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Surveying
the list of new movie releases, I read that Mel Gibson’s The
Passion of the Christ was reissued on Friday and is
expected to play on 500-700 screens across the nation and run
through Easter weekend. Which proves that Mel is every bit the
marketer as he is the movie maker….this being the season
where the passion of Jesus is already front and center in
churches, quite apart from theaters. But what interests me is
that Mel has changed his film into a kinder, gentler version
of the passion, primarily by cutting six minutes of the
goriest and bloodiest scenes of Jesus being scourged and
tortured. A quick visit to the film’s website finds Gibson
saying: “I alleviated some of the more horrific aspects of
the film while attempting to maintain its integrity.”
As
of this morning, I have no desire to revisit the debate that
swirled around the original. What interests me is that the new
version addresses the oft-heard complaint about the old,
namely, its violence. I saw the film and watched it without
averting my eyes, even once. I felt I owed Gibson that much.
Truth be told, I felt I owed Jesus that much. But others who
accompanied me turned away from time to time. “Too much,”
they said. “Too brutal,” they said. “Too unrelenting and
painful,” they said. “I just couldn’t stand it
anymore,” they said. Which, at the time, was exactly the
reaction Gibson wanted. But apparently he has given the matter
a second thought, leading to a softer look.
The
first look having been excessive. For people whose comfort
zone with crucifixion does not go beyond eating an occasional
hot cross bun (after first cutting it in half so as to
minimize the carb content), Gibson’s sin was not so much in
taking us to the cross, but forcing us to linger at the cross.
Especially for us Protestants who prefer our crosses
empty….given that “Jesus did rise from it all, didn’t
he?” So why shouldn’t we….
Accentuate
the positive,
Eliminate the negative,
Latch onto the affirmative,
And don’t get too bloody in between.
But while
the cross is merely esthetically uncomfortable to some of us,
it is patently offensive to others of us. Not all of us. But
enough of us so as to constitute a problem for the church. For
as Reinhold Niebuhr was fond of saying over fifty years ago:
“There is a view that would reduce Christianity to a God
without wrath, bringing people without sin, into a Kingdom
without judgment, by means of a Christ without a cross.”
Which may have occasioned George McLeod’s equally famous
corrective that: “Jesus did not die on an altar between two
lilies, but on a cross between two thieves.”
But,
says Philip Rieff (in words I quoted for you in Steeple
Notes):
Any
church which keeps preaching on the cross is not going to
grow. Because in our culture we are interested in success,
not sacrifice. If you talk about sacrifice at your church,
then you are going to sit there with your little huddle of
people like a covey of quail, while other churches will be
blooming all around and promising that if you’ll only give
God a nickel, God will surely give you back a dime.
There
being twin monuments to that theology….call them the Twin
Towers of Christian Positivism….one on the east coast in New
York City, the other on the west coast in Orange County,
California. Not that I would knock them.
They have their way….their say….their day. And the
pastors who make them famous….both Norman Vincent Peale and
Robert Schuller…. have done more good for more people over
more years than I can ever hope to do. But at the heart of
their work, there has been at least a modest truncation of the
Gospel (“Accentuate the positive….eliminate the
negative….latch onto the affirmative….and don’t get too
bloody in between”). One need only recall the instructions
given to the California architect:
No
crosses, outside or inside. We don’t want people thinking
about failure or weakness. Why would we want a picture of a
man slumped dead, a few women crying, and his last remaining
friends high-tailing it out of Dodge? What does that do?
Let
me ask you something. Who, in our culture, has managed to turn
the cross into an instrument of awesome and terrifying power?
The Ku Klux Klan, that’s who. Putting on those hoods.
Searching out those yards. Planting those crosses in those
lawns. Pouring the gasoline. Throwing the match. Why, you can
hear the children screaming half a mile away. The Klan knows
how to turn the cross from weakness to power. You betcha.
Even
though Paul says (concerning the cross): “I know it’s
weak. I know it’s foolish. I know it doesn’t
compute….doesn’t compete….doesn’t connect….won’t
preach. I know that the one I proclaim to be God’s winner
ends up dying like a Jewish loser. But that’s my story and
I’m sticking to it. Because I have to, don’t you see.”
Paul
has just come to Corinth saying, in his own words: “I
arrived among you shaking, scared and feeling very weak.”
Paul has arrived from Athens….cultural center of the
Mediterranean…. philosophical hub of the Greek-speaking
world….where he stood on Mars Hill and preached about Jesus.
And his listeners laughed. That’s right, they laughed. I
expect you to laugh when I say something glib or try to be
funny. But when I am preaching my little heart out….please.
“I
have to preach the cross,” says Paul, “even to those who
regard it as foolish and think it makes no sense.” We could
spend a lot of time on the question of why (to both Jews and
Greeks) the cross made no sense. But a better way to use our
time is to simply take Paul at his word when he says that his
sermon about the cross offended almost everybody, pleased
almost nobody, yet he couldn’t stop preaching it.
