What follows over the next few days will be short reflections on three people who appear in Mark’s Holy Week narrative. These are not meant to be exhaustive or definitive articles. Rather, they are some of what I have been pondering this Holy Week1.
Simon of Cyrene is just mentioned once in each of the synoptic gospels.2
“They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull)”. Mark 15:21-22 NRSV
Cyrene was a Greek city in eastern Libya. We don’t know why Simon was in Jerusalem on this day. Was he there for Passover? There were Jews living in Cyrene. But we don’t know that Simon was Jewish. Some think that because he and his sons were named, the early church knew who they were.
The simplest reading is that Simon of Cyrene was just there, part of the crowd. Does he know what’s happening? The text doesn’t tell us. The Roman soldiers “compel’ him to carry the cross for Jesus. Whether Simon knows who Jesus is or not, he is now a participant in the crucifixion. Was he caught up in the moment watching imperial justice be done? Did he think that he was somehow helping carry out a just verdict? Did he do it because obedience was just what one had to do to survive in the Roman Empire? Or was he horrified to be involved?
Could he have refused? Refusing an order from Roman soldiers was dangerous. If you had to decide what to do in a split second, what would you do? Is this worth running afoul of the authorities? Would refusing to participate put his well being, even his life, at risk? Would you decide to comply even though the task is horrific to save yourself?
Simon seems to be caught in circumstances he did not choose, where he has limited options. We’ve all been there. Not in such a dramatic situation, I hope. But nevertheless, we also can find ourselves in circumstances we did not choose with limited poor choices. This is sometimes how the world is. Our choices are limited and bad.
I have no illusions that I am a brave person. I suspect I am not. I am quite certain I would have done as the soldiers asked. I also think I would have felt very guilty afterward.
You may have heard the phrase, non posse non peccare, it is not possible not to sin3. Sometimes, because we live in this world, it is not possible to make a good choice. All our options are bad, sinful even. Our values are compromised, we act to save ourselves, we act out of fear.
And now this Holy Week, I wonder, where have I participated in acts of injustice? Knowingly or unknowingly. Willingly or unwillingly? Oblivious, or aware? Or resigned because that’s just how it is?
We like to think that we make thoughtful, rational choices- free from pressure or coercion. I don’t think we are as free as we like to think we are. Some of us have more options and resources than others, but none of us fully and cleanly escape the constraints of time and place, of culture and law, of societal norms and personal histories. Which is why thinking in terms of systems and structures is important. Was Simon truly able to make a free choice? Or was he constrained by an imperial system that determined his options and consequences? Systems don’t change unless we recognize their existence and are willing to bear the cost of challenging them.
This week I think about Simon of Cyrene and his choices or lack of choices. I wonder about my choices or lack of choices. I wonder about the systems and structures that affected him and that affect me. And I wonder, am I content to live this way? Or does following Jesus ask more of me?
- The first post is about Judas, you can read it here ↩︎
- The synoptic gospels are “Bible talk” for Matthew, Mark and Luke, because they are so similar in their stories, “syn” single/one, “optic” eye/view ↩︎
- The phrase comes from Augustine and there is a lot of literature about what this means (some of it helpful, some of it not helpful). ↩︎
Conversation in Faith 