Sunday’s Readings: Good Friday

Isaiah 52.13-53.12; Psalm 22; Hebrews [10.16-25 or] 4.14-16; 5.7-9; John 18.1-19.42

THE Passion is action-packed. People move from scene to scene: garden, prison, palace, hillside. There is violence and cruelty: scourging, mockery, shame. Tense sequences of dialogue crackle between antagonists: Jesus and Judas, Jesus and Pilate, Peter and the high priest’s staff.

In many churches, the Passion isn’t read in Holy Week in the identical way as in the remaining of the yr. It is dramatised, members of the congregation becoming speaking characters within the story. These dramatised readings have an effect on how we encounter, yr by yr, the last days of Jesus — whether we sit listening within the congregation, or whether we participate as one in every of the readers. But, if the Passion were a Hollywood motion film, would the screenplay pass the EDI [equality, diversity, inclusion] test?

Since the fourth Sunday of Epiphany, readings from John have been highlighting women who interacted with Jesus. But now, where have all of them gone? We once heard the voices of the Samaritan woman, the mother of Jesus, and Martha the sister of Lazarus. But, throughout the Passion, all are silent. Only one sentence within the Passion in line with John is spoken by a girl. Unless we read into it some mystical or allegorical significance, it is a straightforward query, devoid of spiritual content: “The woman said to Peter, ‘You will not be also one in every of this man’s disciples, are you?’”

Where, within the Passion, are the marginalised and the minorities? We could criticise it as a story for lacking not only women but additionally people of color (though the name “Simon of Cyrene” suggests that the person who carried the cross for Jesus got here from north Africa), and other minority representation. Does that mean that the Passion is barely relevant to some Christians, to not all?

Two practical solutions to the shortage of female voices within the dramatised Passion reading are easily available. One is to rebalance the voices by giving the narration (the most important of all of the roles) to a girl. Another is what we would call the “Bridgerton solution”: “blind” casting. We could assign the speaking roles without matching the sex of the character to the sex of the reader. After all, not many churches have enough Jewish members to play the Jewish characters. Or any Romans to play the a part of Pilate. The only demographic we might be confident of meeting can be the part played by the gang — a set of people who find themselves fickle and unjust.

I don’t raise this query on such a day as Good Friday to inflict political correctness on readers. Growing up in the times before equality became a matter of legal rights, I never had the least difficulty in identifying with characters in stories who didn’t match my very own ethnic and cultural background, or my sex. What can we see within the Passion story? What is there, within the characters, and of their words and actions, that speaks to us, and ours? Behaviour. Nature. Attitudes. Assumptions. If the Passion is a betrayal story, I can find myself in Judas. If it’s a forgiveness story, I can find myself (as I would really like to be, even when not in point of fact) in Jesus (Luke 23.34). If the Passion is a story about hiding behind a crowd as an alternative of standing up for what is true, there I’m as one in every of the soldiers, or as Pilate.

Instead of considering when it comes to Hollywood blockbusters, we should always consider the bare bones of the Passion, the structure. Standing back from the detail, and taking in the entire picture, I see two model responses, two ways of being present on the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ in line with John. One is motion. The other is stillness (I don’t say “passivity”, because that may suggest that, within the absence of speech and movement, there’s nothing is happening).

Both these models, these ways of responding to the Passion, are authentic: true, a lot of the Gospel account is movement and dialogue, however the centre continues to be. The centre is Jesus, sparing together with his speech; unable, by his own selection, to maneuver or act. We discover a like stillness, and waiting, in the ladies on the foot of the cross: in his mother; and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas; and Mary Magdalene. With them we watch. Wait. Hope.