Maybe it's the difficulty of the times we're living in and just the constant sense of doom and gloom that hangs over the nation that I found myself really struggling to write a sermon for Good Friday.
I mean, it's a day that commemorates the brutal killing of Jesus by the state. And we've witnessed in this country repeated killings...both through numerous executions carried out in Florida...and the extrajudicial taking of lives by ICE in major U.S. cities. Maybe it just all felt too raw and real for me to think through the Gospel of John's telling of the Passion to want to preach about it.
And so I turned to the Psalm...number 22..."My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?"
Because that's where I am at on so many days right now.
Text: Psalm 22, John 18:1-19:42
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“My God! My God! Why have you forsaken
me?”
Those must be some of the loneliest
words in all of Scripture.
Psalm 22 captures the lament of those
who have been on the receiving end of human cruelty.
Each verse describing that sense of what
it feels like to be innocent…and yet treated with disrespect and derision.
In other Gospel passages about the
crucifixion….that first verse of the psalm are the only words we hear Jesus
utter from the cross.
And we can imagine why this particular
psalm…believed to be written by King David…would have been on Jesus’ mind at
that moment.
Because…at that hour… the crucified
Jesus was truly powerless.
He was vulnerable.
And he was scared.
He’s just like us.
It would be nice to think that…as
Christians and people who believe in God… we pray all the time…and regularly
stay in conversation with the Holy One.
But…at least it’s been in my
experience…the times when we are the most likely to turn to God in prayer is
when we’re in trouble.
We might put up those prayers like Anne
Lamott: a very simple Help! Help! Help!
Get me out of this situation!
And when we’re in that place…of deep
worry and fear…the worst feeling is to call out our prayer…and only hear
crickets in return.
It’s one thing to feel abandoned by
friends…and another when it’s your family.
But to feel the absence of God….that’s
harsh.
The psalmist captures that depth of the
hurt we feel when it seems God is silent:
“I am poured out like water;
All my bones are out of joint;
My heart within my breast is melting
wax”? (14)
While John’s Gospel doesn’t have Jesus
repeating that opening line of the psalm while he’s on the cross…the evangelist
does reference it when talking about those who are gloating…and taking pleasure
in his pain.
The indifference and lack of empathy
from those inflicting the torture makes the point about the inhumanity
that the psalmist observes.
All this tracks with the way that
tyrants and bullies have always behaved…especially when challenged.
And certainly Jesus posed a threat to
the Roman Empire.
He has been flipping over tables in the
marketplace of the Temple and exposing the whole system as corrupt and
oppressive.
He’s been chastised for healing sick
people…giving them the agency to walk…and to see…and leading them toward the
God of Love.
He conversed with a Samaritan woman…and
treated her with the dignity denied to her by others…breaking down the rift
between cultures.
And when Pontius Pilate…an agent of the
state known for his ruthlessness… demanded to know “What is truth?” Jesus
didn’t dignify the question of his bully with an answer.
Because Jesus wouldn’t obey…because he
refused to bend the knee…and kept encouraging others to see in themselves their
worth in the eyes of God…he was put to death.
This pattern has been repeated
throughout history.
In our own country…the black Christian
theologian James Cone has challenged us to see in the cross the lynching
tree…and to accept that Jesus was the first victim of such brutal hatred.
Cone sees in Jesus the body of victims
of racism…the people killed for simply existing in black skin and having the
audacity to think that they could live their lives in peace alongside white
people.
Cone extends this out to all those who
are the marginalized “others” mocked…scorned…and dehumanized by the dominant
culture.
And there’s been plenty of that going
around lately.
Neighbors turning on neighbors….and
arrests of innocent people for the crime of being black or brown and speaking
another language.
The memes passed around on social media
laughing at the idea of sending people to the swampy Everglades to be alligator
food.
There’s no escaping the truth of what
Good Friday and the cross stood for then…and now.
It is a collision between those who
choose force as a means to threaten and dominate others…acting as “the packs of
dogs” who encircle those they see as “weak”…and the ones who choose power with
others…non-violence… and don’t provide answers to empty questions.
Which is why it makes sense that some of
our Gospel writers have Jesus turning to Psalm 22 in this critical moment at
the end of his earthly life.
And we can imagine Jesus praying through
the whole thing as he is dying.
Because while the psalm captures all
that is wrong with what is happening in the moment…and expresses lament for the
inhumanity of the situation he’s in…it also has language that provides a source
of comfort and hope…that God will hear his cry and will meet him in this hour
of need.
This is why when people ask me what book
of the Bible I would recommend they read…I always cite the Book of Psalms.
Psalm 22 not only expresses the grief
and the fear of the abyss…it’s also a life ring of promise in what is a
hopeless situation…and trusts in a God who will respond to the
brokenhearted. Hear these words:
“Praise the Lord, you that fear him”
“I will perform my vows in the presence
of those who worship him”
I can even think that Jesus clung to the
psalmist echoing the sentiments that his mother declared to Elizabeth during
her pregnancy:
“God does not despise nor abhor the poor
in their poverty,…but when they cry to him, he hears them. The poor shall eat
and be satisfied, and those who seek the Lord shall praise him.”
The psalmist names our pains…and
doubts…and yet keeps turning back to God…believing that despite it all…God is
hearing our pleas.
Did God abandon Jesus on the cross?
No…
God was there throughout…in the same way
that God is with us…in us…and around us in our moments of distress as well as
our joys.
Through Jesus…God has moved closer to
our existence…and our struggles against the most powerful forces that try to
keep us down.
Through our faith and trust in God…we
can survive and weather the storms that come at us…even in these most trying
times.
One day…we too…like the psalmist…will be
able to speak confidently to the saving deeds that God has done.
And we will be able to declare that our
times of distress are finished.
In the name of Our One Holy and
Undivided Trinity.
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