A few weeks ago on Good Friday we built a crucifix, adorned it with Easter candy, cheap junk, wrote vulgarities on it and put it up in the neighborhood. To serve as an Easter weekend reflection I also posted a photo of it on the blog with two questions for people to answer:

1) Who died?

2) What is the most offensive part of this piece?

The original post is here if you missed it, Cross Talk Part 1 but I’m writing this as a follow up with some observations from that weekend as well as my own thoughts on the two questions.

The Context

This piece was put up on Good Friday. Laurie and I had been going through the 18th annotation of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. This is a 10 week long process where one prays and contemplates for 1 hour everyday. In the latter section of the exercises (weeks 8 & 9) one spends time contemplating the final week of Jesus’ life, often referred to as Passion Week. One considers the multitude of ways that Jesus was betrayed, lied about, misrepresented, beaten, abandoned and tortured at the hands of both people who hated him and people who claimed to love him. From personal experience I can say that this process of praying, meditating and sitting with the Passion is very powerful. The feelings of desolation that Jesus experienced during that time seemed to permeate my days leading up to Easter.

It was in this solemn atmosphere that my three year old came home from school with two bags of candy and toys that were larger than she is. These candy and toys were a seeming “gift” or “donation” to the kids at her school in inner city Detroit. Each bag contained a gospel tract titled “Cross Talk”, which we also attached to the Cross and is where the title of the piece comes from.

The Reactions

Reactions to the piece were all over the map. Some strongly agreed with the supposed message of the piece, others had a very negative reaction. The ones who supported it found the message plain and necessary. It was an uncomfortable truth, but a truth nonetheless.

Those who disagreed thought it was vulgar, irreverent, blasphemous, careless, uncalled for and unbecoming. A few others sent jokey messages to me in an attempt to diffuse the tension. Many were silent, but I’m sure the silent people also had a few thoughts.

A couple of interesting observations about people’s reactions. First, many folks viewed the piece through a political lens, which was never our intention. Interestingly, I received messages from friends on both the far left and far right that praised the piece - though their understanding of what the piece was trying to say was completely different.

There was also a trend that most, if not all, of our Detroit neighbors (many of whom are Black, many of whom are Christian) greatly appreciated the work. Meanwhile, a lot of the strongest negative feedback came from readers of the blog who would be considered white evangelicals. I won’t analyse why the reactions were so different from these groups, but it’s interesting to note that even members of the same religion had such wildly different views of the Cross.

The Answers

However, the most interesting part of this Good Friday reflection was how few people actually answered the two questions. Of all the messages, emails, phone calls, texts, and in person conversations, less than five people attempted a response to those two questions. The Cross is a thing of shame, and I could sense people also wanted to move quickly past the piece we had created. Indeed, even I wanted to move quickly past it! It was so stressful, uncomfortable and anxiety-inducing that I was exhausted and relieved by the time Easter weekend ended.

There are no right or wrong answers to the questions we posed. And there is no “right” or “wrong” way to respond to the Cross. This is a work of art meant to take people deeper in their reflection of Jesus’ death and how that can be a catalyst to making our world today more compassionate, filled with justice, and mindful of the most vulnerable in our midst.

This piece was not impulsive or done in haste. It is the result of 9 weeks of deliberate prayer and quiet time with God for an hour each day. Put another way, after 63 hours of conversation with the Lord, this was our response.

Since so few responded to the questions, I will provide my thoughts on them below. I hope this piece will continue to deeply challenge you, but also ultimately bless you in your spiritual journey.

Question 1. “Who died?”

Someone died in the past

Written on the Cross are the words “I died for this fucking shit America”. Who is the “I”? The obvious answer is Jesus, so we explore that first. The death of an innocent man, let alone the death of God is terrible beyond description. Contemplating the idea that “God” would become an embryo, a baby, a child - completely dependent on human parents to provide for his needs - shows that God is playful, humble, and graceful. We are dealing with a higher power that operates well beyond our human inclinations. Our response to love is rejection and degradation. So Jesus died.

Someone dies in the present

Perhaps the “I” is someone you’ll never meet. Perhaps the phrase “我为了这操蛋的破事死了” may have provided further clues as to whose deaths were are observing. In 2011 I worked in a factory in China that produced packaging for products sold in the US. Everyday they would burn the leftover PET plastic scraps that weren’t used in the process. The environment around the plant was polluted, dirty, and dangerous. There is an entire world that is hidden from many Americans, the world where our stuff comes from. Things that we use for our holidays and then throw away hours later are made with a tangible impact on the health and lives of people we’ll never meet. Many of these nameless people are our Christian brothers and sisters around the world. In other words, there’s a human price tag attached to our fancies and traditions.

The purchasing of at least some items that are made overseas is probably unavoidable in the twenty-first century, but we honor the sacrifice and vision of Jesus by being more mindful of others and intentional in our actions, especially on Good Friday - a solemn day of reflection.

Someone or something will die in the future

The “I” can also be our children, our future, the future of the American church. The Cross is extremely bitter, but we are inclined to make it sweeter. However, the Cross is what has animated the church and driven forward its mission for thousands of years. If we neglect to face its full bitterness, perhaps we’ll lose our way and cease to exist as a body.

Question 2. “What’s the most offensive aspect of this piece?”

The thing that offended was the F word. However, in my opinion, this is the least offensive part of this piece and sadly the most necessary.

The most offensive aspect of this piece is the Cross.

However, if I had set a Cross out on Good Friday, no one would have batted an eye. It would have received the same reaction as a parked car, a highway pylon, or a newly planted bush. Unfortunately, in our cultural environment there would be nothing to notice and nothing to consider.

But the Cross was an instrument of torture and death (which I don’t need to tell you). It was designed not just to kill a person, but to humiliate and dehumanize them as they died. So this piece is meant to help us see reality for what it is.

The second most offensive aspect of this piece is the candy and cheap toys.

Think of someone who dies before their time and dies in a way that is totally unjust and undeserved. There was a young man in our neighborhood who was sadly shot and killed last summer at the age of 21. Now imagine I show up to his funeral with a bag full of gun-shaped chocolates and cheap plastic toys shaped like bullets. I’d likely get my ass kicked and rightly so.

So if we truly believe the Christian message, we cannot show up to Jesus’ funeral with pastel eggs and tasty treats. It’s so tone deaf, so blind, so oblivious to the suffering of Christ and others.

The least offensive (though still offensive) aspect of this piece is the swearing we wrote upon the Cross in permanent marker.

Do we delight in it? Absolutely not. Was it really necessary? Yes it was.

And the reason it was necessary is because if we had put a Cross up no one would notice. If we attached candy to the Cross people may find it a little bit cute, but wouldn’t think much of it. It wasn’t until we scribbled the word ‘Fuck’ across the beams that we started to catch a small glimpse of the crucifixion of Christ as it is.

Crucifixion 2025

At the end of his book The Cross and The Lynching Tree theologian James Cone invites readers to consider all the continuing manifestations of the Cross in our world today. May we as a church never lose sight of God’s mission to bring justice, mercy, and healing to our world today. We pray “lead us not into temptation”, the temptation of our precious traditions, our cultural sensibilities, and our comfortable distance from those suffering in the world.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.

Cross Talk Part 2