In Search of A Non-Offensive King
Luke 23:33-43
33When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. 34Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. 35And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” 36The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, 37and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” 39One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
There was an online article this week about how a Twitter
post by a random pastor got some people really, really mad at Costco. It all began when a pastor walked into
a Costco in California in search of a gift for his wife. While browsing in Costco’s book
section, he saw a stack of Bibles for sale with labels on them that said,
“fiction.” This stuck him as a
very odd thing, so he took a picture of it with his phone and tweeted the photo
with a comment that said, “Costco has bibles for sale under the genre of
FICTION. Hmmmmmm….”[1]
It may not surprise you to learn that the photo quickly went viral on the
Internet. Within a couple of
hours, hundreds of people saw the photo of the “fictional” bibles and some were
even calling for a boycott of Costco.
Turns out that it was not Costco, but the book distributor who made an
error in labeling the bibles for that one particular store and Costco later
apologized for the mistake. But
some people are still pretty mad about it. One pastor said, "Christians need to call out organizations
like Costco whose actions undermine Christianity- regardless of whether those
actions are accidental or intentional."[2]
Christians in this country, I think, are becoming known for
being offended by anything. We don’t
need Costco to undermine our faith.
We pick ridiculous battles and end up undermining ourselves whether it’s
accidentally or intentionally. If
the resurrected Jesus walked into a Costco today and saw Bibles labeled as
fiction, I think it less likely that he’d take a picture and tweet, and more
likely that he would laugh and then multiply the $1.50 hot dogs in the snack
bar so that every one in the place could enjoy a bountiful feast.
In case I forgot to mention it, I think the $1.50 Costco hotdogs
are absolutely delicious. Jesus would win far more followers by
multiplying Costco hotdogs than by throwing a hissy fit over a labeling error.
I thought about this story as I was reading the history of Christ
the King Sunday or Reign of Christ Sunday. This is a relatively new feast day in the Christian church,
established less than 100 years ago in 1925, in the period between the two
great world wars. Although there
weren’t many kingdoms left in 1925, the church at the time was worried about
increasing nationalism as well as secularism in Europe. By invoking the kingship of Jesus, they hoped to reinforce the claim of Jesus being
ruler of all human institutions, political entities, and every economic and
culture construct. Although
they did not throw a hissy fit to prove it, I suspect that church leaders were
more offended that the CHURCH was losing authority than they were about Jesus losing authority.
Christ the King Sunday was born out of the same kind of anxiety that still exists today when people get all bent out of shape in seeing a fiction sticker on a bible, or get angry about “holiday trees” versus “Christmas trees.” Those are easy targets. What is much harder to admit is that the church doesn’t and probably shouldn’t call the shots in the broader culture, even as we affirm that Jesus is the center of our lives.
Christ the King Sunday was born out of the same kind of anxiety that still exists today when people get all bent out of shape in seeing a fiction sticker on a bible, or get angry about “holiday trees” versus “Christmas trees.” Those are easy targets. What is much harder to admit is that the church doesn’t and probably shouldn’t call the shots in the broader culture, even as we affirm that Jesus is the center of our lives.
So today’s text from the lectionary for Christ the King
Sunday is really very ironic when you think about it. In the gospel reading from Luke this morning, we see that
Jesus the Christ reigns in a very different way, over a different kind of
kingdom, and with an authority that bears absolutely no resemblance to any kind
of human power. After all, what we
see in the text from Luke today is not any thing like the coronation for a
human king, but exactly the opposite – a very public humiliation. This is not a beautifully rendered portrait
of a celebrated sovereign taking his rightful throne, but a nauseating sketch
of a convicted criminal being tortured and executed.
Despite being treated in a manner that is precisely opposite
what the King of all creation has every right to expect, Jesus isn’t bitter, angry,
combative, defensive or even the least little bit offended. In fact, here in Luke, Jesus looks out at the people who are
not only persecuting him but also killing him and says, “Forgive them for they
don’t know what they’re doing.”
