Sermon for April 28th, 2019

Readings:

• Acts 5:27-32
• Revelation 1:4-8
• John 20:19-31
• Psalm 118:14-29

 

It is one thing to have sincere doubts and questions about one’s faith; it is quite another to take pride in disbelief.

On the one hand you have someone that is genuinely unsure, looking for answers and open to truth; on the other hand, you have someone that is closed off, unwilling to question themselves because they are convinced that they already have the truth.

Thomas crosses that line in today’s gospel.

All of Thomas’s friends have testified to him that they have seen the risen Lord. They have seen the resurrected Jesus. They had an experience that Thomas didn’t have and they share with him the good news. And Thomas’s response is revealing. He doesn’t say “could it be?” he doesn’t say “maybe” or “how is this possible?” He doesn’t for a moment question himself or his understanding of the world or reality. Instead his response is “I will not believe.” Unless I actually see his wounds, unless I actually touch his body, I will not believe. His closest friends have just testified to something they know to be true, and Thomas cannot for a second question himself. He can’t let himself be wrong, not even for a moment. We often refer to Thomas as “doubting Thomas” but the truth is Thomas has a tremendous amount of faith…in himself. Thomas only doubts others…he doesn’t doubt himself. He doesn’t believe and that is a matter of pride for him. He doesn’t want to believe, because if he did believe this unbelievable tale he might start doubting himself. He might have to doubt his ability to understand the universe and his role in it. He might have to doubt his social standing or his intellect. He might have to doubt his understanding of life and death. He might have to doubt some of the limits he has placed on God’s power. Thomas doubts others because he can’t bear the thought of doubting himself.

Thomas is forced to question himself though. He has an experience of the risen Lord that shakes him to his core. Jesus stands before him, in the flesh, wounds and all, and Thomas is invited to touch him. And all Thomas can muster to say is “my Lord and my God.” Thomas’s whole world, a world that had been propped up by his own phony self-confidence, just came crashing down. And while I am sure that there was tremendous joy in Thomas at seeing his resurrected friend, I am also sure that that joy was mixed with fear and trembling and angst, because Thomas’s whole world has just been turned on its head.

“Do not doubt but believe,” Jesus says to Thomas. Or maybe to put it another way: “be willing to doubt yourself, in order to believe in something greater.”

You Thomas, have come to believe because you have been given no choice, but blessed are those that choose to believe.

Choosing to believe the gospel can come at a great price though; a price that even many who consider themselves to be followers of Jesus are still unprepared to pay. Choosing to believe the gospel can mean sacrifice. It can mean sacrificing the idea that we fully understand the world around us. It can mean sacrificing our confidence in our own intellect. It can mean admitting that we are not quite as smart and evolved as we like to think we are. It can mean admitting that we are not better than other people, like we secretly like to tell ourselves that we are. We do that too, we pride ourselves on not being like those people, those ancient people, those superstitious people, those tacky people, those poor people, those people without multiple letters after their names. Admitting that the gospel might be true, means choosing to let go of a lot of myself, and that is a price that even some people who truly love some of the things that Jesus had to say, struggle to pay. They, like Thomas, are more comfortable with Jesus as a dead teacher than as a living Lord and God. This is not new.

 

^“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?

If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.

If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.^”

 

That is what Paul had to say in his first letter to the Corinthians. Now, that’s not one of our readings this morning, so you won’t find it printed in your bulletin. But it is a word I think we need to hear this morning.

You know, the Apostle Paul was one of the first people to put pen to paper and write about this man named Jesus. And Paul didn’t have a nice leather-bound bible with the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in it. The gospels, the books of the bible that tell the narrative story of Jesus’s life and teachings, they weren’t written yet, or they were just starting to be written, but Paul didn’t have copies on his desk. And the church in Corinth, they didn’t have copies of the gospels yet either. What they had was the tradition that Paul proclaimed to them. The good news that they knew, was the good news that had been handed on to them by Paul, which was the good news that he received from the other apostles. And the essence of the good news, the gospel, the most important thing that Paul wants to share with them, is that last sentence I just quoted a moment ago:

 

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.”

