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Sacred Scripture Expert on 'Passion'
...scholar Tom Orzechowski reviews controversial movie

Thomas Orzechowski has worked professionally in parish ministry for 32 years. Since April of 1997 he has served as the Parish Administrator at The Church of St. Patrick in Oak Grove Minn. Prior to that he spent 14 years as the Director of Religious Education at St. Timothy’s parish in Blaine Minn. He has taught at the Graduate level on an adjunct bases at St. Mary’s University, Winona, Minn. (1976-1978), St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minn. (1978-1990) and the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn. (1984 - 2001). His area of specialty is Sacred Scripture. He has given numerous talks throughout the Twin Cities area. When he has the chance he is an avid astrophotographer. (50 plus pictures published). He is married and has a blended family of five children.

I have been asked to review this movie, and I do so within the following parameters: when Mel Gibson makes the claim that “this is the way it really was,” his artistic creation is subject to a set of criteria that is more than the usual criteria used with a work of art. It is from a historical/cultural perspective that I will evaluate his movie. As a producer and artist, Mel Gibson is free to give birth in his artistic endeavors to whatever his abilities and desires permit. There is, however, less freedom when one seeks to portray historical events “the way they really were”. For example, all Christians affirm that Jesus was fully human just like all of us. This means that Jesus, given the limitations that all humans share (we all have a mother tongue for example) would have never spoken, nor understood one word of American English. If he did he would not be like any of us. Hence Mel was correct in portraying Jesus as not speaking English, let alone American English.

All of us know that to determine what really happened can be very elusive. For example, we can’t even agree (despite the fact that we have a movie film of it) just how many shots were fired at John Kennedy the day he died in Dallas. I intentionally did not write “the day he was assassinated” because even that is an interpretation of the event. It is the most widely held interpretation, and because of that, we forget that it is just that - an interpretation. Many Americans are not aware that on the day Kennedy died some papers in the south had headlines that read Kennedy Executed In Dallas. These were the headlines of some Spanish community papers who believed that justice had caught up to the president who had sold the freedom fighters against Castro down the tubes at the Bay of Pigs invasion. He lied to them and now he was only getting what he deserved. That Kennedy was executed it is not a widely held interpretation of Kennedy’s death but it is for some the “truth,” what actually happened”.

Mel wanted to be as accurate as possible. Hence, he had the actors speak Aramaic in the film, etc. This is fine and not to be criticized. After all, this helps the viewer (who is forced to read subtitles) to realize that the events in question took place in a very different time and place from our own. But why did he stop there? In other respects his movie is very Euro-centric. The actor who portrays Jesus (who would have historically looked in skin color like Saddam Hussein) has the looks of a good looking white European. I noticed that Jesus, in the movie, had a full set of teeth that appeared to have had thousands of dollars of orthodontia work done on them. This may seem like a small matter, but I need only remind my readers that if a plane that is flying from New York to Tel Aviv in Israel made but one degree change north, it would end up in Moscow instead of Tel Aviv. These small inaccuracies can distort the viewer’s understanding of the full accurate story. (And the reader should beware that maybe I’m off a degree or two!) The point is that historically, this is very inaccurate. Jesus was not white in skin color, and unless he were not subject to the same ravages of the ancient world as all others living at that time and place, he most likely would have had, by the time he was in his thirties, only a few teeth left, and these in none-too-good a shape. We know that the ancient writers who commented on the appearance of Caesar Augustus talked of his poor and crooked teeth. We forget that the average age of death at the time of Jesus was 38 years. For we Americans, which includes Mel Gibson, Jesus being 30 years old means that he was just entering his prime. In the ancient world, that meant that, on average, one only had 8 years left to live.

