Good Friday

Lectionary: 40
Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; 
and when he was made perfect,
he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.


I have often reflected on Jesus’ obedience to his Father. It seems to be the key to the Gospel of Saint John and an extraordinarily challenging doctrine for our time. When peoples and nations celebrate unfettered freedom and unlimited power, even as they trample underfoot the marginalized and forgotten, we should reflect upon the God who “learned obedience from what he suffered” and “was made perfect” by it.
But from my patriarchal ivory tower I hear the complaint that boys are taught dominance while girls are taught obedience. I do not intend to maintain that social sin. As I read Genesis 3, I see that oppression and the stratification of human society are punishment for sin: “yet your urge shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.” In the beginning Eve and Adam shared their labor and enjoyed their companionship as children of God. It was never God’s intention that one person should “rule over” another. 
Core to my own Franciscan spirituality is the need for authority. Human beings, with or without sin, are social human beings who need one another to survive. No one can make it alone. Not only must we help one another, we must develop specialized skills; no one person has all the skills. Not least of those skills is the ability to lead. It's not given to everyone. Some might argue that it should be, but it's not. Consequently, another of our survival skills is the ability to follow; that is, to obey. In the real world, everyone is subject to law, including the Son of God.
Francis and his dear friend Clare were extraordinarily willful people. If either decided to do something they would pursue that goal until hell froze over. On one occasion, informed of Clare’s severe fasting, Francis and the Bishop of Assisi commanded her to eat at least one biscuit every other day. Obediently, if unwillingly, she agreed -- but she would eat no more than that! 
On his deathbed Saint Francis wanted to die exactly as Jesus had died. Shouldn’t a man be granted his final wish? Brother Elias wisely commanded him to keep his habit on. There were women present. 
Both these saints, Francis and Clare, had very strong wills and had learned a healthy distrust for them. They didn’t devalue themselves but they placed a higher value upon the spirit and the will of God. They were eager to submit to obedience, even if it meant listening to the newest, least instructed member of the community. (Clare insisted the newest members of the convent should have a voice in decisions of the community. Francis, retiring from leadership, asked that a novice might be given to him as his immediate superior. He was refused.) 
Jesus, of course, set the example as he obeyed the commands of the priests Annas and Caiphas, Herod Antipas, and the procurator Pontius Pilate. As dreadful as they were, they represented the will of God to Jesus. 
The celebration of Good Friday does not mean my opinions are stupid and my preferences, evil. But it does remind me not to let my ego get in the way of my salvation. In the silence of these hours between the Good Friday Service and the Easter Vigil, I will be well advised to let my thoughts, fears and desires be silent. With my thinking, I cannot understand what has happened to Jesus. My worse fears have been realized; my Lord is dead; and yet I live. My desires? What do I want? I cannot think anymore.