Good Friday

It is hard to preach the good news on Good Friday. There isn't much good news. And part of being true to Good Friday is acknowledging that we should remain in this bad news time a bit. Wallow. So my sermon tried to take seiously the pain and suffering of the day, and tried not to move into redemption, but to stay in those suffering feelings. But being the optimist and the person who really does live in the resurrection, I couldn't help but find a real window to some hope on Good Friday. 

            I have had the opportunity this week to peek back at the collection of sermons that I have preached here at St. Ann’s. I did so to try to see if I could pull out a consistent theology of the cross. And as I went through looking for cross moments, I realized that I have not preached about the crucifixion with out (almost) immediately following it with the mollification of the resurrection. Perhaps it is just because we live in the reality of the resurrection, or maybe the pain of the cross is too much for us, and for me as a preacher to handle. But Good Friday is the day in the church calendar when it is important to consider the cross, the crucifixion with out the resurrection. The nature of the Liturgical year, the way we repeat these events every year means that we all know Easter is coming, and we should. We should be aware of that in our lives, but if any day was ever a call for us as busy New Yorkers to stay present in this moment, I think Good Friday is. Good Friday is uncomfortable. It is scary. The fact that Jesus’ disciples do not seem to stick it out while Jesus is dying on the cross is probably not just because their lives may have been in danger. It is hard to watch someone you know, someone you love die. I think as New Yorkers, we also have a particular awareness of what it is to watch people suffer—I ride the subway a lot, but I am sure that even those of you who don’t are constantly confronted by hungry people asking for money and food. The visibility of need in an amazingly wealthy city is hard to see and hard to turn away from. This is the uncomfortable feeling of Good Friday. Knowing that even if we are able to help financially it is never going to be enough to truly change a person’s life. Good Friday feelings are ones in which the need is greater than our capacity to help. Jesus’ pain on the cross could not be assuaged, not even by the promise of the resurrection.

            We began Holy Week last Sunday, and I had some uncomfortable feelings as we heard the Passion. I was struck as we read the Passion that there is a certain harshness to the role we ask the congregation to play. We ask the congregation to be the crowd—and though it is not a very big role, it is a role in which the crowd shouts for Jesus to be crucified. And I as sat there on Sunday morning, I couldn’t help but think, it seems wrong to ask these poor nice people, this congregation, and all of these visitors with us this morning to make them be the ones asking for Jesus’ crucifixion. It seemed to me to be a little mean. And so as I reflected on what it means to give the congregation this role I saw that this reminds us that we are the guilty ones who Jesus dies for. We are the ones who betray him. And the fact that the whole congregation plays this role serves to remind us of the corporate nature of our sinfulness, rather than our individual bad deeds. And so though I initially reacted badly to all of you shouting to crucify our Lord, I came to see that it is important that we remember that we have done that.

            Not important to remember so that we feel bad about ourselves. That is not a useful feeling. But remember so that we remember the ways in which humanity is broken and falls short. The brokenness of humanity is very present during Holy Week, but I want to hold on to something slightly larger, we have a tendency to think of our personal bad deeds, especially during Lent—but I want to take a moment to hold onto out corporate sin. Partly because we are using John’s Gospel tonight which tends to use the words “the Jews” to describe the crowd, I think it is important to amend that term and either say “some Jews” or even “the Jewish crowd.” I say that to emphasize that we must not be anti-Jewish in our interpretation of guilt and corporate sin. As I think about some of our corporate sins, racism, and classism always come to mind, but so does neglecting our roles in conflicts around the world, and neglecting the hunger of people far away and those close by.  Recently I have been thinking a lot about our criminal justice system, and the number of young black men locked up for non-violent offences. I have been considering what it means to lock up such a big portion of the population and how it affects families.

            All of this thinking about prison finally brought me back to the cross. But we have to take a short trip to Germany to make the connection. Dietrich Bonheoffer was a German theologian who was jailed by the Nazi’s for his part in a plot to kill Hitler. His writings while in jail are collected in the book “Letters and Papers from Prison.” In these letters Bonheoffer writes about the strength we can take from the cross. In his extreme suffering, with the knowledge of his forthcoming death, Bonheoffer is comforted in the idea that God has experienced suffering, so that God would be able to be better present with him in his distress. Bonheoffer is careful not to compare his suffering with Jesus’ (as we all must be—for to compare our pain to the humiliation and rejection of the cross is to misunderstand the whole thing). But the mere fact that we have a God who is willing to be weak, is willing to suffer, and in Bonheoffer’s words, is willing to be utterly rejected, shows us that God is there, God is here with us in our suffering.

            Then if we know where God is, I am still left wondering about where we are this evening in our Gospel passage. This evening we had readers, singers and cantors, so we as the congregation are not just the crowd. We are not just symbols for humanities brokenness. We are something else too. We are also the disciples. The disciples often get a bad rap, they are often the ones misunderstanding Jesus, or misinterpreting him. And at the end, one denies Jesus, another betrays him, and most of them seem to be gone by the time the body is taken off the cross. But John’s gospel shows us this one intimate moment, that tells us something about discipleship too.  It’s that moment with Jesus’ mother and the disciple who he loved. Now, let’s veer away from unhelpful conspiracy theories, because there is something extremely tender and helpful for thinking about our place in the narrative. Jesus takes this moment so close to his death, to tell his disciple and his mother what their relationships will be like after he is dead.

            I find this moment fascinating. First of all it recognizes that things will be different after Jesus is dead for his disciples. And what Jesus asks them to do is to play his role. After he is gone, his disciple will play the role of his mother’s son. So too are we then called as disciples to be the Body of Christ in the world. This is exhilarating that Jesus, so close to death, and before he even knows what the resurrection might hold, that he understands that his followers need to continue the work that he was doing. Not only are they to play the role of the Body of Christ, but if we think about the mother-child relationship that Jesus is asking of his disciples we see that as disciples, Jesus wants us to love one another in family-like relationships.  

            And so tonight, I began by urging us all to stay in the present moment despite the uncomfortable feelings of being confronted with Jesus’ death on the cross, but as we stay in that moment, we can be comforted. Not by the resurrection just yet, but first of all by the knowledge that in our suffering, God is with us, and then by the family like relationships we are asked to enter into in our discipleship. Tonight serves as a reminder to us all that we, in Jesus’ death, have to step in and grow into the role of the Body of Christ. To be a symbol of God’s love in the world.

Amen.