For
Paul, of course, the issue was not how Jesus died, but why.
And for Paul….along with the rest of us since….the
“why” is centered in the reconciliation of God and God’s
creation (I’m talking about the bridge that sin shattered,
but love reconstructed). There’s not one of us in the
leadership of the church who doesn’t believe that the cross
is about coming close….coming clean….coming home. We just
don’t agree on how that happens.
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Is
the crucified Jesus the sacrifice that God demands?
Some
say so.
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Is
the crucified Jesus the ransom that God pays (and if so,
to whom)?
Some say so.
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Is
the crucified Jesus the warrior that God sends….via
death….into hell….to do battle with the devil?
Some say so.
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Is
the crucified Jesus the substitute, receiving the
punishment we deserve, but that he gets instead?
Some say so.
-
Is
the crucified Jesus the model of self-giving love that we
are called upon to emulate?
Some say so.
-
Or
is the crucified Jesus some quilted-together combination
of two or more of the above?
Some say that, too.
As
a preacher, I could take the Bible and make a case for any of
those interpretations. But, like every other preacher I know,
I do not view those explanations as being equal or even
compatible. Yet, as your preacher, I have neither shunned nor
shied away from the cross. Instead, I have sung hymns of the
cross, told stories of the cross and honored the season of the
cross. My real irritation and ire is reserved for those who,
if you do not view the cross their way, would suggest that you
are not walking in The Way….or even welcome in The Way. The
cross was meant to draw us together and reconcile us to God
(“God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, and
entrusting to us this ministry of reconciliation”). So how
the cross became one more source of our splitness (and one
more way we use doctrine to divide and dis-unify), I do not
know. But it has.
Which
I believe saddens God far more than the original event. Even
though, as Paul said to the Athenians, the original event was
no laughing matter. I mean, for Jesus, it must have hurt like
hell. And given that for God, any killing….no matter how
infused with sacred meaning it might subsequently become….is
a mockery of everything we say God is and everything we say
God desires. Any killing.
“Still,”
says Paul, “I have to preach the cross.” Why? Well, let me
try to suggest an answer. Two answers, really. I am talking
about answers that seem to have common agreement across many
centuries and common acceptance across many communities.
First,
we need to preach the cross because the cross tells us
something about how the world is. For while we’d rather not
be reminded of it, there is a lot of cruelty, violence….yes,
sin….out there that adversely affects people who had
absolutely nothing to do with it. One message of the cross is
that, if it can happen to a good man….if it can happen to
God’s man….it can happen to anybody.
As
Luther put it in The Twenty-First Thesis of His Heidelberg
Disputation: “Religious triumphalism (a theology of
glory….‘Every day in every way, things are getting better
and better’) ultimately has to lie about reality, while a
theology of the cross calls a spade a spade. A cross-based
theology says: ‘Look, there’s a great deal that is simply
wrong with this world. Innocent people suffer. Guilty people
prosper. Look at all that injustice….that war….that
defamation, degradation and death. No, don’t turn away from
it. Open your eyes to it. Until you do, you’ll never be in a
position to understand the pain of God, or God’s way of
healing pain, either.’”
To
which Luther’s expositor, Douglas John Hall, adds: “Good
Friday isn’t just about the crucifixion of Jesus. Never was.
Good Friday is about the human condition. And if God really
wants to be our God….‘God with us’….the cross is the
route God has to take. The human condition being something to
both glory in and suffer from.”
A
colleague writes:
A
few years ago, a very fine writer and novelist by the name
of Jack Abbott was in federal prison in Atlanta. He wrote an
article and sent it in to a New York literary journal. It
was published and acknowledged as one of the most beautiful
things written in our generation. I can almost remember a
line from it: “Over the wall, the smell of magnolia, and
peach, and soft, late evenings almost change a man.” Some
of the powerful people in New York, literary figures and
political figures with influence, said, “Anybody who can
write like that should not be in prison.” They exercised
their power and got his sentence reduced. Before long, Jack
Abbott was in New York, “over the wall, the smell of
magnolia, and peach, and soft, late evenings.” He dined at
a nice restaurant in New York a few weeks after the got out.
After he finished a long evening of eating and drinking, he
came out with his friends and said to the parking valet,
“Bring my car.” The valet said, “Just a moment. There
are some in front of you.” Abbott said, “Bring my
car!” and the valet said, “You’ll
have to wait your turn. We’ll bring it in a few
minutes.” Abbott then pulled out a long knife and killed
the attendant. “Over the wall, the smell of magnolia and
peach.” And he killed again.
We
need to be reminded that just because people have been to
school, and just because they have a nice income and live in
the better part of town, and just because they are children
of some of the best families or can write prose and poetry
that falls on the ear with sweetness, style and grace, they
can still be responsible for some of the ugliest cruelty in
the world.