 

You can accuse Paul of many things, but you cannot accuse him of doubting the resurrection. But that was not always the case. Paul, like Thomas, began as someone brimming with self-confidence that doubted everyone but himself. Paul also had an encounter with the risen Lord, that shook him up, knocked him off his donkey and made him realize how bind he had been all along. Paul needed to be shaken up, he needed to doubt himself in order to truly understand and appreciate who this man Jesus really was. And Paul’s letters, the first written documents we have about Jesus, they are all about how Jesus rose from the dead and subsequently what that means for how we should live in the world. That is the message that Paul wants to convey: Jesus Christ is alive and now what are you going to do about it. Paul does not spend a lot of time talking about everything Jesus said or did during his life. Paul doesn’t record Jesus’s teachings. Paul begins with the most astounding, unbelievable, reality shattering and doubt provoking proclamation about Jesus Christ. Paul doesn’t let you wade into the water with something non-controversial and benign like “do unto others” he throws you right into the deep end with “Christ is risen.” Think about that for a second. If you had ten seconds to tell someone the most important thing about Jesus Christ, what would you tell them? Paul can do it in less than ten words…Christ has been raised from the dead.

 

Before we talked about the Golden Rule, before we had the words of the Sermon on the Mount, before we had “love your neighbor”, or “forgive your enemies,” before we have any words he spoke, before we have any records of miracles or healings, before we are allowed to form an opinion of this man…we are told that he was raised from the dead. The hardest thing to believe is the first thing we are told. Why does Paul do that? Well, maybe it is because Paul knows all too well just how dangerous too much self-confidence can be. We talk about self-confidence nowadays as if it were only a virtue, but it isn’t you know. It is entirely possibly to be completely confident and completely wrong at the same time. Many of history’s worst figures were brimming with self-confidence. When Paul shares the gospel, he begins with the Resurrection. It isn’t some extra bit that is tacked on by a later generation of believers, it is right there from the beginning. Paul begins with the part of the story that turns your world upside down and forces you to doubt yourself and your understanding of the world around you. Paul’s Jesus, the first Jesus we ever hear about, is not just some rebel rabbi put to death by the Romans; he is a resurrected Lord that forces us to choose between putting our ultimate faith in ourselves and our own understanding of the world, our putting our faith in a God that is more powerful and more mysterious than we could ever imagine. Choosing to believe in that kind of a God, and choosing to doubt ourselves, is a powerful choice; it is a difficult choice, but it is the most important choice we can ever make. Blessed are those who choose to believe.

 

We are in the midst of our Easter season, the time of the year when we very boldly proclaim Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Now the truth is we are always proclaiming Christ’s resurrection from the dead, but in Easter we do it in a big way. And just about every year the media finds someone they can trot out, usually some clergy person, to question if Jesus actually did rise from the dead and if that is really important. This year, was of course no different.

 

There was an opinion piece in the New York Times this past week, which was so unoriginal that I don’t suggest you waste your time reading it. Basically, the head of a prominent seminary in New York, and a Christian Minister of some variety, was interviewed and proclaimed that belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ was really not that important to her faith.  I think it’s sad, but it’s not news. Since that first Easter Sunday there have always been some people that have taken some measure of pride in disbelief, even among the followers of Jesus. There have always been, and probably will always be, people that value every type of doubt but self-doubt. I’m sure that Jesus loves them as much as he loved Thomas or Paul. I must admit though that I don’t get it. If I didn’t believe in all of this I would go and find something else to do. I could be a person of faith, but it wouldn’t be the Christian faith. Sure, Jesus was an excellent teacher, and a brilliant and compassionate man, but that is not why his teachings were recorded and that is not why we are called by his name. John our gospel writer this morning, like Paul, makes it very clear why he is telling the world about Jesus and why he is sharing his words: “these [words] are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

Blessed are those who choose to believe.

Sermon for Easter Sunday 2019

Readings:

•  Isaiah 65:17-25
•  Acts 10:34-43
• John 20:1-18
• Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

It’s just a building.

 

That is what I kept telling myself Monday afternoon. It’s just a building. Just bricks and mortar and wood. But I was lying to myself and I knew it. It wasn’t just a building.

 

The strip mall down the street is just a building. The gas station on the corner is just a building. This wasn’t just a building. This was a symbol. It was a symbol of a country and a culture that I love; it was a symbol of one of the world’s great cities; It was a symbol of a time in history that fascinates me; most importantly is was a symbol of my faith; it was a symbol of so much that I have dedicated my life to. It was a temple, and it was in flames.

