Where are you?

As we follow the events of the last week of Jesus' life, the liturgies ask us: Where are you in this story? What is your role to play?

There is a powerful moment in the movie Dead Man Walking when Sister Helen Prejean first begins visiting Matthew Poncelet, who is awaiting execution for rape and murder. Prejean starts speaking of Jesus and his death. Poncelet lights up, excitedly comparing himself to Jesus as a fellow rebel who was condemned and executed by the state. Prejean looks him straight in the eye and says, "Jesus died because he loved people. All you did was cause pain." She asks him to let go of the idea that he is the star of the story, and instead accept that he is one of Christ's many betrayers. Only then can he discover the Christ in him and become part of Jesus' legacy of forgiveness and love.

We get into trouble if we think that one role in the divine drama belongs to us, identifying always with Jesus or the faithful disciples or (just as dangerously) the guilty ones who caused this pain. The Passion is full of power and grace because it invites us to experience the whole range of our humanity. At different times in our lives, we are the ones who suffer, the ones who cause suffering, the ones who stand by and do nothing, the ones who bring healing and compassion, and even the ones who rise up to new life. We are everyone in this story.

The Plow

As Holy Week approaches, I begin to feel our resistance to it. Several folks in our congregation have told me that one or more of the services makes them uncomfortable. They don't want to have their feet washed, or sit through the intense drama of Christ's Passion. I feel it too - as I finish the planning for each service, part of me wonders, Do I really want to go there?

Christian faith is not always comforting. Jesus comes not just to love and forgive us, but also to unsettle us enough that we're willing to let go of what we know and live in his new way.
Victor Hugo has a wonderful image of us as fields being prepared for the Spring planting. Before the soil is ready to receive the seeds of new growth, it has to be broken by the plow .

Quiet witnessing

The preparations for Holy Week have begun in earnest. Yesterday our music director, Bianca De Maria, sang to me some of the pieces she'll be using for Good Friday, all of them hushed and still and achingly beautiful. Today I am preparing for Palm Sunday by working and praying with the woodcuts from Barry Moser's illustrated Bible. Moser's images are stark, formed from simple black and white lines, but they are still warm and alive, with real human faces looking out of every scene.

The Passion is full of drama, with trials and betrayals and terrible violence. If we're not careful with a story like this, it can send us into our worst cycles of behavior: blind anger, numb avoidance, self-damaging guilt.

Bianca's songs and Moser's images are inviting me into a very different place, an open space of great stillness. I'm discovering again why I need these forty days of prayer and reflection. It takes me a long time to become quiet enough inside to witness pain and respond with nothing but love.