When it comes down to it, I don’t get Good Friday. Each year, I’m moved by the stark sorrow of the liturgy; the Passion story can still make my hair stand on end, as if hearing it for the first time. But my own, personal sufferings have not been that extensive through about 25 years of life. I know I’m blessed in this regard, and that there comes a time for everything. It’s just that I think the power of Good Friday — our encounter with Jesus’ pain, his loneliness, his forsakenness — can only make ultimate sense all these centuries later if a Christian can find his or her own life story in the Passion text.
I spent a few hours today in a city that has experienced far more than its share of suffering. Each Good Friday, a handful of parish communities take to the streets of Camden, NJ, and put on their own living stations of the cross. I participated with the group from St. Joe’s Pro-Cathedral in East Camden, a few hundred strong. We started off in the church parking lot, gathering near a pickup truck with wireless speakers as a man portraying Jesus was led to his condemnation by Roman soldiers in period costume.
Each station — alternating between English (odd-numbered stations) and Spanish (even) — included a dramatic re-creation, but what was most stirring was a series of intercessions at each stop that connected the moment in the Passion story to the life of the community. When Jesus met his mother, we prayed for the mothers of Camden, especially those battling drug and alcohol addictions. When Simon helps Jesus carry the cross, we prayed for the people and agencies throughout the city who serve those who are most in need. The Passion story felt more real today than it ever has in my own reading, life experience, or suburban liturgical participation. Almost too real.
As we processed from station to station, filling the street and pausing traffic at each intersection, we prayed a rosary and sang. One refrain that was repeated over and over again, in Spanish, loosely translates to “Pardon your people, Lord.”
As we passed homes that did not look livable, and children clustered with their noses pressed at second-floor windows…Pardon your people, Lord.
As we walked by abandoned houses that quickly attract all sorts of crime and can threaten an entire block…Pardon your people, Lord.
As we crossed sidewalks and grassy places, littered with glass and television sets and everything else…Pardon your people, Lord.
As other neighbors and I watch a watch a proud city suffer so much, and turn our backs, cynically…Pardon your people, Lord.
Throughout the afternoon, I was reminded of the poem “When Jesus Came to Birmingham,” by Sean Wright. I plugged in “Camden” in place of “Birmingham,” as you could sadly do with so many of our American cities.
When Jesus came to Golgotha, they hanged Him on a tree,
They drove great nails through hands and feet, and made a Calvary;
They crowned Him with a crown of thorns, red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.
When Jesus came to Birmingham, they simply passed Him by.
They would not hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;
For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,
They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the rain.
Still Jesus cried, ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do, ‘
And still it rained the winter rain that drenched Him through and through;
The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,
And Jesus crouched against a wall, and cried for Calvary.
My prayer for us — especially those of us who have the time and luxury to write and read blogs like this one — is that the “life over death” story of Easter will set us into action for justice with renewed hope and purpose. The love shown on the cross demands nothing less.
In the gospel for the evening Mass of the Last Supper, we hear that just before his betrayal, Jesus washes his friends’ feet. We reenact the foot washing during the Holy Thursday celebration as a reminder of how we are called to serve each other.
I’ve never seen someone with really nasty feet get their feet washed during Mass. Most Masses either pre-inform their selected 12 or invite whoever feels comfortable to come forward to a station to have their feet washed. This means that people either have enough warning to make their feet presentable— I’m thinking of my mother, who got a pedicure before she got her feet washed— or they can choose whether their feet are clean enough to be washed by someone else.
The feet that Jesus washed were probably more like the feet that this gentleman washes: filthy, sore, and maybe even infected.
But let’s face it, at the Holy Thursday liturgy, nobody’s feet are really all that dirty, and there’s hardly much real washing that happens. Even with the chance to sterilize their feet before they’re washed, most people (myself included) still prefer not to participate.
If given the choice to be the washer or washee, I’d pick washer every time. I’m not huge on touching people’s feet, but I’d suck it up and wash feet rather than let my own feet be washed.
The same is true in daily life. I’m much more comfortable (as most people are) doing and helping than receiving.
When I hear the foot washing gospel, my initial reaction is to think I’m not serving whole heartedly enough and that there’s much more I can be doing in my life. While this is true, I’m a doer, who interprets the reading as a doer would.
A dear mentor and friend always used to remind me gently that, “We don’t see things the way they are, we see things the way we are.” On my first read of the feet washing narrative, when I respond by thinking that I need to get out and do something, I’m seeing things the way that I am.
As I sit with the reading for longer, I realize that for me, the more challenging message is that to allow my own feet to be washed is to serve.
There are many ways I refuse to let my feet be washed. When I take too much on, don’t allow a healthy vulnerability with others, or am not up front about my preferences— I refuse to let my feet be washed.
These types of behaviors often seem heroic or Jesus-like. They might even seem like examples of how I wash others’ feet.
When I sit quietly, I can discern the difference between true foot washing and moments when I’m more like Peter, who responds to Jesus’ invitation by refusing to let his feet be washed.
What does it look like, in daily life, to allow others to wash our feet?
