Every Plague Of Old Testament Divine Wrath
“People speak sometimes about the
‘bestial’ cruelty of man,
but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts;
no animal could ever be so cruel as a man,
so artfully, so artistically cruel.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Deliberate cruelty is unforgivable.”
Tennessee Williams
“A true coward is someone who
doesn’t even have the courage to be a coward.”
Tamerlan Kuzgov
“As you grow older,
you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life,
but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it —
whenever a white man does that to a black man,
no matter who he is,
how rich he is,
or how fine a family he comes from,
that white man is trash”
Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
Cowards.
Cowards and cruel.
And liars!
By God’s grace, I no longer remember the name of one and, unhappily, can never forget the name of another.
Yet, I will never forget their cruelty and cowardice.
One was a sergeant whose office shared a wall with mine at the South Florida Reception Center.
Despite their quaint names, Florida’s “reception centers” are maximum security prisons and the “first stop” after a person has been sentenced by criminal courts. Haircuts, physicals, psychological/psychiatric evaluations (when necessary). Prison records are established or updated and decisions are made concerning the security levels demanded by the inmate’s criminal record and to which of the state’s 134 prisons he will be assigned. One stop shopping! Welcome to the system!
SFRC is so far into the Everglades that its only “neighbor” is a massive county jail – a holding facility for folks before trial and sentencing.
The sergeant was cruel and a coward and, for a reason I never understood, targeted an inmate from Colombia. His cruelty was ritualized: Three or four times a week, two tall, strong White inmates – the sarge’s boys – were summoned to the office; they knew the routine; while the sergeant sat behind his desk, they stood against the opposite wall and the intended victim was summoned; when he entered, the sergeant nodded his approval and his minions beat the living crap out of the Colombian, who knew that, if he said anything, the next morning he would be shipped to a prison bordering Alabama and not see his family for years - until his release.
My inmate clerks often cautioned “It ain’t smart to piss-off Father Flynn.”
Father Flynn was more than pissed off. I called down upon “the sarge” every plague of
Old Testament divine wrath.
As soon as I realized what was happening, I barged into the superintendent’s office demanding that the inmate be kept safe and transferred “immediately.”
He was transferred before sunset.
The other, “Sergeant X” (respecting his former wife and son, I won’t use his name), ran a “shotgun squad” cutting down trees in the swampy Everglades waters surrounding the prison. His victim: A Black inmate three months shy of completing his sentence. Both – the sergeant and the inmate - were big, muscular men with no more than a high school education or GED. The difference (as I discovered years later): A onetime boxer with 14 wins, twelve by knockout, the inmate’s size was the work of years of physical labor and genetics; the sergeant “bulked-up” with illegal pharmaceuticals.
Five days a week the sergeant promised the Black man, “I’m gonna break you. You’re gonna take a swing at me and I’ll jam-up your time for another five or ten years (in prison) and I’ll make you wish you had died or you’re gonna try to run and I’ll shoot and kill you.”
“It ain’t smart to piss-off Father Flynn.”
Within hours after the Chaplain learned what was happening, the inmate was transferred to a safer (probably library) job; years later the sergeant’s family reported he died as a result of his long-term cocaine addiction and of abuse of testosterone and other drugs.
In both cases (without judgment, rather a statement of fact), the sergeants were cowards and cruel.
Over the six days from Palm Sunday though Good Friday, in the Liturgy of the Word of our Anglican/Episcopalian and Roman Catholic Churches and many Orthodox and Protestant churches, we will read the four Gospel accounts of the arrest, trial and crucifixion of a simple man who dared to speak Truth and discomfort the comfortable. Tragically (yet appropriately), liturgical instruction for the readings provides a remindorial (a word we’ve just invented) role for the People of God. (It is the only time in the liturgical year when the congregation has an active role in the reading of the Good News.)
In the Gospel accounts, the timorous Pilate asks the crowd “Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas or Jesus, who is called the Messiah?…” (Matthew 27:16-22) We are told Barabbas had been imprisoned “for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder” (Luke 23:19) and was “in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising” (Mark 15:7) and he was also “a robber.” (John 18:40)
Historians – including Flavius Josephus, the primer historian of the era - offer no account of any “insurrection” in which Barabbas might have participated. Perhaps Luke and Mark were simply anticipating the behavior of the “very fine people” (Donald J. Trump, August 15, 2017 press conference), the “peaceful people…great people” who demonstrated in Charlottesville or they might have been writing about those who “peacefully and patriotically” invaded the Capitol on January 6, 2020, a “day of love” (Donald Trump, October 16, 2024, Univision town hall, Doral, Florida) on which 174 U.S. Capital Police and Metropolitan Police department officers were injured and after which four officers committed suicide within seven months.
