Good Friday, April 14, 2017 READINGS: Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 31; Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9; and John 18 and 19 The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are a part of one another, and all involved in one another. Thomas Merton For many people in the world, especially among the poor and oppressed, those who struggle for justice and are denied their humanity, who are seeking only to live in peace, Good Friday is a feast day, celebrated it seems, sometimes, more than Easter. The cross itself, usually with a corpus that is bloodied, grotesque, and twisted in agony, is reverenced, kissed, knelt before, and carried high. Often people have been criticized as being too devoted to this day, and not cognizant enough of the resurrection. When a farm worker overheard this comment from a visitor during their Good Friday procession through the fields and streets, sweltering in the heat, he turned to the man and said, In our poor lives, we know more about crucifixion, about lies and betrayal, about pain others inflict on us than about resurrection. Every one of us knows what power does to those who resist it. We all have good friends who have been crucified. We re still suffering and dying and hoping we will know the glory. This is liturgy that is lived still in our world and its ragged edges are all torn with hope for the exaltation of what, we fiercely believe, follows Jesus death. The Word of the Lord in the liturgy today is awful, blunt, and accusatory, filled with betrayals, lies, shame, torture, violence, fear, abandonment, and horror at what human beings do to one another. There are contrasts: power versus weakness and vulnerability; violence versus peace; betrayal versus friendship; cruelty versus compassion; hatred versus forgiveness; political and religious tyranny and collusion versus community; and dehumanization versus abiding love. It is the passion of Jesus centered on the cross. The word cruciare meaning to torment and death on the cross is jarring and terrifying. We begin with being introduced to the suffering servant of God, and the paradoxes 1 / 9 Copyright 2017, Education for Justice, a project of Center of Concern.
that will undergird all that Jesus knows in his passion and all that we will experience as those who follow him in life, suffering, and death. This human being, God in our midst, draws and repels us. We are told to look at Jesus, to behold him. See, my servant shall prosper, he shall be raised high and greatly exalted. Even as many were amazed at him so marred was his look beyond that of man, and his appearance beyond that of mortals he was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, One of those from whom men hide their faces, Spurned, and we held him in no esteem. Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away, And who would have thought any more of his destiny? (A Catechumen s Lectionary, p. 120) This is the heart of what we remember and relive in our lives today. This is the one who bears our grief, our guilt, our evil and its consequences, our humanness, our suffering, and our death in his body. It is in the body of Jesus, the victim of hate, oppression, slavery, exclusion, fear, and power that we pass through and over into life. We are baptized into the body of Christ. We promise as believers to put on Christ. As disciples, we are committed to following this suffering servant, taking up our cross and dying with him into resurrection life. There will be sufferings that come upon us in the course of our lives and there are the sufferings that we will know because of our faithfulness to Jesus Word and obedience to the will of God that Jesus teaches and lives. The passion of Jesus is the consequence of his living, his preaching, and his zeal for God s honor in spirit and truth. He is brought first before a religious court. When accused, Jesus declares that there is nothing secret about what he has taught openly to all in the synagogues and in the temple. He tells those questioning him to ask those who heard him what he has said. He is slapped by a guard and he confronts him with the words, If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me? (John 18:23). Then bound, he is taken to Caiaphas, the high priest; in the morning he is brought to Pilate. They are careful not to make themselves ritually impure by entering the praetorium, yet they accuse Jesus of criminal behavior, seeking Pilate s collusion in their sentence of death. Pilate and Jesus volley back and forth but Jesus will not be drawn into petty arguments about Jews and Romans. Pilate, frustrated, yells at Jesus, Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done? (John 18:35). That is the heart of the matter what has Jesus done? 2 / 9 Copyright 2017, Education for Justice, a project of Center of Concern.
