|
Introductory
Note
For readers
not familiar with First Church or my ministry, perhaps a word
of introduction is in order. For years, United Methodist churches
observed "Passion Sunday" on the second Sunday before
Easter, coupling appropriate biblical texts and liturgical
elements with hymns of the cross and sermons to match. Several
years ago, changes in the "liturgical consensus"
moved Passion Sunday from its traditional placement to a shared
billing with Palm Sunday. For reasons too lengthy to detail
here, I have resisted that shift, thereby maintaining the
old order. I notice that other churches have done the same,
often scheduling special musical offerings or "requiems"
for the traditional Passion Sunday slot.
As concerns
the title, there is nothing in the sermon to explain or illuminate
it. It relates to material from my cover letter in First Church's
weekly bulletin (Steeple Notes). In order that you
might better understand the sermon title's context, let me
pick up my letter midstream and share several paragraphs.
This
may explain why a great many Christians are "not big
on the cross," as one of you recently exclaimed within
earshot. Because it takes a fairly good "spin doctor"
to turn the cross into something that strikes the ear as
"positive." To the eye, it looks ugly. To the
ear, it sounds painful. And to the heart, it reeks of defeat.
Which has led some churches to downplay its realism. I will
never forget the young mother who wanted to protect her
four year old from a particularly graphic depiction of Calvary
by saying: "I don't want her to worry her pretty little
head over all that horrible stuff."
To be
sure, there are hard truths that should be muted for children.
But if the cross is central to our Christian experience
... as I believe it is ... we should not be in too big a
hurry to dismiss it on the way to Easter. I think it is
important to retain something akin to a "Passion Sunday,"
so that those who find it convenient to skip Good Friday
will not miss that portion of the narrative that occupies
so large a portion of the Gospel.
But
the "offense" of the cross is not so much in its
gruesome detail as in its undergirding theology. For any
"theology of the cross" begins with the notion
that Jesus is doing something for me that I cannot do for
myself. And most of us would rather do things for ourselves.
We find it difficult to be in anyone's debt. Positive thinking
suggests that we can take care of business ... our own business
... if we apply ourselves to the task at hand. We can slay
the dragon ... climb the mountain ... win the day. All we
need is to generate a head of steam and keep chugging. Even
little engines climb tall hills.
But
to each and every adult comes, sooner or late, the realization
that such is not true. Some of us need a little help. Others
of us need a whole lot. And whatever else the cross is,
it represents the realization that such help is forthcoming.
Theologians have never agreed as to the kind of "help"
the cross offers, but all of them concur that what happened
there was done "for me."
The
Sermon
No matter
what the world has done in the last day ... day and a half
... week ... week and a half ... to buckle your knees, knock
you down or rain all over your parade, I suspect you felt
a little better on Tuesday ... smiled a little brighter on
Tuesday ... walked a little taller on Tuesday ... because
of what Mateen and the Mean Green Machine did to the Gators
on Monday. Sweet, it was. Even if, for some of us, it was
borrowed sweetness. I am not now, nor have I ever been a "Spartan."
But I am married to a "Spartan" ... .who, in her
own way, has taught me what little I have learned about "sweetness"
by giving it to me, long before I comprehended what I might
do (as husband and lover) to give it to her.
The "Spartan
Story" is being written up, not so much about a team
that won, but about a team that refused to lose. Led by a
warrior who refused to lose ... even when his legs were figuratively,
and then literally, cut out from under him. There he went
... down on the floor ... screaming in pain ... crawling because
he couldn't walk ... believing his bone to be broken. Then
back he came, mere minutes later ... hobbling through the
bowels of that cavernous arena ... heading for the court ...
a hand-held camera recording his every faltering, but forward-moving
step. "You can't keep a good man down," they said.
Or a lame one, either. Once he re-entered the line-up, he
couldn't run. He couldn't cut. He couldn't pivot. He couldn't
drive. And he wouldn't lose. As he told his teammates before
the game: "Nobody holds anything back. Everybody leaves
everything on the floor." And he did. You gotta like
it. And admire it.
I don't
know anything about Mateen Cleaves ... from whether he'll
make a decent pro to whether he'd make a decent son-in-law.
