Good Friday from Below

Last night we attended a Good Friday Service, as we have for some 20 years. This year was different, but not just because I am no longer leading the service.

Since we are free now to choose where to visit a service, we considered options. We decided, rather than shopping for a service we might like, we would try to do something consistent with the mission of God which this day commemorates, the mission which has called us into the city. So we chose to attend the service at an African American church in our community.

My parents joined us and the four of us were the only whites present, which we anticipated. We were warmly welcomed by the small gathering. (Good Friday attendance is always much lower than Easter Sunday, and apparently that is true across racial and denominational lines.) The brief litany was thoughtful and challenging. The cross-centered hymns were very familiar, though the style was less so. They sang my father's favorite song, and I was feeling glad we had come.

Then the lesson began.

The guest speaker was eloquent, passionate, and provocative…very provocative. He delivered a fervent exposition of Mark's passion narrative told from the perspective of the suffering of the African American people. He spoke convincingly of the injury to the soul caused by dehumanizing words and injustices, which are just as painful as is harm to the body. Those with power can kill the soul with words before they kill the body—something he persuasively insisted that African Americans have long experienced. And so, he said, they did to Jesus—belittling and ridiculing him before they executed him. Vivid comparisons were drawn between the treatment of blacks and Jesus' unjust treatment by the "po-lice" and other manifestations of Empire, culminating with an excruciatingly explicit description of the horrific torture and lynching of Claude Neal in 1934, followed by an equally explicit narrative of the scourging and crucifixion of Jesus.

There was much about the exposition that was compelling and thought-provoking. It was a bold denunciation of Empire and oppression in any age, especially our own. But there was also much that was disturbing. The comparisons between Jesus and "the black body" were pressed pretty far—too far in my opinion. The speaker wanted us to see Jesus as a young black man tortured and murdered by Europeans and the "Negroes" collaborating with them. The analogy is not without merit—but it seemed to us to be taken too far. (Or maybe we were just uncomfortable being the only Euro-Americans present…and we were admittedly uncomfortable!) His manuscript was undoubtedly written for an African American audience, not anticipating our surprise visit. Yet his strong words did not confront his audience with their own sins, only those of others—missing the confessional Spirit which I personally feel should characterize this occasion.

Perhaps even more troubling to me, though, were several verbal shots taken at Republicans, George Bush, and religious conservatives. In a sermon decrying the dehumanizing effect of verbal attacks, I could not help but feel that he was violating his own principle in his prejudicial stereotyping of his political opponents. I wonder if the message of reconciliation was lost in this reflection on the cross—the cross which has "broken down the dividing wall of hostility," and calls us to do the same.

Still, according to Raleigh Washington and Glen Kehrein (Breaking Down Walls), if we are to have reconciliation we must hear each other's stories—with the pain and offense often inherent in them. From listening we can move to understanding and to mutual respect.

Following the lesson we shook hands with the speaker as we stood in line to share communion with these brothers and sisters, and I had a very affirming and hopeful conversation with the Senior Pastor after the service. So as troubling as aspects of this evening were, I am glad we were there. Perhaps this passionate sermon was not an expression of reconciliation—but hopefully our respectful presence was.