New feature: Two-Minute Homily

Look below to find a new feature called Two-Minute Homily. This  

week's topic: "Death in the Afternoon."

FINDINGS II

Lent VI Palm Sunday - A - April 17, 2011

The Passion of Jesus Called "The Christ" 

 If we had not been taught how to interpret the story of the Passion, would we have been able to say from their actions alone whether it was the jealous Judas or the cowardly Peter who loved Christ?

-- Graham  Greene, The End of the Affair, 1951

Here begins a story of the death of Jesus: It was some days after Jesus came to Jerusalem for what turned out to be the last time. He was at a special supper with his friends. He took a piece of bread in his hands and intoned the traditional thanksgiving over it. Then he broke it and gave it to each of those present saying, "This loaf of bread I'm breaking is like my body which will be broken. Whenever you eat the bread on this kind of occasion, think of me." After supper was over, he picked up a cup of wine and said, "The wine in this cup that I am sharing with you is like my blood that will be shed. When you share a cup like this together, think of me." / That same night, he went off by himself. It was then that he was arrested and brought before the Jewish authorities to answer the charge that he had allowed himself to be thought of by some as a god and by others as a king. The charge could not be proved, so they took him to the Roman proconsul, hoping that he would be interested in charging Jesus with trying to take the place of Caesar, who, besides being the actual king, was believed by Rome to be a god. / Meanwhile, one of Jesus' close followers, a Galilean named Simon but called Peter, stayed behind outside of the courtroom where Jesus was being charged. One of the young women servants saw him and said to him: "Aren't you one of the followers of that man Jesus?" Peter, startled, replied: "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know him." The woman said: "Oh, come on. You certainly do know him. You're one of those who followed him here from Galilee."  Peter retorted: "That's not true. I told you that I don't know him. Never saw him before in my life!"

Just then, a rooster crowed, as it was near dawn. When Peter heard it, he remembered that Jesus had told him that he would deny knowing him at least twice before dawn. Peter broke down and cried, as he realized his cowardice. Now that it was morning, the Jewish authorities decided it was not too early to bind Jesus over to the Roman court. So off they went to Pilate's office. When Jesus stood before Pilate, Pilate asked him: "So are you the King of the Jews?" To which Jesus replied: "You are saying so by using the words." The Jewish authorities then began to lay out before Pilate all the things of which they were accusing Jesus. But Jesus stood mute, refusing to come to his own defense. This interested Pilate, who said to him: "Why do you not answer these charges? They're serious enough. You could be executed, you know." - Still Jesus remained silent, so much so that Pilate became angry and frustrated and said to his guards: "Get this rabble rouser out of my sight!"

Whether Pilate's soldiers took that as an order to put Jesus to death is not known. But eventually, Jesus was bound and taken off with a number of other criminals to a site outside the city gates known as "The Place of the Skull," because the remains of others who died after crucifixion there were a frequent and grisly sight. The Roman guards herded their prisoners, including Jesus, up to the place where each was bound, arms stretched out, to a cross-piece of wood which was then stood up and planted in the ground. [The effect was that whoever was hung that way would eventually tire to the degree that his head would drop down on his chest and thus the air supply would be cut off to his lungs. Death came by asphyxiation or exposure. It has been said by one source that Jesus was nailed rather than bound to the cross, which, if true, would have added extreme pain to the slow, torturous death.]  Some of Jesus' detractors mocked him in his suffering, calling out: "Hey, you up there. You trust God so much, why don't you have him come and save you now? Why don't you just jump right down off that cross right now?" -- The Roman guards had started the crucifixions of the day around noon. By three o'clock, Jesus began to die. At one point, some heard him cry out: Eli, eli, lema sabachthani? Which for those who understood Aramaic means, "My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?" One of those standing around decided to make a joke, thinking that Jesus had asked for a drink of water. So he filled a sponge with vinegar, put it on the end of a stick and held it up to Jesus' mouth, saying: "Wait and see. Maybe Elijah will come and take him down." -- At just about that time, Jesus heaved his last breath and died. (Translated, condensed and paraphrased by Harry T. Cook.)

