April 2
Readings – IS 52:13—53:12; HEB 4:14-16; 5:7-9; JN 18:1—19:42
Today’s a day just to sit with hard realities.
Isaiah speaks of the suffering servant – the one who is targeted, marginalized and outcast. This the one who suffers under the weight of violence (individual and/or collective) and bears it in their bodies.
Of course the Christian tradition identifies Jesus as the “suffering servant,” but I am guessing that we can all relate in one way or another. Our world is so broken and by so many things. We inflict various forms of violence on one another and upon the very earth that sustains us.
Good Friday invites us to look directly at this – as hard as it may be.
For a while now, I have been inspired by the work and witness of Joanna Macy – especially in her “Work That Reconnects”. This process has 4 primary movements: Coming from a place of Gratitude; Honoring the Pain of the World; Seeing with New/Ancient Eyes; Going Forth. There’s much more to it than this simple schema, but you will notice that honoring the pain of the world is one of the fundamental steps on the journey. This is a crucial movement in a broader process that we cannot skip over if we hope to heal and reconnect.
I also want to mention very briefly that while the Judeo-Christian tradition has strongly identified with a form of “atonement” theology (meaning that someone has to suffer for the sins of the collective), I honestly do not think that this is what Jesus understood about his life. In no way do I think that God is somehow “pleased” that people are crushed by the infirmities that they bear. Instead, I think our God weeps alongside us, and it seems clear that the violence that pervades the world is not God’s doing. It is our doing. And we can un-do it as well.
But before we move to the undoing, we need to sit with the seeing and the being. Good Friday invites us in a particular way to witness the violence around us and within us. It invites us to honor the pain of what have suffered and are suffering. It asks us to gaze upon the personal ways violence works as well as the structural ways that it operates. It invites us to recognize all those who are victimized, the many ways that violence operates and to name our complicity in it.
As I have referenced before, Good Friday also invites us deeper into the witness of Jesus – who made a conscious decision to not transmit violence but instead to transform it. He used his body and spirit as the tool by which he took it all in. He knew that we, ultimately, do not “know what we are doing” when we transmit the pain that we have experienced onto others. Today he models a different way.
For today, we mourn and remember all of the pain and brokenness in the world. We mourn all the ways that we have perpetrated violence against others with our words or actions. We mourn the ways that our economic and political systems do violence against people. We mourn how our food systems do violence to our planet. We mourn how our lifestyle does violence to the earth and all its creatures. We mourn our own hurts and the ways that we reproduce those hurts in the world.
Yet even as we mourn, we know that violence will not have the last word. We know that there is another way – the way of Jesus. And so we commit ourselves today to the study, practice and dismantling of these systems of violence – in our hearts and in this world – so that, one day, we will have to mourn them no more.
19 Comments
Kathryn Franz
I am deeply grateful for your thoughts on this Good Friday, especially for these two: the importance of transforming pain so as to stop transmitting pain, and for Joanna Macy’s good work on how we might actually do that.
Peace.
Mike Boucher Author
thanks, Kathryn. I appreciated that you highlighted Rohr’s “transform versus transmit” earlier in Lent because they are so central to the journey. So glad to have you along.
Theresa Tensuan-Eli
Mike, thank you for this illuminating and inspiring reflection; taking up your invitation to go “deeper into the witness of Jesus – who made a conscious decision to not transmit violence but instead to transform it” is a guiding light not only for Good Friday but also for the year as a whole – maraming salamat!
Mike Boucher Author
Theresa! So great to hear from you. Hoping you and your family are well. Thanks for your words.
Karen Keenan
Thank you Mike for this beautiful and deep reflection on pain and transformation. You bring the experience of Good Friday into our personal lives and the world of today, and help to illuminate the path forward with these living teachings.
Mike Boucher Author
thanks, Karen. I love the idea of “living teachings” that live in all of our lives.
Claire Benesch
Someone commented to me yesterday, “ I hate Good Friday. I’m sick of hearing that the Jews are to blame for Christ’s death.” I said that I hadn’t heard that emphasis but I can see why that would be disturbing. Then I reflected that I, too, didn’t really like Good Friday. All that emphasis on Jesus’ suffering for my sin! Self flagellation and guilt. Your reflection for today takes Good Friday to a whole new level. It is something I can work with. I can take the emphasis away from me and turn it to the world with all its brokenness, violence, and suffering. Then it becomes an opportunity for me to recognize that I can work positively for change. I thank you for this.
Mike Boucher Author
Thanks for this, Claire. I might agree that Christians have contributed to a lot of anti-semitism throughout history as we have “told our story.” We have desperately needed reframings to this story for a long time – ones that acknowledge the pain, let us all see our connection to it and work to change it.
