Good Friday, 2011

We were about fifty, gathered at the Federal Building in downtown Seattle yesterday at noon, gathered to participate in worship and witness in a most public place.  Weldon, Wes, and Sue have led this service for years, proclaiming the Passion story from the Gospel of John, here in the shadow of Empire.  It seems innocuous as a structure and yet the building represents power, domination, and violence – these forces wrapped into the history and current practices of the United States of America. 

It was my great privilege to celebrate communion and remember the story yesterday, and to play a role in leading the worship.  We read the scripture in five acts, each part followed by sharing prayers, stories, names of those affected by persecution and those opposing violence in our neighborhoods and around the world. 

It was then my great privilege to participate in an extended liturgical act with nine others.  A bloodlike substance was poured over our hands, and as we sang, we moved toward the building finally placing our red hands on its cold walls.  This building is the modern day equivalent of the Roman governor’s local headquarters where Jesus was held, questioned, and abused, and so our action was reminder and remembrance. 

But it was more than that too: it was a witness, a call to pay attention, to notice the blood that is on our own hands as citizens of and participants in this Empire of domination.  It was an indictment of our government’s policies of ongoing persecution, military funding and spending, economic and social violence.  It was an action of recognition: our own abilities to oppose these systems are so small and limited.  It was then as much as anything, an action of hope, that even in spite of us, God still is doing something, persuading the universe toward shalom. 

We were arrested, booked, issued violation notices, and released in the span of about two hours.  Likely I will write more, add some layers to the story, but this is all I can muster for now.