RUBRIC

The homiletic value of the Passion gospel is its testimony to the flesh-and-blood reality of a religious experience born in resistance to unjust powers. The Jesus of the gospels (especially of Thomas, Mark, Matthew and Luke) was a teacher and exemplar of an ethical wisdom that, Gandhi-like, challenged the prevailing mores and attitudes of a malign culture. The power structure of that culture struck back, creating a martyr whose witness (the Greek term μάρτυς -- martyr -- means "witness") revealed the truth about that power. The Passion/Palm Sunday homily will not achieve its purpose unless its homilist says clearly what malign powers of the present time need to be unmasked as corrupt. This is not a task that should be undertaken lightly. It can be costly. The Latin root of "passion" means suffering.

HOMILETIC WORKSHOP

While the appointed version of the Passion for Year A is its Matthean text, this edition of FINDINGS II will treat in brief of all four canonical passion texts. What is remarkable is not the differences in the accounts -- and they are many -- but the similarities which are striking. This could mean, as many commentators say, that the passion narratives were among the earliest material in the canon of Christianity, n�e Jesus Judaism and thus may have been compiled from eyewitness accounts. But it could also mean that they are among the latest as the first of them (Mark's) did not appear until after 70 C.E. No mention of the passion is found in the Q collection or in the Gospel of Thomas. To rebut that, there was no doubt in Paul's mind that Jesus was crucified, crucifixion having been one of Rome's preferred means of public humiliation. The practice would certainly have been used during the early first century. It is not unreasonable to ask if the gospels' crucifixion narratives had their origin in myth but gained verisimilitude from what was evidently the widespread custom of the impatient Roman military government as time went on toward the end of the first century and the culmination, if not the end, of the Jewish-Roman wars at Masada.

It is pretty much agreed that the passion narrative begins with the trek to the Mount of Olives (Mark 14: 26, Matthew 26:30 and Luke 22:39). The very first thing that occurs is Peter's declaration of steadfastness followed by Jesus' devastating statement about the crowing of the cock -- one of the more dramatic and unforgettable images in scripture for which we have Mark or some earlier imaginative source to thank. Jesus' retreat to think things over follows with Mark and Matthew naming "the place of the winepress" -- Gethsemane -- and Luke omitting mention of it. All three synoptics report the "not-my-will-but-thine-be-done" petition with Luke alone providing the melodrama of "sweat like great drops (or clots) of blood." The disciples fall asleep three times in Mark and Matthew and once in Luke. Enter Judas in all three accounts. In John, too. In Matthew Judas is accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs sent, it is said, by the chief priests and elders. Mark adds the scribes. Luke merely mentions the crowd. Why are the officials themselves not placed at the scene?

The synoptics report the famous kiss, which would in all probability have been the Mediterranean hands-on-both-shoulders, twice cheek-to-cheek greeting. John omits mention of the kiss. Next comes the lopping off of the ear of the high priest's slave. The synoptics say "one of those with Jesus" did it. John blames Peter. Mark alone adds the odd detail of the young bystander whom the crowd seized. Because the young man was said to have worn only a linen cloth (wrapped around him, loin cloth-like, perhaps) he was able to slip away. Several commentators have suggested that this is a subtle hint of an eyewitness report, that perhaps the young man was Mark himself in a brief autobiographical literary moment. It may also be a loose bit of detail that got bonded to Mark's version in some way now beyond our ability to trace.

Jesus is next made to appear before the leaders of the Jerusalem hierarchy, and Peter is set up by all four canonical evangelists for his infamous denial, thus linking him with his colleague Judas, the hander-over.