But for one night ... and especially for one half ... I couldn't
take my eyes off him. I can't do any of the things he can
do. And he probably can't do any of the things I can do. But,
at the end of my day, I feel good when I have "left it
all on the floor" ... when I've not held anything back
... and (yes, I'll admit it, even at the risk of being grossly
misunderstood) when I have won. I am not talking about winning
over you, or over my enemies, or over the Gators from the
South or the Presbyterians to the west. I am talking about
winning over self ... over sin ... over sloth and sloppiness
... and (certainly) over roadblocks, both the ones that are
placed before me and the ones that are placed within me.
I like
to win when you can win ... when we all can win ... and when
nobody loses. I am six months short of being 60 years old.
But there are still days when I can smell it. Victory, I mean.
For the churches I have served, it is probably the most attractive
thing about me. But, on some days, it is the least attractive
thing about me.
But it
is not necessarily heretical ... to want to win, I mean. I
would refer you to the urging of Paul, where we are challenged
to run as those who are seriously going for the prize (I Corinthians
9:24). Only Paul went on to remind his Corinthian compatriots
that not everybody defines "prize" the same way
... and that Christians have this funny little habit of defining
it differently (yea, eternally) than the rest of the world
is wont to do.
This being
the same Paul who (writing to the same Corinthians) said:
"I decided to know nothing among you but Christ crucified.
Which is why I was with you in weakness and in much fear and
trembling." How does one reconcile all of that ("run
to win," versus "I was with you in weakness, fear
and trembling")? Can this be the same man? Of course
it can. Because life is full of paradoxical people, is it
not? And what does a "paradoxical person" look like,
if not someone who can preach what would appear to be a pair
of oppositional sermons, fully recognizing that they are oppositional
... yet claiming, all the while, that both are true.
In Friday's
issue of the Michigan Christian Advocate, Bishop Ott
(who is planning to "hang it up" a few months from
now) offered a brilliant description of the kind of clergy
leaders we need more of, but are getting fewer of. I will
only lift a few of his points ... on the way to highlighting
one of his points ... in the hope that it will make my point.
The Bishop writes:
- We
need clergy who are not using the ministry (and their churches)
as places to work out their own problems and download their
own baggage.
- We
need clergy with clarity about the fact that life is complex
... clergy who can articulate the faith simply, without
creating the impression that faith is simple (or readily
reducible to easy divisions of right/wrong, good/bad, dark/light,
yes/no and either/or).
- We
need clergy who understand that faith and life are connectable,
and who will work to overcome the "disconnects"
within people ... and between people.
And then,
this. Don't miss this.
- We
need clergy who are able to deal in metaphor and paradox
... meaning, how can things (which appear to be oppositional)
become reconciled ... and how can it be possible that both
sides of a paradox are true?
I would
suggest, this Passion Sunday morning, the existence of just
such a paradox. "Run to win," says Paul. "Only
recognize that Christ may meet you ... as he has met you in
no other place ... in life's losses. And, especially, in his
life's loss."
On the
cover of this morning's Steeple Notes, I quoted the
late Johnny Mercer:
You've
got to ac-centuate the positive,
E-li-mi-nate the negative,
Latch on to the affirmative,
Don't mess with Mister In-Between.
I also
noted Norman Vincent Peale and his emphasis on "the power
of positive thinking." If you read between the lines,
I admitted I could both sing Mercer's song and preach Peale's
sermon. As could Paul, even though it has long been fashionable
at clergy gatherings to hear someone say: "As for my
theology, I find Paul appealing and Peale appalling."
If you don't believe clergy actually say that, let me tell
you that positive references to Peale in papers written for
professors ... or in sermons preached in seminary chapels
... will not raise your grade, but might (indeed) lower it.
Still,
preachers learn (before they are too far into their ministry)
that whether they like Peale ... read Peale ... or quote Peale
... they had better learn to emulate Peale (to some degree)
if they want to keep both people and paychecks coming. Congregations
... like basketball fans ... gravitate toward winners, and
toward preachers who sound like winners.
