence, Judy Shepherd the mother of Matthew Shepherd.

Her child was robbed of his life-breath, Gwen Carr the mother of Eric Garner.

Her child was shot dead in the street, Angela Helton the mother of Rekia Boyd.

Her child just wanted to listen to his music, Lucy McBath the mother of Jordan Davis.

Her child was held down by one cop and shot in the back by another, Wanda Johnson the mother of Oscar Grant.

Her child’s body was left in the street like a dead dog, Lezley McSpadden the mother of Mike Brown.

Her sleeping seven year-old child was shot in the head in her own home by a SWAT officer, Dominika Stanley the mother Ayanna Stanley-Jones.

Her child was murdered because some folk think trans lives don’t matter, Brenda Scurlock the mother of Chanelle Scurlock.

Her child’s last supper was Skittles and Arizona ice tea, Sybrina Fulton the mother of Trayvon Martin.

There are mothers whose names I do not know whose children died in cages at the border.

Police forces, wannabe police forces and self-appointed policers of love and life and liberty have left a trail of mothers whose deepest griefs launched a movement. To them and to us as to John and his own mother Jesus says, “This is your mother.” And your mother’s heart is being ripped out of her chest daily because her children are being crucified by powers and principalities and those who bow down at the blood-encrusted feet of those tin-plated idols.  These are all your mothers and their children are all your children, your siblings, entrusted to you. There’s a certain romance in saying I will take your mother Jesus, I will honor and care for her and she will want for nothing. But Geneva and Dominika, Lezley, Lucy and, Judy are also all his mother. Their care is in our hands and what will comfort them is justice, and an end to all crucifixions.

Carrying the cross by himself… Carrying the burden of the empire’s hatred for his very existence and the liberation it enfleshed on his battered black, blue and bloodied back, Jesus went to the place where severed heads and disarticulated skulls gave name to the empire’s notion of justice.

There they crucified him… There they murdered him, executed him as a revolutionary, as an insurrectionist, as a person whose threat to the systems that dominate and decimate and dehumanize could only be extinguished in a spectacle lynching. Lethal violence is the resort of individuals and institutions confronted with realities that contradict their own world view: Free black children, women and men, relishing our blackness, our culture, our music, our love, unapologetically black and unafraid. Queer folk who are not going back into crucifying closets. Transfolk who refuse to answer to dead names. Non-binary folk whose very being teaches us there are more than two kinds of people.

There they crucified him…and there they crucified so many of us. Jesus was not alone on that cross. In some accounts, he was crucified with thieves, in others, bandits, who having no way to feed themselves or provide for their family under the tyrannical whims of the empire were crushed into desperate intergenerational poverty with no accessible offramps. More than that, Jesus was crucified with everyone that Rome found threatening, disposable, inconvenient or potentially entertaining on any given day. And Jesus is crucified again and again with every murdered child of every mother and father unwillingly baptized into this movement with blood and tears.

There they crucified him…and there we crucified him too. There our shame hung and hangs upon the cross for we too crucified him. We joined in with the crowd shouting “Crucify him!” because we were afraid to stand up and die for him the way he would stand up, though beaten down, and die for us. We were right to fear, for there are empty hills and available crosses, wood and nails and executioners standing by. His was not the last crucifixion. There would be one or more the next day or the day after, the week after, exchanging the cross for lynching trees and pickup trucks with chains and police-issued ammunition and hands and fists and guns and knives and clubs. So we shouted, crying on the inside, terrified. We did not stand for him and we did not stand for his kin. And then he took all of our fear and guilt to the cross for us too.

And there his mother stood, she the first priest of the new world she had birthed. Did she say at the foot of that cross, “This is my body, this is my blood, given for you”? She stood there, mother of a dying child and the mother of a movement. Like Sabrina Fulton and Judy Shepherd and Lezley McSpadden, she found herself a member of a club she never wanted to join but not alone. Jesus bids us stand with them and not just as comfort in grief, stand with them in ensuring that not one other mother’s child ends up on the cross of hate.

Not everyone was afraid to stand with her and stand with and for Jesus. Those who stood in the face of the empire’s power were those it deemed less than threatening or they would have embraced their own crosses. Mary and her sisters in love and horror and grief, forever bound by this moment, one sister her own sister, others made family in Jesus along with one lone man, unafraid to be known as the beloved of Jesus, unconcerned about speculation and conclusions drawn, right or wrong. There they stood, his mother, his aunt, his aunties – family formed and forged in the bonds of love without regard for biology – and, his beloved. Patriarchal masculinity failed as it does and will; the men in whose names women would be marginalized in his movement were not there.

Then he spoke and the whole world was in that first word: Woman. Woman. You are the world to me. You have been my entire world from the first spark of my miraculous life. Woman. You were scarcely more than a child when you had to make a decision that would change your life and the life of the world forever. Woman. I know what this cost you, your childhood dreams and your name and reputation, and friends and family. Woman. I know who this cost you, who is not standing by you. Woman, if I call you mother will they take you away from me? Woman. There is only one person I trust to love you as I do. Woman. He needs you and your love. Woman. You can’t be to him what I was to him but if you love him as your son, it will be enough. And to his beloved, no name, no title of endearment, just the sacred trust of his mother’s love and care.

There suspended between heaven and earth and life and death Jesus loved, loved with his last breath. He loved those who stood with him and those who could not because that was his way. And that love became a movement, a movement that lives and loves and endures. And we are the caretakers of that movement and stewards of his love. The love of Jesus on that bloody cross is the love that transforms mourning into a movement that will transform this crucified and crucifying world.

Let us pray in the words of Kahlil Gibran, (from Jesus, the Son of Man):
Since your hasty visit and our brief welcome… your mother is with us,
I have beheld the sheen of her face in all mothers;
Her hand rocks cradles with gentleness,
Her hand folds shrouds with tenderness.
And Mary Magdalene is yet in our midst,
She who drank the vinegar of life and then its wine…
Your voice fathered their thoughts and their understanding.
Your voice mothered their words and their breath.
High or low, you name is upon our lips,
The master of infinite compassion…
Betwixt the cradle and the coffin…
The heart of the world quivers with the throbbing of your heart,
But it burns not with your song…
You are despised and mocked,
A man too weak and infirm to be God,
A God too [hu]man to call forth adoration…
May our God bless your name,
And the womb that held you, and the breasts that gave you milk.
And may God forgive us all. [Amen.]

John 19:17 Carrying the cross by himself, Jesus went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him, also with him, two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. 19 Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” 20 Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city and, it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. 21 Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” 22 Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.” 23 When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothing and divided it into four parts, one for each soldier. As for his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. 24 So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.” This was to fulfill what the scripture says,
            “They divided my clothing among themselves,
            and for my clothing they cast lots.”
25 And that is what the soldiers did.

Yet standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and, Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

Preached Good Friday, 10 April, 2020 through All Saints Pasadena steaming.