The Caryatid Set Free: Sermon for Proper 16C

The first time I eve saw her was in Room 19 of the British Museum, a tentative foot stepping forward. A basket was atop her head, supposedly in imitation of the maidens of Sparta who would dance with baskets on their heads in honor of the goddess “Artemis of the Walnut Tree,” Artemis Karyatis. So these sculptures were called “caryatids.”

Once she and her sisters had stood in formation on the Acropolis. In Greek and Roman architecture these slender maidens were given the job of holding up enormous weights and bearing up under incredible force and pressure as a cross between engineering necessity and artistic detail. Together, they bore the weight of the stone roof of this enormous temple and other huge stone structures. The baskets on their heads served as capitals, and their bodies, draped in graceful tunics called peplos, served as pillars. Six of them stood in formation originally at the Erechtheion.

The idea of depicting young women as bearing this incredibly heavy weight offended me at first sight—it reminded me of the typical instruction to young women in cultures everywhere to “Sit still, shut, up, and look pretty.” From a practical standpoint, it seemed delusional to expect anyone so delicate to bear such weight on top of their heads and slender spines-- especially with such apparent ease, their perfect posture denying the laws of gravity and physics.

More than 2000 years later, the great French sculptor Auguste Rodin created a sculpture protesting the impossibility of the caryatid’s task. His work was entitled Fallen Caryatid Carrying Her Stone. And when you know that he pulled and expanded her figure from a detail in an earlier work of art known as The Gates of Hell, looking upon her becomes even more poignant.

Rodin reveals the pathos and the hidden strength in his sculpture. The maiden has crumpled under the weight she has been expected to carry. She is seated, her head turned to one side resting upon her crossed arms as her left hand still cradles her stone as it rests on the curve of her shoulder and neck. Her feet are both still touching the ground, making it clear that eventually her body was driven straight down by the weight she carried, leaving her to rest upon her hips. Her tunic has fallen off her shoulder and lies pooled upon the one leg bent along the ground.

And her delicate face…. Eyes downcast in exhaustion, sorrow, and heartbreak. She wearily rests against her right wrist crossed over her left bicep. Her shape has been remade from a stately column to a crumpled, box-like frame. Yet she steadfastly, diligently refuses to put down her stone. Perhaps out of shame. Perhaps out of determination that she will soon gather the strength to rise again and resume her lonely duty.

Her unlined, youthful face suggests this is the first time she has fallen—and that she may have fallen, but she has not been crushed. She is bent by the load she has been expected to bear, and yet she is never broken. The Fallen Caryatid is a therefore nonetheless a depiction of the darkness before the dawn, of the reserves that lie beneath the surface of one who once danced as lightly as a shadow when asked only to bear a basket, but who is determined to never surrender when asked to do the impossible.

In my mind, I guess I always associated that fallen caryatid of Rodin’s with that lonely caryatid in the British Museum, missing her five sisters. Caryatids are not meant to be alone. There is absolutely no way they can bear their terrible loads, unless the force, the pressure, the weight is shared. I think of that fallen caryatid, and I think there is another point in Rodin’s: with enough kindred to bear the collective weight, she would never have collapsed. Six caryatids upheld the roof of the Erechtheion. One, alone, cannot.

Most of us have experienced weights too heavy for us to bear alone, burdens that nearly bend us double. And yet, dutifully, we too often refuse to put down our stone, or to seek help to share the load.

In last Sunday’s gospel from Luke 13:10-17, Jesus spots a woman bent double by an unknown weight or source of suffering she has been carrying for 18 years. The fact that the people know how long she has been unable to stand up shows that they have observed her suffering for all that time. And yet no help or cure has been found to help this poor woman find relief. Perhaps her pain and suffering have rendered her invisible—or have caused others to look away because they don’t know what to say, or do, or they see in her situation their own worst fears of illness and mortality brought to life. They perhaps have chosen to look away, even though, like the fallen caryatid, her burden is visible and tragic. And so she has persevered simply because she must, for these 18 long years.

She has been carrying on, refusing to be crushed by her burden, just like the fallen caryatid of Rodin’s.

In our gospel, Jesus looks across the synagogue and sees that unfortunate woman bearing her burden with quiet determination. He sees her, sees the real person disguised by the burden she carries. He sees her as a “daughter of Abraham,” worthy of dignity and relief. And he heals her and relieves of her burden.

Jesus sees us, too, and is our companion and comfort in times of suffering and stress. Some of the burdens that try to bend us double—loneliness, a feeling of disconnection, anxiety, hopelessness—can be alleviated by Christ, especially in the Body of Christ in the world, in his disciples joining together and themselves “seeing” and acknowledging the needs of each other, and of the greater world around us, and joyfully responding to our obligation as people of faith to not just see, but respond, as Jesus does. Others of those burdens can be alleviated by the Body of Christ advocating in the world against injustice, poverty, homelessness, war, and racism. That’s where we, as the Body of Christ, join in his healing, transforming mission.

What burdens have you carried that tried to bend you double? Where do you see others suffering?

Let’s look for ways to share the load, for the sake of each other, and in the name of Jesus.

Preached at the 505 on October 20, 2022 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.