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One of my all-time favorite movie scenes is from "Dead Poet’s Society" (1989). Mr. Keating, played by Robin Williams, is a new teacher at an exclusive eastern prep school. On the first day of school, Mr. Keating takes his class of boys out into the hallway to look at the pictures of past, now deceased, graduates of the school. He calls on a Mr. Pitts to read a poem, "To the Virgins to Make Much of Time." The poem begins with "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may." Mr. Keating says that the writer is trying to explain that they must "seize the day." When he asks the boys why the poet wrote that, one replies, "Because he's in a hurry." Mr. Keating says no, it is, "Because we are food for worms, Lads! Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die."
The teacher, then, calls the boys over to the cases of photographs. He asks them to take a look at those who graduated before them. "They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you. Their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see, gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But, if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Lean in. Listen. Do you hear it?" Then Mr. Keating says in an eerie grave-like voice, "Carpe Diem! Seize the day, boys! Make your lives extraordinary!"
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As we enter Holy Week, let us be careful not to create a tin robot image of Jesus as one destined, apart from his choices, to live an extraordinary life. I need a Jesus who faced the same choices I face. The Gospel means nothing to me and Holy Week is a sham, unless the events we journey through this Week are events consequent of choices Jesus made to shape a life that led to heroism and fully human integrity, even as he stood apart from the predominant values of his culture and colleagues in ministry.
Jesus, like us, was faced with living an ordinary or extraordinary life. Holy Week and our celebration of it is not just about some substitution Jesus offered as our Savior. Holy Week and Easter shows us Jesus showing us, still today, the way a human is meant to live.
No, I am not interested in virtue as a means to store up merit for an afterlife of payback time. No, I am not interested in some weak surrender of myself, abdicating my choices to Jesus, for him to take care of it all. Rather, Jesus Christ calls me— and you—to the dignity of a more fully human life, to courage, to love, to compassion, to justice, here and now. We are faced with the choices that no one else or God can or will make for us. Our choices decide whether our bodies will die with our having lived an ordinary or extraordinary life.
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