I did a double-header of worship today, participated in my own congregation this morning, then over to the House of Mercy in the afternoon, where Debbie Blue preached this brilliant sermon that openly wrestled with and steadily deconstructed sacrificial notions of atonement.
The sermon powerfully transitioned right into the Supper, during which the band quietly played "The Old Rugged Cross" as everyone came forward for communion. They didn't sing the words, they just played the music, but it was obvious what they were playing and it felt very jarring to me at the time, because I usually think of "The Old Rugged Cross" as a hymn steeped in sacrificial atonement theory, so as I'm walking forward I'm thinking "What the. . .? She just picked this kind of stuff apart, why are they playing this song?"
I've been - consciously and unconsciously - stewing over it the rest of the evening. Finally, I looked up the words to the hymn, intent on analyzing them in more depth, and realized there's actually nothing directly about sacrifice in the lyrics, that was something I had been reading into them all these years (which was part of Debbie's point, that we are so steeped in notions of sacrifice that we read it into things we shouldn't and set it up as an ultimate frame, when maybe it's not the best frame to be using, and maybe it's not the direction God would have us go). It was a total creeper move, took me several hours of ongoing wrestling with the sermon and the music to get there, but the sermon has actually transfigured my hearing of the hymn. . .
Such is the House of Mercy, and welcome to it.
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