Second Presbyterian Church

Roanoke, Virginia

March 2, 2008

George C. Anderson

I am not officially beginning my sermon yet. Dad tells me that while humor is good in sermons, jokes are bad. I have a joke to tell, and it is one that many of you have heard before, but it helps me make a point. After the joke, the sermon officially will begin.

A guy comes up to the preacher after worship. Instead of shaking his hand, he points his finger in the minister’s face. "I’ll tell you why I only come to church twice a year. All you ever talk about is the birth and resurrection."

Joke’s over, now my sermon:

While I am grateful for attendance on Christmas and Easter, it is true that if Christmas and Easter worship services are the only two some people attend, they will get an excessively bright view of faith, shining with optimism and broadcasting a light so dazzling that all shadows are washed from the scene. Only the Church Triumphant, never the Church Penitent:

Imagine reading only the beginning and ending of the book of Job:

Beginning: Job is rich and has a big family.

Ending; Job is rich and has a big family.

So, what’s the problem?

The problem is that Christmas and Easter are only two days of our lives. How are we to know, love, and follow Christ every other day of our lives, including those days when we are hurt, or hurt others; and those days when good and decent is run over by greed and selfishness. It matters so some of us what happens in the middle of Jesus’ story, because it is important that we find him in the middle of our lives.

Of course, I think most you know that. After all, here you are, in church, right in the middle of Lent. You understand why we confess our sins in worship as well as sing the Gloria Patri. Yes, we want God to hear our praise. But we want God to hear our cries too.

The Gospel writers knew nothing of a season of Lent, because the church came up with that liturgical observance later on. But the Gospel writers knew all about seasons of fasting and penitence. It was in the spirit of such seasons that they wrote their Gospels. Put another way, they wrote their Gospels for people who needed to understand their place in the story of Christ’s life, arrest and death. They wanted their hearers to locate themselves in the journey to the cross, and then consider what there is about us- about our world- that would lead to God’s love being crucified. The cross isn’t the end of the story, in fact, and the title of the stories they tell is "Good News." But for the hearers to locate the life saving and life giving place of grace in their lives, it begins with coming to grips with why that grace is needed.

To hear the Gospels in this way, however, we need to avoid a huge interpretive mistake many Christians have made. Do not hear the Gospel story as the story of the Jews rejection of Jesus, and why the church has replaced Israel. No, no, no. The story is not about the rejection of the messiah by the Jews, it is the story of the rejection of the messiah by the people of God. Unless Christians find their faces in the crowd that follows but misunderstands, then mocks instead of jeers, they are not hearing the story in the way that will directly address them, and ultimately bless them.

Listen to our passage remembering that the church has yet to be. It is the people of faith of that day, those who claimed to believe in the same God of Abraham and Sarah as we do, who make up the crowd. Listen to the passage as a cautionary tale for the church, and listen for the Word of God.

If you were to take a poll of parents who are over 35 years old asking them to list the most disturbing scenes in movie history, without a doubt one that would be in the top five, and in my book number one, would be the scene in Sophie’s Choice, when a mother was forced by a guard to choose who will live; her son or her daughter. Imagine such a choice being made enthusiastically.

We see something of that disturbing enthusiasm in our passage. A crowd of Jews- that is, a crowd of the people of God- is choosing between two sons, which one shall live and which one shall die. In Luke’s telling, one of the two is Jesus, whom Luke previously has identified as the Son of God. The name, Jesus, means "God saves." The other son is Barabbas. His name means, "Son of the Father." Two sons: choose one! "Son of God," who will not save himself even though his name means "God Saves?" "Or ‘Son of the Father," the one who knows how to kill, the one who had guts enough to have joined an insurrection against Rome?

Choose one. For many in the crowd, Jesus was to be the messiah, the one to come with power and inaugurate the rule of God. They believed him. They followed him. And then he didn’t follow them. He didn’t do his job in the way they thought he would when they signed up for this movement. There he stands in the custody of Rome stripped and beaten, utterly at Rome’s mercy, having meekly submitted to his arrest. They wanted Jesus to be powerful, and Rome knows power. They flog and beat Jesus because they can. They attack and bring down empires because they can. Resources flow in the direction of Rome because the Romans know how to build aqueducts of power.

There’s Barabbas. At least, Barabbas tried. Barabbas may not be the messiah either, but at least he got in the ring. "Release Barabbas! Crucify Jesus!"

The choice the crowd makes is disappointing, but not surprising. The people of God have foolishly made this kind of choice before:

The choice is between two kinds of power; power that all the world understands, and a power that sometimes seems to make no sense at all. Way back when, among the stories that were passed down though mist and myth, there was a day when Joshua asked another crowd to make a choice. "Choose this day," he said. He asked escaped slaves to choose between the kinds of gods the Pharaohs worshipped, the gods who bless the powerful and curse the weak, or choose the God who hears and delivers slaves, who empowers the weak, and who demands that orphans and widows be cared for, that scales in the marketplace be balanced, and scales in the courthouse, if not balanced, then tipped toward mercy.

Pilate faces a crowd that faces the same kind of choice. They are choosing between two kinds of power. They are choosing which kind of God to worship and obey. Do they choose the power of redemptive love that won’t fight, or do they choose the power that gets into the world’s fight?

They are the people of faith, remember. They confess with their lips the God of the Exodus and Exile, the God of justice and the God of mercy. But, fear and anxiety have much more control over the kinds of gods we are drawn to then we will ever admit. With their fears and anxieties taking hold, with push having come to a shove, their cries out to Pilate may as well be prayers offered to Mars, the Roman God of War. Free Barabbas! Crucify Jesus!

Daniel Migliore, a professor of theology at Princeton Seminary, recently re-wrote a thin book first published in 1983 in which he parses power. The title is, The Power of God and the gods of Power. He suggests that even within the church, we often confuse the power of God with the way we would use power, if only we were gods. He says,

Migliore recalls an episode of The Simpsons, when Homer goes to his knees in desperation: "I’m not much of a praying man, but if you are up there, please save me, Superman." Superman; that’s the god we sometimes call upon; even if we say "Our Father." Superman hears the faintest cry of distress, his x-ray vision sees the criminal from miles away, and up, up and away he goes to make right the wrong. The people of God want Rome overthrown. And they want a Superman-messiah to lead the way in beating Rome at its own game.

"But," the Apostle Paul says, "we really have no choice as to what kind of God will hear our prayers. There is only one God, the one revealed in Christ; specifically the one revealed in the Christ who died on a Roman instrument of execution." He says, "Yes, I know it is a scandal, but that’s the way it is. Deal with it. Deal with it that God’s power is shown in weakness, and life is given through a death. Every bit of the power Jesus has is for the sake of others and so he did nothing to save himself.

We should not be surprised, looking back. He welcomed sinners, and empowered them to be part of the community again. He healed the sick, and empowered to live healthy lives again. He preached practices of reconciliation. If we are going to share in his power, it is by being last, not first; in putting God’s will and the neighbors’ needs before our own selfish desires. It is in keeping covenant with God in working for justice and in sacrificing for the sake of reconciliation and mercy. It is to do as Jesus did and welcome to the table the half blood Samaritan, the 11^th hour workers, and the "Wasted-His-Chances" reprobate. Like it or not, Paul said, that’s the only God you can pray to who can hear your prayers. You can worship other gods who do not exist, and you can play power games in the world that will one day end, but the only God who can hear your prayers is the God who exposes the power games by refusing to play them.

How many Jesus verse Barabbas choices are people of faith making every single day? How many churches have promised material riches to those who will pray to God and include a check? How many churches have declared their country’s war to be God’s war? How many Christians have hoped the church will help them rise in the social ranks? How many Christians have sold out at work, only to count on the rescue of pardon on Sundays? In other words, how many power games of the world are being played by those who profess to follow Christ; fighting fire with fire, grabbing and grasping and competing to get more of what we want and keep it from those who want the same, and abandoning efforts of justice and compassion when they get too expensive or too time consuming? The Christ that sacrifices and dies for peace over violence, for reconciliation over revenge, for justice over possessions, is sometimes recognized as a stranger even in Christian circles. The Gospel of Luke is written to heal that particular kind of blindness. At the end of the Gospel, two men who knew and followed Jesus do not recognize him when, risen, he joins them on the road to Emmaus. They recognize Jesus only after he breaks bread with them and explains the scriptures to them all over again so that, this time, they understand that God’s power is found in broken bread, broken body, sacrificed love.

One of my favorite books, Bridge to Teribithia, was made into a wonderful movie. As with so many good books written for older youth, it is superior to most books written to entertain adults. The story is about an unlikely friendship between Jess, the son of a poor farmer, and Leslie, the daughter of a well to do writer and his free spirited wife. Jess’s family is church going, Leslie’s family is not.

At one point, Leslie invites herself to Jess’s church. "You’ll hate it," Jess says, but she wants to go anyway. After the worship service, they ride home in the back of a pickup. Jess and his little sister, Maybelle, can’t believe Leslie would have liked going to church, so they are surprised when she says, "I’m really glad I came. That whole Jesus thing, it’s really interesting."

"It’s not interesting," Maybelle says. It’s scary. It’s nailing holes through a hand. It’s because we’re all vile sinners, God made Jesus die."

"Do you really think that’s true?" Leslie asks.

"It’s in the Bible, Leslie," Jess responds, and then goes on to say he has to believe it because he doesn’t want to go to Hell.

And then Leslie says back to Jess what many in the church need to hear: "You have to believe it, and you hate it. I don’t have to believe it, and I think it is beautiful."

It’s a good little parable, isn’t it, of the faithful losing confidence in the messiah while an outsider finds it? Hopefully, we insiders will have outsiders like Jessie, like the Syrophonecian woman in the Bible, and like the centurion at the cross, who will remind us just how beautiful a power is that in love will sacrifice itself to redeem the world.