“Police have yet to identify Clark as the suspect or victim.â€
These words are taken from March 23rd reporting in the Washington Post. Five days earlier, the police in Sacramento were searching for an individual who was breaking into vehicles in the neighborhood. A police helicopter followed a suspect, then officers approached on foot. They found 22 year-old Stephon Clark in his grandmother’s backyard holding a white iPhone, and within six seconds, they had fired twenty rounds, killing him.
Suspect or victim? Is it possible he was both? Or have we decided that summary execution for minor crimes is okay, if he was in fact guilty of a minor crime? Maybe we’ve just gotten bored with this story, on an endless repeating loop. Police shootings of unarmed African-Americans have remained steady, but there is a lot less news coverage these days. And what does any of it have to do with us, here where less than 1% of our population is African-American?
Suspect or victim, this man on the cross? Or have we decided that pre-emptive execution is an okay way to prevent riots? Make an example out of him and maybe his followers will slink back to Galilee, take their fishing nets back up and stop all this Kingdom of God nonsense. After all, this is the kingdom of Caesar, of Tiberius.
It doesn’t help that we have this maddening narrative, an after the fact re-construction that tells us at the same time that the execution of Jesus in inevitable and necessary and also tells us that it is wrong, that he is innocent, a victim. This is Jesus seen through the lens of later orthodoxy, through the lens of Paul’s overpowering interpretation that reads Jesus in the context of the Temple cult. How can it be necessary, inevitable, divine will, and be wrong and sinful, bringing damnation to those involved, all at the same time? What sort of God hardens hearts all the better to justify divine retribution?
People have been trying to figure out who Jesus was and why he died for almost two millennia, have tried to reconcile necessity with free will, have tried to spare the puppets from the fire, for certainly Judas, in this re-construction, is innocent, a bit actor in a divine play, so why must he hang? Why the Potter’s Field?
We are never going to know exactly what happened then, and even if we could travel back in time, we still might not know, for humans are contradiction and impulse with a pulse, and even being there might not tell us why, for the why that is articulated is often not the real why…
But there is a striking similarity between the streets of Sacramento and the via Delarosa, the way of sorrow that takes Jesus from Pilate to Golgotha. The thing that connects these executions and so many others is fear.
Scripture suggests that Pontius Pilate is afraid of the mob. While this is extremely unlikely given the strength of the legion at his back, it is probably also true on another level. He is the commander of a hostile force occupying another nation far from home, a place where he does not know the customs, where they are different, where they have darker skin. These are people who just a century and a half earlier had successfully rebelled against a foreign occupier. Tension is building, and the city will riot and burn and rebel again and again in the coming decades. Six thousand Roman troops will die at the Battle of Beth Horon, with the legion losing its eagle. Crucifixion was not just about death, for a quick blow with a sword could effect that. It was about public torture to inspire fear.
The scribes and high priests no doubt feared upheaval and Roman reprisals if they could not maintain control of their fellow Hebrews. The Pharisees feared the popularity of Jesus and of John the Baptizer, of anyone who believed differently.
It is fear that accelerates time, that produces rash action, that leads to an arrest and an execution in less than 24 hours, that leads to shots fired in six seconds, fear of the other, fear of the unknown, fear that has been stoked by a narrative of us and them. It is hatred distilled from fear that drives the lash, that drives the nails.
Jesus was scary. His message was scary. Love that trumps hate is scary, scary to those who use hate, scary to those who do not love themselves, who cannot love others, scary because love is the opposite of fear and so many are drowning in fear, have grown gills to breathe in their fear.
And so, shots ring out, nails are driven, helicopters circle overhead, a spear pierces a side, and a man cries out “It is finished.†Fear wins for the day, as the stone remains in place, as they weep behind locked doors. Fear wins for the day.
And love incarnate replied: “Be not afraid.â€