 

I can imagine what the children of Israel must have felt. The children of Israel twice had to see their temple burned to the ground. What a horrifying thing to witness: to see a symbol that is a part of your identity, a thing of beauty and a testament to that which is holy, crumbling in front of you. Great buildings, are more than just four walls and a roof. Great buildings are symbols that remind us of who we are, where we came from and where we are going. They tell a story. They have a personality and a life; and maybe they don’t have an immortal soul like a human, but nonetheless they can have a spirit or an air that is all their own. They can touch our souls and change us, so to lose one, or at least to see devastating damage done to one, it’s like seeing someone you love suffer. It is heartbreaking, I can’t think of any other words for it.

 

And whenever something heartbreaking happens, we humans, we have this tendency to rush in with buckets of platitudes to try and make everything alright again. We want to put the fire out in our hearts; we want to throw words on it to make the pain go away. So we say things like “it is just a building,” or “we will rebuild,” or “at least I got to see it,” or if, God forbid, we should lose a loved one, a person, someone might say something like “he or she will live on in our hearts and in our memories.”

 

I’m sorry, but that’s just not good enough for me. I want more than that. I want the beauty back. I want the life back.

 

I want more than memories and photographs. I want what was lost restored. And the hard and bitter truth is that we don’t have the power to do that. Not even with buildings. We can rebuild. We can replicate. We can create new buildings and new lives, but we can’t resurrect. We can’t take the dust and ashes and turn it back into what it once was any more than we can take a body out of the grave and make it breathe again. We don’t have that power. We can fix things; we can give them a face-lift; we can try and replicate things that have been destroyed, but we can’t resurrect them.

 

That is a heartbreaking thing to realize. We humans are capable of such beauty. We are beautiful and we can create beautiful things, but we can’t hold on to beauty forever. Sometimes all it takes is a simple accident for us to be made painfully aware of how fragile our beautiful existence is.

 

In such moments, we are tempted to despair. But then I saw something as I was watching the devastation and listening to the early predictions that all may be lost. People, strangers most likely, in the distance, watching the fire from across the river, watching their temple and the symbol of so much they love and cherish turn into ash, people stopped and gathered together and sang.

 

And not just any song. A song that was also a prayer.

 

Je vous salue Marie comblée de grâce,

le Seigneur est avec vous.

Vous êtes bénie entre toutes les femmes

et Jésus votre enfant est béni.

Sainte Marie Mère de Dieu

priez pour nous, pauvres pécheurs,

maintenant et à l’heure de notre mort.

Amen, amen, alleluia.

 

Hail Mary, full of grace,

The Lord is with thee

Blessed art thou among women

And blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.

Holy Mary, mother of God

Pray for us sinners,

Now and at the hour of our death.

 

That is what they were singing. What was it that gave those people the courage and the power and the will to sing while watching parts of their beautiful temple fall to the ground? It was faith. Faith in a story. Faith in a promise. Faith in their God. It was the faith that this temple was a witness to. The same faith that inspired their ancestors to build that temple in the first place. Some of the people were crying, but through their tears they were singing the angelus, an ancient prayer that you may know, that tells the story of a young Jewish girl who was told by an angel that she would give birth to the son of God. This building was dedicated to her and every stone of that building, every piece of glass, was put there to tell the story of how her child defeated death and destruction for all of us.

 

This woman’s son was dead and in the grave. The temple of his body was destroyed, on its way to become dust and ashes, and after three days of grief and despair, another woman came back from his tomb with this most unbelievable tale. He was alive again and more beautiful than ever. And then others saw him; they touched him. This was no fond memory, no hallucination. This was the very man they loved restored, no, not really restored, resurrected. He walked among them for forty days, and before he left them and ascended into heaven, he challenged those that knew him and loved him to go out and tell the world his story. Tell the world how God has defeated death. Tell them how God can give new life to things that have been destroyed. Tell them how God has promised new life now to those who live their lives in him. Tell them how all beauty really belongs to God and tell them that God never loses anything that belongs to him. True beauty is never lost, not to God. God can rebuild temples. “Jesus answered and said unto them ‘destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’” God can rebuild temples. Not just temples of stone and glass, but temples of flesh and blood. If God can do that we don’t need to despair about losing a beautiful temple, not the ones in stone, not the ones in flesh. God isn’t going to lose anything that belongs to him.

 

That story is what gives people the courage to sing when their temple burns, to sing in the face of evil and to sing in the face of death. What do we proclaim in the church when someone dies? What do we say in our funeral service? “All we go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” That is our faith. That is the Christian faith. That is the faith of the people that built that temple. It isn’t that we can fix the world; it isn’t that we can keep things from being destroyed; it’s that God can resurrect what is beyond repair. The almighty power of God can do what we have no hope of doing on our own.

