Lent: Jesus' Third Word

 

photo by Don Marias / flikr

 

This Lenten season I am going again up Calvary’s hill and try to listen. Above the noise of the crowd and the weeping, Jesus spoke. And the church years later remembered some of those words he uttered that dark day. An so we know that nailed-down Jesus spoke to every one. Forgive them…forgive us. First, it was a word of inclusion. And then Jesus addressed one of the dying men next to him. Whispering a promise: “Today you shall be with me in paradise.” So the second word we could call compassion. And so today we still listen. What did he have to say in this third word? Standing near his cross was he broken mother and a tiny cluster of her friends. And there was dear John who stayed there until the end. And so these words: “Mother behold your son, John behold your mother” are words of relationship. Not only did he speak to crowds and the needy everywhere. But he did not forget those closest by—his mother and John, the beloved.

Up the road  two weeks ago the Greenville County Council was trying to decide about what do with that 1996 resolution that said “that the homosexuals were not adhering to Greenville County’s’ current community standards.’” The meeting drew a crowd. Opponents of this resolution wanted the 1996 action overturned. Thirty minutes was given over to those in attendance to share their concerns. And eight of the ten religious leaders that spoke said this change would be against the Bible. Family values needed to be upheld. The community had to be protected against “these people.” Those Pastors said terrible things about their opposition to gay folks. Over and over they intoned: “The Bible says…”  How far afield the church has gotten from this compassionate word that came down from the cross. This really is a word of relationship. Mother…John. He reached out to his mother to John giving them to one another. 

Just today The Greenville News’ front-page headline read: “County Votes Down Anti-gay Resolution.” So the old 1996 resolution was defeated at least for four years when this  discriminatory resolution will come up again. So—thank God enough Council members voted to rescind this action which designated Gays as not adhering to community standards. Many of those gays present they really counted in the Greenville area. Sometimes justice really is a long time coming.

The Bible more than anything else is a word about relationships. On almost every page we find people with names and faces.There were Adam and Eve and Sarah and Ruth and flawed King David and Joseph and Mark and Elizabeth and Anna and Mary and Martha and Paul and Lazarus. 

What does Jesus’ third word have to do with gays and all those others? Everything. Jesus

photo by Sharon Mollerus / flikr

never bashed anyone except those uptight religious crowd that had to protect the law, standing up for their family values. Forgive them included everyone. Remember me left no one out. And here the heart-breaking Jesus’ mother and John tell the real story. Take the names out of the book—and the Bible is a paltry thing. 

So maybe our task is to console all those who need consolation. Maybe our task is to make sure that women are same opportunities as men. But this word nudges us to stand and say “No more!” to women and gays and the poor and all those unnumbered ones who huddle in cold tents far away from their home land. Maybe this word speaks to all those mothers and fathers and children who have been wrenched from one another and placed all over this country. Don’t they count? Don’t they have needs and faces. Most of these immigrants have nothing in their whole lives but their children. 

So as we move away from this word of relationship we should remember the One who stretched out his arms and said: “Mother…John”. No wonder years later a nameless slave working hard in some white man’s farm put his dreams into a song: “He’s got the whole world in his hands.” Everybody included…no one left out. Amen  

—Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com