Sermon on March 28, 2010
Sermon for the Episcopal Church of St John the Baptist, Capitola,
given by Rev. Eliza Linley
The Episcopal Church of Saint John the Baptist welcomes all to worship God and to share Christ's love in the world. We are a parish family committed to provide liturgy, Bible study, music, counseling, and Christian education for children, youth, and adults, and to equip all our members for life and for service to others.
Readings
Phil. 2:5-11, Lk. 22:14-23:56
Sermon
What does triumph look like? Does it look like riding into town through the city gate on a carpet people have made for you out of their own clothes? Does it look like huge crowds praising God on your account? Does it look like being acclaimed as the one who comes in the name of God? You bet it does! For a homeless preacher and his entourage, this spells success beyond imagining. But we who know the rest of the story know that this isn't it - not yet. This is not the ultimate triumph. And between this triumph and that one lies the scandal, the defeat, the shame of the Cross.
What is failure? Maria Boulding, in her book, Gateway to Hope, describes Jesus as history's greatest failure. "The Word was made failure and died among us." She argues that it is failure, not success, that goes to the heart of being human; that Jesus has plumbed the depths of failure and redeemed it in his flesh. It's not when things are going well, not when they bring out the palm branches for you that you know the meaning of resurrection. But when something fails that you put all your best effort into, all the love of your heart; that's when you are caught up in the fellowship of Christ's death and resurrection. The place where we find the risen Christ is not among the scattered glad rags, but among the wreckage of our own disasters.
Recent scholarship researching the life and times of Jesus has raised some very unsettling possibilities in this area. John Dominic Crossan, that bad boy of New Testament scholars, even suggests that the passion narratives are not historical accounts at all, but prophecies retrojected. That is to say that Christian communities of the first century took messianic prophecies from Hebrew Scripture and arranged the account of the final events of Jesus' life on earth to fit. That perhaps there was no triumphal entry into Jerusalem, no scene before Pilate, no crown of thorns or purple robe, no tomb, no garden, no angel in white.
He argues that we know the Romans crucified thousands of people, but archaeologists have only found one or two skeletons of those crucified. There are no skeletons, he maintains, for a terrifying reason. Crucifixion was the death of shame and humiliation, including the manner of burial. When the Romans were done with them, crucified bodies were simply thrown onto the trash heap, or buried in a shallow grave to be uncovered by dogs.
We can't know what the Resurrection was like, because those who cared what happened to Jesus ran away for fear of their lives, and those who didn't - just didn't care.
I don't mention this to question the Bible. Our faith, after all, doesn't hang on scholarly theories. They are just that - theories. We know there was a cross. We know that the ones who loved him most ran away. We know that the story of Peter's denial is true at the most basic level of human nature because we've been there. And we know how human it is to want to make it better. We see ourselves in the grief of the women at the tomb, We would want to be the bearers of ointment and spices, to have the gracious generosity of Joseph of Arimathea who gave his tomb.
But. What was it that turned Peter around to be the eloquent evangelist of the book of Acts? It wasn't that he was there for Jesus in his hour of need, but that he wasn't. He failed the person he loved most, and then he experienced the Resurrection. He understood the Crucifixion the way someone who had never failed could not. Only if you've known the crucifixion of stark failure can you really understand the ultimate triumph of resurrection.
Jesus' death was almost a by-product of the self-serving ambition of the powerful. Pilate, Herod, the chief priests and the scribes: what they really wanted was simply to be successful. The council wanted to avoid trouble, Herod thought it was a joke, and Pilate, who lost control of the situation, considered Jesus' life a small price to pay to maintain order. No one was willing to risk failure for the sake of compassion.
And who doesn't want to be successful? Pretty much everybody does - nobody wants to fail. Jesus didn't want to fail, but he was willing to risk failure. He was willing to risk everything. How unlike us. Some of us, anyway. Control freaks, and I sometimes count myself among this group, want everything to be nailed down, prepared for, thought out, lest we fail miserably. We are so afraid to let God be God that we want to do the job first, just in case. It’s almost like we try to drag Jesus out of the tomb ourselves. And that’s sinful behavior.
This same principle operates when we don't let a beloved child suffer the consequences of his or her actions. It happens when we short-circuit a decision-making process by thinking that we have the answer. It happens when we're afraid to risk difference of theological opinion in our church home for fear the conflict might rip us apart. It happens when we narrow our sights so as to not be aware of the suffering in our own city, our own country, for fear we might not be able to do anything about it.
We cannot truly enter into the mystery of Holy Week blighted by the desire to be successful. Because those of us who would walk this way with Christ must go through their own valley of the shadow. It’s not a journey most of us want to take. It doesn't look good. It isn't controllable. Yet it is the way that leads to abundant, eternal life. When we put ourselves in the place of God, imagining that it is by our own magnificent, or puny, or desperate efforts that resurrection happens, then we are on the road that leads to death. Jesus, on the other hand, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, becoming obedient to the death that leads to life. He was willing to risk death for the sake of compassion.
This past Wednesday Bob Fitch told a story about his father Stu when Bob was 8 and they were at Laguna Beach. Stu, swimming in the ocean, lost the crucifix he always wore around his neck. After looking for it and inquiring of the lifeguard, he realized it was gone, and shook his head sadly. “Dad”, said Bob, “are you sad because you lost your cross?”
“Yes,” said Stu, I’m sad because I lost it, and because I realize that a symbol isn’t enough. There’s so much more I still have to surrender.”
Is it worth surrendering? Dying to that self that wants everything to be ok? Are you willing to die to your successful self this week? I invite you let God be God: enter into the mystery, take up your cross this week and walk the way that Jesus walked.