Jesus will allow that he is a king, though not in any sense of political, militaristic power that nations subject others to: his kingdom does not belong to this world (John 18:36). Jesus kingdom is one of justice, forgiveness, mercy, care for the poor, and peace born of sharing life. Jesus words will end this conversation and tell us exactly why he is on trial and why he will be so ruthlessly killed: It is you who say I am a king. The reason I was born, the reason why I came into the world, is to testify to the truth. Anyone committed to the truth hears my voice. Truth! said Pilate, What does that mean? (A Catechumen s Lectionary, p. 120) This is the heart of the matter. Jesus not only speaks the truth. He lives it. He is The Truth, the meaning of being human. He was born, incarnated, and became flesh and blood so that we now know what it means to live, and he will die for this revelation and for being faithful to his Father s Word, no matter what the consequences. Jesus will know the power that Pilate has over him and all the victims of injustice the power of violence and destruction, oppression and despair, hate and deadly force. But his power is born of obedience and it will be the last word. This is what we stake our lives on today and try to live out in the world. We are the ones that Jesus speaks about, Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice (John 18:37). And we listen. We obey and, so, we will walk with him, all the way to crucifixion and death on the cross. Pilate will haggle with the leaders, then with the crowd, and he will be swayed by political fear for his own position. He hears the crowd s cry, If you release him, you are not a Friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar (John 19:12). He chooses to hand Jesus over to be crucified. This is where we stand today. Who do we stand with? Are we a friend to Caesar or anyone else that uses power to destroy? Or are we a friend of Jesus, The Beloved of God? In John s account there is no way of the cross. So they took Jesus, and carrying the cross himself he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha. There they crucified him (John 19:16-18). John is intent on looking at Jesus last moments and words, and what is happening with the people around him. Those who engineered the execution argue over the inscription on the cross. The soldiers carrying out the gruesome task divide up his garments and then play dice to get his woven one-piece tunic. While this is going on around him, Jesus is living through horrific pain, hanging from the wood of the cross, lifted up so that all can look upon him. But Jesus has a few last words and one more thing to do before he dies: Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, Woman, behold, your son. Then he said to the disciple, Behold, your mother. And from that hour the disciple took her into his home (John 19:25-27). 3 / 9 Copyright 2017, Education for Justice, a project of Center of Concern.
There are four who stand at his feet, looking up at him, beholding him, and staying with him to the end in John s telling. Two are named: his mother s sister, meaning she is Jesus aunt who is the wife of Clopas (thought to be one of the two on the road to Emmaus), and Mary of Magdala, one of his followers from the beginning of his mission. The other two are not named, but described. These four individuals represent four groups in John s community. Mary of Clopas would be those related to Jesus family by blood and marriage. Mary of Magdala would be those who followed him after meeting him during his preaching and traveling. His mother is never named in John s Gospel. She is all those who heard the word of God and believed it. Her last words in John s Gospel are, Do whatever he tells you (John 2:5). And the other is the disciple whom he loved. We name him John, but he is everyone who believed, obeyed, became publicly bound to Jesus, and lived in such a way that he became a beloved disciple, a friend of Jesus, who was willing to suffer with him, with others, and for others, even to die with others, as Jesus did. These are all the people of John s church who seek to live the fullness of Jesus Truth that he shared with them at his last meal his final and all-encompassing Word: I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one s life for one s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another (John 15:11-17). These are the friends of God. This is the community of beloved disciples. This is John s church. They are to care for one another as Jesus has cared for them. We are to care for one another as Jesus cares for us. We are to be the friends of God, with Jesus and love all the world together, and even, if necessary, to stand with them, and die with them in solidarity, in truth and in love. We are God s suffering servants now, living in communion with the least of our brothers and sisters, disciples bearing one another s burdens, carrying one another s crosses, and standing with each other in life and in death. Jesus is making us his community of beloved disciples, the friends of God. This community is given his mission. And it is for us to be his living, breathing, suffering, crucified, and risen presence in the world now, standing with those who know all too much of oppression and pain, and all too little of life and resurrection. We are forewarned of what lies ahead of us. 4 / 9 Copyright 2017, Education for Justice, a project of Center of Concern.