Sarah Brownell
Thinking of Haiti today, an entire country nailed to the cross of structural racism. The President is trying to change the constitution and elections are long overdue, but he is held in place by the international community despite every sector of society in Haiti (churches, businesses, health workers, farmers, etc.) asking for him to go…hunger is growing, there’s a gas shortage, police have been attacked and 5 killed in one week, police are involved in kidnapping and supporting gangs, neighborhoods we worked in to build clinics, toilets, youth centers, in Cap Haitien have been bulldozed without notice as political retaliation. There is more and more violence in the streets as people become desprate and lose hope. No one can go out to work. My friends write me for assistance so they can eat, and I feel powerless to help them all in any meaningful way. This must be how the disciples felt on Good Friday, overwhelmed by the grief of losing what was and the growth toward what could have been. Please join me in praying for a resolution in Haiti that supports the wellbeing of the people, a Resurrection of sorts, the hope of Easter…
Mike Boucher Author
Sarah, your opening line of describing Haiti as “an entire nation nailed to the cross of structural racism” hit me right in the gut. There is so much pain, and I appreciate that you bring Haiti to our attention – given our role in helping to create the very problems that you describe. We have much to reckon for and much to take collective responsibility for. I will join you in your prayer for Haiti today…
Sarah Brownell
Thank you Mike!!! Prayers appreciated! We need God to make a way in a situation that seems both hopeless and urgent. My friends, who are generally self supporting folks (carpenters, teachers, vendors) write to say their families haven’t eat in 3 days, food costs are sooo high. Work is impossible due to all the protests, gangs (working for/with government), and general lack of security. They write pleading for me to get them visas and I don’t know what to do. I am certain they would not be granted visas even for a visit and it costs hundreds of dollars to try… The Biden administration is basically continuing the policies under Trump of supporting the president who keeps saying he will have elections but doesn’t, who made all the senators leave office when their terms ended, but won’t leave now that his has ended, and who is planning to change the constitution without a convention. The situation is very dire, the worst since the coup de etat of 2004. There are many things that need prayer right now, the pandemic, police reform, violence in our streets, Myanmar, Yemen, etc. but please add Haiti to your prayer list!
Mike Boucher Author
We do need God to make a way, Sarah, and I am often dumbfounded when no way seems to appear…So much needs our prayer and attention right now that I know we can easily get overwhelmed. As we have spoken of throughout this journey, honoring our feelings is a crucial step. Joanna Macy – whose work I just love – reflects that our culture tells us to get rid of our difficult feelings and by blotting them out we carry on with business as usual. While this blocks out the hard feeling, it also disables compassion. She goes on to say that, “the feeling of overwhelm tells us we’ve stepped beyond what we can easily cope with by ourselves. We’re facing something much bigger that calls for new responses and different ways of thinking.” So thank you for speaking of what you face publicly, Sarah. You have given us all permission to name everything AND to admit that these are collective challenges that require something new that you or I cannot provide alone. We can play a part, for sure, and give our best response (with whatever limits we have at the moment). I often think of the Jewish saying that goes something like, “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it,” (I have seen various translations that invite us to hold a difficult tension….as you are trying to do.
Monica Haag Anderson
This is so real, so relevant. Finding the strength to keep going is such a challenge. Yet, I am reminded of Bayard Rustin’s words, “What God requires of us is that we not stop trying.”
Mike Boucher Author
Monica, thanks so much for mentioning Bayard Rustin and that quote. Never stop trying.
Francene C McCarthy
Oh Mike, I pray daily for the end of the senseless violence in our city and our world. I know it isn’t new, it has been going on since the beginning of time but sometimes I feel like we should already be THERE. Aren’t we evolved enough to see the depravity of violence? It saddens my heart and soul both for the perpetrators and victims. I pray we all can see and act.
Mike Boucher Author
thanks, Fran. I join you in the prayer that we can all see and act as well.
Sally Partner
Am reading this just after learning about the incident at the US Capitol that killed one officer, injured another, and resulted in the attacker’s death. There seem to be violent incidents almost every day of late. Praying we find ways to reach people who are angry or ill so that they get help before they inflict violence or become victims of it. Praying for the Capitol police, who have been through so much this year. Praying for justice and peace this Good Friday.
Thank you so much for this blog, Mike. I know it is a lot of work. Please know it is appreciated.
Mike Boucher Author
thanks for your post, Sally. I too am watching CNN right now learning about yet another tragedy – which joins a long list of violence that we have witnessed in just the last few weeks! Prayers for all involved indeed, and, yes, prayers for justice and peace on this day. Our world knows violence and unrest all too well. May we one day know peace and justice as intimately.
Kathy Heaton
As always, a wonderful reflection. We are Easter people, full of hope and rebirth so let’s remember that even when things seem so desolate. God bless 🙏
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