Which,
I suppose, accounts for Dennis Rader, known in Wichita as the
BTK killer (Bind ’em, Torture ’em, Kill ’em). Dennis
Rader, the apparent murderer of ten since ’74, was captured
on February 26, in part because of a message he sent to a
Wichita TV station traceable to his church’s computer.
We’re talking about Christ Lutheran Church where, in
addition to being an usher, teacher and scout leader, he was
the congregation’s president….a post he still holds, given
that under the church’s bylaws, there is no easy way to
unseat him before next January. He fathered an Eagle Scout,
has a daughter who lives here locally in Farmington, and it
was said of him that he never failed to open a car door for
women or help his wife on with her coat. Just before his
arrest, he dropped off a spaghetti casserole at his church’s
potluck….regretting that he wouldn’t be able to attend,
but “a commitment is a commitment and I’d hate for there
not to be enough food.”
Yet
none of the people he killed deserved to die. Or so it seemed.
It’s just how the world is. But the cross says it’s also
how the Christian life is. Or how it sometimes is. Belief in
God is no guarantee of smooth sailing. In fact, sometimes it
is just the opposite. Those disciples out on the boat when the
storm came in the middle of the night….remember them? Sure
you do. So why were they out there? Because Jesus sent them
out there. That’s why they were out there. Leading my friend
to say: “Sometimes when you believe in God, that’s when
your trouble starts.” Paul knew.
But
the primary reason Paul had to preach the cross was not just
to tell about how the world is, but to tell how God is. God
suffers with us in a been-there, felt-that scenario of sharing
that is incredibly powerful.
Before
Mel Gibson’s movie, the last splashy Jesus epic of the
silver screen was the controversial and highly-protested The
Last Temptation of Christ. The mere fact that I went to
see it (to see what all the furor was about) led two people to
withdraw their membership from Nardin Park Church in a huff.
You see, I crossed a picket line….a Christian picket
line….to buy my ticket.
The film
was a bad adaptation of an interesting novel by Nikos
Kazantzakis. In his novel, Kazantzakis basically said that
when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem and felt the noose tightening
about his neck, sensing that there was nothing but death in
front of him, he thought: “Why don’t I just go back to
Nazareth, find a wife, have a family, resume carpentry, and
get out of this? Nobody seems to care anyway.” But had Jesus
done that….if he had slipped out of town, gone back to
Nazareth, gotten married, had children, lived like everybody
else and died in his bed….would we be able to sing “What a
friend we have in Jesus”? No, not at all, if he had skipped
out before the pain started. But he did not do that….skip
out before the pain started, I mean.
*
* * * *
You’ve
all been there. A child falls down….scrapes a little
skin….draws a little blood….runs crying to mother. Who
picks the child up and says (in what has to be one of the
oldest myths in the world): “Let me kiss it and make it
well.” As if mothers had magic saliva or something. And the
kiss is followed by a time of sitting and rocking in
mother’s lap. After which all really is well.
So
what made it so? Was it the kiss? Or was it ten minutes in the
lap of love? Recall the scene. Kid’s crying. Mother’s
crying. “Why are you crying, Mommy?” says the kid.
“I’m the one who got hurt.”
“Because
you hurt, I hurt,” says the mother. Which does more for the
child than all the medicine and bandages in the world.
So
what is the cross? Can I say it this way? It is to sit for a
few minutes upon the lap of God, who hurts because you hurt.
Paul said: “I have to preach that.” So do I.
Note:
I am indebted to a number of sources for today’s sermon.
Douglas John Hall is the Emeritus Professor of Christian
Theology at McGill University in Montreal. His essay, Preaching
the Cross in our Context, reintroduced me to Luther, even
as it posed some interesting Christological questions growing
out of Mel Gibson’s film.
Fred
Craddock published a wonderful sermon entitled “Why the
Cross?” in a book entitled Cherry Log Sermons. His
sermon was the source of the story about Jack Abbott, and also
gave me a way to draw my sermon to a close.
Carlyle
Marney first introduced me to the idea of “shared
suffering” in an essay entitled “He Became Like Us”
contained in a book entitled The Recovery of the Person.
Marney’s book remains on the list of the ten books that have
most influenced my theological development.
Finally,
theories of the Atonement abound. I only touched on them in
the middle of the sermon. There is no consensus in
Christianity concerning them. Each has its proponents. A
simple summary of the problem’s complexity (along with
alternative solutions) can be found in Remedial
Christianity: What Every Believer Should Know About the Faith,
But Probably Doesn’t by Paul Allen Laughlin. More
interesting still, the March 22, 2005 of The Christian
Century arrived on Monday after I preached this sermon on
Sunday. On the front cover was a picture of the crucified
Jesus and the words “Why Did Christ Die? Rethinking
Atonement.” The lead article by Mark Heim reviews no less
than seven newly-published books on the Atonement. If nothing
else, Mel Gibson’s film has jump-started a most important
theological conversation.
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