So why
do preachers sometimes sound like pessimists? Not because
their theology has deserted them, but because their pastoral
work has broken them. I also quoted Will Willimon on this
morning's cover. Will holds forth from the lofty grandeur
of his elevated pulpit in Duke Chapel, as one of the "ten
best preachers in America." Newsweek said so.
But when Bob Schuller invited Will to preach at the Crystal
Citadel of Possibility Thinking in Garden Grove, California,
Will quipped that it was a good thing he had a three-month
lead time, since it might take him that long to think of something
positive to say in a sanctuary where the sun never sets. Then,
removing his very clever tongue from his very impish cheek,
Will went on to add:
I used
to be the positive thinking type. In my prophetic, angry-young-man,
granola-munching days, I thought better of people and their
possibilities. The "Change Agent" was going to
be the model for my ministry. I was going to get out there
and get those racist, sexist, materialistic rascals to change
for the better. I figured they could change if they wanted
to. And who better to convince `em they wanted to, than
me?
Then he
added:
But
that was long ago, before (as a pastor) I got my nose rubbed
in the human condition and was made to stare at the sheer
caughtnesss of the people I was called to serve.
There
is so much that happens that hurts. And so much that hurts
that can't be fixed. Or even avoided. Atheism (to the degree
that any such thing really exists in today's world) is not
the product of liberal college religion classes, but (rather)
the residue of a world that sometimes breaks the hearts of
believers. One of the painful things about doing what I have
done for as long as I have done it, is that each passing year
of ministry is like a graduate level seminar on how badly
life beats up on people.
I could
walk you through a field littered with old heart pieces, left
behind by people who "left it all on the floor,"
but (unlike Mateen and the Mean Green Machine) didn't win.
At least they "didn't win" by any of the traditional
ways the world uses to measure "winning." Maybe
I should describe some of those "heart pieces" to
you ... in jagged detail. But they are stories I have told
before. And that you have lived before. War stories. From
the Great War. Your war.
So I am
going to tell you a different war story. Not of your war.
But of his war. Which, I would contend, is also your war.
"Oh,
Bill, you're not gonna tell us `that war story,' are you?
We know that one. We've heard that one. We would just as soon
skip that one. Why do you think there are three times as many
people on Palm Sunday ... and five times as many people on
Easter ... as there are on Good Friday? Because we like Palm
Sunday and Easter better than we like Good Friday. Liturgically
speaking, we like hopscotching from high to high. So if we
are really going to do the `cross thing,' let's sing it. Especially
that one about `the old rugged cross,' and `laying down our
trophies' ... even though we don't have the faintest idea
what that means. But we like the sound of it. Besides, every
times we sing it, it reminds us of Grandma. But don't paint
a cross picture, for God's sake, because we would just as
soon keep our crosses uncluttered by bodies, don't you see.
It's one of the reasons we're not Catholic."
Which
I understand. Yet I don't. But I am trying. Actually, I am
driving. Down the highway. Doing sixty. Even seventy. Suddenly,
I am doing ten. Or even less. I don't know what's wrong ...
crane my neck to see what's wrong ... tune in WWJ to see if
the traffic reporter can tell me what's wrong. I question
whether I missed a road sign alerting me to road work, given
that I live in a state that knows but two seasons ... winter
and road construction.
But it
isn't road graders and cement spreaders that have slowed everything
down. It's ambulances and helicopters. And even though they
have opened a couple of lanes (if you include the shoulder)
... and even though highway patrolmen are windmilling their
arms, trying to get us to merge and move on ... we slow down
to survey the scene, looking past the broken glass and twisted
metal to see if we can see the thing we say we don't want
to see at all. Namely, a body ... dead or alive ... covered
up or sitting up. Not because we are gawkers. Or ghouls. But
because we want to know what happened ... what's being done
about what happened ... and how it could have happened to
us ... and almost did, more times that we can recount ...
and how glad we are that it didn't ... this time.
Sometimes,
if the wreck is on the street where we live, we walk to the
scene that we don't want to see ... and stand (just off to
the side) of the place where we don't want to be ... putting
everything aside that we were previously doing ... the better
to see what is presently happening. How did it come about
that a day so promising became so bloody? Was it meant to
be? Is it ever meant to be? Could it have all been different?
And, if so, why wasn't it?
