38) On the way to Port Fairy
I learned how to read a room in the summer term of year 8 at school. I learned how to check over my shoulder, keep one ear tuned into the conversation of those guys over there – the ones who knew I couldn’t throw or catch a ball. It was a skill that served me well as a prison chaplain: I could always sense the guy who was nervous about approaching but needed to talk to someone; and I was always able to listen attentively to someone while simultaneously scanning the horizon for surprises.
I always found that sensitivity to environment was every bit as important as compassion in my work as a chaplain. And for sure, I always found being a soft edge in a place of hard edges an intrinsic part of my diaconal calling while serving in prison.
So it happened that last Friday night, I already had half an eye on the group of drunk guys at the far end of the restaurant in Mount Gambier. The day had been full – Midge and I had stopped at Robe and Beachport on our way south. We were delighted that our motel rooms were excellent, and were excited about seeing the Twelve Apostles the following day. During our meal I had noticed the guys making their trips up to the counter to order more drinks. At one point, one of them had given me a sneering look as he passed our table. But it was the voice of a different guy that sounded loud and clear above the background hum of the other diners.
“Hey, check out the guy over there in the pink shirt.”
His mates looked in my direction. Some laughing, and some pulling the face that my own experience has told me can lead to aggression and violence.
Who knew a pink shirt could be such a trigger?
Fortunately, Midge and I had finished our dinner and were just about to leave.
I wonder if they thought I was retreating. I wonder if they thought they’d been successful in making me uncomfortable. I wonder if they felt bigger – more manly, chuffed even – for driving out the pink-shirt-wearing guy.
The next morning would see us travel on to Port Fairy and the Twelve Apostles – the far point on our boomerang-road-trip. Getting dressed, I consciously put on a dark-green checked shirt and jeans – the previous night and its threat still crackling through my mind and body.
“Have you seen our casualties? It’s frightnin’,” sings Nicole Reynolds. She continues, “Have you seen our calvaries?”
To which Jesus replies, “yes!” I took your pain and bore your suffering; I know what it is to be despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief and pain, despised and not valued.
Though it’s a daily task handing it all over – the ‘othering,’ and the pain, and the rejection. Thank God He takes it all from me. Every time.
I often preach on tax-collecting Zacchaeus – traitor to the Jewish people, excommunicated, labelled a sinner, short in stature, and with zero chance of the crowd making way for him to get a clearer view of Jesus. I picture him climbing a tree, and being spotted by Jesus. We all know the story: Jesus insists on visiting Zaccheus, and Zaccheus’ life is turned around. Jesus deals in mercy and love. Jesus sees our potential and what we can become when loved, and accepted, and welcomed.
Jesus sees the unwanted, the outsiders, the not-belonging. More than that, He dines with them. Hospitality and welcome – the currency of the Kingdom. And there’s no limit to what we can do when we are brought into that relationship.
But what does Zaccheus have to do with me being singled out the other night?
It is this: the Jesus that sought out Zaccheus and saw his potential, is the same Jesus that stood beside me last Friday night and kept me breathing in, breathing out. This Jesus who knows what threat looks like: in John’s Gospel we read, “so Judas took a company of soldiers and some temple police from the chief priests and the Pharisees and came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.”
They came with weapons.
To the one who preached good news to the poor, who bound up the broken-hearted, proclaimed freedom to those who were captive, who restored the sight of the blind, set free the oppressed, who promised living water, who fed a multitude, who raised Lazarus, and who transformed little Zaccheus, they came with weapons.
And in the name of love Jesus came face to face with His betrayer, and the religious rulers, and the soldiers with their weapons. And in the name of that wide love, says, “if you’re looking for Me, let these other men go.”
Those weapons that speak of violence and intimidation and pain, that rope you’re about to tie Me up with, your fists, your spittle, your mockery, your interrogation, your whip, your crown of thorns, your hammer, your nails, and your cross – these weapons of mankind – I will bear them. Let these men go. This is why I came.
“This is our God – who lays aside [any] immunity to pain, enters our world of flesh and blood, tears and death, and suffers for us. In solidarity with us… Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of His,” says Stott.
Somehow, in the economy of the Passion and the cross, Christ meets us at the point where it hurts.
Right now, the Christ of Gethsemane and Calvary reaches out and touches everyone who suffers, and says, “I know, and have felt your pain.”
Right now, the Christ of Gethsemane and Calvary looks to all who are in darkness and says, “I Am the Light of the world.” O’Tuama writes, “God of darkness, You must be the god of darkness because if you are not, who else can we turn to?” There is no one else. He is all we need. There is comfort, and strength, and life, and solidarity, for a look at the Christ of Gethsemane and Calvary.
They came with weapons. He came in love. Wide love.
Every weapon, every sorrow, every darkness, every hurt, every longing, every pain, every rejection, every fear, every threat, every scar that I know – Jesus sees it, has felt it, and somehow borne it all on the tree.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be while wearing a pink shirt in a restaurant in Mount Gambier. I could furnish a library of sorrows.
It was just a ‘harmless’ joke.
Stop overreacting.
It’s just playground stuff.
You’ll have to learn to toughen up.
Don’t take things so personally.
God may be using you, but you’ll still burn in hell if you don’t repent.
God only approves of marriage between a man and a woman.
There are probably only half a dozen congregations that would ever take you...
We don’t want your leftwing propaganda, we just want to come to church…
Sorry to hear that, but I’m afraid I was waiting for it.
“The way they love feels like hate, and they say they’re doing it for your sake,” says Jim Dulin.
They think they’re doing God’s work, doing you a favour, by suggesting you shrink into beige, stop talking, stop pointing to the elephant in the room, stop sounding like a broken record…
And I respond with Patrick Roche: "Thousands of people are dying in silence because of silence." Let the stones cry out.
And I remind myself of the words from Isaiah: “this is what the LORD says, I made you, I have called you by name, you are mine, and when you pass through the waters, I will be with you, you are precious in my sight, and I love you.”
God made me, sees me, sees what hurts me, hurts with me, and invites me once again to lay it down because He loves me.
“Are we weak and heavy laden,
cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge--
take it to the Lord in prayer!
Do your friends despise, forsake you?
Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In his arms he'll take and shield you;
you will find a solace there.”
Olly Ponsonby, January 2025
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Scripture refs. Is 53:3-4, Mt 11:28, Lk 19:1-10, Mk 2:15, Jn 18:3, Lk 4:18-19, Jn 4:14, Mt 14:13-21, Jn 11:38-44, Eph 3:18, Jn 18:8,12, Jn 12:27, Jn 8:12, Lk 19:40, Is 43:1-4.
“Calvaries” is by Nicole Reynolds. https://genius.com/Nicole-reynolds-calvaries-lyrics
John Stott quote taken from “The Cross of Christ”. 1986. Inter-Varsity Press.
Padraig O’Tuama quote taken from the poem “Collect” in “In the Shelter: Finding a home in the world.” 2015. Hodder & Stoughton.
Jim Dulin quote is taken from the poem “Questioning God.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLicOZYyuV8
Patrick Roche quote taken from the poem “Every Forty Seconds” in “A Socially Acceptable Breakdown”. 2021. Button Poetry.
“Are we weak and heavy laden…” taken from the hymn “What a friend we have in Jesus” by Joseph Medlicott Scriven, 1855. Public domain.