This Week's Conversatio Morum

8 March 2010 

The Re-Enactment

By Ronald W. Nikkel

I sat spellbound as a group of inmates staged a short drama in the prison chapel.  Behind them were the chapel altar and a large crucifix depicting a bloodied suffering Jesus hanging on the cross.  The actors, female prisoners, wearing costumes they had made, performed their roles with passion and compelling eloquence.  In the audience, some of the prisoners began wiping tears from their eyes and I fought to hold back my own tears as the impact of the story they were re-enacting beside the altar and the crucifix washed over me.  It was their story – captured in the story of a woman victimized, singled out, and humiliated.  Marked and scarred for life! 

Onstage, the actors pointed with accusation and disgust at the solitary figure of a woman crouching in fear, their eyes stabbing her with cold menacing judgment, stripping her of every shred of decency and dignity. The voices of accusation demanded justice – punishment for her sins.  As the scene came to a climax the actor playing the role of Jesus unexpectedly departed from the script, sinking to the floor beside her fellow prisoner, sobbing uncontrollably, and wrapping her arms around the woman being accused.

As the two of them wept together, the clamour of accusations and outrage gave way to an awesome holy silence.  The same pointing fingers of the accusers that had seemed so menacing began wiping tears from their own eyes.  They knew that this was no mere drama – it was real, it was their experience.

As I observed this emotional scene, my mind resonated with the unfinished lines of the story, of Jesus kneeling on the ground beside the woman in grace and solidarity before her accusers    "If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone!"  "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"  "Then neither do I condemn you." Jesus declared.  

The re-enactment in the chapel of Santa Monica prison culminated on a bittersweet note.  I realized the painful parallel between the lives of the women in that prison and the story of the woman caught, accused, and publicly humiliated – mercilessly dragged by her accusers into the public square to be judged by Jesus.  But Jesus did not judge her.  His response was every bit as unexpected as the unplanned, spontaneous response of the actor in the play.  Rather than remaining at a distance from the woman being accused, Jesus embraced her with forgiveness and respect. 

It was the same forgiveness and respect that every woman in Santa Monica prison was yearning for, indeed crying out for, as the dramatic performance gave way to a deeper reality.  It was for the same kind of forgiveness that each one of us hungers for in the face of our own failure, misdeeds, and sin.  

As much as we try to keep our mistakes and faults hidden from public view, when we are exposed it isn’t judgment we need but forgiveness, understanding and respect.  But in response to the faults and failings of those around us and those we only hear about, we find it so very difficult to “let them off the hook” of accusation and judgment.  We tend to stand at a distance pointing out their faults and demanding justice, punishment.   Forgiveness in response to failure is an unnatural act that goes against every instinct we have of fair play and just desserts. In the economies of human crime, punishment, and justice, forgiveness makes no logical or emotional sense, except when we ourselves need it, when it's the only way of release from guilt and consequence.

Forgiveness is an undeserved gift of freedom.  The woman who was accused and brought to Jesus, was forgiven and not condemned, just as the woman in the play had her dignity and life restored when accusations and judgement were replaced by love and grace.  But the forgiveness that Jesus extended to that woman and the forgiveness He extends to us come at a price.  The accusers in the story may have thought that Jesus would share their indignation and mete out judgement, but He didn’t.  By extending forgiveness instead of judgment, Jesus lost the support of religious and community leaders who touted law and justice as the hallmarks of their faith. 

Two centuries ago, Alexander Pope immortalized the observation that "to err is human, to forgive divine."   It is probably true, for sin and error and failure mar the life of every human being.  Like the inmates in Santa Monica prison, we often find ourselves in a place of guilt, yearning for pardon, release, and reinstatement.  We err and long to be forgiven.  

As I looked at the tear-stained faces of the prisoners around me, many of them young, I wondered who in their lives might re-enact the love and grace of Jesus in the dust of accusation and rejection to embrace them with forgiveness.  Who will re-enact the suffering of Jesus to bear the price of forgiving them as a friend, a daughter, a mother, a wife, a lover, or a sister for the hurtful, embarrassing, conniving, hateful, sinful things they may have endured because of them?   As I contemplate the life of Jesus on His journey to the cross, I am convinced that there is nothing more unnatural, yet more divine, than to re-enact the forgiveness of Jesus by forgiving “sinners.”

"Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.  Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."   

“What are you saying? ‘Shall I forgive him?’

Christ is saying, ‘Yes!’ This sacrifice was instituted for the sake of peace with your brother. Accordingly, if the sacrifice was instituted for the sake of peace with your brother, but if you do not establish peace, you partake of the sacrifice in vain; the work has become of no profit to you. 

Do first, then, that for the sake of which the sacrifice is offered and then you will properly enjoy its benefits. The Son of God came down for this purpose, to reconcile our human nature to the Lord. But He did not come down for that purpose alone, but also for the purpose of making us, if we do likewise, sharers of His title. For He says: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God’ (St. Matthew 5:9). 

You, according to your human capacity, must do what the only begotten Son of God has done, be an agent of peace, for yourself and for others. For this reason, at the very time of sacrifice He recalls to us no other commandment than that of reconciliation with one's brother, showing that it is the greatest of all.”   

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