So far I have written about easy things that one can question about the movie. The biggest concern I have is the angle or perspective Gibson takes on how to understand the meaning and death of Jesus and, consequently, his significance. When the Gospels were authored, the communities of faith that believed in Jesus struggled to understand the meaning and significance of Jesus for themselves. Why him and not someone else? Why did he die the way he did? What does that mean for us, etc.? These communities of faith, like all groups of people, used the images, metaphors and analogies from their own experience of living to help them articulate meaning and significance. We must never forget that Jesus was born into, lived his entire life in, and died within a patriarchal culture. This means that some of the main analogies that they used to interpret Jesus are derived from a patriarchal culture. Our culture, while still suffering from the many facets of our patriarchal past, is different.

The first century world of experience that Jesus knew, and the world that would have interpreted him, was a shame/honor based patriarchal culture. In such a culture, when the father’s honor was blackened, the family, especially the son, was duty bound to restore the fathers honor. Not to do so would be shameful. Because honor (its preservation and, if need be, its restoration) was one of the main driving forces of the culture, it follows that it would be one of the main images/analogies used to interpret Jesus. And this is exactly the case in the New Testament. The problem for us is that we, as Americans, do not live in a shame/honor based patriarchal culture. This means that when this analogy is used it will most likely be misunderstood (due to our lived cultural experience) and to the degree of misunderstanding, our interpretation will be off. Don’t forget that the airplane flying from New York to Tel Aviv only being one degree off its course winds up in Moscow.

Here is how the cultural scenario works itself out. God’s honor is attacked and God is shamed due to humans’ sinning. God’s honor must be restored. Given that the degree of offense is determined by the honor status of the one offended (mocking the king is very different than mocking a beggar) it follows that human sin is an infinite offense against God, since God is an infinite being. Therefore, later Christians reasoned, an infinite being was required to pay back the debt of human sin. Hence God’s very own son was required to pay the blood price needed to restore God’s honor. This all makes sense within a specific cultural matrix. But when you live in a different cultural matrix, the meaning of the analogies from the other culture can become quite distorted and even perverse. We must never forget that the use of blood price and restoration of honor was only one of the analogies used in the New Testament to interpret the meaning of Jesus. And we must never forget that it is just that, an interpretation, just like saying John Kennedy was assassinated or executed are both interpretations.

Within our cultural context, a father who would hand over his son to be slowly tortured and finally murdered would be arrested for and found, at the least, criminally insane. In the same manner, to hold that the reason why Jesus’ death was salvific for us was due to the extreme pain and suffering endured because that is what God wanted, is painful. What an awful image of God. God the great child abuser, at worst, and God who is very sick, at best. Is this what we really want to say? Do we want to affirm that at the heart of reality is a force hell-bent to have his last drop of blood so he can be satisfied? At this point the analogy, given our cultural underpinnings, is no longer useful. In fact, it does more damage than good, because for some it no longer reveals the loving God Jesus believed in, but conceals him.

Another scenario to “interpret” “what really happened” is to say that Jesus’ death was saving not because of the pain and the horror and gruesomeness of his death, but because of the quality of his life and his loving to the end. Jesus saves us because he showed us a way out of the mess we are in. That way, what Jesus advises us to love our enemies and not to return evil for evil, and hence, not to put more poison into the web of our related lives. It is ironic that the film captures this insight when Jesus prays for those killing him, and a bystander remarks to one of the temple priests that “he is praying for you.” This was preceded in the film with a flashback of Jesus saying that we are to love one another. This is an equally valid way to interpret the saving power of Jesus’ death. This equally valid New Testament analogy, however, is overwhelmed by the overriding, traditionally-preferred analogy of the restoration of God’s honor through the killing of his son. This is why I had mixed feelings about the film when I left the theater.

I am sure that many who have seen the film found themselves deeply moved. I was, myself, by some of the scenes. One would have to be a rock and not human not to be moved by Mary, Jesus’ mother, who has a flashback to Jesus as a little boy falling, while Jesus the man, falls under the cross. Who could not feel the ache of that mother as she ran to comfort the child who had just fallen and the mother who sees her son falling and the ache that must have been hers? And because all of this pain and suffering is “necessary” given the literal interpretation of that shame/honor analogy, we lose that very compassion and ache of God for his created beings that we see so wonderfully exemplified in Mary. But Mel Gibson carried one of the New Testament analogies from the shame/honor patriarchal culture to a new level of extreme literalism, resulting in the portrayal of that analogy being no longer understood as one of the ways to interpret the meaning of Jesus. And that it is an analogy.

