My take - in a teaching mode - would be the following: a) place the four Servant Songs of Isaiah in their historical context in Israel's history; b) note that a deep understanding of Isaiah suggests that the servant was wounded not to vicariously "atone" for the sins of others, but rather suffered because Israel sinned the. That is 53:5 does not say, "He was wounded FOR our transgressions" but rather that he was wounded and crushed BECAUSE of our sins" and c) that this turns traditional atonement theology in new directions. I affirm the importance of Christ's atoning love on the Cross but believe it is more nuanced, complex and liberating than some substitionary theologies allow.
But this is NOT a teaching mode (I've done that in classes before and will do so again.) Rather this is a sermon - a proclamation of the good news in worship - and requires a different agenda. I pray, therefore, that it both strengthens true faith and helps in the cause of healing in our broken world.
Introduction
Late in the
afternoon last Sunday, I was lying down on the sofa for a snooze as is my
regular practice at the end of the Lord’s Day.
It had been a full and blessed time:
the Jazz Ambassadors had shared their songs of peace and beauty with us,
Eser and Ahmet from Turkey had joined us for worship, fellowship and
conversation and later some of our church leaders had gone to South Church to
meet with their counter-parts for the first in a series of discussions about
how we might share common ministries.
· I had walked the new puppy, flipped through the
NY Times and was about to drift off into an eagerly anticipated nap… when I
made the mistake of turning on the TV.
· Sometimes before my siesta I like to see what
the other churches are putting on so I flip through the schedule of PCTV and
listen to other choirs, evaluate other sermons and see what it is our friends
and neighbors are presenting to the world in the name of Jesus Christ.
And what I heard
not only stopped me in my tracks – and destroyed any hope of a nap – but also
offended and frightened me. No lie, I
heard one of my colleagues in our town say:
“If there is more than one holy book of truth in the world, then
everything we do here is a lie and a waste of time. Everything!”
O Lord, have mercy I said out loud…
· Hadn’t we just welcomed two guests from Turkey
into our Sanctuary – shared with them a proclamation from our beloved Mayor –
and exchanged gifts and hospitality with them in the name of the Lord who seeks
peace for all God’s children?
· Didn’t we just witness on the news how the
Taliban in Islamabad had gunned down a 14 year old girl, Malala Yousufzai,
because she had refused to be intimidated by their narrow spirituality and
fear-based religion and was now being flown to London for surgery with a bullet
in her neck?
· Weren’t we in the midst of planning for our CROP
Walk to Fight World Hunger – raising funds and consciousness in our town about
the way we can help our neighbors in need all across the world – as a part of
our love and dedication to the Lord?
At this time in my life, beloved, when
I hear words of pious religious fear-mongering sincerely spoken in the name of
Jesus – or Allah or Moses or Krishna or any other deity – before I even know
what is going on I find that I am weeping.
I mean it – weeping beyond my control – because in their zeal and
commitment to God, so many of the Lord’s servants become God’s enemies.
· Protestants have been taught to hate their
Catholic neighbors in Northern Ireland by their clergy and Roman priests have
been all too willing to return the hatred in thought, prayer and deed.
· Christians have been taught for millennia to
hate and persecute the Jews as “Christ killers.
Jews have been taught to hate the followers of Islam. And those who honor the prophet have been
taught to hate the Jews – and most of their friends – with equal venom and
violence.
· Hindus in India and Muslims in Cairo burn Christian
sanctuaries to the ground in fear and sacred self-righteousness. American GIs urinate upon and burn the holy
Qu’ran in Afghanistan. And Friday
prayers throughout the Middle East that begin with the words, “In the name of
Allah, Most Gracious and Most Merciful” often result in rampage and carnage
with regularity.
Apparently we never really grasped St.
Augustine’s insight when he taught us:
“Never fight evil as if it were something that arose totally outside
yourself.” The late William Sloan Coffin
of Riverside Church in New York City put it like this:
When it comes to God’s love there are really
one two things we can say: it is poured
out universally for everyone from the Pope to the loneliest wino on the planet;
and secondly, God’s love doesn’t seek value, it creates value. It is not
because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have
value. Our value, you see, is a gift –
not an achievement.
Insights
That is what is at the heart of this
morning’s lessons from Scripture: we are
God’s beloved – not because we have earned this love or deserve it in any way,
shape or form – but rather we are God’s beloved because God is the essence of
love and aches to make us whole. There
are NO favorites, there are NO insiders, NOBODY has exclusive rights to God’s
grace nor does any tradition, religion or nationality have a monopoly upon
God’s loving presence. And while there
is only ONE source of God’s love – the Lord – there are countless ways that
sacred and healing love is expressed.
Think, for example, of what the story we’re
given today about James and John asking Jesus for special favors tells us from
Mark’s gospel. “Whenever your glory
comes, Lord,” they say “we want the best seats in the house, ok? We want to be your favorites who get to sit with
you on your left and right side: can you make that happen whenever it is that
you are glorified?”
· Now I don’t know about you, but I love our
tradition for keeping this story in the canon:
it shows us something about the human condition – how selfish and dim we
can all be at times – especially when we think we deserve religious advantage.
