“Clueless,” Luke 23:26-43 (April 5, 2009)

We are all in favor of forgiveness…most of the time.  In fact, the overwhelming majority of us believe we are forgiving people.  What that really means is that we’re willing to forgive if the conditions are met – if there’s an apology, if there’s restitution, if enough time has passed, if the offense is not too severe.

None of those conditions were met when Jesus spoke his words of grace. 

The who

The scene has played out in my mind over and over again this week.

It’s Friday morning about 8 AM.  The sun has been up for about two hours.  The fate of Jesus has been sealed by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.  Neither he nor King Herod believed Jesus was worthy of the death penalty, but they finally capitulated to the demands of the Jews and the shouts of the crowd.

The route from the governor’s judgment hall to Skull Hill, where Jesus was crucified, is known today as the Via Dolorosa, Latin for the “way of suffering.”  “Stations of the cross” mark spots where Christians through the centuries believed that Jesus was condemned, beaten, overcome, or crucified.

Mel Gibson’s 2004 film, “The Passion of the Christ,” vividly portrayed the Catholic church’s traditions related to the Via Dolorosa.  Gibson also provided the most graphic depiction of Jesus’ physical suffering that I have ever seen.

What captured my heart this week, though, is not so much what happened to Jesus, or where.  I have thought much about who was there.

Luke the master story teller is similarly intrigued by the who of this part of Jesus’ story.

Luke is the only gospel writer who names the man who carried Jesus’ cross beam through the city.  Probably the reason his name is significant is that he himself became a believer and was known to Jesus’ followers decades after the event.  He was more than likely a Jew from what is now Libya (Cyrene), who had made his once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover.

Simon happened to be near the spot when Jesus stumbled under the weight of the cross beam.  A Roman soldier tapped him on the shoulder with the flat side of his spear’s blade, conscripting him involuntarily into an unexpected service. 

Simon was clueless that two thousand years later we would still be talking and singing about that cross he carried.  But Jesus knew all about him.

Luke also tells us about “a large number of people” who followed Jesus that day.  He doesn’t give details, but he clearly wants us to be aware of the size of this mob. 

It is not difficult to imagine who is there.  Blood thirsty rubber neckers, mostly but not exclusively men and adolescent boys, trying to get closer to the gore.  Women and their small children, scurrying ahead and away, avoiding the danger and the fear.  People who had seen the trial and shouted, “Crucify him!” now lining the streets to watch it unfold.  Others to whom his was an unnamed face, presumed guilty.  Disinterested intellectuals, hands folded, surveying the scene.  Street vendors using the occasion to make a buck.  Good people, dishonest people, confused people, angry people, kind people, gossips, pious people, hypocrites – the same kind of crowd that shows up at church every week.

What they had in common was that they were all clueless about what was really happening that day.  That, and that Jesus loved them.  He knew their names and their stories and their joys and their fears.  He was bearing their sins.

Luke mentions specifically some women who mingled with the crowd – notable for their sympathetic grief and agonizing wails.  Soldiers would prevent them from close enough to Jesus to intervene, but the women probably included his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and other women who had stayed with him.  Perhaps in that group were also some women who knew very little of him, but because of empathetic personalities, cultural factors, or both simply joined the wailing for the same reason the men joined the jeering – it’s just what the masses do. 

Every one of those women, from stranger to mother, was clueless that day about the larger picture of why he had to suffer.  He cared about their pain, and he mustered enough strength to respond to their pain.

For women in his day, there was no shame greater than barrenness.  It was always assumed to be the woman’s fault.  But he turned to them and said, “A time is coming when you will say that a childless woman is blessed, and a dead man is better off.”  He knew what would happen to Jerusalem, when famine would lead to cannibalism would lead to whole scale massacre of the innocents.  No woman wants to see her children face that.  Had she known she her children would be starved or murdered, she would have chosen childlessness.

He added a proverb:  “For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”  It’s a proverb about premature judgment.  You don’t try to burn fires with green wood.   But Jesus is saying, “If they’ve started with judgment on the innocent, how much more will judgment fall when the time is ripe?”

Luke also wants to tell us about the two men crucified on either side of him.  One was afraid and penitent.  One was belligerent and angry.  Even though one of them cried out for mercy, both were clueless about how all this would play out.  But Jesus knew them and loved them.

Then there were the soldiers.  They were just following orders, doing their duty.  They had done this hundreds of times.  He was just another condemned Jew to them.  It was mechanical, robotic.  They knew the routine.  Whip him, push him down the road, beat off the crowds, get him to Skull Hill, strip him, tie him to the cross beam, attach it to the vertical beam, nail his hands and feet, divide up his clothing and shoes, and keep watch until you’re sure he’s dead.  Make fun of him if you’re in the mood.  Distance yourself from the human suffering.  Another day’s work. 

They were clueless.  And it was most directly about them that Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they are clueless.”

So what?

Let’s look at two take home points in this story about the clueless ones.  The first is Jesus’ prayer, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

We are all in favor of forgiveness…most of the time.  In fact, the overwhelming majority of us believe we are forgiving people.  Except for one or two situations – and if you knew what she did to me….

What that really means is that we’re willing to forgive if the conditions are met – if there’s an apology, if there’s restitution, if enough time has passed, if the offense is not too severe.

None of those conditions were met when Jesus spoke his words of grace.  The offense was grave, there was no apology, there could be no restitution, and the grace was immediate.

Some early Christians found this act of forgiveness too radical to accept.  We know this because the prayer, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” was intentionally deleted from a majority of early copies of the New Testament. 

Early copyists of the New Testament simply found this kind of radical forgiveness, especially to those who directly participated in the most grievous sin of human history – crucifying the Son of God – to be unthinkable.

So the take home point for us is to ask, “Whom have I considered to be unpardonable, irredeemable, unworthy of God’s grace or mine?”  More often than not, they are either unaware of their offense or in their own mind have justified it.  In other words, they are what?  Clueless.  They are exactly the ones Jesus taught us by his example to forgive.

The second take home point is that on the journey of life, we are all clueless.  I would like to criticize that Good Friday Jerusalem crowd, but the truth is, I am they.

I really don’t think I would have been one of those mocking or encouraging the torture, but I suppose one never knows for sure.  I am more likely to have been simply busy that day – going about my work hoping the distraction did not inconvenience my plans. 

What I do know is that I would have been clueless – clueless about the larger purposes, clueless about how near God was on the Via Dolorosa.

My Lenten discipline this year has been to focus on the presence of God all through the day.  I have been journaling to ask myself questions like, “Where have I recognized his presence?”  “Who has been a hidden Christ to me?”  “What are my first and last thoughts each day?”

It’s been a humbling experience to write down daily how clueless I am.  How much of the time I am unaware.  How little I am tapped into the truth that God is with me and he is in control.

It’s not that I need to know what God is up to.  That’s a big mistake we often make.  I don’t have to track the mind of God.

What I do need to do is have a clue.  I need to look for clues that he is there in my pain, in my grief, in my work, in my family, in my triumph, in my failure, when I sense him and when I’m clueless.  Amen.