In inexorable procession, the scene in all four gospels moves to the Roman venue of Pilate. Of the four Jesus-Pilate colloquies, John's is the most dramatic with Pilate's momentous and unanswered question, "What is truth?"  -- As for Judas, Matthew elects to dispose of him in a kind of parenthetical passage (27: 3-10) using some of the words and images Luke will use at Acts 1: 18-19. Judas simply disappears from the Markan and Johannine narratives.

Barabbas appears in the synoptics as well as in John. Mark says Barabbas was a prison rioter and murder "in the insurrection." Matthew merely says he was "a notorious prisoner" (desmios, one who is bound), Luke an insurrectionist and John "a bandit." Assuming that any of that is factual, the crowds are depicted as crying for his release as if it had been an established custom to commute a criminal's sentence or to issue an outright pardon anticipating the Passover observances. Mark and Matthew suggest that it was, but there is no other evidence of such a custom.

As the execution approaches, Mark depicts Jesus being clothed in a purple cloak, Matthew a scarlet robe and John a purple robe -- all mockeries as if Jesus had been a king or prince. All three synoptics include the conscript Simon of Cyrene whom Mark identities as the father of Alexander and Rufus -- an attempt at verisimilitude?

The execution venue is either "the Place the Skull" (Luke and John) but "Golgotha" by Mark and Matthew. All four canonical gospels place other convicts at the site: Matthew ("robbers"), Mark ("those who were crucified with him"), Luke ("two criminals") and John ("two others"). Mark and Matthew include the "King of the Jews" inscription while John has it appear in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. Luke with Matthew, Mark and John include the division of Jesus' clothing. Luke alone has Jesus pray for his tormentors' forgiveness. Mark and Matthew have the ninth hour cry "Eli, eli . . ." Matthew alone has the earthquake aftermath, and all three synoptics have the veil of the Holy of Holies rent in twain.

The details may seem circumstantial and unnecessary of mention, but they each and all are important if only because the various writers and editors saw fit to include them. The story of the execution obviously became of first importance to the nascent church of the post-70 C.E. period as it struggled to create for itself a story that would compete with those of other religions with their dying and rising sons of gods.

 * * * * * 

Two-Minute Homily

Death in the Afternoon 

By Harry T. Cook

Ernest Hemingway wrote about bullfighting in Spain under the title Death in the Afternoon and said of the social controversy over that blood sport: "Anything capable of arousing passion in its favor will surely raise as much passion against it." He said he found in bullfighting the elemental nature of life and death.

Christians are about to enter into what is known as "Passiontide," during which they replay the drama of the gospel narratives that purport to be accounts of Jesus' arrest, arraignment, torture and execution. In Hemingway's mind, Jesus would be the bull, and his betraying and denying friends along with Pontius Pilate and his Roman executors the matador.

To Hemingway, the bull's death was a noble death because the beast never gave up or gave in until the matador's blade pierced its skull. To this, as he said, passion was aroused for and against.

Any fresh look at the passion texts of the gospels might give rise to fresh questions about why we do this year after year, why congregations participating in the reading of the passion gospel are content as one person to cry out on cue, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

Are we for the passion or against it? Is there not enough dying already that we have to glorify it the way we do, viz. in the humiliation of crucifixion and the death by asphyxiation or exposure it could and often did bring? We know now that it was customary -- as if anything associated with crucifixion could be said to be "customary" -- for the bodies of those hung up to be cut down and left for feral dogs to eat. Anybody for that?

Even for those who believe against all reason and logic that this Jesus person died to save them from the lethal wages of their sin, can anyone be for that kind of death?

Any religion worthy of the name and of the attention and participation of rational human beings needs to be about life and how to live it. Of course our word "passion" comes from the Latin passio, meaning "to suffer" or "to be acted upon." It was Hemingway, as it turns out, who said that acting was always to be preferred to being acted upon. So is the bull taunted and yet comes back for more until the fatal blow is struck.

That's the kind of death in the afternoon the Christian Passiontide should envision: a death -- if death it must be -- taken while standing in the act of resistance to and defiance of a power that is superior only because it is armed, not because it is more noble  . . . or noble at all.