These are the words of Oscar Romero, who was standing at the altar, lifting the bread of life all of us with Jesus lifted up who was shot, martyred for his words and life, witnessing to Jesus truth of God standing with, and found most easily among, the poor and outcast among us that he chose to be close to: The mission entrusted to the church community is a hard mission: to uproot sins from history, to uproot sins from the political order, to uproot sins from the economy, to uproot sins wherever they are. What a hard task! It has to meet conflicts amid so much selfishness, so much pride, so much vanity, so many who have enthroned the reign of sin among us. The church must suffer for speaking the truth, for pointing out sin, for uprooting sin. No one wants to have a sore spot touched, and therefore a society with so many sores twitches when someone has the courage to touch it and say: You have to treat that. You have to get rid of that. Believe in Christ. Be converted. A Christian community is evangelized in order to evangelize. A light is lit in order to give light. A candle is not lit to be put under a bushel, said Christ. It is lit and put up high in order to give light. That is what a true community is like (Oscar Romero: The Violence of Love, http://bit. ly/2i1prck). Jesus is tortured; suffers rejection, scourging, humiliation, brutality, and abuse; and dies torn apart by hate and fear because he lived, because he loved, because he sided with the poor, because he spoke the truth and confronted in his body the consequences of sin, evil, injustice, violence, and death in our world and our lives. John continues with the last thing Jesus will do and say. We are told that Jesus realizes that now everything is finished. He is leaving his community of beloved disciples, his body, behind for all time and all people and he cries out: I am thirsty. He is offered a sponge soaked in common wine and hyssop. When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, It is finished. And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit (John 19:30). God thirsts for us in Jesus. Jesus thirsts with us with his last words and breath. He has thirsted for us all his life. Jesus thirsted for the honor of God, our Father, as he thirsted for justice and life ever more abundant for all, especially the poor and those dying slowly of thirst. Jesus thirsted, wanting to share his thirst with us, giving us himself as Word so that we might drink deep of his wisdom. He thirsted and gave us bread and wine, his body and blood, to drink deep of his courage and his vast compassion and pity. He thirsted and, with his last breath, bowed his head before God and us, and delivered over his Spirit to God who returned it to us to be his Body in the world. Now he has given us everything he was sent to hand over to us from his Father. The mystery of the incarnation begins anew now in us, his body, his community of beloved disciples and friends of God. Now we are to live in solidarity with all the world together. This is how Oscar Romero describes us today: A community is a group of men and women who have found the truth in Christ and in his gospel, and who follow the truth and join together to follow it more strongly. It is not just an individual conversion, but a community conversion. It is a family that believes, a group that accepts God. In the group, each one finds that the brother or sister is a source of strength and that in moments of weakness they help one another and, by loving one another and believing, they give light and example (Oscar Romero: The Violence of Love, http://bit.ly/2i1prck). 5 / 9 Copyright 2017, Education for Justice, a project of Center of Concern.
It is Good Friday and the cross lifted high is the point where heaven and earth meet in the body of Jesus, suffering and delivering over his life to his Father and to us. This is Jesus Passover and it is accomplished. But it is now entrusted to us. Jesus crucified goes before us. He leads us into solidarity and communion with all the poor, the oppressed, the victims of violence, those abandoned, broken, and dying. Today, we choose and are summoned to recommit our lives to being the friends of Jesus, making his Truth reality for all the people of earth. Jon Sobrino, S.J., once spoke of people in the world asking us where we stand right now faced with the Crucified One. He said there are only two groups of people: those who crucify and are in collusion with the torture, suffering, and death of so many, and those who seek to uncrucify, to take people down. To be among those who uncrucify, we must live together in solidarity with all those already on their way to Golgotha, already in agony and pain. And when we have done all we can to stop such terror and death, then we stand in silent witness with them as they die. Today, in looking upon Jesus pierced, hanging in death, and then walking away from the borrowed tomb where he is buried, we walk together back into our world, grieving but fierce in our belief that now we are his Body in the world. And so we take heart from these words preached to those grieving for all those being crucified among us today: Brothers and sisters, at this moment Christ the Redeemer needs human suffering, needs the pain of those holy mothers who suffer, needs the anguish of prisoners who suffer tortures. Blessed are those who are chosen to continue on earth the great injustice suffered by Christ, who keeps on saving the world. Let us turn that injustice into redemption. (Oscar Romero: The Violence of Love, http://bit.ly/2i1prck) It is Good Friday good like God alone is good. Amen. 6 / 9 Copyright 2017, Education for Justice, a project of Center of Concern.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS: TO STRETCH YOUR HEART AND SOUL Read John s account of Jesus passion slowly. As you read, connect what is happening to Jesus and how he is responding to experiences in your own life. Reflect on where these events are happening today throughout the world, in your nation, and in the Church. Who do you find yourself standing with or siding with? Do you want to change who you are identified with or do you find yourself not committing yourself at all? Why? American singer of the 1960s, Janis Joplin, once said, Not to choose is to choose. When you are finished reading, pray to The Crucified One for the courage to stand up and speak on behalf of those suffering. Each of us knows suffering in our own lives and we witness the sufferings of others around us. There are many sufferings that come with being human and are part of life: sickness, aging, personal rejection, loss, and the death of those we love. When we suffer, do we connect our pain to the cross of Jesus? Jesus is clear with his disciples, that if we are to come after him, we must deny [ourselves] and take up [our] cross daily and follow me (Luke 9:23). Reflect on how you react and respond to these moments in your life do you see yourself more closely bound to Jesus crucified and sharing your pain with his own? There is also suffering that we know because of our fidelity to the truth of the Gospel and following Jesus, though probably not to the extent that he endured. But we must have our hearts stretched to draw in and suffer with those in the world who are crucified, tortured, or simply trying to survive. We are here to bear one another s burdens and to uncrucify others. Make a litany of those you know, close to home and across the world, who are living in agony, living, and dying because of unjust structures, violence, and others ignoring them even mocking and belittling them, untouched by their pain. Then pray for compassion that moves beyond feelings to aligning yourself with others. 7 / 9 Copyright 2017, Education for Justice, a project of Center of Concern.
