Reflection on Luke 22:14-23:56
This is a post written by one of our CPE interns from Cohort #11, Matthew Sanaker, as a sermon for Palm Sunday at his parish. He is allowing me to share it. Enjoy!
For the past six months, I’ve been enrolled in a program of Clinical Pastoral Education, serving as a chaplain intern at Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca. I’ve been present for people of many different Christian denominations, other religions, and for people who told me that they are atheists. I’ve listened with empathy and compassion to people who were having heart problems, had suffered a stroke, had been in car accidents, had broken bones, or were sick. I had conversations with people who were struggling with addiction, some who had overdosed, some who attempted suicide by overdose, and people suffering from debilitating anxiety or depression. I met people who were dying and their families, I had conversations with the family members of people with dementia who were already mourning the loss of their parent or spouse, and I spent time with the families of people who had died.
There was a lot of grief for the loss of so much. All of that is understandable. The thing that struck me most was that so many people regardless of what they were going through told me how isolated they were, how lonely they were. Some felt betrayed or abandoned, left to deal with hardships on their own. For others it was a slow process of losing people, for some, many of their family and friends were dead, for others it was a slow drift, the loss of a job, the loss of community, the loss of a home. Some had hope, some saw an end to their suffering, a recovery from their illness, healing and wholeness. Some in the face of death had the hope of the resurrection and eternal life, and others told me that they had little hope at all.
As I was reading the gospel this week, I was drawn to those parts of the narrative in which Jesus was surrounded by people and yet entirely alone in his experience. In the garden, when he was praying, “not my will but yours be done.” And when he got up from prayer, he found his disciples sleeping because of grief. When he was betrayed by Judas. When Peter denied that he knew him after he was arrested. When he was beaten and mocked by his captors. When he was questioned by the Sanhedrin. When the people called for him to be crucified. When the crowd followed him to his execution. When the women wailed for him. When he was crucified with two criminals. And when he breathed his last, Luke tells us “all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.”
While serving at the hospital I kept in mind the words of our baptismal covenant. “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” Who is this Christ that we seek and serve? I found that I saw the suffering of Christ in each of the people who shared their stories of their suffering with me. I was a witness to their suffering. I could not change it, I could not take it away, but I could be present for them, and I could ask Christ Jesus, who suffered and died for the whole world, to be present for them. Christ told his disciples, “the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.” “I am among you as one who serves.” And St. Paul wrote, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” As Jesus’ disciples we are called to be as one who serves. To have the same mind as Christ, we must humble ourselves, see the suffering of our fellow children of God and have compassion for them. It was the compassion that Christ had for humanity that moved him to become incarnate, to humble himself to become one of us, to heal, to teach, to call the lost, the lonely, and the hurting, and to offer wholeness, to offer salvation, to offer forgiveness, to offer reconciliation, to offer eternal life. While only Christ can offer all of those things, as disciples of the one who suffered for us, we can offer empathy and loving-kindness in his name to those we meet who are suffering.
From today until next Sunday when we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, his victory over sin and death, we are challenged to heed the words that Jesus spoke to his disciples in the garden, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” Are we sleeping because of our grief? Or can we stay awake this week contemplating the suffering of Christ? Can we see suffering around us, in our communities, and be present for those in our lives that may be in need of our friendship and our compassion? It’s tempting to look away, it’s tempting to be emotionally asleep because of grief. And it is also imperative that we stay awake with Christ and pray, “not my will but yours be done.”
