SERMON PREACHED BY THE REVEREND DR. HAROLD
T. LEWIS,
RECTOR
CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
PALM SUNDAY, 2004
"He humbled himself and became obedient to the point
of death ---
even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:6)
One of the things I managed to do on my sabbatical was to catch
up on movies I hadn't seen. On any given night
after supper, a group of us, students and lecturers, would often
find ourselves at the cinema in the local mall, where
for 20 Rand, about three dollars, we could see an almost first-run
movie like "The Last Samurai," or "Under the
Tuscan Sun." The two big nights of the week were Tuesday,
when admission was only 15 Rand, and Friday, when
the movies changed. Such was the pace of my exciting social life
in Grahamstown, South Africa. Mel Gibson's new
film, "The Passion of the Christ," hadn't yet reached
Grahamstown when I left, so I was anxious to see it when I
returned to Pittsburgh. I felt obliged in many ways to go. Maybe
it's because I thought it would be helpful as a late
Lenten exercise, a kind of preparation for Holy Week. Maybe it's
because I had heard so much about it, I wanted
to see it for myself. Maybe, if the truth be told, I was hoping
to get an idea or two for a sermon!
The film has received mixed reviews, to say the least. The
New Yorker called it "one of the cruelest movies in the
history of the cinema," and that may well be true. Many
critics have found fault with it for its alleged anti-Semitism,
but I suspect that many such persons would only be satisfied if
all references to Jews were expunged from the
pages of the Gospels. Others have said that the (literally) excruciating
violence, (as I typed the word "excruciating"
I was reminded that its root is the word for "cross")
with which Mr. Gibson seems all but obsessed, has obscured
the message of love and redemption that is at the heart of the
Gospel. But such a criticism is unjustified, because
the film is not called "The Gospel according to Mel Gibson."
It does not purport to be a biography of Jesus, but
only the depiction of the last twelve hours of his earthly life.
So no one should go to see it expecting a crash course
in the New Testament, or a 21st century update of "The Greatest
Story Ever Told." This morning, on this Sunday
of the Passion, I would like to suggest that Mr. Gibson's "Passion"
is not without its redeeming qualities, and that
it deserves more than the one a half stars that the Post-Gazette
so grudgingly awarded it. I'll even go so far as to
say that the film might even help us who "confess and call
ourselves Christians" to more deeply understand what
the Prayer Book calls "those mighty acts whereby God has
given us life and immortality."
First of all, Mr. Gibson gets to the heart of the matter.
One of the few things I remember from Mr. Mount, my
New Testament professor in seminary, is that every word in the
New Testament either flows toward or flows from
Calvary. Otherwise put, every word in the New Testament is either
a preamble to or a consequence of the Cross.
The Passion is the centerpiece of the Gospel, and it was the accounts
of the Passion that were the first stories of
Jesus' life that were written down. And for good reason. What
we refer to in the eucharistic prayer as Jesus'
"blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection
and glorious ascension" are the unique claims that
we as Christians make about our God. Indeed, St. Paul reminds
us that Jesus' death on the Cross was the
"stumbling block," (the Greek word he uses is, significantly,
skandalon) to the Jews. Mr. Gibson is theologically
astute enough to realize that we have to fully grasp the Passion
if we are to appreciate the Resurrection. So Mel
Gibson is on solid theological ground when he dwells on the events
between Gethsemane and Golgotha. No
cross, no crown.
Second, I appreciated the realism of the film. It made a profound
impression on me that the writers decided to
have the Jews in the film speak in Aramaic and the Romans to speak
in Latin, exactly as it would have been in
Biblical times. I was also struck by fact that Jesus was bilingual,
able to switch to Latin in his dialogue with
Pilate. This makes the action far more authentic than if all
the actors mouthed the "thees" and "thous"
of the
King James Version of the Bible. The other aspect of the realism,
of course, was the graphic detail of Jesus'
suffering. It was admittedly overdone. I flinched more than
once, and found myself looking away from the
screen to avoid the sight of blood. But the blood and gore served
to remind the audience just how awful the
Crucifixion must have been. It was not a pretty picture.
But I found "The Passion of the Christ" a moving
experience for another reason ---- and that is, the Biblical
characters came alive. We could look into their faces and read
their moods in ways that might not otherwise
be possible. We can see the anguish and remorse, and then the
desperation of Judas. In one scene, he greedily
gathers up the thirty pieces of silver, and in a later scene,
throws the bag of coins back into the faces of the
high priests. Pontius Pilate, who gets an honorable mention in
the Creed every Sunday, came across as the
political animal he most assuredly was. We could look into his
eyes and see his ambivalence, the war raging
within him between conscience and expedience, between doing what
he thought was morally right and doing
what he felt he had to do to save his own hide.
My favorite character in the movie was Simon of Cyrene. There
he was, minding his own business, when he
was compelled by a Roman soldier to carry Jesus' Cross. He was
outraged, he was indignant. He protested
that he had nothing to with Jesus and the charges against him.
It was not his problem. He started up the
road to Calvary kicking and screaming, but by the time he was
half-way up, empathy, love and compassion
are written all over his face. Just as poignant is the conversion
of the centurion, at one moment taunting and
jeering the Christ, and in the next, kneeling at the Cross in
adoration.
My friends, whether we meditate privately on the Passion in
a quiet chapel or at our bedside, or see it enacted
in the context of the liturgy by Calvary's own Thespians, or pay
eight dollars for the privilege of spending 126
minutes assaulted by the graphic images conjured up by Mel Gibson,
the Passion never leaves us as it found us.
Why? Because the Passion is like a Freudian dream. Everybody
in it is us! We are Judas, overcome by selfish
motives in one moment, and contrition in the next. We are Pontius
Pilate, vacillating between moral rectitude and
the convenience of the moment. We are Simon of Cyrene, indifferent,
aloof, not wanting to be involved, not
wanting to make a commitment, desirous of "our own space,"
hopefully later to find that once we let ourselves
out of our cocoons, that "service is perfect freedom."
Indeed, we are the fickle crowd, who one day strew palms
at Jesus' feet, and a few days later clamor for his execution.
That most plaintive hymn sums it up, doesn't it?
"Who are the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?" it
asks. And we answer
Alas, my treason, Jesus hath undone thee.
'Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee.
I crucified thee. (1)
The Archbishop of Canterbury, in a little book called Jesus
on Trial, writes that the stories of the Passion "have
always required the reader to stand in particular places, to find
himself or herself somewhere in the map traced
by the history of Jesus in his suffering, and so to find truth
and judgment." (2) Long before Mel Gibson recharted
that map, Jesus, in his own vulnerability, and those who became
vulnerable with him, invite us to stand in any place
that affords us a vision of the Cross, so that, seeing the choice
that Jesus has freely made, we might be given the
strength to serve not only him but all those for whom he died.
Let us pray:
O wounded hands of Jesus build in us thy new creation;
Our pride is dust, our vaunt is stilled, we wait thy revelation:
O love that triumphs over loss, we bring our hearts before thy
cross,
To finish thy salvation. (3)