“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – the opening of Psalm 22, from Sunday’s lectionary, is reported to have been quoted by Jesus in his time of utter desolation on the cross.
The Psalm continues (v6) “But I am a worm, and not human…” Dehumanised. How else would we be able to hurt or kill people if we didn’t dehumanise them first? It’s familiar territory at first, we apply labels like ‘scrounger’ or something based on faith or nationality or ethnicity. Then step by step we care about them less and less, and their lives mean less and less to us.
But Jesus is the ‘worm’, the less-than-human, the Godforsaken one. By identifying with people in that condition, what is he saying to us?