Today's match-up is why Lent Madness can sometimes resemble the theater of the absurd. The Scriptural figure Joseph of Armimathea, who asked Pilate for Jesus' body in order to give him a proper burial, takes on Anna Cooper, African-American feminist, writer, and academic. The good news? Lent Madness returns after taking a sabbath on the First Sunday in Lent.
Over the weekend, as Tim was singing The Great Litany in procession, Scott shared some additional Lenten devotional resources offered by Forward Movement (shockingly, Lent Madness isn't everyone's sole Lenten discipline). The mysterious Maple Anglican also released his Week One Update video which recapped the first three match-ups and previewed this week's battles.
And now? More Madness!
Joseph of Arimathea
The patron saint of funeral directors, morticians, and undertakers, Joseph of Arimathea has a curious reputation. He appears in all four gospels, doing essentially the same thing: going to Pilate to ask for Jesus’ body in order to provide for his burial. Presented as a person of high status by each evangelist, his portrait shifts slightly in each version. He’s a kind of Rorschach test for a character we tend to think of as “not Jesus’ type:” a wealthy, well-connected religious leader.
In Matthew, he’s noted as a rich man and a disciple of Jesus. In Mark, he’s “a respected member of the council” who “went boldly to Pilate.” In Luke, he is “a good and righteous man,” a member of the council who had not agreed with the plan to kill Jesus. And in John, he’s a secret disciple for “fear of the Jews.” It’s like the synoptic gospels are saying, “Yeah, he’s on the council that killed Jesus, but he’s really a good guy, you know?” John can’t seem to get over his distaste.
John cannot deny, however, that after Jesus was abandoned at his crucifixion, Joseph showed up and went in person to the very man who executed Jesus and asked for the body. Handling the corpse would render Joseph ritually unclean for the Passover (Numbers 19:11-13).
Instead, Joseph fulfilled another law. Deuteronomy 21:22-24 says, “When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse.”
Joseph is an interesting (and typically Jesus-like) case study about keeping the Law: is it more important to be clean and to take part in religious rituals or to show love and compassion to the least among us? Joseph’s choice shows he understood the essential truth of Jesus’ teaching.
After the burial, Joseph disappears from scripture. According to one legend, he brought the Holy Grail to England. In fact, Elizabeth I made use of Joseph’s supposed trip to support Anglicanism. After all, the Roman bishops “testifieth Joseph of Arimathea to be the first preacher of the word of God within our realms.” Therefore, the Roman Church couldn’t have been the first and only established church in England, could it?
Collect for Joseph of Arimathea
Merciful God, whose servant Joseph of Arimathaea with reverence and godly fear prepared the body of our Lord and Savior for burial, and laid it in his own tomb: Grant to us, your faithful people, grace and courage to love and serve Jesus with sincere devotion all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Anna Julia Haywood Cooper
Anna Julia Haywood Cooper was one of the first feminists of the twentieth century and a tireless advocate for “neglected people,” in particular, African American women. Born in 1858 as the daughter of an enslaved African woman and a white man, likely her master, Anna transcended the limitations of slavery and the post-Civil War’s Reconstruction. She attended St. Augustine’s Normal & Technical Institute—now St. Augustine’s College—in Raleigh, North Carolina. She later studied at Oberlin College and graduated in 1884 with a bachelor’s degree and in 1887 with a master’s in mathematics. While at St. Augustine’s, Anna met and married her husband George Cooper, who was preparing for the priesthood. Although he died two years after they married, Cooper pressed forward with her education and career because of her desire to foster the full inclusion of black women in civic life.
Anna’s passionate belief in the power of education to transform lives led her to serve as a teacher and principal at M Street High School, the only all-black school in Washington, D.C. When her superintendent told Cooper that she should focus on teaching trades to her students instead of science, math, and literature, Cooper unabashedly defied his orders and continued with her original plans. As a result of her firm resolve, M Street’s graduates attended some of the nation’s most prestigious colleges and universities during a time when such opportunities were limited for women and people of color.
Cooper wrote A Voice from the South, in which she argued that black women had a unique voice about the experience of oppression and criticized educational, social, and civic advancements that only favored black men. At the heart of Cooper’s work was a firm belief in the potential of every human being. Never one to slow down, in 1915, Cooper adopted five children left orphaned, and in 1925, at the age of sixty-five she earned her doctorate in history from the University of Paris. Cooper died in 1964; she was 105 years old.
