Lent 3 Year C

There were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.


This has not been a great week in the life of our world. Powerful men have conspired together, have pretended to have agendas other than the ones that anyone with eyes to see can recognise, and have totally disregarded the value of human life. I was hoping for a Gospel reading that would allow me to focus on God’s love and compassion, a Gospel with a feelgood factor. And instead I found myself with a reading that begins with an exceptionally gory image. To be honest, I wanted to turn away. Maybe I could find a bit of comfort in one of the other readings. But, truth be told, that verse lodged itself in my head and demanded my attention.

Someone asked me the other day what I have given up for Lent. The answer, at least in part, is that I am trying not to avoid reading upsetting news and current affairs. I’m trying to make myself read the news articles that I would rather skip over; to honour the fact that someone somewhere has taken the time and effort to report on a horrendous situation and all I am asked to do is to read about it, to understand it just a bit. I think we all go through phases where the situation in the world is overwhelming. Times when we just say, I need to protect myself from the horror of all of this. And that’s valid. That’s where I was earlier this year. But I know, for myself, that averting my eyes only works for so long. And then I need to pay attention. I need to know, if only so that I know where my prayers and, if I’m honest, my anger could be best directed.

Back to my gory reading. I’ve been thinking about Pilate and the narrative that he had a penchant for ordering sadistic acts; the narrative that says that Pilate was motivated by his desire to do bad things. Now I suspect that Pilate, in common with the rest of humanity was a complex and complicated character. We know that he committed acts of atrocity, does that make him evil? Even a limited knowledge would suggest that he mainly acted out of self-interest. Does that make him any different from the leaders ordering atrocities today?

And I’m always interested in understanding what takes someone from being an innocent child, which is where we all start out in life, to an adult who appears to enjoy humiliating and debasing other people. Pilate, in common with other officials in the Roman Empire, was doing OK but could just as quickly fall out of favour. There was no mercy offered to those who had once been onside and now were found wanting. He would have known that he needed to watch his back. That’s not to excuse him, but to acknowledge that motivations are always complex and usually contain more than a grain of self-interest.

So let’s go back to our Gospel passage. No one appears to be expressing the horror I feel at the story. Given the way that Jesus responds, we can assume that in the telling the question asked isn’t, how could something quite so horrific happen, it’s did they really deserve it? Now that may well be, at least in part, because the Romans had a penchant for sadistic forms of punishment and this was one of many atrocities they had witnessed or heard about.

I wonder whether the disciples had reached that stage of overload that I was discussing earlier, reached that place where they didn’t have the capacity to look at yet another story of horror. And so they turned to the victims and tried to understand something about them. One of the ways that we are manipulated by the global press is in the attempt to create a hierarchy of victims. Some people are valid targets, we are told, and others are unfortunate collateral damage. We might find ourselves, at least in part, buying into that narrative. And that appears to be the direction that the disciples were tempted to go. And they were immediately challenged. When we find ourselves buying into such a narrative, can we find a way to bring such a challenge? To remember how Jesus responded to those who wanted to ask, how bad were they?

I want to return to the motivation to commit crimes of such a nature that we would prefer not to know about them, and to suggest that if we look at the perpetrators, we mostly find frightened men. Pilate was as safe and secure as the last reports to his paymasters. If he failed to deliver, if the Romans found themselves unable to govern his part of the Empire, he would reap the consequences of that. And that was indeed the outcome. In the end, he went too far. The potential consequences for the players on the contemporary stage are not brutal in quite that way, but nor are they to be welcomed. International courts take their work seriously. Fraudsters and despots are eventually brought to justice and their liberty is curtailed. Those who see the writing on the wall often take matters into their own hands.

So what is there for us to do in the midst of despair and growing horror? Let’s go to the last verses of the Gospel which are suggesting that there is always the possibility that things will turn around. Good soil has the potential to make a difference. Positive attention has the potential to bring new life. That’s fine if we’re considering a fig tree – someone can go to the tree and do what is necessary. Not so easy when what’s failing is the ability to keep the basic commandments that are common to all major faiths, the fundamentals of most societies, when we see human life being devalued and disregarded.

The only tool most of us have available is prayer. We are not in a position to change the internal narrative for those scared wee boys who have been allowed to play out their war games on an international stage. That is way beyond what we might manage. But we do have the tools to bring good soil, to bring positive attention, to continue to trust that one day there will be an end to the madness we are witnessing. To bring our prayers, we, ideally, need to be informed. We don’t need to know every detail of every atrocity, but we need to see the big picture. That requires us, at least now and again, to engage with all that we would prefer to avoid. It requires us to know about the spilling of innocent blood; to remind ourselves that all life is precious in God’s sight; to hold everyone involved before God in prayer and to leave judgement to those to whom that task falls.

I invite you to join me this week in praying from an informed position for both victims and perpetrators. Praying for sanity in situations that we cannot begin to comprehend. Trusting that God is in the midst of all of it.

I went back to the other readings to look for that moment of comfort and I found it in the psalm. I found a resonance with the imagery we were offered last week
Under the shadow of your wings I will rejoice.
As we hold the trauma of our world in prayer, may we also be reminded that our safety and security lies in God alone.