Lenten Reflection...

This coming Sunday brings us the long Gospel reading of the Passion. Today, Peregrinus explores the penchant in society for scapegoats and discord and how Jesus offers a new way towards social communion and unity.

The long gospel of Palm Sunday...

When I decided that for the duration of Lent I would write a series of reflections on each Sunday's gospel, I didn't think about Palm Sunday.

The gospel for Palm Sunday is absolutely enormous — nearly two full chapters of Luke. It's so long that in many churches they will have to read an abbreviated version; the scheduling of masses doesn't allow enough time to read it in full. It's packed with events, packed with teachings, and packed with figures. How to begin unpacking it in the course of a short reflection?

I can't unpack it, of course. There isn't space or time to take everything out, look at it properly, and see how it is connected to everything else. The most I can do is dip in, take one or two objects out, and hold them up for examination.

It's common, when this gospel is read liturgically, for different parts in it to be spoken by different people — the celebrant speaks the words of Christ, various lectors speak for other figures, or read the narration, and the congregation take the part of the crowd.

As a child, I rather liked this. It gave a degree of interest to what would otherwise be a tediously long gospel, it gave a sense of involvement and participation, and it was fun. You could put a bit of gusto into yelling out "Crucify him! Crucify him!" at the appropriate time.

But it gives the crowd a miseadingly one-dimensional character. The impression given — particularly to a child — is that the people of Jerusalem are all of one mind when it comes to Jesus — they all have the same view of him, and they all want him to be dealt with in the same way, and for the same reasons.

In fact, a moment's thought shows that this is wildly unlikely to be true, and a reading of the gospel in its context confirms that it is untrue.

Next Sunday, if you attend a Mass at which the Palm Sunday procession is celebrated, you'll get a second gospel — the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, in which people spread their cloaks on the road before Jesus, and cry "Blessings on the King who comes in the name of the Lord!"

Are we really supposed to believe that the people who shout are the same people who shout "Crucify him! Crucify him!" a few days later?

Lots of different perspectives...

The gospels present us with lots of different perspectives on Jesus:

• There is the perspective of the apostles, who have faith in Jesus even if they don't always understand him, and they sometimes lack the strength to live their faith.
• There are other followers who lose interest because they find his teachings "too hard".
• There are people who are attracted by his signs and wonders, but who have no interest in what he has to say.
• There are the Pharisees, very close to his thinking, but disturbed by the directions towards which his teachings tend, and even more disturbed by the fact that he regularly bests them in argument.
• There are the Temple authorities, fearful either for their own status and influence, or for the threat that he presents to the uneasy peace between Jews and Romans, or — probably — both.
• There are the Roman authorities, concerned to maintain the pax romana, and willing to resort to any degree of brutality to do so.
• There are the "daughters of Jerusalem", whose attitude to Jesus' teachings is not recorded, but who are moved by compassion at his treatment.
• There are the Zealots, who have much in common with Jesus but who are frustrated and resentful that he doesn't share their commitment to radical action and active resistance to the Romans.

Jerusalem was a large and cosmopolitan city, and it is very likely that all these groups, and more besides, were to be found there. Not to mention the Roman, the Greeks and the Hellenised Jews, and a large number of assorted slaves who could have come from anywhere within the Empire, or beyond.

What happened on Good Friday was that enough of these groups came together, from their various motivations and expectations, in a shared need to find a scapegoat. The world was not as they thought it should be. Rather than face the challenge that this presented to their own wishes and expectations, they wanted and needed to blame somebody else for this. They chose to blame Jesus.

The frightening thing about this is that the people of Jerusalem are divided in faith, divided in culture, divided in language, and divided in what they think about Jesus Christ. But a critical mass of them overcomes these divisions and finds unity in a shared quest to identify a common enemy who they can blame, punish and eventually kill.

This is encapsulated at the individual level in what Luke says about Herod and Pilate. He tell us that "though Herod and Pilate had been enemies before, they were reconciled that same day." And what brings them together is their shared part in having Jesus killed.

It's about each of us, and all of us...

The good news of Jesus Christ isn't about this group or that group, this person or that person, needing forgiveness. It's about each of us, and all of us, needing forgiveness. And one of the things we need forgiveness for is our way of gaining relative peace by finding a common enemy against whom to unite.

Since the beginning of human society, our way of communion, our way of keeping the peace, is to unify against scapegoats. That's what ritual blood sacrifice was about in the past and that, largely is what war is still about today.

But, as we sing when we come to receive Holy Communion, the Lamb of God has taken away the sin of the world. The risen Jesus is our means of communion.

In other words, our way of communion, our way of having peace since the beginning of human societies, finding and punishing a scapegoat, doesn't have to be our way of communion any longer. In the risen Christ we have a new source of peace for a Holy Communion, a new way of coming together as human beings which doesn't have to be unity against anyone else.

Photo Credits:
The background frames are taken from Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ", Icon Films.

What are your thoughts on this commentary? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum.

Peregrinus can be contacted at: Peregrinus <peregrinus@catholica.com.au>

©2008 Peregrinus

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