 

Every stone of that building, every inch of that temple, was there to tell that story. I can only hope that those who are called to build it back up again will remember why it was built in the first place. I hope that they will understand how important beauty is to the human soul. I hope that they will appreciate that the brilliant, gifted hands that built it didn’t do it for their own glory or fame, but for the glory of God. This wasn’t just a building, it was the gospel written in stone. It was a proclamation of the life of Christ. It was a glimpse of heaven. The most glorious structure of its age, one of the most glorious structures ever built, was created to be a symbol to point us to something even more glorious.  We need those in our world. The world can sometimes be very ugly. We need beauty. We need symbols of God’s majesty and beauty. We need symbols of the Resurrection. It is those beautiful glimpses of heaven that give us the faith to sing, even when it seems like the world is on fire. Even when it seems like all is dust and ashes. I hope that they will remember that this story we tell here today was what it was all about.

 

The foundation of that spectacular, beautiful temple was a story. The true story of a young Jewish girl and the child she gave birth to…a son, a child named Jesus, a child who would live to show us just what God can do with dust and ashes. The young girl’s name was Mary, but many of her son’s followers had such love and affection for her that they would refer to her simply as “Our Lady,” or in French “Notre Dame.”

 

 

Sermon for Good Friday 2019

Readings:

• Isaiah 52:13-53:12
• Hebrews 10:16-25
• John 18:1-19:42
• Psalm 22

 

 

In one of my favorite scenes in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which if you aren’t familiar with it is a somewhat crude, but very funny parody of movies about the life of Jesus, in this scene a band of Judean rebels are plotting to overthrow their Roman oppressors.

 

What have the Romans ever given us?, their leader shouts.

 

“The aqueduct”, someone sheepishly replies.

 

Oh, the aqueduct, yeah they did give us that, that’s true.

 

And sanitation.

 

Yeah, alright. I’ll grant you that the aqueduct and sanitation are two things the Romans have done.

 

And the roads.

 

Well, of course, the roads. The roads go without saying don’t they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct and the roads…

 

Irrigation, medicine, education…

 

The scene goes on and finally ends with the leader saying, somewhat exasperatingly:

 

Alright, well apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

 

Brought peace?

 

Oh peace! Shut up!

 

It is a brilliant and famous scene in that movie, and one of the things that I think this little scene pokes fun at is that it is so easy for us, when talking about the life of Jesus Christ and the world of the ancient near east to simply demonize the Romans. It is so easy to just make them the oppressive enemy or overlords, and yet, the Romans were, in truth, so much more than that.

 

The Roman Empire was the most progressive, advanced civilization in the ancient Western world. They had the most advanced technology. Without the use of calculators or computers they built some of the most splendid buildings in the world. They were cosmopolitan and multicultural. People from every race and language across the known world participated in the Roman Empire. There were vast open markets where you could buy items shipped from all over the world. Items that had been transported along Roman roads. Roads that were protected by the Roman army and that benefited from the general peace that Rome’s power had created in the region. There was education. There were social services: public baths, libraries. The Romans had official state religion, but they were mostly secular. The Romans didn’t really care how you worshipped so long as it didn’t disturb the public peace or threaten their power. They were very reasonable people. The Romans loved technology and progress and reason, and those three things brought Rome tremendous power. And what today is the most enduring symbol of Roman power?

 

What piece of technology are the Romans most remembered for today? It is about to be unveiled in front of you. The cross.

 

This civilization that valued technology and progress and reason; this splendid society of culture and educated people…where is their empire now? Ruins. Ruins everywhere. A few buildings here and there; a few walls; a few reminders of how sophisticated and advanced they were, but their empire is gone. And what we are left with everywhere you look is this; this symbol: two pieces of wood stuck together. A brutal piece of Roman technology.

 

The sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health…all brought to you by the people that gave us the cross.

 

You see, the Romans, will all of their technology and progress and reason were able to fix many of the worlds problems, except for two: sin and death.

 

The Romans could not conquer sin and death; not their own, not anyone else’s. And this thing that we hang on our walls, carry in our pockets, or wear around our necks; this little piece of Roman technology has become the enduring symbol of the two things that Roman technology could not fix: sin and death.

