On week ago a longtime friend called to tell me about the bitter controversy then raging about where and whether to bury Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev.  I hadn’t heard about this before our conversation, but, indeed, cemeteries, funeral homes, and many people in and around the Boston community where Tsarnaev and brother worked their terror, were protesting the possibility that the bomber would be buried anywhere near them.  Reportedly, the funeral home that accepted the corpse suffered protest and received hate emails, along with other threatening gestures.  A strong sentiment began to circulate that the body should “be shipped back to Russia from where it came!”  My friend, distressed over the reactions, commented, “Surely followers of Christ would respond differently, certainly they would,” though no reports seemed to confirm this.

Massachusetts Police Chief, Gary Gemme, pled for help in finding a burial place, noting, “We are not barbarians.  We bury the dead.”  In antiquity and in other places it was not uncommon for the vanquished to be left exposed to the elements or actually to be displayed in some prominent location to shame the family and people of the enemies by offering the remains to scavengers of air and land.  But those were other places and times.

The question is whether we are different in kind than the people of those times and places.  Certainly, we are no different in the depth of pain and trauma some of us experience, with which the rest of us rush to empathize as fully as we are able.  No doubt, the terror of the attacks will continue to cloud our minds and color our view of the foreseeable future.  To be sure, the injustice and brazen brutality of the bombings cry out for justice and births within us a need for justice to come.  Just as surely, the wounds to bodies, minds, and souls will require years to heal, and some may not heal at all.  And, understandably, for those most affected, and maybe others as well, a thirst for more than justice, a demand for retribution, even revenge, teases with promises of a certain satisfaction and assurances that it will never happen again.  I mean, if we could make them pay enough, “they” would never mess with us again!

The question is whether we are or will be different in kind than the people of other places and times.  In many ways, at least the deeply human ways listed above, we can hardly claim to be different.  Isn’t this why some would protest burying the bomber, as though such denials could prevent further and deeper wounding, as though doing something decent like disposing of human remains somehow “feels” supportive of the atrocities the dead perpetrated, and as though the dead may reflect the true nature of all connected with him who, for that reason, must not to be given any comfort or kindness?

I do not know whether we can legitimately claim to be different from the so-called barbarians of old.  But I do know that the best traditions on which our society still rests offer other and different sets of responses.  Responses that calm and careful reflection could help us avoid or arrest the cycles of pain that often spin out of control in the wake of an atrocity.  The fact is that justice per se does not heal wounds or address the root, heart causes of the atrocities.  Justice restores lost order and prevents the continuation or escalation of the evil.  Justice can sometimes quarantine the evil and those gripped by it.  But justice does not overcome evil.  Overcoming evil requires more.

I think my friend’s shock and sadness over the refusal to bury the bomber traces to this more.  Followers of Jesus, whose impact on our history continues to be enormous, know that evil cannot be overcome by evil.  Evil can only be overcome by good.  And, specifically, the good that love is and love does.  Only the love that faces the evil fully, and even absorbs its assaults when necessary—only this love in the end overcomes.  For those with ears to hear, this was and is the point of Jesus’ cross and the victory of Easter’s empty tomb.  Love took evil’s best shot and in the end only love stands.  Such love, because it stands alone, opens the way for a forgiveness robust enough never to deny the evil of the evil but always to offer the possibility of healing that comes when good overcomes the evil.

All of this is counter-intuitive.  Of course, that’s the point: it is indeed different than those reputed barbaric times and places where people were predictably ruled by common instincts and intuition.

My friend, who spoke with broken heart and choking voice about the followers of Jesus making a different response to burying the bomber, saw more clearly than most that many of us want to be different than barbarians.  Many, in fact, would really like to be more like Jesus, eager for justice but more, eager for the love that overcomes, heals and offers a future different than we’ve just sadly experienced.

I’m thinking about the strategic, critical mission Jesus has given us as His Body, the mission that responds wholly and comprehensively to the ruin on rampage in the world, human persons, and communities.  Jesus’ missional response leads to the reconciling of all things, the right-wising and the restoring of creation to the “very good” God once uttered over it.

