Act One, Act Two, and Act Three - the different parts of the story of our lives. On Palm Sunday we experienced Act One - the growth of Jesus’ ministry amongst the people of Israel, his triumphant arrival in Jerusalem, and the crowd’s celebration that God’s reign was almost fulfilled. We also entered into the beginning of Act Two as we moved within the space of that hour from Palm Sunday to Passion Sunday. Slowly and steadily, Jesus’ supporters fell away, his following started shrinking instead of growing. Just as in our own lives, his successes came to a close and the end came closer. Tonight, we begin the climax of our story about Jesus as the curtain begins to come down on Act Two. Tomorrow is the big day, but tonight we take part in the slow but inevitable tension that is building.
Tonight, though, we turn our attention from the main character of Jesus, or even from ourselves as we star in our own stories, to the supporting characters. Every good story has minor characters who propel the plot along, whose actions influence the behaviour of the main character, people whose very existence bring about the confrontation that occurs at the end of Act Two. Snow White had the wicked Queen, Cinderella had her jealous stepsisters, Frodo had Sauron and his army of evil.
In the story of Jesus, these minor or supporting characters include two types in particular - betrayers and bystanders - and each participates in the end of Act Two in their own way. The betrayer, of course, is Judas. In every Gospel interpretation of Jesus’ story, Judas sets in motion the events that bring us to Good Friday. Judas is the one who leaves the side of his master to collaborate with the opposition - whether because he is deliberately motivated by evil or is simply and tragically misguided in his attempts to bring about God’s kingdom (interpretations of his motives are many and varied). We all have betrayers in our own stories - people who have forsaken their loyalty to us and taken up with those who oppose us, either intentionally or trying to do what they thought was best for us. We know what it is to break bread with someone and to have them turn on us in return, whether the betrayer is an actual person, or whether betrayal comes from failed investments or dreams that never worked out, or whether betrayal comes from our own bodies - as we get cancer or our heart fails or our mind starts to go. The betrayer is a significant character in Act Two of our lives, as we move from life to impending death.
And then there are the bystanders - the people who stand by and do nothing. Peter was one such bystander, along with the other disciples, the adoring crowds on Palm Sunday, even Pilate and Herod were bystanders who chose not to use their power to free Jesus. While Act Two is inevitable in every story - we all die, after all - every story ends - the bystanders make it all harder to bear. It is one thing to stand there and bear witness, as it were, as Jesus’ women followers did - watching everything and remembering it all. It is another thing to stand there and look away, and pretend everything is normal - to watch someone move from life to death and say nothing - not a word of protest, not a word of encouragement, not a reminder of the promise of Act Three, nothing. We also have these bystanders in our own lives - people in our own lives who walk along with us but don’t really see us. Who are busy with their own lives, and their own struggles, and don’t have the time, or take the time, to be with us in our own times of ending, or remind us that new life is coming.
As easy as it is for us to identify the betrayers and the bystanders in both Jesus’ story and our own, tonight I want us to think a bit about how we are the betrayers and bystanders in the stories and lives of others. Because we are, and we know we are, even when we want to deny it. “Not I, Lord,” we say. But we do - we betray others and in doing so, we betray Jesus. Whether we have literally betrayed someone, by lying or cheating or stealing, or whether our betrayal has been more figurative - telling someone they weren’t good enough to follow their dream, or that God didn’t love them, or that they deserved the misfortune they got. We even betray ourselves, when we believe the insults and demeaning words spoken to us, when we internalize the words and tell ourselves that we are no good, that we don’t deserve forgiveness, that we are hopeless and beyond saving.
And then there are the ways in which we stand by passively in the stories of others. We watch people face the closing of their own Act One, and we say nothing to them as they face their own death and loss. Maybe because we aren’t reconciled to our own ending, but how often do we see the pain of others and do nothing? On the news, on the street corner, in the church, even in our own families, we watch as others struggle to get through the loss of loved ones, of health, of dreams, and we find that we are the ones who are suddenly too busy or too preoccupied to help. When we don’t get involved, when we say it’s someone else’s problem, even when we engage in wishful thinking accompanied by regrets, we act as bystanders in the stories of others, even as bystanders in our own stories.We are, like Judas, like Peter, like Herod and Pilate, like the crowds, like all of the disciples, like the two criminals next to Jesus, guilty.
But as I said last Sunday, Act Two is not the end of the story - not the end of our story, nor the end of others’ stories. Of course, when we have been bystanders or betrayers in other people’s stories, it sure can seem like Act Two is the end. But there is an Act Three - it’s just that it can be impossible to see and impossible to believe in if we are still stuck in the tragedy of Act Two. It is impossible to accept the new life that God offers in Act Three if we can’t let go of the fact that not only do we die, but so do others, and moreover, we have played a role in those deaths.
And so God, who desperately wants us to continue until we get to the new life of Act Three, helps us. And so we come to tonight, and to Jesus’ actions on his last night with his disciples - his words and his deeds as the story of their time together comes to an end. Jesus, doing for us first what we are then supposed to do for others, makes the transition from Act One to Act Two easier by caring for those around him. Serving them, washing them, feeding them, and in all of those acts, forgiving them. Jesus forgives his disciples for betraying him - don’t forget that Judas shared in the Last Supper, too - and Jesus forgives his disciples for the role they were about to play as bystanders in his trial and crucifixion. And he does this so that when Act Three comes - when his own new life and resurrection comes, they would be able to face it. Ashamed at their own role, yes, but not devastated. (The saddest thing about Judas, by the way, is that at the end, he didn’t trust that he would be forgiven. If only he had been able to hang on through his guilt for just one more day!)
This is also what Jesus offers us, to help us get through our own losses and endings. Jesus offers us forgiveness and in that forgiveness comes strength. Yes, we have betrayed others and ourselves. Yes, we have stood by and done nothing, in the lives of others and in our own lives. But Jesus tells us, in his own Act Two as he did throughout Act One of his life, that we are forgiven. When we stand face-to-face with death, any death, we are forced to reexamine our own lives and to see where we have gone wrong, but Jesus tells us, through the water that washes us and through his body and blood, that we are forgiven. And so, we too, though ashamed at our own roles, are able to look forward to Act Three - to Easter Sunday - to the new life that will arrive after death.
Secure in this promise, tonight we renew our commitment to follow Christ in this as in all things. Tonight we do as Jesus did for us, washing one another, serving one another, feeding one another, and in these things proclaiming God’s forgiveness. We do these things here in this place for one another so that we might go out into the world, into our lives, and do them for others. We do them so that instead of participating in others’ stories as betrayers or bystanders, we might participate in their stories by preparing them for their own Act Three - by proclaiming to them that they, too, are forgiven and that they, too, will receive the new life that Christ offers to the world. As Jesus has done for us, we do for one another, and for the world, proclaiming forgiveness and thus prepared to face death and the new life that follows. Thanks be to God. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment