Getting under the skin
Luke 19: 28-40
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
March 20, 2016 – Palm Sunday
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| Atticus (Stephen Pelinski) and Scout (Evangeline Heflin) |
A couple of weeks ago I had the good fortune to see To Kill a Mockingbird at the REP Theatre with Olivia’s AP Lang class. The performance was one of several morning matinees that the cast performed solely for high school students. (Which incidentally I think merits a letter of commendation from the mayor of Newark.) It was the perfect play for a high school audience: there was righteous indignation for one wrongly accused; rumor and curiosity about a hidden neighbor’s history; pervasive racism that is just as relevant today; the mystery of our parents as human beings; the brother/sister relationship; and most important, the deep and abiding gift of friendship and connection.
The
play was wonderfully staged, with Jem and Scout’s neighborhood as the center of
life where everything took place. When
it was time to go to church with Calpurnia, church pews, congregation, and the
pastor and pulpit were placed in the middle of the neighborhood. The courtroom scene, which takes up most of
the second half of the play, also took center stage with the Finch, Dubose, and
Radley homes as well as the patched-up oak tree looking on.
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| Atticus (Stephen Pelinski) and Tom (Damir Creecy |
As
I watched Atticus walk about the courtroom, interviewing Mayella Ewell,
gesturing toward the accused Tom Robinson, I realized that the most brilliant
part of the staging was that the audience was the jury. When everyone returned to the courtroom for
the verdict, Judge Taylor looked toward the audience and from speakers placed
around the theater, each juror pronounced the verdict “guilty”. I could see heads turning to see from where
this guilty verdict came, for surely none of us would falsely convict Tom
Robinson. It was as if someone had put
this word in our silent mouths. I half-expected
a student or two cry out, “No way! He’s
not guilty!” but we all remained quiet and respectful of the drama being played
out before us.
You
see, Atticus, or really Harper Lee, had succeeded in getting us to understand
each character from their point of view.
By casting us, the audience, as the jury, we had been invited to climb
inside everyone’s skin for a while, as if we had walked around in it.[i]
Oftentimes
we can go through our day as a jury of one or more, interacting with and
observing others, outside of their skin and they out of ours, and we pronounce
our own verdicts, judging them and ourselves through our own sense of justice. Harper Lee wrote, “People generally see what
they look for, and hear what they listen for.”[ii] But she also wrote, “Before [we] can live
with other folks, [we’ve] got to live with [ourselves]. The one thing that
doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.” [iii]
Harper Lee was not only a keen observer of human beings and her own inward
self, but I’d like to think she also knew the gospels. To Kill
a Mockingbird is a Holy Week story if ever there was one.
The
whole of Jesus’ ministry was about climbing inside everyone’s skin for a while
and walking around in it. This is the
magnificent gift of the incarnation.
Even if we don’t believe literally in the incarnation, we can believe it
literarily, as an idea vital to the
story. God climbed inside our skin in
the person of Jesus. Jesus, by his life,
death, and resurrection, invites us to climb inside the skin of one another and
walk around in it, not so the other person would change but so that we would understand
and be transformed.
The crowd in the gospel of Luke that was welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem for the last time was a multitude of disciples singing and praising Jesus as king. These were not just the twelve but all those who had heard Jesus and his parables of wasteful extravagance, seeking out and loving the lost, who had witnessed his mighty works, and they were transformed. They were filled with joy. Jesus had gotten under their skin to the point that they overflowed with exuberant praise. There was no holding them back.
But
some Pharisees in the crowd—they just didn’t get it. More to the point, Jesus and his followers
had gotten under their skin but only as a source of irritation, annoyance, and
disruption of the status quo. Imagine
the scene. Let it get under, inside your
skin. It would be like seeing the
Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir in person, hearing them sing, “I’m Not Afraid”.
I’m not afraid
Of the darkness
Whom shall I fear
If God be for me?
What shall we say to these things?
What shall we say to these things?
I’m not afraid anymore
I’m not afraid anymore
The
choir is two hundred strong. People are
standing on their feet, their hands defying any sense of gravity or propriety,
moving to the music. They’re taking off
their outer layer of clothing, laying it on the ground for Jesus riding on a
colt to walk over in humble majesty.
Caesar is not king. Fear and the
threats of empire no longer rule their lives.
By declaring Jesus king, these disciples are protesting the Roman
occupation of their homeland in no uncertain terms. And they’re not about to be quiet about it.
Then
some of the religious leaders come along and say, “Can you keep it down? Turn down the volume. Just stop them, will you?” What they’re really saying is, don’t give
them hope. Don’t remind them that they
live in a prison. Don’t get them all
riled up. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t get us in trouble. Don’t get us killed. We don’t want to climb inside your skin
because we’re trying to save our own skins.
Jesus
tells them it’s too late for all that.
Even if this crowd of disciples were silent, these hard stones would be
saturated with praise. These hard stones
would have more give than your hearts.
These hard stones used to mark roadways and the graves of the dead—even
these would understand and cry out.
Later
this week the Temple authorities will stand as judge and jury over Jesus and
declare him guilty, with us as the audience looking on. God climbs inside human skin and walks around
in it, even through the worst day a human being can live through and then dies
to it.
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| Donald Trump greets supporters after his rally at Ladd-Peebles Stadium on Aug. 21, 2015 in Mobile, Alabama. (Mark Wallheiser / Getty Images) |
Sisters
and brothers, this is not a staged drama, no passion play we’re living through right
now. We’re living in a Palm/Passion
Sunday heading toward Good Friday world. The threat of empire’s violence and
wealth and the heightened fears of many are very real. There are those, in their sincere and
impassioned hearts, who are crying out for the bandit Barabbas than to save a
poor homeless peasant from crucifixion. We’re
all getting under each other’s skin in a not-so-good way. And we all stand as judge and jury of each
other, ready to pronounce the other guilty.
Jesus
invites us to climb inside each other’s skin, skin different from our own,
Tom Robinson's skin, perception different from our own, even the Bob Ewells and Walter Cunninghams of this world, and walk
around in them for a while. Not so that
they would change but that we would understand and be transformed. And not only transformed but so that we would
not be silent but cry out. Cry out that
there is another reality to be considered: that hope is alive; that it is love that
has the last word; that freedom, peace, and justice are more than just words
and that they mean what they say only when they are for everyone; that underneath our skin we aren't that very different.
If
no other time, this is the week we climb inside Jesus’ skin, walk with him, sit
with him and his disciples at the table, pray through the night, witness every
friend desert him, and with his last breath forgive those who kill him. In truth, this is the spiritual space we are called to
live in each day. When was the last time
Jesus got under your skin? Amen.
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