In 2009, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp in her honor. Pages 26-27 of all United States passports quote Anna Julia Haywood Cooper’s passionate beliefs about equality and freedom for all: “The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party, or a class—it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.” Thus it is possible to meditate on Lent Madness while waiting in slow-moving immigration lines when you return to the United States from vacationing elsewhere.
Collect for Anna Julia Haywood Cooper
Almighty God, you inspired your servant Anna Julia Haywood Cooper with the love of learning and the skill of teaching: Enlighten us more and more through the discipline of learning, and deepen our commitment to the education of all your children; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-- Maria Kane
Vote!
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206 comments on “Joseph of Arimathea vs. Anna Cooper”
Anna Julia Cooper seems to have been an amazing woman and a visionary-an inspiration on many fronts. There is, however, no mention of any religious devotion. I consider her a fine example of humanity, but see no evidence of her saintliness
What a choice! I'm going with Joseph, but I'm so glad to know about Anna!
She's on pages 24-25 in my passport - yes, of course I went and checked!
J.B., I understand and sympathize. I have a tough enough time choosing between apples and apples, and the time warp between various "competitors" makes LM especially challenging. When the choice becomes especially tough, I think about what C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity ((New York: Touchstone, 1996, pp 190-191): "How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints." (www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/850)
not on mine. mine expires in jan of 2015....
She's on page 26 and 27 of mine.
Ditto
I voted for Anna. Joseph was undoubtedly brave and hugely significant, but I suspect that then as now wealth and privilege provide some protection for those going against societal norms. Anna overcame huge disadvantage and worked tirelessly in the service of others. I am very thankful for the opportunity to learn about an amazing woman. “The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party, or a class—it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.”
My heart is drawn to Joseph for his compassion and example to all who minister in times of death. But Anna, as a force in my native Washington, D.C., and a model for those of us in educational ministries AND hoping to keep giving till 105(!), gets my vote today.
Having served in hospice care, I was going to vote for J of A, but I changed my mind when rereading the bios. I thought Anna Julia Haywood Cooper's story deserved some attention. Yet, I would like to hear about how here faith and sense of vocation intertwined. Yes, she was married to a priest and worked at religious institutions. "Her life was distinguished by her vocation as an educator and a political, social and community activist," says the Episcopal Archives. Still, I would love to learn more about her faith. I find lots of writings about her good works online, but what motivated her? How did she understand her work? After all, it isn't our works that make us saints. I would want to learn more if I were to vote for her again. Of course, if she does win, she'll be up against Bach, a good Lutheran. He will get my vote, so perhaps this is a moot point as far as Lent Madness goes. For my own education, can anyone point me to anything sharing about her faith life - available on or off line? It doesn't sound like "A Voice from the South" does that from what I found.
I'm assuming Bach will move forward! (Go, Lutherans!)
One does not have to be Lutheran to love Bach. This life-long Episcopalian is already humming and listening to his work.
Me, too! His work is universally inspiring.
This was a tough one, but I went with Anna. Go Anna!!!!
Very hard choice, but in the context of Lent and the 2-millennia tradition of scripture, I thought it important to re-contextualize Joseph; what he did was all the things above, but he also tends to be 'whitewashed' rather than seen in his full, fully human complexity as a man who suffered conflicts between 'right' and 'expedient.' He's a good reminder for all of us on those occasions when...
Yes, a hard choice. My head argued for Cooper - what an extraordinary moral example, well worth considering and imitating. My heart was soft for Joseph. It has of late discovered the "lesser characters" of the Gospels and fallen unabashedly in love. Rightly or wrongly, it suspects that the early followers of the resurrected ones remembered by name those who gave their all to Christ and the Church. And so it is that I voted for Joseph, but am glad to have learned more about Anna. Thank you, Laura, for the tidbit about Joseph coming to England - I am sure that someday I will sneak it into a sermon.
Sometimes I wonder if these match ups are the work of the evil one to sow division and discord! I'm finding I have to make my choices based not only whom I admire, but on those in whose lives I can see a bit of my story and who challenge me as well. I think Episcopalians of many stripes embody the compassion of Joseph very well, and has for centuries when it comes to burial, but I think Anna Cooper continues to call to us to be our better selves in the realities of today's world.
This was a no-brainer for me. Hands down, Anna! What a wonderful life, story, witness and role model. Had not heard of her, but her story blessed me today and touched my social work heart.
The full text of Cooper's Voice from the South is available online at docsouth.unc.edu. Those who wonder about her Christian vocation/contribution etc might want to take a deeper look, but here are a few samples of her thought & faith:
"We look forward with hope and trust that the same God whose guiding hand led our fathers through and out of the gall and bitterness of oppression, will still lead and direct their children, to the honor of His name, and for their ultimate salvation."
