Fleeing

 

On Palm Sunday we heard the passion story read aloud, the version according to Mark. Michael Pitts, Dean of the Anglican cathedral in Montreal, is a most gifted reader, and he made me pay attention. Every year (well, if I'm lucky and am, in fact, attentive both to the words and to myself) something new in the old story comes to the surface and lingers. This time it was the extremely short sentence that comes after Jesus is identified, arrested and taken away: "And they all left him and fled."

We had begun the service in procession around the cathedral with our palms, singing hymns - a way of dramatizing the entrance into Jerusalem and putting ourselves into the role of the crowd that we will play audibly and deliberately on Good Friday, when the story is read again and it's our turn to shout "Crucify him!" In my younger days in the church, this was never done - protestantism being what it was forty or fifty years ago.

But there's a reason Passion Plays are so powerful, and why Holy Week is a weeklong drama that doesn't merely skip from the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday directly to Easter: the point is to go deeply and personally into the story and see what it tells you -- not, I'd suggest, about where you are with your ability to believe in resurrection and miracles -- but about human behavior and yourself as a human being. Each year the story hits me differently because I am different: the story hasn't changed, I have. In order for that to work, you have to get beyond the sticking points of faith or dogma or annoyance with the church itself, to where you can see this story as a background onto which you are projected as a moving character.

"And they all left him and fled." There are many levels. I can remember when I first allowed myself to consider being a bystander at that crucifixion - that was a long while ago. At different times I've tried to identify with Jesus, of course; with the disciples; or with Mary and the other women who followed Jesus. I've imagined being Pilate, or Pilates' wife. So there is this literal and historical level where we can look from different angles and consider what we would have done. The obvious second level is to project ourselves into recent history and ask what we would have done if we had lived in Nazi Germany, for example - would we have been Dietrich Bonhoeffers? Would we have sheltered Jews in our basements? What if we were Jewish ourselves, what then? What if we were poets and intellectuals in Stalinist Russia? I know what I hope I would have done, but I doubt myself. I think there is a good chance I too would have "left him and fled." In fact we cannot possibly know until we are faced with the moment of crisis and decision: that's when each person's true nature reveals itself. We can think about it, ask ourselvs the difficult questions, and potentially prepare.

This year, though, I don't seem to be engaging in that exercise, but asking myself a more current question: what is it, in my own life, right now, that I am refusing to stand with, that I am fleeing?

I don't have a clear answer but it seems like a worthwhile thing to meditate on this week.

I'll keep you posted.

Comments

[Sharon]

"...what is it, in my own life, right now, that I am refusing to stand with, that I am fleeing?" What a thought-provoking question. I agree with you that different words and phrases stand out each year. And I have thought about "what if," especially watching the outdoor Passion Plays in Mexico, where it is usually hot this time of year, and one can look at the palm trees and feel the heat and imagine what it was like to be one of the crowd, watching, the first time.

[FrScott]

Shortest verse: "Jesus wept."

Scariest verse: "Follow me."

Thanks so much, Beth.

[john]

Ring the bells that can still ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
Thats how the light gets in
-Leonard Cohen

[Kaycie]

Today I fled from unpleasant truth. My husband grabbed my hand and pulled me back. I am not always so lucky.

I'll look forward to finding out what you think you're running from.

[suzanne]

Beth, you said:
I think there is a good chance I too would have "left him and fled." In fact we cannot possibly know until we are
faced with the moment of crisis and decision: that's when each person's true nature reveals itself

I have seen this thought before
and this morning I took some time
to think about it
and I am not at all convinced
that this act alone reveals one's true character

implied is always that
it invalidates what has gone before
or what one has said about oneself before

first time experiences in extremis
are difficult to imagine
before they are happening

and what one does AFTER the situation passes
no matter how you have acted
says even more
about one's true nature . . .
perhaps

(all just speculation
thanks for provoking it!)

[Pica]

(o)

[lucas]

I know what I hope I would have done, but I doubt myself.

Yes.

I used to worry so much about this when I was a kid. Still do. Would I have become a Nazi like everyone else, if I'd been there? Or if war broke out, would I become a warmonger? I don't think so---I've been so strongly insistent on saying no to such things my whole life. All through my childhood, so bothered was I by the persecutions I'd read about in history, that I mentally prepared myself each night for the unlikely what-ifs. At fourteen, I vowed to got to prison or face a firing squad rather than ever join a war. My resolve has weakened now, but only a little.

But what about subtler sins? Our defences are weak. We profit where others suffer, benefit from a murderous system (even if we don't directly commit murder), sometimes ignore those we could help. No, there's no innocence. Fleeing is what we do.

Suzanne's right, I guess. It's hard to know what one would actually do ahead of time. Depends almost entirely on how severe the pressure is, and how cleverly the evil is disguised.

But maybe, just maybe, our responsibility does not extend quite as far as we'd imagine. Maybe it isn't a stark choice between being a Nazi and being a Bonhoeffer. What do you think?

[Mouse]

Ah, I am the mistress of flight...
Yes, as someone once pointed out to me, it is important to undertsand the question before one can find the answer

[beth]

Suzanne, thanks for musing along with me. And I think you're right -- the forgiveness (of ourselves) that you imply in your reflection here is critical. (Even Peter took a while to follow and not deny - thus the "bitter tears.") And you're right that situations in extremis are their own reality and even if we prepare we can't be sure how we'll act. It's still important, I think, to think about moral choices and try to prepare. I've lived with regrets about certain actions and been happy I pulled through with my integrity in other situations...there are often opportunities to do over, do differently -- but not always.

Lucas - no, I don't think the choices are usually that stark, but I'd probably argue that our responsibilities actually are pretty great because the worth of even one child, one partner, one parent is immeasurable. And it's the collective effect of personal irresponsibility that gets us into a lot of our societal problems. On a personal level, I think a continual slight slippage in integrity has the potential to undermine and change us into shadow-selves of what we once hoped to be. I guess the tools against that are vigilance, honesty in self-examination, forgiveness...

[EJ]

But there are way not to leave and flee even in our comfortable lives.
Join a human rights group, write letters, wok for your beliefs here and now.
Think of all the work Amnesty International does so to free people in prison because of their views.
Working for others is not just a philosophical musing from a safe distance to a time we will never experience. Do it now!