The Reproaches: Christ’s Lament against his Faithless Church

One of the hallmarks of the Jewish liturgy of the Ninth of Av is the stark assumption of responsibility for the destruction of the First and Second Temples:

 Because of our sins the Temple was destroyed,

because of our iniquities the Palace was burned.

 With wayward hearts we forgot the Sabbath,

and the Lord failed to remember our merits.

The dirge from which these words are taken is moving; there are many like them. The mature spirituality they embody, so unlike the blame game which characterizes the spirituality of many, has its roots in the Hebrew Bible. Psalms 78 and 106 and Nehemiah 9 are consummate examples of that view of history which sees God’s goodness as paramount and human sin as a devastating, but not overwhelming, corollary. The same view of history informs the prophets, from Amos to Isaiah to Jeremiah. The view of history in question also finds expression in Paul, who said, “sin abounds, but grace superabounds” (Romans 5:20-21).

One of the great ironies of the history of religion is that this mature Jewish spirituality was taken over into the liturgy of the church, no longer as an instrument of self-reproach, but as an instrument of blame over against the Jewish people. The tale of the transformation is fascinating and has been told by David Flusser and Theodore Bergren (see the bibliography at the conclusion of this post).

The anti-Jewish polemical intent in Troparia 3 and 8 of the Byzantine rite and the traditional Improperia of the Latin rite is undeniable. But the reception of the liturgical motif, it seems to me, has often transcended its intent. In my experience, when the following words are spoken, it is well-understood by the faithful that the “thee” of the reproach applies to them as well - in a sense, to them first of all:

Popule meus, quid feci tibi?

Aut in quo contristavi te? Responde mihi!

Quia eduxi te de terra Aegypti:

Parasti crucem Salvatori tuo.

O My people, what have I done to thee?

Wherein have I saddened thee? Answer me!

Whereas I led thee out of the land of Egypt,

thou hast prepared a cross for thy Savior.

The first three lines, of course, quote Micah 6:3-4. The all-important “thee” is already transmitted by the prophet. As the sages knew, all those of every generation who believe in the God of Abraham were present when the Red Sea was parted. Only those who were present can be said to participate in the history of salvation. That history, according to the unitary witness of the Law and the Prophets, moves from deliverance, to sin, to renewal of the covenant promises. It follows that only those who likewise know themselves to be co-responsible for the sin part can be said to participate in and benefit from God's ongoing acts of salvation.

Without an assumption of responsibility, forgiveness is not effective. Whenever the reproaches are recited and this is not clear, they are poison to those who recite them. My intent is not to make light of a liturgical tradition. An awareness of the Church’s sins has always been lively among mature Christians, and finds expression, for example, in Joachim Fiore’s writings, Dante’s Purgatorio, and Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor. Recommended reading, I would suggest, during Holy Week.

The classical reproaches are in one sense beyond revision. The weave of their content is magnificent, however misguided the use of the reproaches has been in the history of Jewish-Christian relations. Nonetheless, the reproaches have been revised in the liturgy of various churches. I am aware of examples from Lutheranism and United Methodism. Unless I misinterpret, they have been dropped by Episcopalians (a grave error, it seems to me). The revision adopted by the United Methodist Church is bold in a positive way (note reproach #9). I am a first-class nitpicker, so I have more than a few issues with the revision, though I made use of it in my congregation this Good Friday.

In my next post, I offer a revision of the reproaches with the twin goals of returning them to their biblical roots and updating them in accordance with what has transpired in the last two millennia.

Bibliography

David Flusser, “Hebrew Improperia,” Immanuel 4 (1974) 51-54.

Theodore A. Bergren, “The Tradition-History of the Exodus-Review in 5 Ezra 1,” in Of Scribes and Sages: Early Jewish Interpretation and Transmission of Scripture. Volume 2. Later Versions and Traditions (Craig A. Evans, ed.; Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity 10; Library of Second Temple Studies 51; London: T & T Clark, 2004) 34-50.

Comments

[Doug Chaplin]

John,
I offer you some sample quotations from the modern Reproaches as used in the Church of England.

O my people, O my Church,
what have I done to you,
or in what have I offended you?
Testify against me.
I led you forth from the land of Egypt,
and delivered you by the waters of baptism,
but you have prepared a cross for your Saviour.

I led you through the desert forty years,
and fed you with manna.
I brought you through tribulation and penitence,
and gave you my body, the bread of heaven,
but you prepared a cross for your Saviour.

What more could I have done for you
that I have not done?
I planted you, my chosen and fairest vineyard,
I made you the branches of my vine;
but when I was thirsty, you gave me vinegar to drink,
and pierced with a spear the side of your Saviour.

[JohnFH]

Thanks, Doug. I checked and it's true: the "Proposed Book of common Prayer" of the Episcopalian Church (1977) omits the reproaches altogether.

The Anglican revision is richer in metaphor and more faithful to scriptural wording than is the United Methodist revision. The equivalent UM reproaches read as follows:

1) O my people, O my Church, what have I done to you, or in what have I offended you? I led you forth from the land of Egypt and delivered you by the waters of baptism, but you have prepared a cross for your Savior.

(Response)Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal One, have mercy upon us.

2) I led you through the desert forty years and fed you with manna; I brought you through times of persecution and of renewal and gave you my body, the bread of heaven; but you have prepared a cross for your Savior. R

3) I made you branches of my vineyard and gave you the water of salvation, but when I was thirsty you gave me vinegar and gall and pierced with a spear the side of your Savior. R

But is there an Anglican equivalent to UM's ninth petition:

9) I grafted you into the tree of my chosen people Israel, but you turned on them with persecution and mass murder. I made you joint heirs with them of my covenants, but you made them scapegoats for your own guilt. R

[Bob MacDonald]

We use various versions of this prayer - Canadian Anglican.

Thanks for the post - right on with respect to how I think even the psalmist must be interpreted. I was tempted to hear 'ki-tov' all the way through

[Kevin P. Edgecomb]

In context in the Eastern Orthodox usage, the troparia/reproaches aren't directed at the Jews, but describe the communal human sin that's led to the Pascha. Relatedly, the Church isn't depicted in the liturgy as a replacement or successor to Israel, but a continuation: it is Israel, and everything done by Israel was/is also done by us. Every one of us, and all of us together, prepares the Cross. The only finger-pointing is back at oneself.

[JohnFH]

Personally, I have no doubt that mature Christians understand the liturgy as you suggest.

However, the wording I have in front of me, from Bergren's article (he appears to be quoting from Tarschnivili's edition of the Georgian version of a Kanonarian - actually, I know you know the edition well) traffics in replacement theology. In the abstract, one might argue that such has New Testament warrant, and furthermore, is simply following the gospel narrative, but the fact is, replacement theology's appearance in the troparia gives them a triumphalist ring that does not match their use as an instrument of self-reproach:

3# Thus says the Lord to the Jews, "My people, in what have I saddened you? Or in what have I troubled you? I gave light to your blind and I raised up the paralytic lying on his bed. For manna you offered me gall, for water vinegar, for my love you nailed me to a cross. Now I will call the nations and they will praise me, and I will give them eternal life."

#8 When impious ones nailed you to a cross, King of glory, you cried out to them, "In what have I grieved you or in what way have I provoked your wrath? Before me who delivered you from tribulation? Now why do you pay me back evil for good? In place of the pillar of fire, you nailed me to a cross; for the cloud of light, you dug me a tomb; in place of manna, you gave me gall to drink; in place of water, vinegar. Now I call the nations and they will praise me with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

According to Bergren, the first attestation of first person speech by Jesus reproaching the Jews from the cross is the Gospel of Bartholomew and 5 Ezra (neither of which, I have to say, are among my favorite bed-time reading).

For clarity's sake, perhaps it should also be stated that in the Talmud and elsewhere, once Christianity became oppressive towards Judaism, the hope became explicit that the tables would be turned with Messiah's coming. Jacob=Israel, and Esau=Edom=Rome=Christianity. Replacement theology, in other words, works both ways. Jacob Neusner has written about this.