In all sorts of clear and intentional ways, Christ followers pursue their mission.  All over the landscape here and there signs of “spring,” of life, love and hope can be found.  Whatever the degree of dysfunction in things human, whatever the depth of despair into which some have sunk—in the face of whatever, followers of Jesus, filled with back-from-the-dead Presence and Power, assault the forces of darkness, defeating them and setting people free, in all the ways long denied them.  In countless places and circumstances, such hope happens, no matter how dreary and dismal the leading economic, social, cultural and political indicators may be.  All of this occurs by design, of course.  That is, followers of Jesus are following; they are going with Jesus everywhere, doing Jesus-like things.

To the extent this is so, we should expect and celebrate what I am calling “collateral repair.” To some degree, we expect that there will be unintended good, gratuitous blessings (aren’t they all, in another sense?), “accidental” sparks of beauty, truth, and kindness, almost casual, by-the-way birthings of Shalom.  When Jesus was among us in the flesh this is what happened.  The Canaanite woman pled for mercy for her child, and there were at least a few crumbs that fell from the table for the blessing of a family otherwise excluded from blessing (Matt. 15).  For a woman who was slowly bleeding to death, what could be described as a calculated, risky “casual” touch brought healing that none of the physicians could manage.  It happened almost “accidentally” as Jesus was on the way bringing healing to another (Mark 5).  At times we read about crowds of people some of whom got near enough to Jesus simply to touch him, and their touch proved restorative and regenerating.  After his resurrection and the forming of the church at Pentecost, we read of apostolic ministry that gained the favor of the people characterized by occasions when the mere shadow of Jesus’ servants had healing effect.

These are instances of “collateral repair,” the abounding of blessing that flowed to people not directly targeted and sometimes not even sought by those who benefited.  And it seems right to me to dream and even anticipate such blessing flowing even today.  Although “the church” often takes the rap for bad thinking, speaking and acting, sometimes deservingly so, still here and there Easter life creates Easter communities through whom death defying, denying, and defeating power works and the whole community enjoys blessing.  The followers of Jesus, truly following, make others glad they are there.  The way of Jesus is put on display with attractive intensity.  People wonder.  Some draw near.  And some are surprised to sense a “rightness,” a “delight,” a positive potency, an “aliveness” assaulting them and their “space,” threatening to put them together, realign their relationships, re-sync the rhythms of their lives, and reorient their futures.  These are people assaulted and made victims of “collateral repair” as the Jesus-people live their lives following their Mentor and Master as hard as they can.  To the great joy of nearly all concerned, those who draw near and who sustain such assault look to see anyone who can help them understand what has happened.   Usually, the Jesus whose Body must accept responsibility for the “repair” arranges the help they need. Then, he smiles.

She had burst into public awareness when several reports on her views quickly went viral on the web.  Among other things, growing segments of the population were united and energized by what seemed her penetrating insight into the great issues of the day, her no nonsense intolerance of the usual games that politicians play, her sometimes scathing critique of systems and programs that no longer work because the world in which they were birthed no longer exists, her startling rejection of both major parties usual ways of framing and answering questions, her simple insistence that everyone counts and everyone can contribute to the well-being of others, and her intriguing policy models projecting that somehow by everyone working together, accepting compromise, shouldering mutual disappointment and pain—that, somehow, a way out of our current political, social, cultural and even spiritual bind would be found.  These views went viral, especially as she embodied and shared them with humble confidence and good humor.

Then, to everyone’s surprise but perhaps her own, the deepening frustrations of many joined with the heightening enthusiasm generated by the ever popular candidate to produce a momentum that escalated to victory on election night.  Casual observers and the savviest pundits alike could not have been more stunned by the rush of dynamics that had swept this first woman to the Presidency of the United States of America.

