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The Passion of the Christ and the Execution of Jesus by The Rev. Hartshorn Murphy Much controversy has surrounded Mel Gibson's film: "The Passion of the Christ," even before its release. The issue of whether the film is anti-Semitic is related to whether the film is historically accurate. But that's not so simple a question to address. The four gospel narratives are not historical documents although they contain in them historical information. Rather, the gospel writers were writing the "gospel" (Literally: "good news") of Jesus as the anointed of God, the Messiah. The historical record, from other sources, may reveal quite different facts. We unfortunately use the language of "truth" in speaking of these things but that is misleading. The gospels indeed contain profound truth but are not always factually true. This is not a matter of deception but of emphasis and purpose on the part of the gospel writers. Thus, these are documents of inspiration, not information. We do know that, historically, the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate (26-36 c.e.), was an ambitious and ruthless ruler over Palestine who resented these arrogant and unpredictable people with their barbaric custom of circumcision, inexplicable dietary laws, Sabbath sloth and jealous deity. Roman justice was swift and brutal and designed to prevent insurrection and insure the collection of taxes. In 30 c.e., for example, Pilate confiscated Temple funds to help build an aqueduct that would benefit Jerusalem. When about 300 Galilean peasants protested, they were surrounded by plain-clothed soldiers with hidden clubs who, at Pilate's predetermined command, clubbed them all to death (see Luke 13:1-3). That the Jewish authorities at the time of Jesus had no authority to execute a criminal is clear. "If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you…we are not permitted to put anyone to death" (John 18:30) Jesus was tried, found guilty of a capital offense (sedition) and executed by the State. His crime, the placard he wore around his neck as a deterrent to others, said it clearly: "King of the Jews." There was to be no King save Herod who ruled through the appointment and authority of Caesar. Yet the gospels portray Pilate as being at least initially well disposed to Jesus and only yielding to the crowd in fear should he acquit. In the Gospels, written in the later half of the first century, Christians were strategic in exculpating Rome and charging the antagonistic synagogue leaders with instigating violence against them. Appealing to the nobler side of Roman magistrates, seeking to ingratiate themselves with Roman rulers, Pilate was inaccurately cast in the Gospels as diligent, careful and compassionate and Caiaphas' role was exaggerated. From 1st Timothy we read: "…I urge that supplications, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone, for kings and all in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity." (1st Timothy 2:1-2) So the danger in choosing to make a film of the gospel accounts of the death of Jesus is that it may serve to perpetuate the "blood guilt" of "the Jews" for the crucifixion. ("Then the people as a whole answered, `His blood be on us and on our children!'" Matthews 27:25.) We can not change what the gospels say but we can choose to acknowledge their historical bias and, as the Christian Church has done over the last several decades, seek to educate people to read the gospels critically, not as literal truth but as "spiritual truth." Supporters are quick to claim that the central truth of the "Passion" is not centered in the "how" of Jesus' death but rather the "why." In encouraging people to see this film as an evangelistic opportunity, the point is that "Jesus died for our sins" and the enormity of that sacrifice - emphasized most graphically - should elicit a response of "faith" (i.e. belief in Jesus as the Son of God) and hopefully, church affiliation. This theology, the predominate theological articulation of the Church since its inception, emphasizes the "atonement of Christ." It's grounded in the sacrificial traditions of Judaism. But to understand that we need to speak first of "sin." Sin is generally understood to be a violation of God's law, the Torah. As violation, there was a debt due for the sin, which the law prescribed. Prior to the building of a Temple, penitents would take an animal - a goat perhaps - to the edge of the desert, place their hands on its body and thus transfer the sin to the animal, then drive the animal into the wilderness where it was devoured. (Our expression "scapegoat" comes from this practice.) After the building of the Temple, people would bring their sin offering, as well as thank offerings, to the priest who in receiving the grain or the animal sacrifice, would offer it to God in a "holocaust" (i.e. burning). Animals were to be whole and unblemished; grain was of the "first fruits." We offer to God our best commodity, not the leftovers. Thus was sin absolved. But sin is much larger than the sum of individual transgression. Capital "S" sin refers to the condition of alienation and estrangement that manifest itself in individual small "s" sins. The history of Israel, in the time preceding the life of Jesus, was one of repeated domination and subjugation by "pagan" nations (Babylonian, Persian, Greco-Roman) which led sages to question whether or not God had abandoned his chosen people. (See the later prophets, e.g. Jeremiah). Why were they punished as a people? How could this stain of alienation between God and God's chosen people be removed? How could the debt be paid? "And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifice that can never take away sin. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God...For by a single sacrifice he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified." (Hebrews 10:11-12) The theology of the atonement (literally: "at-one-ment") is that Jesus was the living, human sacrifice that was blemish free (sinless) that paid in full the debt of sin for all humankind and by his sacrifice, enables humankind to be reconciled ("at-one") with God again. Occasionally, that sin is represented as originating with Adam, a disobedience against God which is passed down (sexually) through the generations as an inherited stain ("original sin"). (St. Augustine of Hippo advocated for this view.) But a better insight would be to acknowledge that "Sin," as estrangement, is "original" in each of us; we all are alienated from each other, from God and even from ourselves. The dark side of human self-definition or maturing is selfishness, self-centeredness, hubris and alienation. It is the "human condition." We all live "east of Eden." We need deliverance and liberation. How to understand the