Wandering the streets of Rome is a rather magical experience. Traversing the small side streets while sidestepping scooters flying by, you approach each intersection with some anticipation. Frequently you encounter a piazza, a small oasis of rest in the midst of the bustling city or perhaps you stumble upon a church whose interior artwork would rival any museum in the United States. Of course, Jen and I did the obligatory visits to the Coliseum and other historic buildings but it was the experience of wandering the streets that was the true treasure.
Yet, while our hearts were in exploring the city, we knew that we had to take a visit to the Vatican, if nothing else to check it off the bucket list. So we set out on our second day to head over to the Vatican taking time to enjoy the Spanish Steps and the Piazza del Popolo on the way. We were excited to see that there was no line to get in and hoped that we would be well on our way to a peaceful journey through the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately, peaceful was not what we encountered.
It wasn't necessarily the tour groups per se that was disturbing, although they did not help, but as we entered the Vatican we were assaulted by all sorts of stimuli, most rather unpleasant. The first for me was the Egyptian and Greek antiquities, why does the Vatican need these historic treasures for they held no religious value? The presence of such treasures had a feeling of conquest, these treasures were the spoils. But far worse was on the way.
As we made our way through the corridors of the Vatican, ever increasing our pace to just get ahead of the tours, I noticed that in all of the artwork there was something missing, namely the Gospel. Oh, there were plenty of paintings of the Crucifixion or the Blessed Mary with Babe, but not so much the Resurrection or healing stories found in scripture. This sense of emptiness was pervasive and depressing for me, for while the Vatican is an easy target, it spoke of the present crisis on the church, where is the Gospel? Where is the sense of new life or of the Kingdom? It is almost as if we in the church have stopped at the Crucifixion and the issue of sin and judgment.
The Crucifixion, however, was not an end point, it was a new beginning. The Crucifixion was an event that lead to the Resurrection and it is the Resurrection that defines God's Grace. So it is the Resurrection that we are called in live, in this new life. Yet we in the church have our own difficulty of living this new life, we are too accustomed to living by this world's values to live anew.
Perhaps the lesson of Rome was that the vibrant life that excited Jen and I was found in the piazzas and not in the churches. Perhaps the lesson of Rome is that life is to be lived but not by the standards of the world but lived by the example of Jesus who cherished life and sought to enrich the lives of those he encountered. Perhaps the lesson of Rome is this is what we in the church need to be doing.