On Palm Sunday (Matthew 26-27) and Good Friday (John 18-19), Pilate proves himself just one more gutless politician: “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law…” (John 18:28) and “…he knew that they had handed him (Jesus) over because of envy…” (Matthew 27:17) Cowardice despite “While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him, saying, ‘Have nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered many things today in a dream because of Him.’” (Matthew 27:19)
With that warning, Pilate knew the right thing to do.
But…
He prized the applause, the golf outings in Palm Beach and his “friendship” with a ruler who was proven incapable of true friendship. Pilate valued his own righteousness, his self-proclaimed religiosity. Yet he was terrified of losing his social and political positions. Afraid of “being primaried” or falling from his little throne that was no longer about “public service,” he echoed the thieving manager of Luke 16:3: “Now what? My master is taking my position from me. I am not strong enough to labor, and to beg I am ashamed.”
“Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the leaders of the people kept shouting, ‘If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.’” (John 19:12)
As if anticipating so many American politicians, he trembled in his calcei and passed the final judgment to others: “What shall I do with Jesus…” (Matthew 27:22) [EDITORS’ NOTE: Calcei were the “boots” of the day. We just couldn’t help ourselves.]
It’s in the answer to this question – “What shall I do with Jesus?” – that congregations in 2026 will echo the crowds of more than two millennia ago: “Let Him be crucified… Let him be crucified….”
Matthew tells us:
“So when Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere [with the crowds calling for the death of Jesus], he took water and washed his hands [to publicly and ceremonially cleanse himself of guilt] in the presence of the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this [righteous] man’s blood; see to that yourselves.’”
While some members of the presidential administration and Congress flaunt their adulteries, other members of the administration and Congress attend “prayer breakfasts” and speak rhapsodically about American “family values.”
When congressional representatives and senators heard the lies about “eating peoples’ pets,” they stayed silent or repeated the calumny. When he or she knew that their votes would deprive children and families of the support they needed to keep food on their tables, they voted for tax cuts. When rich and powerful (White) mothers objected to their children learning an honest and historically accurate history of slavery in America, the politicians banned books. (Ahhhhh! The “power” of the pearl-clutchers.)
When politicians know that citizens – real, born-in-the-USA citizens – are being arrested and held in a prison camp on the edge of the Everglades without an opportunity to defend themselves – they stay silent. And when another racist bigot or antisemite or mental disturbed or homophobic man with a high powered, rapid-firing long gun creates yet another mass murder, the weak-kneed, cowering and pusillanimous again promise “thoughts and prayers” but somehow never manage to show their faces at funeral services and memorials.
“Prayer doesn’t change Nature.
It doesn’t change History.
It doesn’t change Others
It sure-as-hell doesn’t change God.
Prayer changes the one who prays.”
Rev. Francis J. (Skip) Flynn, Psy.D.
The sergeants were cruel because they were cowards; cowardly and cruel sergeants.
The crown shouted “Crucify Him” because they were terrified of their Roman occupiers and their own “religious” leadership who were shaking in their sandals about the Roman cruelty.
On Palm Sunday and Good Friday Christians across America will echo the crowd of twenty-two hundred years ago.
Most who will declare “Crucify Him” are good people - caring for family, friends, neighbors, sometimes for the “small guy, the overlooked woman, the hungry and sick children of the God” in cities, states and worlds they will never know. By the grace of God, they will be able – in the depts of their souls and after carefully examining their personal consciences – to say “I do not, I will nott crucify the Christ by my words or actions.”
Others, however, will skip the rituals of Palm Sunday and Good Friday. You know: The “business of the people” they conduct on the golf course is soooooooo important; after all Venezuela, Iran, Cuba and don’t forget Canda and Greenland, and, and, and………
On these Sacred Days, let us all hear- even dare to say - those words again – “Crucify Him… Crucify Him…”
Before reading them, however, let’s meditate on Psalm 19:14:
"Let the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer"
Perhaps then, some will find the courage to be “servants,” maybe even willing to recognize and challenge the cowardice of the cruel and remember
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"
Luke 23:34