The Kindness of Strangers

 

Good Friday 2022

 

A couple of nights ago, on the BBC Ten o’clock news, Clive Myrie commented in a report from Ukraine that it was very wearing to begin almost every film he introduced with the warning that “viewers may find some scenes distressing”. The strain of reporting from a war zone was obviously taking its toll on him, because, distressing though it is for us to see these things on our television screens day after day, it must be far worse to be witnessing them in person, to see the bits that are blurred out for viewers, to hear the stories which the editorial team cuts out, knowing they are too grim to broadcast. And, of course, it is even worse for those for whom these things are not stories in a news broadcast, but lived experience, those who have buried their loved ones in their own back gardens with their own bare hands, because there is nowhere else to put them, those who have suffered rape or torture, and seen all they have and all they love destroyed.

 

We have the luxury of being able to turn off the TV, and I suspect that sometimes we may be wise to do so, but the suffering doesn’t stop because we can’t see it.

 

It really does seem at the moment as if there is nothing but bad news; as well as the war in Ukraine there is a pandemic still raging, a cost of living crisis, and a climate emergency which is ticking down to the point of no return.

 

And here we are on the solemnest day of Holy Week, piling on top of all that a story which is just as grim as anything we might hear on the news. An innocent man, arrested on trumped up charges, deserted by his friends, mocked and beaten and subjected to an horrific death. Telling this story year after year might seem like a perverse thing to do, deliberately depressing us even further than we are by the realities of our world – wouldn’t it be better for our mental health just to avoid it, think of something pleasant instead – bunnies and chocolate and fluffy chicks?

 

And yet, for two thousand years we have circled back to this story, telling it again, looking at it from every angle. Why would we do this to ourselves?

 

Perhaps it gives us a lens, a framework, to look also at the suffering around us now, and the suffering we go through with new eyes. People often ask why we call this day Good Friday – how can it be good? But we proclaim that it is, and that somehow it strengthens us.

 

As I looked at the story again this year, in preparation for Holy Week, one of the things that struck me was that, for all the cruelty and hatred in it, there are also acts  of love and kindness too, often from people who are either right on the fringes of Jesus’ world or even complete strangers to him. I’ve explored some of those stories in the display in front of the Lady Chapel, which I have called “the Kindness of Strangers”. There are the stories of people like the person who owned the donkey and gave it gladly to Jesus to ride into Jerusalem – I hope you like the Donkey we made at Messy Church this morning -  or the penitent thief on the cross, who defends Jesus when the other thief crucified with them rails at him. There’s Simon of Cyrene too, who is forced to help Jesus carry his cross, but is evidently changed by the experience and becomes a disciple. We wouldn’t know his name or where he comes from if he hadn’t. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea feature as well, stepping out of the shadows after Jesus’ death for the first time and helping with his burial, a gesture that must have seemed to them too little, too late, until the resurrection changed everything. And then there are the women who watch the crucifixion and the burial, when all Jesus’ male disciples have run away. They witness, and bear witness to his crucifixion, and later to his resurrection too. They may not be able to do anything to prevent it, but it makes a difference to us when others see and take notice of our suffering, and I’m sure it did to Jesus too.

 

What did it feel like to be one of those bit-part players in the story? They probably felt that what they were doing was pointless, but they knew they had to do it. Somehow, this man Jesus had drawn out of them love and courage they didn’t know they were capable of.  And as it turned out, their kindness wasn’t pointless after all. It has been remembered and celebrated in the words of Scripture ever since, to inspire us to love and courage too.

 

When you look at this terrible story, you find golden threads of kindness woven through it. They don’t negate the suffering and hatred, but they are every bit as important as them. They remind us that evil is not the whole of any story, that, if we have eyes to see, there is always hope and love, like those stubborn weeds that force their way up through the toughest concrete.

 

The kindness of strangers is as precious now as it was then.  It counts. It matters. It makes a difference. And we can see it all around us if we have eyes to look, in those who helped their neighbours through the lockdowns, stepping forward in their thousands to offer support, in those who have offered to host Ukrainian refugees or have given generously, in those who have protested about the treatment of refugees from other parts of the world – protest can be an act of kindness too. In every small gesture of love, even if it seems pointless, especially if it seems pointless, we proclaim the power of God, the God who doesn’t let hatred have the last word, ever.

 

Ultimately, all our kindnesses are rooted in the greatest kindness of all, the love of God, for us. God who didn’t  have to come and live and die with us in Christ, but he chose to do so, because we needed him, even if we didn’t know it. It is sometimes hard to see the good in Good Friday, just as it is hard to see the good in the world around us now, but that is what we are called to do, today and everyday, to see it and to be it, for friends and strangers, and even enemies, because that’s what God did for us.

Amen