· James and John – the sons of thunder as they’re
known – have been with Jesus since the beginning. They were founding members of the movement
and have watched Jesus as he healed and embraced lepers, welcomed those on the
periphery of society into the center of his loving embrace, shared deep and
profound respect for women and children and kept emphasizing that in the upside
down kingdom of God the first shall be… last.
And still these two act with
self-righteous impunity: cut us a deal,
Master they beg in secret and give us a special edge over the other of the
disciples. Let us always be seated at
your right and left side when you are glorified. But to appreciation the
audacity of this request – and the integrity of Christ’s response – we need to
be clear about two other truths.
· First,
what does it mean for Jesus to be glorified?
Not transfigured and bathed in light as took place when Jesus
mystically met with Moses and Elijah for their mountain top retreat, but
glorified: any ideas?
· Jesus is
glorified in his resurrection. He is
shown to be fully conformed and renewed by God’s grace as he accepts the Cross,
surrenders himself in love and is raised beyond death in a way that defies
human reason but rings true to those who have been touched by his love.
What James and John are really asking
for, you see, is to be given special honors in sharing Christ’s resurrection –
special permission to bask in God’s grace and advance God’s healing in the
world – but they have no comprehension of what they are requesting. That’s one truth – their arrogance and
spiritual immaturity blinded them to the true way of the Lord – and the other
is this: as he lay nailed to the Cross
who was given a special place
of honor on his left and right side?
· Two
thieves, right? Two sinners who
didn’t recognize or respect Jesus as they mocked him but were humbled by his
mercy and came to faith by his love.
·
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your
kingdom,” one said as he hung on the cross.
And Jesus replied: “Truly I say
unto you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Not because he deserved it – or earned
the right to be embraced by grace – or knew the right people or belonged to the
crowd with the one and only true sacred book of truth. No, the blessings of heaven were offered
purely out of God’s love that is always a gift and never an achievement.
This truth became clear for those who
followed Jesus after his passion and resurrection – on the other side of Good
Friday and Easter those who were closest to the Master had the scales fall away
from their eyes – but Jesus had been trying to clue them in all along. Already in Mark’s story, Jesus has given his
closest friends three predictions of his death on the Cross – and they turned a
deaf ear to his pleading - so in our reading for today he unpacks this further. “Those who come closest to God’s heart and
live in the radical grace of the Lord not only drink the cup that I drink… but
act as a servant to those in need.
Whoever wishes
to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wishes to be first
among you must be slave of all: for the Son of Man came not to be served but to
serve and to give his life a ransom for many.
Servanthood, it would seem, is what
glorification looks like for you and me:
caring for others in a deep and generous way is how our lives conform to
the spirit and truth of God in this life.
Now notice two insights here, ok?
· First we are being told that if we want to have
an honored place in the community of Christ then we must practice living as a
servant for all; there is what is called a parallelism here: whoever is called to be a servant leader in
the group must live as a slave for all.
· The Greek text suggests that the diakonos – the servant leader— of the
community must live as doulous –
slave – for the world.
The way of James and John is not the
path of a servant leader – and they won’t get the places of honor on the left
and right side of the Messiah – no, the honor goes to the most humble and
unlikely among us – the servant leader who practices sharing mercy for all. That’s one insight – and the other is
this: Christ on the Cross shows us what
it looks like whenever we choose to selfishly ignore his grace. We wound one another – we crucify the Savior
– we disfigure God’s world.
Over and over Jesus makes it clear
that his way of grace – God’s way of mercy – has been shared with the world to
set us free from captivity.
· Think of the woman bleeding for 12 years who was
restored to health and released from her captivity of isolation, disgust and
pain.
· Think of the young man wandering the tombs –
cutting himself repeatedly – who was restored to a sound mind, clothed and fed
with affection and then returned to the love of his family from the captivity
of the graveyard.
· Think of the prodigal child who was released
from the captivity of sin and shame and embraced by the feast of his father’s
forgiveness. Or the woman at the well
who was set free from her bondage to promiscuity. Or the man born blind from birth was
liberated by the light of sight and God’s grace.
Conclusion
Over and over, as preacher Richard
Jensen tells us, the stories of Jesus make it clear that he has come to show us
the consequences of our captivity – and to set us free. Without equivocation, Jesus tells us:
I have come to fulfill Isaiah's dream. I have come to bear your infirmities. I have
come to be wounded for your transgressions.
I have come to bless your life with the blessing of God. You may not want my blessing. You may wish to condemn me. You may wish to kill me. Alright, have your
way. Push me out of the world and onto a
cross. I will go through the cross to
bless you. I will go through hell itself
to bless you. For I have come to ransom
your life from sin. I have come to
ransom your life from the powers of evil.
I have come to ransom your life from death. I have come to suffer and
die that you might live and serve under the sign of the cross. For I have come
to give my life as a ransom for many. (Richard Jensen)
Beloved, this is the good news for
today: let those who have ears to hear,
hear. Amen.
2 comments:
Hope you got that nap later...
Me, too...
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