The Bible does not give us just one picture of Jesus’ death,
but five – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul, and each of them are different
in their own way. Only Matthew and
Mark’s are somewhat identical. But
the fact that there are very different versions within scripture itself
suggests that there is always more than one way of looking at things, even something
as important as the crucifixion of Jesus.
We think we know all the details that cut across all the
stories and set the awful scene before us. Three men hung on three rough wooden crosses. Two common thieves and one baffling revolutionary
with a sign above his head: “King
of the Jews,” which was of course both a joke and the truth. And then there were the people hanging
around the feet of the three crosses.
There were the relatives of the men. There were a few chief priests and Roman functionaries.
There were probably a couple people who didn’t know any of the men being
executed, but showed up just to see the show. And of course, there were the soldiers who were just doing
their jobs and had long ago lost any horror about the kind of work they
did. Those were the guys passing
the time it takes to actually die from being crucified by gambling and every
once in a while taking verbal pot shots at the people doing the dying above
their heads.
This scene has been interpreted in literally thousands of
ways over the centuries – in creeds, novels, poems, plays, hymns, spirituals,
great choral works, movies, and of course in explicitly religious art and no-so
religious art. But what is
interesting to consider is that in the first five centuries after Jesus’ death,
there were no works of art created to represent the crucifixion at all, despite
its centrality to the Christian faith.
In fact, one of the earliest image of the crucifixion was a piece of
graffiti scrawled on an ancient Roman ruin that showed a man looking up at a
donkey hanging on a cross. The
inscription underneath it read, “Alexamenos worships god.”[3]
It seems the crucifixion was a “baffling, embarrassing event
for early Christians.”[4] It was a confusing event – shocking and
frankly offensive for those who believed in Jesus as the Messiah, and too
easily made fun of for those who did not.
And truth be told, we still take offense today. It makes us mad that we do not have a
super hero Jesus to save us from every terrible thing that happens to us, but
instead a suffering servant Jesus who suffers all those terrible things with
us. Which is so not
what we want to hear. What we want
to hear is that Jesus is going to rescue us from pain, if not prevent it entirely. We want to believe that Jesus will save
us from suffering. We want to call
on the name of Jesus to save us from feeling lonely and afraid. And what we get in this text is a Jesus who hangs up there, on a cross, dying a slow agonizing death between two common
criminals, and it seems like he either can’t or won’t do anything about it. What good is that dying Jesus to us?
We are the first criminal who turns to Jesus and says, “Are
you the Messiah or aren’t you? Save
yourself and us!” And you know,
that isn’t the first time Jesus has heard this question. Jesus heard it at the beginning of his
ministry, right after his baptism.
Before Jesus had even had the chance to dry off after the holy dip in
the Jordan River, the Holy Spirit kicked him out into the wilderness for 40
long days. And after Jesus had
been out there long enough for his full humanity to get really hungry, really
thirsty and really miserable, who shows up? What shows up is evil itself, a sneaky and persuasive
temptation telling Jesus that there’s absolutely no reason that Jesus can’t get
himself out of this jam right now.
All Jesus has to do is turn some rocks into bread and he’ll get rid of
the grumbling in his stomach. All
Jesus has to do is forsake this trouble-making God who left him out in
some godforsaken hellhole and Jesus will never have to be this thirsty ever
again.. All Jesus has to do is
spit in his Father’s face and jump off the roof of the temple and Jesus will
never ever have to suffer this kind of misery again.
The criminal hanging next to Jesus who wants Jesus to save
them both, right now, is the same temptation in an even more miserable
place. After all, if Jesus is the
Messiah, the ruler of all, king of all creation, getting himself and the other
two criminals off the cross should be a piece of cake. What good can a dying Messiah do for us?
I visited this week with a very, very dear friend who I just
found out has a really nasty kind of cancer. I went with another pastor friend to see him, but even with a backup, it was not an easy visit. My friend is young, married, has young
children, and before I saw him with my own eyes, it was absolutely impossible
to imagine him being sick, much less so sick. As we visited with him, he talked about how he felt when he was diagnosed with cancer and suddenly found himself facing a future in
which the only certainty would be pain.
