Good Friday Good Hope

 

All of us have the capacity for good and evil. We offend as well as being offended, yet we think of ourselves as being basically good people. We acknowledge that at times we do things that wound others: we carry gossip about others, hedge on our commitments, do spiteful things to others because, for lack of a better word, we just feel uncharitable. Yet we still think of ourselves as being good and decent people, but with a human dimension. We tend to separate our good selves from our sometimes bad acts. This happens in and with all peoples.

Looking at others through the same lens may help to understand that we all do bad things at times and all of us have the need of giving and receiving forgiveness. Separating the act from the actor is a big step towards understanding. We can never forgive an act of injustice or evil, but we can forgive the perpetrator. An evil act will always be an evil act and can never be swept under a rug, yet those persons who commit those acts are made in the image of God and have, however small, some good in them. Maybe they had a bad day, or maybe they are going through a difficult moment…maybe a sickness or divorce, or maybe they endured humiliating abuse or perversion during their lives and believe they have no other way to protect themselves. We don't always know the real reason a person acts unjustly or cruelly.

I was on a peace march in Hartford earlier this year…It just so happened to be on Good Friday… The march was to bring attention to the fact that over 250 people have been murdered in Hartford since this decade began. To bring greater attention to this tragedy we carried crosses with the names of each of the victims…

Too often the community reacted to these violent happenings with revenge… the need for vengeance is a constant threat to peace. As I marched with the one hundred or so other peace activists, the thought kept rattling around in my brain… When will it end?.. When we’re all dead? But I had to step back… Too many don’t care if they die and in fact so many expect to die…or go to jail… They are lost. They have suffered desperately and many have lost hope. Lost hope in themselves, lost hope in their leaders, and lost hope in God.

I am familiar with that, losing hope, I saw it play out in newsreels. I’m certain that most saw the tragic incident that happened a couple years ago on Park Street in Hartford. The entire country saw the newsflashes, 100’s of news articles carried the message. “People walk by as elderly man lays crumbled in the streets of Hartford”.

All of the news outlets showed the horrible pictures of the elderly man who was struck by a car, his body tossed in the air like an old rag doll…Then his broken body lying in the street as people seemingly walked or drove by…The person who hit him fleeing the scene, no concern about helping but only concerned about being caught…The pictures were brutal in their imagery and stark in the message of hopelessness.

It was time then, it is time now, and it will continue to be the time to come together to do something, to confront the truth of how so many of God’s people live. That truth is this; many live in an environment that is beyond harsh, where life is not cherished but diminished… no value…no worth…and certainly no hope.

When I participated in that rally for peace…I joined with others walking and marching for peace. Along the way I spoke with a man in the street. I listened as the man said.

“It doesn’t matter that you all come here. Nothing will ever change. We got to live on these streets every day, we aren’t just visiting when the T.V. cameras are here. Don’t nobody want to live like this but it is the only way we know how to survive.”

 
Hope has been lost for so many of God’s people. There is suffering, and suffering without hope leads to self-hatred, suffering without hope leads to depression and anger. Suffering without hope leads to denial of self-worth, suffering without hope leads to destruction. We are called to community, every community, to be community. So we cannot turn our backs, we must embrace every person as a child of God, we must never allow the streets to destroy God’s people. That young man may have lost hope but we must not. Even though I admit there are times when I don’t understand, when I question God. I have come to the conclusion that God works in and with his children…and if I expect God to act in a situation maybe it is me that God is using. And God leaves it up to me whether or not to act.

 
Later that same Good Friday afternoon God showed me a miracle…St. Michael and St. Justin Churches…joined together for their Good Friday procession…we walked from St. Michael Church on the Northend of Hartford to St. Justin Church a mile to the north on Blue Hills Ave… along the way I spoke with those who watched the procession… As we walked I noticed another young man, his head down, his pants low on his hips, he walked with the familiar gate, which screams out “street tough don’t mess with me”. I approached him and asked if he needed prayer. He looked at me with surprising unguarded eyes… He said“Yeah! I put my arm around him and we prayed together…right on the street…in the middle of it all, we prayed on Good Friday…Two weeks later I saw him on the streets and he recognized me and said…Thanks for the prayers… I needed them…And then he walked away. Thank you God, I need them too.