Good Friday 2017, West Camel
The ones we fear, we crucify.
The ones we fear because they’re different from us, we crucify.
Who wear different clothes, who pray different ways, who hold different views - we fear, we crucify.
The ones we fear because they challenge us, we crucify.
Who question our ways, who test our laws, who bend our rules, who do not conform - we fear, we crucify.
The ones we fear because they show us in a bad light, we crucify.
Whose giving ways reveal our grasping ways, whose generous ways reveal our selfish ways, whose healing ways show up our harmful ways, who in our true and trembling humanity - we fear, we crucify.
You know, it is time we stopped blaming God for the Crucifixion.
For too long we’ve been saying that it was to satisfy an angry God that Jesus was crucified.
But nowhere in the Crucifixion story do we see God angry. Far from being vengeful, wrathful, the God we’re shown in the Gospels is a loving Father sharing his dear Son’s agony. The God Jesus reveals at the Crucifixion is a God who would rather die than kill his enemies.[1]
It’s not God’s anger but the anger of Pilate, fearful of being shown in a bad light, which crucifies Jesus.
It’s not God’s wrath but the wrath of Caiaphas, fearful of Jesus’ challenges to his hypocritical ways, which sent him to the cross.
It’s not God’s vengeance but the vengeance of the crowds, whipped up in their fear of a man who dared to do things differently, which justified his lynching.
The Crucifixion is a story about how we humans condemn those who are different from us, punish those who challenge us, revenge those who show us in a bad light.
It is time we stopped blaming God for the Crucifixion, and started facing those fears of ours which lead us to crucify others.
We live in a fearful age. With our fears often whipped up by an all-pervading media, we ‘tend to be most preoccupied with those dangers that are among the least likely to cause us harm, while we ignore the problems that are hurting the greatest number of people.We suffer from a confusion between true threats and imagined threats.’ [2]
Which means we strike out against single mothers; we cross the road to avoid teenage skateboarders; we vilify the woman wearing the hijab; we condemn the international aid budget and welfare close to home. All the while ignoring our addictions to poisonous food, planet-destroying fuel, the nuclear threat, and a deity who we have created who is quick to judge, and keen to send those we fear to damnation.
We fear the unknown - we fear those innocent others simply because we do not know them; to protect ourselves from the largely imaginary threats they pose, we separate ourselves from them, and live life in ever-decreasing circles of people just like us.
Jesus showed a way of love which overcomes fear. Jesus drew to himself a community of people of many different backgrounds, people who ordinarily would be isolated from each other in fear. When Jesus said ‘the poor will always be with you’ he did so in the house of a leper; the people there ranged from the highest religious leaders to the poor woman who anointed his feet with perfume. When he said ‘the poor will always be with you’ he meant that if you want to overcome your fears of others and live a life of love then you’ll spend lots of good time in the company of the poor. [3]
It’s like Gandhi said last century, whenever people asked him if he was a Christian. “Ask the poor. They will tell you who the Christians are.” Or Mother Teresa: “It is fashionable to talk about the poor. Unfortunately it is not fashionable to talk with them.” [4]
Jesus’ way of love invites us into fellowship with those who are different from us, those whose ways of looking at things challenge us, those whose spirit may show us in a bad light. It is a fellowship where ignorance gives way to understanding, where fear fades as friendship grows.
“It is a beautiful thing when folks in poverty are no longer just a mission project but become genuine friends and family with whom we laugh, cry, dream and struggle,” says the Christian activist Shane Claiborne. [5]
Of course, such a fellowship challenges us to the core. To sit with those whose perspectives on life are radically different from our own is to open ourselves to changing our ways. To learn about the self-sacrificial generosity of the poor (like the woman who poured away her life savings on the feet of Jesus) is to see ourselves by comparison, in a bad light. To hear talk of daring to do things differently, of breaking out of the settled system of our economics, our religion and our family, is to demand we change fundamentally.
Such is the way of Christ.
It is a way which draws so many people to him, attracted to join in this wonderful fellowship of all. It is of course, foolishness to those who can’t see it. And fear-inducing to those who feel threatened by it.
This way of love is not sentimentality but the dreadful kind of love which Dorothy Day spoke of, saying that it is such a harsh and dreadful thing to ask of us, but that it’s the only answer. The only thing harder than hatred is love. The only thing harder than war is peace. The only thing that takes more work, tears, and sweat than division is reconciliation. But what more beautiful things could we devote our lives to? Until the courage that we have for peace surpasses the courage that we have for war, violence will continue to triumph, and imperial execution rather than divine resurrection will have the final word. [6]
So it is time we stopped blaming God for the Crucifixion, and started facing those fears of ours which lead us to crucify others. It’s time we stopped preferring to teach others lessons of justice rather than lessons of love. [7]
It is time we remembered what led Jesus to Calvary - and time to decide how we will respond.
Will we cling on to our wrathful ways, like Pilate, Caiphas and their crowds, continuing to crucify those we fear; or will we put our fears aside to walk the way of Jesus, deeper into a fellowship of humanity which crosses all boundaries, transcends all barriers in its way of love.
Love or fear. This is the choice he offers us as we stand today at the foot of his Cross.
Notes
[1] Brian Zahnd, A Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor’s Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace.
[2] Eula Biss, Confessions of a reluctant gentrifier. Guardian, 11 April 2017. Referencing Barry Glassner, The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things: Crime, Drugs, Minorities, Teen Moms, Killer Kids, Mutant Microbes, Plane Crashes, Road Rage, & So Much More.
[3] Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, p.151
[4] Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, p.151
[5] Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, p.109
[6] Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, p.271
[7] Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, p.270
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