Sermon on April 25, 2010
Sermon for the Episcopal Church of St John the Baptist, Capitola,
given by Rev. Steve Ellis
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.
Revalation
After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
"Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!"
And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing,
"Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen."
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
For this reason they are before the throne of God,
and worship him day and night within his temple,
and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.
They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;
for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
Revelation 7:9-17
Sermon: Atonement #2 - Peter Abelard
This sermon is intended to continue last week, to provoke discussion in our adult forum at 10:15, both this week, and perhaps next. Next week will have a different topic. The purpose of this series is not academic. The atonement, if it becomes real for us, is a lived reality. God makes peace with us and we begin to make God’s peace with others. The Holy Spirit is at work in this room this morning, and it is for the sake of changed hearts that we talk about these things. God is trying to win our hard hearts.
Last week I spoke of Anselm of Canterbury and his substitutionary theory of the Atonement. Humankind had affronted God by choosing self-rule, and had lost the freedom to choose what was right and loving. We owed God, each of us, a debt we could not pay, and God, personally, paid it by entering this life, suffering the results of our sin and estrangement as an innocent; thereby giving us freedom from fear of God and the promise of heaven.
Some of you criticize Anselm’s theory. Let me quote a very strident objection that I received in an email a few years back: the fellow writes, “I do not believe God is a bloodthirsty, ledger-keeping debt broker, insisting on a pound of flesh for human sin. I do not believe that God is the cosmic child-abuser, begetting only one child and then demanding his slaughter as vicarious sacrifice for all fellow human beings.” . . . of course it does make for a very nice guilt and fear club, . . . a nice way to control people. . .[and a way to keep those who already feel unworthy or unaccepted in society feeling disconnected from God] That is not a worthy critique of Anselm’s writing, but it is certainly what many have believed and been mis-taught, and as such the sentiments are worth hearing.
Consider this, too, which is also worth hearing: When someone critiques Anselm’s theory of substitution, others often speak up and say, if I may try to summarize, that they appreciate the astounding gift Christ made to them and all humankind and feel they had indeed incurred a debt that one couldn’t handle without God’s help. This feeling of gratitude can go to the very depths of our being. . . and it leads us to another theory.
Peter Abelard developed a theory that started with St. Augustine was a teacher and monk, sometimes acclaimed and sometimes condemned for his ideas. While his theory of the atonement is not as widely held, it does not share some of the flaws of Anselm’s and it is, I think, an essential element of any adequate theory. Abelard’s is a development of the thought of St. Augustine and those before him.
Abelard taught that our estrangement from God (and of course, from one another and our best selves), was caused by our simple, everyday, practical contempt for the will of God. Ignoring God’s will, we, naturally found ourselves in a mess, a rebellious mess.
In this theory God has no obligation to do anything about it. We are the willful ones spoiling the joyful existence God has created us to share. But God is so loving as to step into human life and take a punishment that should have been yours and mine. It isn’t God’s punishing Jesus, it is human cussedness resenting Jesus’ vision. [read about this again, say it better!!!!!!!!!] And Abelard’s theory, born, of course, of his experience and observation, is that something happens in human beings who are changed by Christ. They look at the Savior who lived and suffered and died for them and if they recognize him as God, their rebellion against God melts away. They begin to see that God’s way is so much more full of love and meaning than the way they are scratching out a life in a hard world that they want to sign up to help. With our cooperation God is free to help us live – the God-ward dimension of our lives is restored. We no longer see God as high-handed and hostile and demanding, but as loving and good and great and giving, and so we can, finally, accept help. We can live with God’s kind of love in our hearts, reaching out to all sorts of people, holding no grudges, forming bonds of understanding and community wherever we find enmity, and we will do so because that is what it means to understand what Christ has done for us.
Notice that in this theory you aren’t earning God’s forgiveness, nor is it wrested from an angry God on the cross. It was always yours and mine, but we were too stubborn and sullen and self-absorbed to understand until we saw Jesus’ example.
There is no “satisfaction” of an angry God here. The suffering Jesus the Christ does on our behalf isn’t to appease an angry God. It is done for love of us, he lives as one of us and suffers as we do. Our trust is low, we respond with fury. But seeing how he dies, and seeing his resurrection, we come to understand that God is not the exacting one, the angry one, we are. Thus in Abelard’s theory the ones who are satisfied by Jesus’ death are the ones whose hearts are changed by it.
There is no “satisfaction” of an angry God in this theory, but there is much sacrifice, much oblation, much self-giving. God turns out, upon showing up in this world, to be considerably more determined to save us than the prophets have advertised, and to do it entirely without violence. Far from vengeful, God is forgiving, yet determined that only our free choice will change our lives. We may remain in rebellion if we choose.
It can even be construed that God was simply listening to rebellious humans, furious with the unfairness of life, and that the gift of the Abelardian Christ was a heart-felt and generous response to that, by a God with courage, grit, tenacity, and great love. Let me share a song by Sydney Carter that is very Abelardian in its outlook.
It was on a Friday morning that they took me from the cell,
And I saw they had a carpenter to crucify as well.
You can blame it on to Pilate, You can blame it on the Jews,
You can blame it on the Devil, Its God I accuse!
It’s God they ought to crucify, Instead of you and me,
I said to the carpenter a-hanging on the tree.
You can blame it on to Adam, You can blame it on to Eve,
You can blame it on the Apple, but that I can't believe.
It was God that made the Devil, and the woman and the man,
And there wouldn't be an apple if it wasn't in the plan.
It’s God they ought to crucify, Instead of you and me,
I said to the carpenter a hanging on the tree.
Now Barabbus was a killer, and they let Barabbus go.
but you are being crucified for nothing here below.
But God is up in heaven, and he doesn't do a thing,
With a million angels watching, and they never move a wing.
It’s God they ought to crucify, Instead of you and me,
I said to the carpenter a hanging on the tree.
To hell with Jehovah, to the carpenter I said,
I wish that a carpenter had made the world instead,
Goodbye and good luck to you, our ways will soon divide,
Remember me in heaven, the man you hung beside.
It’s God they ought to crucify instead of you and me,
I said to the carpenter a hangin’ on the tree.
What if God’s answer to all our pain and anger is: “I haven’t left you alone. Life is worth living. I share it with you.” What if?
We’ll talk in forum!