Christians face difficult choice as marching season begins

A RECENT British TV documentary provided the opportunity to eavesdrop on that essential of middle class rituals, the dinner party. A group of typical Tory voters were persuaded to sound off in a forthright manner on the issues they felt passionately about. Of course a lot of what emerged was deemed rather indiscreet.

A friend once remarked that in Northern Ireland the problem is not the views people express in public, but the attitudes revealed in those indiscreet moments around the meal table. After all, surveys tell us that if it were up to the ordinary people, no one would he protesting at Harryville or blocking the Ormeau Road. Nor would anyone vote for whatever version of intransigence reflects his or her political identity.

During the events of Holy Week, conversations between Jesus and His followers over meals are a significant part of the drama. John provides us with a record of the incidents and table talk in the closing chapters of his gospel. The first meal takes place in Bethany at the home of Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha, the day before Jesus enters Jerusalem.

The story ends with Jesus having a meal with the two disciples after their journey to Emmaus. It was the very act of breaking bread to eat that brought them to realise that their travelling companion was Jesus. Later, at his beach barbecue of fish with the disciples, he reinstates Peter who had denied all knowledge of him at the time of his arrest.

Central to the whole account for all the gospel writers - though it is John who provides us with the fullest record - is the Passover meal that Jesus and his disciples shared together. Here, in both word and action, Jesus shows them what lies ahead, and their part in it.

But his conversation goes beyond the immediate events and the disciples' need for comfort and a guide, to include all of us who would come to believe. Chapters 13 to 17 of John's gospel provide us with an intimate understanding of Jesus and His expectation of all whom would follow Him.

UNFORTUNATELY the one conversation on which I would most like to eavesdrop is not recorded for us.

It is the conversation among the disciples during that long day and night between sundown on Friday and the Sunday morning. The events of the previous 24 hours had been a disaster for the followers of Jesus of Nazareth.

The most dedicated had been travelling throughout Judea with him for more than three years. They had heard his speeches and watched as he healed the sick and demonstrated his miraculous power over nature. Together they had walked for miles, sharing the intimacy of a travelling band of religious disciples.

It was not that they did not know it was dangerous for him to go to Jerusalem. Over the years his ability to engage the ordinary folk was in stark contrast to the hostility he met from the religious leaders. Yet within a few days of his ecstatic welcome by the people as he entered Jerusalem, an angry crowd rejected him in favour of a violent revolutionary.

It is only speculation, but I am sure during that long day of shock and trauma they repeatedly asked themselves, why didn't Jesus do something? And this is where I come back to the meal tables of Northern Ireland. How often have I been asked, and not just at meals: why doesn't somebody do something?

In the long days of trauma and shock, as we adjust to each expression of the deep bitterness in our community, there is a deep sense of helplessness that is shared across our divides. Many ordinary people are angry and frustrated. There is a view that anyone could have predicted the events of last summer and yet nothing was done to prevent them.

THAT many did and much was done which was unable to prevent it is an unpalatable truth that leaves little hope for the coming months. This simply reflects the lack of consensus across our community as to who should act and what it is they should do.

For Jesus's disciples the implications of his meal conversations were crystal clear. In the horrific events that followed his arrest, far from doing nothing Jesus was fulfilling his destiny. In a profound way he was doing all that needed to be done.

It is surprising to us who can read the record that the disciples did not understand this. His conversations had been about the essence of His life: the call to serve expressed when He washed their feet: the cost of love, as He broke the bread and drank wine and talked of His self giving sacrifice.

Jesus did not run away from the challenge. Neither did He take up the sword or call down the angels to his rescue. His was a third way that Peter recalls in his letter to a persecuted church: "Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example."

It is the way John places at the centre of Christian living: "We should love one another. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us."

In this both apostles grasped the essential thrust of Jesus's meal conversations that first Easter. To be His disciple we must follow the way of the cross. It becomes our responsibility to do something. What we do, to have any Christian integrity, must be marked by love, service and sacrifice, and not by hate, domination and self seeking.

Easter is the beginning of the marching season. Catholic residents and Protestant Orangemen both claim to follow this Jesus. So too do many others who are choosing to get out on holiday in July.

Our proclaimed faith in Jesus leaves us with a choice at this difficult time. Do we take up the gun or run away? Or do we commit ourselves to discover together what it may mean for us to follow in the steps of Christ?