April 18 2025 Good Friday: Things Fall Apart

Lisa Wiens Heinsohn

Things Fall Apart

Homily for St. John’s Episcopal Church

by Lisa Wiens Heinsohn

given April 18, 2025

Good Friday

 

There are days in the life of the world when we must face and mourn the extent of the harm, the incalculable loss wreaked upon the earth by people who seem to believe they are doing what is necessary to protect or gain or avoid something. We must honestly ask ourselves what our ancient religious stories and practices have to do with the distress some people today are drowning in. Do they relate and help, or not? What does the crucifixion of Jesus 2,000 years ago have to do with anything? Is there a living heart at the core of our faith, or isn’t there?

 

Today it is important not to stay at the level of intellect. If the story of Jesus stays only at the level of a historical event or a theological doctrine some people believe in, we will not receive the help we need. I want to invite us to go deeper, to experience this day with our hearts and guts and bodies. Let it break through the surface and reach all the way to your bones and marrow and soul. The crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth stands at the heart of every loss, every violation, every lie told to protect power. It stands there not to justify scapegoating any group of people. It stands there not to issue blame or contempt. It stands there not to show what a bloodthirsty God seems to need to tolerate sinful humanity. It stands there to show us that where we find God is precisely in the depth of our suffering. It stands there to show us that when we are the executioner and not the crucified, that still God in Christ offers forgiveness if we can look at the extent of the harm we have wreaked upon the world.

In high school I was introduced to a novel that changed my way of thinking forever. I was raised in an evangelical church and school and home in southern California, but moved to Belgium for high school, where our English class read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Mr. Achebe was a Nigerian who wrote this first novel in 1958, before Nigeria became independent from the British. Mr. Achebe had been raised in both Christianity and traditional Igbo spirituality. In his novel Things Fall Apart, he describes the devastating impact of British colonialism and colonial Christianity on his people and their traditions and way of life. The title of his novel comes from a famous poem by Irish poet William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming,” which Yeats wrote in 1919 about post-war Europe. The poem begins like this:

 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned. . . .

 

On this Friday we call Good, despite the barbarism it conveys, it is time for us to face the truth unvarnished. There is no end to the damage we are capable of inflicting when we believe God chooses some people over other people. Jesus of Nazareth stands on the side of every marginalized, hungry, naked, imprisoned, humiliated person in the history of this earth. And yet he does so without demonizing Ceasar, soldiers, or the powers that be. He does this because he comes from a different power. He comes from love. And he insists that we can do everything he does, because his God is our God, his Father is our Father and our Mother.

Jesus has shown us the way, the Way of Love. We are called to offer all that we are and have to love. To choose love over protection, selfishness, and fear. None of us is perfect or will choose love every time. But we can do better. Hatred is not the way. Blame and accusation are not the way. Love is the way. Full stop. There is no other protection, no other solution. We may lose everything. Jesus lost everything in the worst, most painful possible way. Over the course of the great three days, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, we shall explore what he gained. But not today.

 

Today is the day to face honestly what we are afraid and angry about. What we are guilty of. Where we are blocked or stuck. It is a day to face honestly what is happening in our nation, that far transcends political party. When greed, selfishness, hatred and colonial thinking prevail, when empathy dies, every kind of evil is loosed upon the world, and the vulnerable are the first to suffer. This is happening. It is happening today.

 

The answer goes beyond pointing the finger. That is the role of the judge and the executioner. The role of the disciple of Jesus, the follower of the way of Jesus, is to look deep within and see where we ourselves are infinitely capable of the very evils we decry. We can then look deeper, and see our innate goodness, the light of God which exists within every human being, including those we are tempted to hate or discount or patronize. And only then, when we see the light, must we tell the truth—to see the light and invite and insist on light and goodness from the powers that are wreaking such damage.

 

On Good Friday, let us face the depth of our fear, anger, guilt, and distress. Let them cut more deeply. Let us direct it all to God. This is beyond us, and yet we must not throw up our hands in despair. Let us engage the ancient practice of lament, where we no longer deny anything at all. Things are falling apart. The center cannot hold. And from that place, we cry out our prayers to God. Help us. Show us the way. Grant us your love and your power which refuse to do violence, which refuse to demonize. Show us how to truly follow Jesus’ Way of Love. Help us tell the truth and be a public witness for mercy and love and kindness, even if it costs everything. Show each of us in our lives what is ours to do, for the sake of Jesus, who loved us, and who loves us still. Amen.

10am Service