PRAYERS Prayer for Facing Our Own Death with Jesus When the signs of age begin to mark my body And still more when they touch my mind; When the illness that is to diminish me or carry me off Strikes from without or is born within me; When the painful moment comes In which I suddenly awaken To the fact I am losing hold of myself And absolutely passive within the great unknown Forces that have formed me; In all those dark moments, O God, Grant that I may understand that it is you, Provided only my faith is strong enough, Who are painfully parting the fibers Of my being in order to penetrate To the very marrow of my substance And bear me away within yourself. Teach me to treat my death As an act of communion. Amen. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. For Living a Public Witness with Others O God, whose Son Jesus Christ cared For the welfare of everyone And went about doing good to all: Grant us the imagination and the resolution To create in this country and throughout the world A just social order for the human family; And make us agents of your compassion to the suffering, The persecuted and the oppressed, Through the Spirit of your Son, Who shared our human sufferings, Our pattern and our redeemer, Jesus Christ. Amen. (Prayer from Norwich Cathedral in England, http://bit.ly/2ipbcky) 8/ 9 Copyright 2017, Education for Justice, a project of Center of Concern.
FAITH IN ACTION: SHIFTING INTO NEW PRACTICES This is the community of Jesus beloved disciples. They are found first at the foot of the cross, standing in solidarity with those who die unjustly and innocently, brutally severed from life by others selfishness, power, and intent. When there is no longer anything you can do to stop crucifixion, execution, and the death of those who should not be dying unjustly, and untimely, then in solidarity, we are summoned to be seen with them to be aligned with them and let them know that they are not alone in their last moments. We each walk the way of the cross and are invited to share more in Jesus suffering as a beloved disciple. But one cannot do it alone. Jesus last work was to form those who followed him even unto death death on a cross into his body, a community that would adhere together and be his presence in the world. There are at least four in the community to start the ones we just spoke about in earlier text; Mary of Clopaa, Mary of Magdala, his mother, (not named), and the beloved disciple, also not named. Then, Joseph of Arimathea, who appears to have been secretly connected and emerges when he can help, even though it puts him in danger; Nicodemus, who up to the time of Jesus death held back to the fringe now comes forward as well. So there are six. Each of us is invited to be the 7th one. We must belong to others in community. Where do you stand now in your life alone or with others, or are you consciously working to become part of a community? We avoid and shrink from doing anything in public that would draw attention to us that would, in turn, cause people to go after us. Many people act violently in the name of their religion to others who stand with victims or against those they see as a threat. We must act, even in the face of possible violence, and not wait for everyone to learn active nonviolence. In his book, Questions for Living, Archbishop Dom Helder Camara reminds us how we are to believe, act, and respond to others as we seek to stand in solidarity, Don t forget, the aim of nonviolence is to force even a violent enemy to yield. This demands imagination, courage and a great deal of solidarity. But it also means that you don t wait until your adversary has been converted to nonviolence! This is why nonviolence is something for today, not for tomorrow. Study nonviolence, as practiced by communities working for justice and peace. Take nonviolence training with others you know so that you can begin to work together with others and be converted, yourself, to a nonviolent and peaceful life. The cross is the consequence of Jesus radical obedience to love all our enemies, those we find distasteful, those we are fearful of, those we want to ignore, and those who go beyond our comfortable circle of family and friends. This is the heart of the Incarnation mystery that is now to be incorporated, incarnated in our flesh and lives as a community of beloved disciples. Argentinian priest and theologian, Augusto Zampini Davies, who works with Catholic International Development Charity (CAFOD) wrote, Truly religious radicalization, as Christ has revealed, is that of love, is to be peaceful till the end, is to speak overtly about justice regardless of the consequences, is to cry out for the liberation of the poor, is to be merciful, is to give ourselves up for others as opposed to exploiting or killing others for our own sake (NJPN North West Justice & Peace E-Bulletin, May 2016, http://bit.ly/2ipba5s). Start to align yourself more closely with a community that is already acting radically in public on behalf of others. Commit yourself to staying with them and being held accountable for being what you claim to be one of a community of beloved disciples living now for others. 9/ 9 Copyright 2017, Education for Justice, a project of Center of Concern.