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Good Friday
April 14, 2006 Sermon
by Rev. Sue Deetz, Deacon
Readings
Part of the richness of the Book of
Common Prayer is that it brings the fullness of the scriptures present
to us through our liturgy and our prayers. In its rubrics for a burial,
it pulls from the letter of Paul to the Romans stating that the liturgy
is characterized by joy, in the certainty that "neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our
Lord." It's no wonder the authorities were frantically trying to
seal up the tomb-Jesus was claiming he would rise up in three days,
giving us , the kind of freedom that puts us in the hands of God rather
than at their mercy. While they called him an imposter, don=t you think
they were most fearful that he was for real?
Thinking back to my childhood in Detroit, in the 60's into the early
70's, the schools let us out early on Good Friday. We dashed home to
stay indoors quietly for the next three hours. We usually dyed Easter
eggs, read books, and snacked on hot cross buns. Three hours seemed
pretty long, but I didn't dare step outside, fearing that dark cloud
that was to descend over the city. It was a day of a great many
unanswered questions. Not the least of which was, 'Why was it called
Good Friday, while that good shepherd Jesus, the one up on the hill with
a lamb on his lap, was publicly humiliated, then hung from a cross to
die?' The whole thing made little sense. What I feared most was that
dark cloud, the light put out over our city, so much so that I often
found myself confessing everything I could think of that I'd ever done
wrong, hoping that would fend off the cloud. It's mostly fear I remember
about those Good Fridays, fear of that cloud, fear of the unknown
future, and fear of death.
One year my cousin and I took the city bus to the Cathedral of St Paul,
downtown on Woodward Ave, that being one acceptable reason to go
outdoors. We took the Grand River Ave bus downtown and transferred to
Woodward, traveling through a good portion of the city. At the
cathedral, the stations were set up throughout the sanctuary, with
readings and plaques with Jesus in the different stages along the route.
People could walk and pray through them on their own. We pretty much
spent the three hours in this quiet sanctuary. It wasn't until many
years later that I realized, it was on our way to the cathedral that we
witnessed the stations of the cross.
There was the burned out shell of buildings, boarded up duplexes,
reminders of that hot summer of 67 when our city exploded into riots
from the pressure of racism, oppression, anger, and grief.
The gaping wounds are still festering.
The full soup kitchens , hospitals, and kids playing in the litter
strewn empty lots.
There's the men lying in the doorways of a storefronts, passed out,
empty whiskey bottle on the ground next to them. And the women pushing
the shopping carts, wearing six layers of clothing. Not much different
from riding the city bus today in Duluth.
I daresay we witnessed them like the spectators in the crowd, from the
relative distance of the inside of a bus, taking it all in, but at a
comfortable arms length.
But most often it is the women in the crowd on the road with Jesus, that
pull me right to the foot of the cross with him. They are the ones who
rolled up their sleeves and wiped his face when he fell, feeling his
sweat on their arms, and mopping up has blood as it dripped. They
were the ones who grieved with Mary when he passed her. They are the
ones who shared in his suffering as the weight of the cross became
unbearable. Joining Jesus on this walk requires facing our own fears as
well, recognizing our weaknesses, acknowledging our mistakes. It means
asking ourselves questions like, what part did we play in leading up to
that hot summer of 1967? It means asking, when did we keep silent
when someone was hurting? Do we comfort those who have fallen?
Do we seek justice for those who are persecuted? Listen to those
who don't have a voice? Do we sit down and share a meal with those
we feed at the soup kitchen? Or as Sam Portaro, an Episcopal
chaplain and author puts it "If I am to participate in the events that
made this day in history, I must take my place in the events that make
that day a reality, here and now, for far too many. The old spiritual
needs updating; it is not just a matter of whether I was there when they
crucified my Lord, Today I must consider where I am now and every moment
as my Lord is crucified again, and again, and again."
By stepping into the crowd, water and towels in hand, we are brought
into communion with Jesus, sharing in his humanity, and rejoicing with
Christ.
I'd like to end with a meditation from the book God's Images:
In the deep fluids of sight a man is
hanging. He is my Savior.
I am His mother.
Can such things be? Yes. The lashed round of the eye sees
Him hanging. He is there and nowhere else. I think I must help
to take Him down. There is a sense of darkness, and time. After that
I have no idea. It may be that nothing will change. But it might also be
that strange, almost miraculous things will happen.
A man is hanging on a cross, blood pouring down Him, but
I stand here as a woman, and I do not believe that this is the end for
Him
or for any of us.