 

This symbol of Roman advancement and technology; a reminder that the most progressive society in the western world, a society that conquered the entire Mediterranean, couldn’t conquer its own demons: greed, lust, brutality, deception, cruelty and death. Sure the Romans may have done some great things, but if they can’t fix sin and death what good are they? What have the Romans done for us?

 

So much for progress…

 

But let’s be fair to the Romans, in every age we find some piece of technology to cling to, some symbol of our advancement as a society, some symbol of progress and the future, we use it thinking that it will fix our problems; that it will create peace and put an end to those age-old problems of sin and death. But the next generation comes along and sees that technology for what it really was: a symbol of the very sin and death that it was trying to conquer.

 

Think of the guillotine, the rifle, mustard gas, the atomic bomb, drones. In every age we come up with some piece of technology that we think will finally cure our problems and in every age we prove that we still lack the capacity to fix sin and death.

 

Every wonderful thing we create as humans all of our progress and our technology, it always gets tainted, ruined by our own sinfulness: the internet, medicine, industry, roads, commerce… we always find a way to mess up any human achievement.

 

Maybe Isaac Watts said it best:

 

When I survey the wondrous cross,

on which the prince of glory died

my richest gain I count but loss

and pour contempt on all my pride

 

My friends, I must admit to you that I don’t believe in progress, at least, not in the way we normally talk about it. I don’t believe that through time, effort, education or technology we humans are ever going to save the world. I have examined very closely the story of modernism; you know the story of modernism: new is better. Through progress, human progress, we will make the world a better place. Well I have examined the claims that human achievement and determination can and will some day fix the world. I have examined how one empire after another has risen…and then fallen. I have seen science is used to save lives…and to destroy them. I have seen people place their faith in one –ism after another: rationalism, imperialism, industrialism, modernism, communism, fascism, socialism, liberalism, conservatism. In the end what I find is the same old sin and death, still haunting us after all these years.

 

Every day I am told: “do this and change the world,” “Do that and change the world.” I am tired of trying to change the world. I am tired of being told that the future of humanity rests on every decision I make at the grocery store. I want to make good and informed decisions in my life; I want to make good choices in how I live in this world and what I leave behind, but I do not suffer from the delusion that human progress can or will conquer sin and death.

 

You may think that sounds pessimistic, but it isn’t. It’s good news. It’s the best news you are ever going to hear. You are not going to save the world, and you do not have to, the burden is not on your shoulders, because it has already been done.

 

On the cross, hanging on that grotesque piece of Roman, human technology, God did for us what we could never do for ourselves. God defeated sin and death on Good Friday and that moment when Jesus died on the cross, the world was as saved as it is ever going to get. No roads, no sanitation, no education or medication is ever going to save the world more than God did in that moment on that day.

 

Use technology, but don’t put your faith in it. Make good decisions. Let Jesus’s life and teachings inspire you to live the best life you can, but stop trying to save the world every day. It’s already been done. We can lay our burdens down at the foot of the cross today, knowing the Jesus has already saved the world more than we ever could. That is why this is a good Friday.

 

Sermon for Maundy Thursday 2019

Readings:

• Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14
• 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
• John 13:1-17, 31b-35
• Psalm 116:1, 10-17

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, has said in interviews that there are three big questions that any reflective person must ask themselves at some time:

 

Who I am?

Why am I here?

How, then, shall I live?

 

Science and technology don’t do a very good job of answering those questions. They are questions of faith and philosophy.

 

Who am I?

Why am I here?

How, then, shall I live?

 

These are the big questions. They are so big that many people may be afraid to ask them, perhaps for fear that they won’t find any answers. But we ignore these questions at our peril, because they are the foundation of who we are, not just as a community, but also as individuals. Our very identity is tied to those questions. Our sense of meaning, and purpose and direction are tied to those questions. Our values are tied to those questions. Our mental health, our stability, our culture…they are all tied to those questions.

 

Who am I?

Why am I here?

How, then, shall I live?

 

Those are the questions that religion attempts to answer. Religion is no hobby my friends, because if we as a society stop trying to answer those questions, we are in deep trouble. If we stopping teaching our children to ask those questions and if we stop providing them with answers to those questions, what will their lives be? What will they see, or who will they see, when they look in the mirror?

 

The church is always answering one or more of those questions in different ways, but tonight, Maundy Thursday, on this very special night of the year, we answer all three.

 

Who am I?