But as Inauguration Day approached, inside and outside the D.C. Beltway and across the nation, the initial delight of the historical moment gave way to surprise, shock, and even darker sentiments.  It was if people began to realize they’d made a huge mistake.  This realization settled in as plans for the Inauguration were revealed.  None of the usual people received the invitations they were expecting, either to the Inauguration itself or to the celebrations that would follow.  Instead, a system of lotteries was organized throughout the land, and the inaugural attendees were chosen by lot from among the ordinary people in every region of the nation.  Thus, come the big day, thousands of busses loaded with the chosen streamed into the Capital.  As they moved from their busses to the special seats prepared for them, one could not help noticing the seemingly disproportionate number of children, handicapped, and others whose manner and dress gave them an ill-suited appearance.  There were even rumors that some of the chosen were “undocumented persons” who weren’t even U.S. citizens.

As all would expect, even demand, security was heightened and on alert as the inaugural festivities began.  On close inspection, however, the security forces and protocols focused primarily on including as many of these odd guests as possible and thwarting the attempts of some to hinder their full participation.  Strangely, at no time did it seem that the President herself was actually the center of attention.

Strangely, indeed.  As Madame President stood to take the oath of office before this crowd of undistinguished guests, in the hearing of a nation now realizing it had profoundly misconceived the qualifications and commitments of the new President, as the web and social networking systems reached overload levels with blogs and tweets and instant messages of massive outrage and opposition to the President who had yet even to begin …  a shot rang out and the President fell.

I’ve read and observed (in limited ways) that when a person is about to die, life comes into clearer focus.  Ironically, at the end we seem to get the right perspective on the whole of life.  Suddenly, or gradually if time permits, the truly important things appear as such—truly important, and everything else fades into the background.  On the border between this world and the next, few talk about the weather.

As we wait with Jesus on death row, anticipating his death on Good Friday and a new kind of life after Easter Sunday, Jesus focuses on the things that matter forever.  Let’s listen in on his conversations with his disciples.

If you listen, I think you can identify what could be called core-values of Jesus’ kingdom.  These are treasured realities that give heart and soul to living, that call for the deepest levels of commitment, and that are worth dying for if occasion demands.  Let me list a few of them.

At the very heart of kingdom value we find the unbelievable love of God.  It’s the broken heart of the prodigal’s father who grieves his son’s loss and it’s the glad heart of the father when his son returns home.  It’s the love that can’t stop, despite the crude and rude disrespect of the prodigal.  And it’s the love that can’t tolerate anyone—not even a more righteous older son—throwing a damper on the wild celebration after reclaiming the cherished missing.  It’s the same love that reaches out to us and others with such incredible patience, but that still will not tolerate our refusals to party when people come home.  Loving people, finding them at all cost, celebrating their return—these are central values for the One who waits on death row.

Obeying God is another value.  Jesus went to death row because his mission from God demanded it.  On several occasions (especially in Luke’s gospel), Jesus says he must go toJerusalem.  Some have called this the “divine must.”  It was God’s will.  Jesus was God’s servant and he would do his Father’s will even if it cost him everything, even if it lands him on death row.  Finding out what God wants and doing it—these also are central values for the One who waits on death row.

A third value could be put this way: nothing can interfere with the first two core values, absolutely nothing.  Loving people and obeying God the way Jesus did take priority over everything else in life.  For Jesus, all comfort and convenience, all aims and ambitions, all the good things of life—all take a back seat to love of people and obedience to the will of God.  If occasion demanded, everything could be and should be sacrificed for these.  And, of course, we know that, in the end, the One who waits on death row sacrificed everything.

The third core value has a corollary: the worth and value of everything in life can be determined by how well it serves the core values of loving people and obeying God.  All aspects of our lives, individually and corporately as a church, must answer to these priorities—we reject what doesn’t help us love and obey, and we embrace what does.  Certainly, it takes time to ask this question of all the activities, commitments and opportunities of our lives.  But, then, as we wait with Jesus, that is what we have, “time.”

One hundred forty-three years after passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and 60 years after Article 4 of the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights banned slavery and the slave trade worldwide, there are more slaves than at any time in human history — 27 million.