"We need men and women who do not exhaust their genius splitting hairs on aristocratic distinctions and thanking God they are not as others; but earnest, unselfish souls, who can go into the highways and byways, lifting up and leading, advising and encouraging with the truly catholic benevolence of the Gospel of Christ.
"As Church workers we must confess our path of duty is less obvious; or rather our ability to adapt our machinery to our conception of the peculiar exigencies of this work as taught by experience and our own consciousness of the needs of the Negro, is as yet not demonstrable. Flexibility and aggressiveness are not such strong characteristics of the Church to-day as in the Dark Ages.
"As a Mission field for the Church the Southern Negro is in some aspects most promising; in others, perplexing. Aliens neither in language and customs, nor in associations and sympathies, naturally of deeply rooted religious instincts and taking most readily and kindly to the worship and teachings of the Church, surely the task of proselytizing the American Negro is infinitely less formidable than that which confronted the Church in the Barbarians of Europe."
"'Except ye become as little children' is not a pious precept, but an inexorable law of the universe. God's kingdoms are all sealed to the seedy, moss-grown mind of self-satisfied maturity. Only the little child in spirit, the simple, receptive, educable mind can enter."
"The desire for quick returns and large profits tempts capital ofttimes into unsanitary, well nigh inhuman investments,--tenement tinder boxes, stifling, stunting, sickening alleys and pestiferous slums; regular rents, no waiting, large percentages,--rich coffers coined out of the life-blood of human bodies and souls. Men and women herded together like cattle, breathing in malaria and typhus from an atmosphere seething with moral as well as physical impurity, revelling in vice as their native habitat and then, to drown the whisperings of their higher consciousness and effectually to hush the yearnings and accusations within, flying to narcotics and opiates-- rum, tobacco, opium, binding hand and foot, body and soul, till the proper image of God is transformed into a fit associate for demons,-- a besotted, enervated, idiotic wreck, or else a monster of wickedness terrible and destructive."
Thanks for this - her thoughts in her own words. If she advances we'll get to hear more but in case she doesn't...
KEW -- thank you so much for expanding on Anna. It makes the vote tougher, but that I grumpily admit is how it should be. And "seedy, moss-grown mind of self-satisfied maturity" is going to stick with me for a long time, whoever 'wins' today's contest!
Thanks. I figured it was out there, and I appreciate the shortcut for my search.
WOW! "We need men and women who do not exhaust their genius splitting hairs on aristocratic distinctions and thanking God they are not as others; but earnest, unselfish souls, who can go into the highways and byways, lifting up and leading, advising and encouraging with the truly catholic benevolence of the Gospel of Christ." That's a great code for Vestries!!
Thanks for finding this. I think perhaps I need to discover more about this lady!
Thank you for finding this... Lent Madness pushes us forward to find more when thoughtful questions are raised. I dug deeper but didn't find these answers.
I love to see how each person on our list "lived their mission".
thank you
I am now repenting of my seedy, moss-grown mind. Good Lord, deliver us!
Joseph is an important figure in Christianity, but all we know of him is one act (though a very significant one). I voted for Anna because she dedicated her whole life to helping people. Yes, her bio does not mention faith much, but you see faith by the way someone leads their life. I think 105 years of helping her fellow man counts more than one courageous, though spiritually important, action.
Agreed. She showed her faith over and over again against many odds. Anna gets my vote!
An easy choice for me. We only know of one thing that Joseph may have gotten right. But Anna has a documented lifetime of achievement. Anna, hands down.
Thanks Kew for the additional information on Anna Cooper (my vote). This has been a pairing that stretched my thinking, especially after many years of anti-racism training, etc., I was really not particularly familiar with Cooper -- a real learning experience!
Brutal! One of the toughest match-ups I can remember in several years of LM. I think J of A and Anna both deserve to advance. Perhaps there'll be a tie? I wonder if that would that be a first for LM?
I am very concerned about a trend here. A contemporary (relatively speaking) who reflects contemporary values and that we can all relate to is AGAIN paired with an ancient of the Church. Is this the pattern for the rest of Lent Madness? Can't we have at least just a little more of apples to apples and oranges to oranges (e.g. Gregory the Great and Joseph of Arimathea) until we get deeper into the elimination rounds? I know I am not expressing myself well, much less clearly articulating the pattern that I'm afraid seems to be emerging, but my heart really is troubled...