 

Well we are all individually many things, but together we are disciples of Jesus Christ. We are people that gather at his table, not just tonight, but week after week and what we receive is not just a piece of bread and a sip of wine, but his body and his blood. His life, that is what flows in our veins. They say you are what you eat, well this is who we are. We are individuals that have been invited, by God, to share in his life. Whoever I am as an individual, whatever my story is, as someone baptized into the life of Christ and who is called to the Lord’s table, my life is forever linked to his life; my story is linked to his story.

 

Why am I here?

 

We are here because we have been saved by God. Not just us but our ancestors before us. Our Lord’s last supper was a celebration of freedom from slavery. That is what the Passover meal is. And part of the tradition of Passover is making sure that the children there know what the whole night is all about. The ritual of Passover teaches the children the answers to those fundamental questions: who am I? Why am I here? How shall I live? Jesus was celebrating the fact that he belonged to a people that worshipped a saving God. He, and all of his people, were in the promised land and could worship at the temple in Jerusalem, because God had saved them. As Christians we are here because we have witnessed God’s saving power as well. God has saved us, Christ has saved us…why? Because he loves us.

 

How, then, shall I live?

 

Jesus makes that very clear for us tonight in his words and in his example. The God and creator of the universe didn’t think that it was too low a thing to stoop down and wash our feet. If he can do that, how can we, poor humans, think that any sort of service to our brothers and sisters is beneath us? How shall I live? Well, how did he live? He observed traditions. He worshipped. He prayed. He celebrated. He cried. He served others. He loved.

 

A wonderful life to emulate, but of course we know the story doesn’t end there, because he also suffered and died, and then three days later…rose again. You already knew that, I didn’t just give anything away. How then shall I live? As someone who already knows that his story doesn’t end in death. Make no mistake, like Jesus, death will be a part of our stories, but it won’t be the end of our stories. How shall I live? As someone that values love, more than his own life.

 

Who am I?

Why am I here?

How shall I live?

 

Our faith seeks to answer those questions all the time, but on tonight of all nights we are given some pretty clear answers. We must not neglect to share those answers with our children.

 

Who am I?

 

I am an individual loved by God. I am a part of a community, a family of people, that have been saved by God. I have been invited to a heavenly banquet, and every time I gather at the Lord’s altar I am offered a bit of his life. He feeds me, literally.

 

Why am I here?

 

I am here because God has sought me, and my ancestors before me, and saved me from the slavery I found myself entrapped in. I am here because I am loved. I was created by a loving God to share in his love, and when I have found myself trapped and suffering he has sought me out to set me free.

 

How shall I live?

 

I shall live as one who has already been redeemed from death. People will know me as a disciple of Jesus, not because of my t-shirt or my bumper sticker, but because of the love that I show. I shall live as one who knows his feet have been washed by Jesus, and who is prepared to wash the feet of others.

 

Sermon for Palm Sunday, April 14, 2019

Readings:

• Isaiah 50:4-9a
• Philippians 2:5-11
• Luke 22:14-23:56

The trial of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is what the passion of Our Lord feels like, one long trial with a defendant and lots of interesting witnesses.

 

Judas had betrayed him. We don’t really know why. I’m sure Judas thought he was doing the right thing at the time. Maybe he convinced himself he was doing it for his people, for his country. Maybe he was mad at Jesus for some reason or another. Maybe it was greed. We don’t really know. We know when he saw the results of his actions he repented and tried to give the money back, but it was too late. The deed was done. Judas despaired and hanged himself, unable to deal with his guilt.

 

What about the other disciples? They fell asleep, during our Lord’s agony. They didn’t have to suffer as he did; he just told them to pray, but they couldn’t even do that. When they did decide to act and defend Jesus, of course they did the wrong thing. They resorted to violence. And it didn’t take long after Jesus was arrested for Peter to deny him three times. Of course, that’s the last time we hear about most of his disciples until after the resurrection. Most of them have scattered in fear.

 

The soldiers that arrested Jesus, just doing their jobs right? Just following orders? And yet, before the trial even begins they blindfold him, and beat him, and taunt him, and humiliate him. He was arrested and in shackles. He was no threat to them at this point. They probably didn’t even know him. He had never done anything to them, so why are they taking this sadistic glee in hurting this poor man?

 

The chief priests and scribes: do they really care what Jesus has to say? Is this a real trial at all? They twist Jesus’s words around and then they outright lie about what he said. They can’t let anything Jesus actually said interfere with what they want to do, so they will twist it, or lie about it. They are tired of this man calling them out on their hypocrisy, so they are going to find a way to get rid of him, preferably a way that they can blame on someone else. So they send him to Pilate.

