Sermons

Mar 25 - The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

Each of us brings our own need here today, our own reasons for being here. Each of us has our own perspective on the Passion story, our sense of why it is such a central story. What is your need, your reason, your understanding of this story? How do you connect with it today? How can you let it lead you into the center of your own heart?

Thousands are walking the long pilgrimage to Chimayo today, because for them Good Friday is all about sacrifice. Jesus sacrificed his life, and we are called to sacrifice something as an offering to God. Hundreds of others are downtown with the Center for Action and Contemplation, because for them Good Friday is a time for reflection about how Jesus’ poured out his life for the poor and the forsaken, for peace and justice, and how we are called to the same.

Many others watch the movie The Passion, moved by how Jesus suffered for their sins. Some see in the crucifixion and resurrection a spiritual truth about how healing and renewal comes out of the experience of emptiness. The view through the kaleidoscope changes as we rotate our perspective, and it takes on different meanings. Such is the depth and the breadth of the Paschal Mystery.

This is the view through my personal kaleidoscope today:

During Jesus’ public ministry, he had become a threat to both the religious authorities in Jerusalem and the occupying Romans. He violated Jewish purity regulations if it meant that people in all walks of life could be gathered together, touched, healed, and fed, anytime and anywhere they needed to be. He forgave sins without authorization and spoke fearlessly against religious oppression. He proclaimed a godly kingdom to be realized here on earth, in opposition to the worldly kingdom of Rome. In this kingdom of heaven, the norm was justice, compassion, equality, non-violence, and generosity. He not only taught this; he lived it. All of this got Jesus in a considerable amount of trouble.

So they killed him, attempting to crush his movement. Jesus was a good man, to say the least, and he was martyred because some of his goodness consisted in confronting the powers that be. That’s why he was executed.

I don’t believe that the authorities would have done away with him had he only been a sweet, gentle wise man. Jesus was a threat. So they killed him in the way that they did especially when they wanted to make a public example out of someone like him. The crucified him on a cross, along with thousands of others in that time and place.

His crucifixion was bleak, horrific. For all his dedication to good things, for all his holiness and mercy, he was misunderstood, ridiculed, tortured and killed.

We may know small measure of this feeling. Most of us care about the kinds of things that Jesus lived and taught. We believe in the power of love; we want to see people’s suffering alleviated; we try to forgive and to spread God’s goodness in the world around us. At times we may even confront unfairness and injustice, as Jesus did, challenging individuals or institutions that seem to oppose God’s ways.

This gets us in trouble, too. If we are faithful to Jesus, as he said, we will, in some way or another, end up carrying a cross of our own. Some family members or people at work may not understand us. They may prefer that we remain quiet rather than question how people are being treated. When we live in a way that is counter to commonly-accepted values, we will be misunderstood, even ridiculed. When we feel inspired by courageous people in our world who risk everything in order to serve the common good, we know that part of our inspiration comes from the knowledge that they will pay for their goodness, as Jesus did.

When we are punished, rather than rewarded, for our efforts to be faithful and good, how do we respond? Let’s look at the story of the crucifixion again. Jesus did three things. First, as a human being, he despaired. We tend to overlook that. In the Garden of Gethsemene, he wept for hours, begging God to remove this cup from his lips. On the cross he cried out My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

When things go badly for us, it is a natural and healthy thing to despair at first. We mourn the temporary loss of our idealism; we are deeply disappointed in others. We wonder why the God who guided us to try to be good and faithful has now abandoned us when we did what was asked of us.

Second, in response to the injustice done against him, Jesus did not allow himself to be drawn down to the level of those who were harming him unjustly. He did not enter into a desperate argument with the temple authorities or with Pilate to explain and defend his position. He let them think whatever they needed to think about him. But more important, he returned understanding for spite. On the cross he said Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.

When we are unjustly maligned or rejected, what is our response? On our own, we cannot “rise above” our natural human instincts that make us want to strike back, or at least to defend ourselves vigorously. But with prayer, patience, and dependence on God, we can shift away from that kind of response to one that is more like Jesus’. With God’s grace, we can choose to drop our outrage and try to understand and forgive.

Finally, on the cross Jesus responded to his enemies by surrendering everything to God. After despairing in the Garden of Gethsemene and begging that he be able to avoid his suffering, he placed his trust in God by saying Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. After feeling abandoned by God he said Into your hands I commend my spirit. In that surrender he not only commended his suffering on the cross; he entrusted to God the outcome of his whole ministry, his whole life that had been dedicated to God’s purposes.

Surrender does not mean that we don’t continue to try to make things better in the world, or that we give up on people. Surrender is the courageous act of letting go of our control over the outcome of our efforts. It is the faithful effort to put everything, after we have done our best, in the hands of God. It is daring to place our trust in something beyond ourselves: Into your hands I commend my spirit.

We are called to follow Jesus on the way of the cross. At least one way of understanding that call is into conflict and controversy for the sake of the greater good. This conflict may come for us in among our families or friends, in our place at work, in the church, or as we contribute to the debates of our society. But conflict will come. For not everyone in this world wants what God wants.

When we meet resistance on this path, it should be no surprise for us as Christians. If any one would be my follower, let them take up their own cross daily. But we are called not just to follow Jesus into conflict. We are called to follow him further, into the even more difficult place of responding to that conflict as he responded to it.

We are asked to allow ourselves to grieve and even despair, as Jesus did, when things look hopeless. We are asked to move towards understanding and forgiveness instead of retaliation and resentment. And we are asked to surrender it all into God’s hands, trusting the outcome to God’s never-failing mercy.