This is why it's called Lent "Madness," JB. Of course the whole idea of saints competing against one another is ridiculous and no one really wins or loses. It's about learning, formation, and inspiration. Hope some perspective helps.
Of course it's Madness, but there's also Method to it. Did you randomly pick the saints in each round?
I consider it akin to predicting the #8 vs. #9 matchups in that other Madness bracket...
All hail our SEC overlords!
Shhhhh!!! They just want your page views, not your feedback!
Anna for sure. A real saint. Joseph may or may not have even existed.
All 4 Gospels attest to him, Ann. Pretty clear he was a real guy.
Joseph's acts are documented in scripture; so are Jesus'. That can't be the proof of non-existence or lack of spiritual value!
Agree with the "hard choice" comments. Had never realized that Joseph's kindness would make him ritually unclean and possibly reveal his support for one considered a criminal. Voted for him while admiring Anna.
My passport doesn't have Ms. Cooper's quote, but it's about to expire. A friend's newer one has the quotation, though, which we discovered while waiting in line to go through the Mexico/US border checkpoint.
I vote for Anna! Her life shows faithfulness to justice and love;reminds me of Micah 6:8" what does the Lord require of you but to do justice,to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Thanks be to God for those who risk their lives in the face of evil and for those who lift the Body of Christ...both for Joseph who lifted the dead body of our Lord... and for Anna who lifted the living Body of Christ, i.e., the people of God. Both set an example; Anna's is one we can actually follow.
I respectfully see it differently - I think both saints offer examples we can follow. How many times has your heart been led to do the right thing in spite of societies dictates? And, let's make everyone uncomfortable here - how many times have you not done so? Joseph cut himself off from a religious holy day as an "important" man, shall we say. I find it is MUCH harder for those in places of power to give up or possibly lose that power and authority (deserved or not) to do a humble thing like taking the body of a man who had just been hung as a criminal by his own people. A powerful man risking his place in society for his beliefs is a powerful witness. Yes, I am amazed at the accomplishments and life of Anna and her example. I admire both of the human beings and their bravery and witness. Just because J of A is from long ago does not make his contribution any less valuable. I don't feel like I'm expressing myself very well...and think I will blame in on the springing forward 🙂 J of A, all the way!
Beautifully put, Gwin.
Just to stir the pot a bit...where was
Joseph during the trial...when being brave enough to speak up could have made a difference? AND since it was only used for three days...it was just a loan, right? LOL
Went with Anna because of a lot of the reasons already mentioned. Sorry, Joe.
Katherine, sorry but it can't work that way. Jesus HAD to die for our sins. Joseph of Aramithea could not have helped him.
Hi guys
My email does not include a "voting" mechanism. Is it just because you hate me or is it because you want to check whether I have the internet knowledge to click on the correct link? 🙁 I can fool you: I know about the link and get to vote regardless!! 🙂
And the voting gets tougher!
Anna was a pioneer in fighting for equality in education for women and for equality for opportunities offered to people of all races. But this is Lent Madness and I see Joseph as someone who did more for people of faith -- God put him in a place to take care of His son - and Joseph did just that, and by his actions, we have Jesus' rising -- our Easter celebration. I'm for Joseph on this one
This was tough. My inclination was to vote for Anna Cooper, however since a friend discovered on Ancestry.com that she is a direct descendant of Joseph of Arimathea, I gave him the nod today.
Vert hard decision. But Joseph was the person who brought Christianity to England and establish a tradition outside of the Roman Church in the British Isles.
I voted for Joseph of Arimathea and since Mary Ann and Martha expressed it so well, will not say anymore. I am looking at an icon of Christ's Descent from the Cross. Jesus is in the arms of Mary with the arm of Joseph assisting, women to the left and right, probably Mary or Martha and Mary Magdalene; Apostle John kissing the hand of Jesus and Nicodemus at His feet. It is a poignant scene and Joseph's role was significant.
All honor to Joseph of Arimathea, whom I have loved, revered, and admired since I heard about him at the beginning of my life as an Episcopalian. Nevertheless, he has been loved, honored, revered, and admired for centuries, and I think it's time that Anna Cooper became know and regarded similarly as well. I particularly like that she stuck to the basics, teaching math and literature instead of adopting a vo-tech curriculum. I also like that she opposed changes that benefitted only African American men but not women. She also adopted five children who otherwise might not have had a home. Therefore, she gets my vote. Again, a tough choice, but they're the best in this kind of competition.
Hmmm. Not much competition here. Much as I enjoy the "brought Christianity to Britain" mythology.