crucifixion? One choice is to see it as a just God who's righteousness demands that the price be paid and who sacrifices his son on the altar of the cross, by which Jesus becomes victim and sacrifice for us, albeit a willing one. (The point of Gibson's film and "traditional theology" generally). That debt functions as"redemption." To illustrate: imagine the experience of seeking to get a valued piece of property out of the pawn shop when you have not the cash, only to find that the "price has been paid" by another who did this as a free gift ("grace"). Now imagine that the valued piece of property is your immortal soul. All this was preordained by God, it was God's plan of salvation (literally to "save us" from having to pay the debt of sin in eternal damnation.) This theological construct has worked for two millennia and has spoken powerfully to countless generations of believers. But it is not the only prism through which we can see the truth of the crucifixion. Two other paradigms come to us through Israel's history: the Exodus and the Exile. The Exodus story is the central foundational story of Israel. While the Israelites were held in bondage as slaves, God acted in history to bring them freedom. A story of liberation, the children of Israel are led into a new land flowing with milk and honey. It is the paradigm of a journey from captivity to freedom. Present in the gospel stories are images of Jesus as the new Moses who will lead the captive Palestinian Jews to a new land, the Kingdom of God. For many contemporary people, the image of bondage - to drugs, alcohol, guilt and shame, destructive and abusive histories, fear, etc. - speaks more powerfully than sin which carries with it the implication of culpability and choice. Slaves are slaves not through any fault of their own but need to be set free. Jesus is our liberator. In the Babylonian exile, the nation of Israel lost everything save their hope in God and even that had grown dim. ("How can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" Psalm 137:4) The Temple of Solomon, their religious icon, had been destroyed and through intermarriage and cultural accommodation, their very sense of identity was threatened. Set free by Cyrus of Persia (heralded as the "Messiah" by some), the people of Israel returned home and rebuilt their Temple and their lives. For many contemporary people, sin as violation of arcane rules, has little resonance but we often feel ourselves to be in exile, living far from the lives we were created by God for. Many of us do not feel "at home" in our own bodies. Our sense of "foreignness" is not our fault; we need desperately to "come home." Jesus is our homecoming. These other paradigms (Exodus and Exile) are present in the gospels and other New Testament writings, along side the Temple/Priestly sacrifice paradigm. The question is not which one is right. They are all "right" in the sense of spiritual truth: at times, we make choices which "miss the mark" (the classical definition of sin) and which result in our separation from God, others and our best selves. But this is not the only true image of the human condition. Slavery and exile are also true insights and Christ speaks to those as well. The true question is one of "resonance" and inspiration to salvation. What rings true for each of us and which story serves to enable in us a spiritual transformation into the "converted life." But emphasizing the atonement as the only truth obscures the other two equally profound metaphors to understand the human condition and its remedy in Christ. But regardless of which lens works for you, it is problematic to say in a literalistic way that Jesus died for our individual sins. A story: I once had a caretaker, a devout Christian woman, who whenever I misbehaved as a child of eight, would say in annoyance: "every time you do that, you drive the nails deeper into Jesus' body!" As an adult, I can forgive those scars but I can not easily forget them. We can say that conscious and unconscious acts which violate others clearly extend the borders of darkness and brokenness in an already too dark and broken world and that Christ's life and message speaks powerfully to that reality. But Christ was not executed in 33 c.e. for my intemperate and selfish acts in the 20th century (save in the most broad sense) but because he was a threat to Roman authority (and indeed all authority of Empire). In calling people to a vision of the Kingdom of God, Jesus questioned the entitlements and presumptions of the Kingdom of Rome, a "traditional" domination system like all other human empires. For the Early Church to proclaim "Jesus is Lord" was to say "and Caesar is not!" Jesus died for subversively challenging the Kingdom of Empire and its history of privileging the rich and elite at the expense of the poor and weak. He died for sedition and for a message which was a powerful critique of exploitation, inhumanity and selfishness. The words of the prophet Amos echoed in the life and witness of Jesus: "I hate, I despise your festivals and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." (Amos 5:21-24) Jesus died, like all the prophets, for calling humankind to justice and for proclaiming the Lordship of God over the nations of the earth. But the resurrection of Christ, the central act of Christian devotion rather than the crucifixion, was God's "amen!" to the life and message of Jesus. God's "yes!" to the proclamation of God's Kingdom over human systems, to abundant forgiveness and restorative grace, to coming home from our exile and to being set free from our bondage. The life of Jesus is about an invitation to us to become a new creation, the new life of the Body of Christ, which is "in the world but not of the world" (see John 17) and about working tirelessly to proclaim and live into the "dream of God." St. Paul wrote: "all things are lawful but not all things are beneficial." (I Corinthians 6:12) To the extent "The Passion of the Christ" renews in us a servant ministry of reconciliation and compassion, it is worthy indeed. To the extent it reinforces dangerous stereotypes, it is of little value. "The call to ministry is the call to be a citizen of the kingdom of God in a new way, the daring, free, accepting, compassionate way Jesus modeled. It means being bound by no yesterday, fearing no tomorrow, drawing no lines between friend and foe, the acceptable ones and the outcasts. Ministry is commitment to the dream of God. The world is not as God would have it be. The kingdoms of this world are not yet the kingdom of God, but they can become it. They are not yet the realm where God's sovereignty is acknowledged and lived out, but they can become it." (Verna Dozier, The Dream of God, pg. 139)
Copyright © 2004 St. Augustine by-the-Sea
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