Lent: day 38 devotion
What struggles are offering you opportunities to grow right now?
As I’ve grown older my empathy for the struggles of Judas that are portrayed in the films Jesus Christ Superstar and The Last Temptation of Christ has deepened. Here are two interpretations of the same song from “Jesus Christ Superstar.”
This year, my companion and I will return to “Authentic Friday” films. We will choose from this list.
Godspell (1973)
Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
Jesus of Montreal (1989)
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)
Chocolat (2000)
Why authentic Friday? Jesus met people in moments, told teaching stories, held people and their institutions accountable to their beliefs. He had moments of doubt about his understanding of God. For me, authentic describes Jesus and his living as told in the synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke). Those writers are doing two things many years after the time of Jesus. First, they are giving Jesus a backstory. They are summarizing the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth and his teachings using the source material at hand. Second, they are making a theological statement about Jesus, God, and humanity. It is the good news as they experienced it and orally shared that was written down and called “holy” scripture. The gospel of John begins with theology and works in a narrative which is why I think of John’s gospel as a theological handbook for deeper thinking rather than a narrative about Jesus.
But why “authentic” Friday? In my journey in faith sacrificial atonement or substitutionary atonement theology that ascribes “good” to the death of Jesus as part of a systematic theology that details a cosmological plan of soteriology by a divine being is no long part of my theological lexicon. I haven’t thought of death as “punishment” in a long time. I am very connected to the majority of Christians I know who find comfort, peace, and inspiration in that orthodox understanding, and the ways they live based in their discipleship following Jesus. In so many ways, they are more faithful than I. And, like my siblings in faith that claim Jesus, Christ, I am working to live as authentically, and consistently, as Jesus did in his time being accountable to my siblings. I’m seeking the kind of intimate relationship with God that Jesus had and learn from centuries of Christendom’s failures to inform my journey in faith here in the 21st century. That’s authentic to the human condition and we get a glimpse of it in the stories about Jesus.
Some Christians say that at the communion table, Eucharist, Christians proclaim “the mystery of our faith.” I bristle at that language. But, for the last few years that theological statement has been working on me. As I pay attention to media, to other cultures, to other religions, to congregational life, to music, film, bookstores, and how Americans are “sorting” ourselves, table hospitality is clearly a mystery. Like the early decades of the 20th century, we are working out an identity amidst massive technological and cultural change. It is said that Jesus ate with sinners, tax collectors, and the outcast. What happens when we replace sinner, tax collector, or outcast with Democrat, Republican, or Independent in Jesus’ story? Maybe substitute with BLM, Trump voter, pro-life, or pro-choice. Would you sit down with Jesus if the person you considered “other” was at the table? We are not living in a Disney film. What kind of act of true love will solve everything or anything, here and now, anymore?
Which brings me back to Judas as portrayed in these films. The lyrics from “Superstar” is one of my opportunities to grow right now. They are authentic musings. I don’t know if others share them, but the opt-out from organized Christianity suggests to me that maybe people are looking for something more here and now rather than there and then.
Tell me what you think about your friends at the top.
Who’d you think besides yourself’s the pick of the crop?
Buddha, was he where it’s at? Is he where you are?
Could Mohammed move a mountain, or was that just PR?
Did you mean to die like that? Was that a mistake, or
Did you know your messy death would be a record breaker?
Don’t you get me wrong.
I only want to know.Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,
Andrew Lloyd Weber/Tim Rice, “Superstar.” Jesus Christ Superstar (1973).
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ Superstar,
Do you think you’re what they say you are?