(Interview or Ben Skinner by Terrence McNally @ http://www.alternet.org/story/142171/there_are_more_slaves_today_than_at_any_time_in_human_history)

Sadly, even these 27 million (and counting!) misleads us if we are interested in knowing the full dimensions of this scourge.  For every enslaved person how many family members must live knowing or wondering about the plight of their loved one?  For every slave how many friends live with sadness and fear?  For every slave how many perpetrators and their co-conspirators, and how many of their networks and supporting systems, knowingly or not, strengthen the hand of other forms of bondage and death-dealing by which evil thrives in multiple ways? And for every slave how many are polluted by the deeper and darker moral stain that may be hard to detect, especially in one’s self and among one’s own, but nonetheless penetrates into the core of who we are becoming?

How could anyone seriously support slavery, especially if they know, love and follow Jesus?  Indeed, and yet in each of those cases I have sited, there have been many who have actively supported or passively tolerated some form of bondage for any number of reasons.  Often regard for one’s own economic wellbeing, security and comfort have trumped the Light and Life of Jesus to such an extent that otherwise very fine people have become complicit in the merchandizing of precious people made in the image of God, loved to death by God, and intended for eternal glory.

I want to believe that this is just a function of ignorance, but suspect the reasons are more sinister and culpable.  I want to assume that if given the chance most of us would rush to help in any way possible, but know from experience that “rush” is too strong a word.  I am not pointing fingers in this regard.  I am testifying.

No, I am confessing.  It is Lent, after all.  Jesus has set his face with unyielding intent.  He will go to Jerusalem, to the Holy City, and enter into a showdown with the powers that design and support the killing and enslaving of all of us—all of us.  In the course of the showdown, it gets worse before it gets better.  Jesus “loses,” I mean, he gives in and gives up, he lets them do it.  He even makes it easy.  He denies self, takes a cross, and goes … there.  He surrenders and “loses.”

Now, I know that he doesn’t lose.  I know he wins, and that my conception of the scope and depth of his winning is never large and deep enough.  I know, but in this season of Lent it is best to dwell longer on the apparent losing, the surrendering, the giving in and up … in order to achieve a different kind of victory, a more comprehensive and holistic freedom from what they did to him and would do to all, and why and how.

Jesus did all this, most of which we have just a trace of understanding, in order to set us free.  He went there and surrendered so that we wouldn’t have to, so that through his surrender the enslavement of all people might be broken along with the fear it generates.  He offered himself so completely, until there was nothing left, so that the freedom achieved might be correspondingly complete so that no one would have to settle for less than a glorious liberty.

But none of it is automatic, is it?  He liberates, but does not compel.  He woos, he invites, he assures, he leads; he continues to give, to support, to arrange things, to help so that others might be free.

And he calls us to follow.  He gave himself to the losing, to the dying, in order that we might be winning and living.  He gave himself so that in our winning and living, we might live no longer for ourselves but for him, and with him.  He put it all down until nothing was left so that we and all might be free indeed.  He did all that even though we were unaware, perhaps unconcerned, maybe even uninterested.  And what he did for us he did for all, with equal passion and potentially equal effect.

How profoundly sad that my condition required such caring, such denying, such losing and surrendering!  How incredible that in these ways he should be all-in for my freedom!  How blessed that I should have been born in a place and in circumstances that allowed me to know and benefit from all he has done, and join in sharing the same with others!

Well, I could go on and on.  I will go on and on.  This is Lent, after all.  But …

How can I not do something?  How can I not care that my clothes and food might be tainted by entanglement with the enslavement of others?  How could I continue to buy and wear or eat that?  How can I not want to know to what extent the selling and trafficking of people goes on right where I live?  How could I not want to give anything that could help?  I love chocolate but seriously, would I insist on my rights to indulge when what I love aides and abets what God hates?  How can I get crazy about my football team’s victories or lament its losses, and be restrained over this breed of living-dead that are physiologically alive but walking/working dead in terms of God’s plan?  How can I be so concerned about counting the cost of helping when often I give scarcely a thought at all about a few bucks here and a few there?  How can I remain still and impassive when I know deeply, have sensed at the core of who I am, that I have experienced freedom so that others might as well?

I was set free to set free!  I could go on and on.  And I will.