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that Jesus’ brutal death and murder was an analogy. No it was all too real. But it was not God who murdered him nor was it God who wanted him dead. No, it was the religious establishment and political power structures who wanted him dead. The empire and the religious establishment had too much to lose if Jesus’ way to organize life were put into effect. And they did what every power structure has done to this day. They executed their wishes. I am sure God was as sickened and pained as we are when we watched, in the movie, the slow snuffing out of Jesus’ life.

A useful and life-giving result of this film may be that it may serve as a force to help people evaluate their images of God. And to throw out those that are no longer useful. Given our culture, the God who must have sacrifice at all costs is not a very good analogy. I am not saying that we should excise this analogy from the bible. No, it is in there and should stay. This serves as a good reminder that the bible is a very human product. Inspired? Yes! Of God? Yes! Limited because of its human authors and how they express, by way of images, analogies and metaphors they use the revelation God wanted to convey? Of course! After all, that is what is so scandalous about an incarnational faith. Why here, in this way, at this time, in this place? Maybe another analogy would help here. Our Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal. We know that at the time it was written it did not mean women or black men. But that does not mean we now must throw out the Declaration. No, we still honor it and maintain it as one of our charter documents. But we also acknowledge its limitations. So too, we and the Bible. We must honor it and also acknowledge its limitations. After all, ours is a living faith. Not the faith of dead people. And we have an obligation to our ancestors in the faith to do for our day and age what they did for theirs. That is, to struggle to make sense of the meaning of our lives, in our situation, which is different from the situations our ancestors in the faith confronted. We must be faithful stewards like they were. However, simply to repeat their answers in totally different circumstances may not be very faithful to the tradition at all.

Does the movie show what “really happened”? Mel Gibson revealed his faith stance (his way of interpreting and making sense of Jesus’ death) in the movie. He used and pushed to an extreme limit one of the analogies available from the New Testament, as the authors of the New Testament struggled to make sense of Jesus’ life and death. It is only fair (a true American value --- not held by all in the world because different cultures value other things as more important) that I reveal to you my interpretation, my faith stance. I believe that John Kennedy was assassinated not executed as some hold. I believe that Jesus was assassinated by the religious and political mechanisms of his day. Did this please God? Yes, Jesus in his life and faithfulness and forgiving non-violent life stance pleased God. Jesus was consistent even unto death in his non-violent loving kindness and solidarity with others, even those who murdered him. In reality, this integrity of Jesus revealed what God’s life looks like when lived in a human life. Hence, I believe Jesus reveals what God’s life in human life looks like. This is good news for me. It shows me a way to live. Did God want Jesus to die this way? No. Did Jesus have to die this way? No. Than why do the scriptures say that it was necessary that the son of man suffer and die? Well, if you are a person of integrity, it is necessary that you live out your values and vision. This necessity however will, of itself, necessitate a response from those who have a lot to lose if change happens. It is like saying “What do you expect to happen to a person like Martin Luther King Jr. if he continued to do what he did?”

There are many other things one could point out, for example, the portrayal of Pilate as someone wavering because of his concern about truth and the innocence of Jesus does not fit what we know of the man. Historians know that he crucified over 10,000 people during is time in office. He was ruthless. Or the statement that the Pharisees hate Jesus. Jesus himself would have been perceived by the people, including the Pharisees as one of them but different. But the exploration of that is for another time. These concerns however are incidental to the main objection I have to a film I have mixed feelings about. Namely the taking of a metaphor, an analogy used to by our ancestors in the faith and literalizing it to the point of distortion. Of one thing I am sure. This is not a family film. It did not get an R rating for nothing. And we must continue to dialogue with people about the film because Thomas Szasz was right when he said “In the animal Kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined.”