 

Pilate isn’t a Jew. He doesn’t really have a dog in this fight. And Pilate knows that these are phony charges, but Pilate is very smart and very career minded. He will make this Herod’s problem.

 

Herod was glad to see Jesus…at first. Herod wanted Jesus to perform some miracle, or to tell him something that he wanted to hear, but Jesus just stood there. Wouldn’t act, wouldn’t speak. So since Herod couldn’t get what he wanted out of him, he decided that Jesus would serve him best as an object of derision….someone to mock. But of course, people who bully and make fun of others are often just cowards under the surface, and that is what Herod is. So he sends Jesus back to Pilate.

 

And Pilate, still seems convinced that this man is innocent, and if that is true then why is he more willing to listen to the mob than he is to his own conscience? If Jesus is innocent, as Pilate says, then why does he insist on having him flogged before he is released? If he is innocent he is innocent…why make him suffer more? Pilate doesn’t really care about Justice. Oh he knows the difference between right and wrong, even the Romans had morals, but as so many of us do from time to time, he doesn’t let those morals interfere with his actions. He condemns Jesus to die and sets Barabbas free.

 

And then the crowd. Mobs are always the same…doesn’t matter if it is 1^stcentury Jerusalem or 21^stcentury Facebook, mobs always act the same. One of the things I love about the Palm Sunday liturgy, is that it asks you the congregation to proclaim Jesus as your messiah and king one minute and then a couple minutes later cry out for him to be crucified. That may seem strange, but that is how mobs work. I have no doubt that some of the same people that welcomed Jesus on Sunday called for his execution on Friday morning. And you may want to think that you wouldn’t have been a part of that mob, but don’t be so sure. Don’t be so sure.

 

The enticing thing about being part of the mob is that you get all of the emotion and none of the responsibility, because once the dust settles and you realize what just happened, you can try to convince yourself that you didn’t have that much to do with it…you were just one among many.

 

And what about the others there? What about Simon of Cyrene? We always talk about Simon carrying Jesus’s cross, but Simon didn’t do that willingly. He wasn’t moved by compassion at the sight of Jesus’s sufferings. He didn’t reach out to provide comfort to a dying man, he was forced too. Simon probably would have been content to not get involved, and who could blame him?

 

And finally there is the women, who follow Jesus weeping and wailing. If anyone in this story shows some compassion it is these women, but what does Jesus say to them: “do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves.” Their hearts are breaking for this man that has been put on trial and condemned to die. Our hearts may break too when we witness again the trial and passion of our Lord. If there are any characters in this whole story that we want to identify with, it’s these women who mourn for Jesus, but he seems to imply that they are missing something, that they have gotten something wrong. “Do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves” Jesus says. The women don’t appreciate what is really happening in this story.

 

What did he mean by that? The next thing that Jesus says, after he is lead to the place of the scull and nailed to the cross, may give us the clue we need to figure out what Jesus means by “weep for yourselves.” As Jesus is hanging there, probably remembering his whole life, but undoubtedly recalling the events of the past week, and remembering how even his closest friends let him down, how the system let him down, how justice had been a shame and religion a pretense, and how even those with hearts of compassion couldn’t see what was really happening. There in that moment, he says: “father, forgive them.” This is a condemned man. What business does he have forgiving anyone? And yet, here in his final hour, this man whose has been tried and condemned, now starts to sound like an advocate. Forgive them? How Jesus, in that moment are you in a place to say: “forgive them?” You are the one on trial here. You are the one who has been condemned. Now you are starting to sound like a public defender, an advocate. Jesus you are almost making it sound like we have been on trial this whole time, not you.

 

Maybe, we like the women, have gotten this story wrong. Maybe this trial was about us and we didn’t know it. So many characters in this story, so many roles. I wonder how many of them I have played? The betrayer, the sluggard, the coward, the upward-moving career minded administrator, the convenient Christian, the denier, the accuser, the mocking guard, the disinterested bystander, and even the person who mourns but doesn’t understand. I thought that this trial was about Jesus, while all the while I was the one that was being condemned.

 

Jesus isn’t condemned in today’s gospel, we are. And we, like those two thieves on either side of Jesus are justly condemned. And what does out advocate have to say to the eternal judge?; what sentence has he recommend?

 

Father forgive them.