What this is really about is the ability to distinguish between the cry of the oppressed and the vaunt of an oppressor, on the one hand, and the gift of repentance (including the possibility of self-reproach) and a proclivity for self-satisfaction, on the other. Replacement eschatology in the NT and the Talmud is concomitant with the cry of a persecuted group; in post-Constantinian Christianity, it becomes triumphalistic.

[Kevin P. Edgecomb]

Polemic will always exist when there are two who disagree and care strongly for what they hold dear. It can be elided, or take a respectful tone, or even take a tone of baffled outrage, as the emotional and colorful Byzantine hymnography took to such powerful effect.

Still, the wider context of the "Reproaches" and where they lead is more important than the bare text of any or all of them together. In the current Byzantine Liturgy for Holy Week, they appear as the 12th Antiphon of Matins for Holy Friday (the service held Thursday evening, that of the twelve Gospel readings), and they are followed by the kathisma, which is the summary statement of the antiphons, after which the service proceeds to the Fifth Gospel Reading:
Thus says the Lord to the Judeans: "O My people, what have I done to you, or wherein have I wearied you? To your blind I gave light; your lepers I cleansed; your paralytic I raised up. O My people; what have I done for you, and how have you recompensed Me? Instead of manna, gall; instead of water, vinegar; instead of loving Me, you nailed Me to the Cross. No longer will I endure; I will call to Me the Nations, and they will glorify Me, together with the Father and the Spirit; and I will grant to them eternal Life."

Today the veil of the Temple is rent in two, as a reproof to the lawless; and the sun hides its own rays, beholding the Master on the Cross.

The company of Apostles calls out to you, "O Law-givers of Israel, Judeans, and Pharisees; behold the Temple, which you have destroyed; behold the Lamb, which you have crucified. You have delivered Him to the tomb, but by His own power He has arisen. Deceive not yourselves, O Judeans, for in the sea He save, and in the desert He fed. He is the Life, and Light, and Peace of the world."

Glory to....

Hail! Gateway of the King of Glory, through which only the Most High has passed, and again left sealed, for the salvation of our souls.

[The kathisma:]
When You, O God, stood before Caiaphas, and though being the Judge, You were given over to Pilate, the Heavenly Powers were shaken with fear. Then lifted up on the Wood between two robbers, You the sinless one were numbered with the transgressors, in order to save mankind. O Most forbearing Lord, glory to You.

Note that in the end, despite disparaging the Judeans' role in the crucifixion and the subsequent (incomprehensible, to the writers of these hymns) refusal of the Jews to accept Christ as their Messiah and God, it is all mankind to be saved, not just the gentiles. Since people experience these hymns sequentially and are formed by them in that manner, this greater context can't be ignored, as it turns the minds of the people back to the universality of both responsibility (notice both Caiaphas and Pilate, the exemplars of Israel and the Gentiles in this greater service) and salvation ("in order to save mankind" -- not just the gentiles, not "not the Jews," but "mankind," TON ANQRWPON. This is the formative Eastern context of these "reproaches" (they're not called that of course, and the antiophon is quite different from the Latin originally under discussion).

Notice even in the Tarchnischvili Georgian texts that the antiphon is followed by Psalm 3, Glory, etc, a repeat of the antiphon and then a concluding hymn which began "All creatures are released from fear...". Again, it's back to universal.

There was, it seems clear, an attempt made in the course of the centuries to situate the "reproaches" and other anti-Jewish statements in a context where the focus is widened immediately afterward, so that an exclusion of the Jews from salvation is not countenanced theologically (which it is not!), any more than the exclusion of any other nation would be, even despite the complaints against them.

And, lastly, as I intimated earlier, when hearing all these things, because of their situation in such universalistic settings of responsibility/sin and salvation/blessing, it is virtually impossible not to hear all of it as being directed at each and every one of us there, so that we who are present become the "we" of the hymns, as intended, and to be afflicted with great contrition.

[JohnFH]

Thanks, Kevin. That was very eloquent. I discern the voice of a faithful pastor.

[Kevin P. Edgecomb]

Flattery may not get you everywhere, but it will get you a lap around my prayer rope!