The wreckage
of the cross is not all that different from the wreckage on
the highway. It slows us down. It draws us in. Even as it
bids us keep our distance ... for safety's sake ... forcing
us to talk to people who are doing exactly what we are doing
... standing exactly where we are standing ... people who
don't know a heck of a lot more than we know, but are trying
to make sense of it ... just like us.
Which
is why all four gospels are so zeroed in on the cross, don't
you see. But outside of a mere six details that all four gospels
have in common, each writer has his own little slice of the
story, not to mention his own little slant on the truth. On
Good Friday, ambitious choirs (willing to put in the overtime)
sing all Seven Last Words ... even through the earliest gospel
contains but one of them.
The cross
was anything but pretty. But, then, it wasn't meant to be
pretty. Or swift. It was meant to be ugly. And slow. Crucifixion
was not mercy-killing. Crucifixion was message-sending. Those
dying were supposed to hang there a long time ... not just
so they could feel it ... but so that passersby could see
it. And get it.
Except
that while you and I get the warning, we don't always get
the meaning. We know that the cross has something to do with
us ... that something is happening there "for us"
... that we are coming closer to God than might have been
possible, had he not died there ... learning more about the
love of God than might have been possible, had he not suffered
there. But what does it mean?
Some say:
"God demands an offering for sin, and Jesus was the only
one with the `goods' to pay it." Others (especially Lutherans)
say: "No, that's not quite it. What it's all about is
a tug of war between a pair of competing powers ... God versus
the Opposition (insert Opposition's name here). And it's only
when a good man dies (a truly good man), that God's Opposition
cannot hold him ... death's power cannot hold him ... graves
and caves cannot hold him ... and when he breaks free, it's
Kitty bar the door."
And there
are other theories. I could name them all. Explain them all.
And have. In this class or that. From which most of you leave
with your eyes glazed over. Theology has a way of doing that.
So let's
not go there today. Let's stay with the "wreckage."
Which is the proper name for it. Remember what we sang last
week? "In the cross of Christ, I glory; towering o'er
the wrecks of time." Which would seem to suggest that
of all "the wrecks" that have littered the landscape
of history, the cross stands above them ... the tallest "wreck"
of all. So go back there. Back to the hill. Back to the crowd.
Back to you and me ... not wanting to look ... but unable
not to look. Back to our feeble attempts to make sense out
of non-sense ... listening to what the neighbor on the left
has to say ... listening to what the neighbor on the right
has to say. Then listening (although it's hard to do, given
his rapidly declining lung capacity) to what he has to say.
Remember,
I said that the first gospel ... the earliest gospel ... Mark's
gospel ... has but one line from the cross: "Eloi, eloi,
lema sabachthani," meaning: "My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?"
There
are those who say that if Jesus really said that, it's too
bad. For it sounds like the end of faith ... the loss of faith
... the opposite of faith. But they're wrong. I think it's
the beginning of faith. Jesus is talking to "Abba."
Our brother died talking to our Daddy.
Which
means that when we have left our "all" on some hill
... on some floor ... in some hospital ... or even in some
pulpit ... and have nothing else to give, save for life itself
... we will know that we are not the first.
And if,
in that moment, he did not know "why" ... who am
I to believe that I will ever completely figure it out? But
because of him, I know where to direct the question. "My
God ... why?" That cry, don't you see, is the beginning
of faith.
Note:
For the image of "automobile wreckage," I am indebted
to Barbara Brown Taylor and her sermon on Mark 15:25-34 entitled
"The Voice of Love." Look for it in her newly-released
Home By Another Way. William Willimon's notes on positive
thinking are drawn from his sermon, "The Power of Positive
Thinking," preached in Duke Chapel on the seventh Sunday
after Epiphany (2000).
The six
elements of the "cross narrative," common to all
four gospels, would appear to be these:
1. Jesus
died on a cross at a place called Golgotha.
2. Two
other people died the same day in the same way.
3. There
was a sign above his head that spelled out the charge against
him: "King of the Jews."
4. People
were so sure he was not coming down that they divided his
clothes on the spot.
5. He
was offered sour wine before he died.
6. He
breathed his last, sometime before sundown, on the day before
the Sabbath.
|