He referenced Jesus’ time in the wilderness and said that at first he
thought he would just take the devil up on that generous offer and skip right over the suffering and land with either complete recovery or a very
quick death. After a whole lot of prayer and a whole
lot of time reading scripture, he finally decided he’s going to have to follow
Jesus’ example and be obedient to God’s plan which so far hasn’t included a pass on all the awful chemo and side effects and surgery and worry. My friend was at peace knowing that
Jesus had already walked the path he was about to walk and could show him the
way to get through it, no matter the outcome. Like Jesus after his baptism, my friend is trying his best to stay focused on who he is
– God’s beloved child. That is
enough for my friend – enough to get him through all the unbelievable awfulness
he has yet to go through.
The second criminal hanging on the other side of Jesus is
the only person in this entire scene other than Jesus who knows what is going
on. Jesus disciples are nowhere to
be found. The women still watching
are overwhelmed with grief. The
leaders of the political and religious establishment are preoccupied with
yelling smart aleck remarks. The
soldiers are distracted by their game of “Texas Hold Em” and thinking about
what will be for dinner.
But the second criminal is the only person who seemed to actually
hear Jesus’ words of forgiveness – a divine free pass for all the jerks
standing there who really did have absolutely no idea what they were
doing. And when he heard those ridiculous
words of forgiveness for people who did not deserve it, the second criminal
suddenly saw Jesus for who he is – a king, the best kind of king. That criminal is the only one who sees that
the forgiveness Jesus freely gave has opened up a way home to God that even a
dirty rotten scoundrel like him can enter right now. Not tomorrow.
Not next week, or at some point in the future, but right now. “Jesus, remember me when you come into
your kingdom.” I think that’s
about the most beautiful prayer ever uttered and it happens in the most
horrible circumstance we can imagine.
And Jesus says to him, “Today you’ll be with me in
paradise.” Today. Jesus doesn’t say, “You’ll have to hang
on for three days until I’ve risen from the dead.” Jesus looks at this bleeding criminal who
has done god-knows-what to god-knows-who and says, “You may be hanging on a
cross and suffering the same agony as me, but you’ve figured out how to find
God. It’s through love and
forgiveness. You’ve been reborn
and that makes you much happier and freer than any of the other people standing
around down there.”
Another way of putting what Jesus says is this: The only way I can get it across to you
that I love you is by occupying the very worst space that any of you can come
up with, the kind of place which you think I like to put people in. I don’t. I don’t put you into places to suffer. It’s you who put people there, you at
your very worst. And sometimes you
even put yourself there. I’ll occupy that space of suffering and shame and pain to
show you that I’m not out to get you, that I really do love you. The moment you
see that, then you can relax, and trust my goodness. Then you need no longer
engage in that awful business of making yourselves good over against, or by
comparison with each other or taking offense at every perceived slight. Instead
you can relax about being good, and as you relax you will find yourselves
becoming something much better, much richer in humanity than you can possibly
imagine.
The church was not created to be successful…we are called to
be faithful.
Christians are not created to call the shots in the culture
around us…we are called to be obedient to the One who showed us in his weakness
what it means to be a fully human child of God.
The King we will be seeking in these weeks of Advent will
reveal himself to us not in glittering palaces of power and might, thank
goodness, but in even the dimmest light peeking through broken places and broken people. When it feels too difficult for you to look directly at that
kind of pain and experience that kind of suffering, remember the One who never forgets
you and has always known you.
Never forget how much you matter in this terrible, beautiful world, and how
much you are loved right now, how much you have been loved before the
foundations of the world, and will be loved in the eternity to come.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/19/costco-bible-fiction_n_4304784.html
[2] http://www.christianpost.com/news/costco-on-bible-controversy-were-sorry-for-labeling-it-14-99-fiction-109226/
[3] Barbara Brown Taylor, Teaching Sermons on Suffering: God in
Pain. Nashville, Abingdon
Press, 1998. (92).
[4] (93)
Thank you for these wonderful words
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