(Click HERE for last Sunday's readings)
As blood has gained in entertainment value in our culture, it has lost some of its religious significance.I've never been a fan of gory movies. But several - quite tame by today's standards - come to mind that I found worth the discomfort. Fargo and Fight Club are two. And then there's Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
- from Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris
Interestingly enough, the first and last of these are comedies. (Yes, Fargo is a comedy.) And comic violence seems like the surest proof of the truth of the quote at the top of this blog.
But most comedy arises from crossing some kind of boundary, I think. And when a knight loses a limb in a campy movie, and an conspicuously fake stream of blood squirts from his shoulder, we laugh (or I did, at least) when he says "It's just a flesh wound. I've had worse."
The comedy depends on an incongruity. We laugh not in spite of the fact, but because blood is frightening. When an ordinary injury involved bleeding, my brother would scream...well...bloody murder in our elementary school days. "Blood!" he would yell. But Mom didn't call the paramedics. She'd respond with a kleenex and a band-aid, more for their calming effect on Kirk than to stanch the flow of blood. We might have learned to be less hysterical, but we know where his shock came from.
What I wonder is whether the entertainment value of blood really has impacted its religious significance negatively. In some ways I think that for blood to have an entertainment value it has to stir us religiously. It has to maintain its connection to the fragile mystery of life.
I'm not one to campaign for more gratuitous violence in our entertainment. There are lots of ways that our obsession with violence damages us. But I'm not so concerned about its negative impact on our religion. And, in fact, I wonder whether our ongoing fascination with blood suggests that the Christian belief in Incarnation is as relevant as ever.
Dark comedy and religion both depend on a deep and ancient connection between the mystery of life and the blood that pulses through our veins. How is it that all of the wonderful imaginings of the human mind, all the accomplishments of the human body, even all the connections among people through the mystery of human emotions, how is it that all these depend on the circulation of this fluid in our bodies?
Incarnation - and Christmas is the season of the Incarnation - Incarnation is about holding two mysteries together. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" said St. John. Somehow that Word was truly divine. And somehow that Word really dwelt in flesh.
And I think this mystery has fascinated so many people for so long partly because we each embody a similar mystery. Blood is common to all kinds of living things. But we still believe that people are holy. That human life is sacred. We're made of the ordinary stuff of the earth. And a single person embodies more mystery than the rest of the world can unravel in a lifetime.
This isn't the same mystery as the Incarnation of the Christ. But it rhymes with it, so to speak. As we keep ourselves grounded in our humanity, we're more likely to see our kinship with all kinds of other people and open ourselves to the mystery and wonder of their lives. And it just could be that an ordinary but holy substance like blood still holds the power to keep us all incarnate. To remind us that we really are creatures of the earth. And we really are God's holy creation.
Sometimes this is scary. Sometimes this is funny. But it is a truth that is a dependable source of grace, keeping us connected to our God and to one another at the same time. Kathleen Norris sums it up well at the end of her chapter:
Blood includes us in the Incarnation-not so crazy, after all, but an ancient thing, and wise. The rhythm of life that we carry in our veins is not only for us, but for others, as Christ's Incarnation was for the sake of all.
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My sister is a veterinary research scientist. She deals with blood every day. She loves to watch the Discovery Science shows that invlove surgery, injury and blood. Her dream job is to work in a crime lab. She and I are opposites in this regard. I don't even like to see the simulated gore of the movies. Violent shows make me turn my head, and sometimes plug my ears and hum so as not to hear the gory sound effects.
So it is with some discomfort that I approach this week's blog about the blood imagery in our religion. I have always been one of those Protestants who appreciated an empty cross, a risen Lord and a symbolic Eucharist.
In her chapter on blood, Kathleen Norris reminds me that Moses sprinkles ox blood on the people and declares, "See the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you..."(Ex 24:8) She tells me that one of the things Cherokee poet Diane Glancy most treasured about Christianity is the blood imagery. "Power in the Blood" and "There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood" are two examples she gives from our hymnody. She quotes "He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God." (Rev 19:13)
In our scripture readings from Sunday Isaiah tells us "he has covered me with the robe of righteousness." (Is 61:10) Is this a robe dipped in blood? "He...binds up their wounds." (Ps 147:3) "And the Word became flesh..." (John 1:14)
Flesh, wounds and blood are everywhere in the scriptures that tell me the story of my God. In my squeamishness and tendency to etherealize God, perhaps I am missing something about the Incarnation. Maybe the "becoming flesh" that John talks about is pointing me back to the nuts and bolts, uh, flesh and blood, of the coming of Christ. Maybe much more than a spirit, my God is a spirit that is flesh and blood.
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