Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Third Sunday After Pentecost Year C 2010

Crucified With Christ

03 Pentecost C 10

June 13, 2010

Crucified With Christ

1 Kings 21:1-10, (11-14), 15-21a

Psalm 32

Galatians 2:15-21

Luke 7:36-8:3

A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.  ---Stephen Wright

A minister asked a group of children, "What's the first thing you have to do to be forgiven?" And one of the kids said, "You have to sin!"


I saw a posting on facebook this week of a friend of a friend, someone I know through Amy Hurd. Her name is Jen Lawton and she wrote in her status, "Perspective, consider this an open invitation."

Perspective. Maybe it's time to get down on the floor. (Getting down on the floor.)

Here I am, at the feet of Jesus. Here I am, a worthless sinner, deserving only the cross, in the presence of a God who loves me anyway. Hmm. It's not too bad really. Nowhere to go but up, you know.

Would anyone like to join me? I don't want anyone to injure themselves, but you know, it's really not too bad.

It's a relief you know. Nothing to prove. Nothing to insist on. Nothing I'm entitled to.

You could come down here and we could just lay on the floor at Jesus' feet and we could tell him all our problems. Bring some oil and we'll anoint his beautiful, calloused, dirty feet. And maybe we'll do some crying too. Not a bad thing to do in the presence of the Lord. If you'd like to let some tears go now, by all means, offer them up.

You know down here, it's not hard to love God. Down here, it's not hard to love the whole human race. It seems like love is inversely proportional to pride. The lower you are on the pole, the easier it is to love.

You know, the scripture says his feet are beautiful, and they sure are.

(Standing and continuing the service.)

It's important in understanding Paul's message to the Galatians to understand that even at that amazing moment when the church was born, conflict arose. It's one of those things that troubles us in churches. Somehow we all have this idea that the church is supposed to be this kind of mid-sixties TV family. We're shocked when there's conflict. We're even more shocked when people behave like old Ahab and Jezebel.

And yet the bible is full of stories like that.

Even old Peter was kind of two-faced, at least according to Paul. Paul went to Jerusalem and pitched his whole idea of being apostle to the Gentiles. We've heard some of the stories of what was happening in Jerusalem after the resurrection, about how Peter had the dream about the animals and welcomed the Gentile centurion. So Peter agreed with Paul that the Gentiles didn't have to be circumcised, at least to his face. But apparently, after Paul left, Peter or someone in Jerusalem put together a group to follow after Paul and clean up after him. This group got to the Galatians and said, "What Paul told you was all well and good, but it lacked the whole circumcision thing. You really can't be a member until you're circumcised."

Now, this is not about Paul rejected the Old Testament. We know from all the rest of Paul's writing that he believed and taught the Old Testament. That was in fact the only scripture he had. And it wasn't just that he was opposing people who were clinging to old and useless traditions. He didn't see the law as old or useless.

As for Peter and the Judaizers, they also weren't necessarily being unreasonable. There was a lot of tension in the synagogues about this news about Jesus. A lot of Jews were very receptive. You remember that thousands were baptized the very first day Peter started preaching in Jerusalem. Imagine managing 3,000 new people here at Philippi. Then as now, so many new people brought all kinds of unexpected problems and difficulties. One of them had to do with Jewishness. Gentiles were converting upon hearing the news of Jesus. Didn't that mean they needed to become Jews?

Peter vacillated about the question, a vacillation that appeared to Paul to be hypocrisy. But think of it. Peter saw a tremendous wedge potentially coming to split his new movement in two. What might he do to minimize the damage? Maybe he needed to concede to those who wanted to keep Judaism intact. What kind of chaos might ensue if any part of the law were jettisoned?

It's not that Paul didn't believe in circumcision. It's that he believed in a greater and more perfect circumcision. He believed, and I believe, that God had come into the world to dwell with his people. Not some new God, but the same God who had ruled over Israel from the time of Abraham. The question was not about keeping the law or not. It was about where one goes to start a relationship with God.

The message for today is about the cross. The cross is the place where God enters the world. It's not in the temple. It's not in the beautiful town square. It's outside the usual paths and walkways, outside the house of worship, in the place where people are cast off and forgotten. The cross is the place where God comes into the world.

God prefers the company of those farthest from him. He bypasses all those who are jockeying for status before him and runs right to the ones who are the least worthy. He whips people in the house of worship and comforts people who are being executed for robbery and murder.

I think we like to imagine, at least us males like to imagine, that the woman bathing Jesus' feet with her tears is a prostitute. Jar of ointment, the hair let down, kissing; it's hard not to think about sex. But the text doesn't say that. It just says a sinful woman. What if that woman were Jezebel? Not the somewhat titillating and lovely temptress, but the scheming and vicious murderer, maybe even with with beady eyes, straggly hair and bad skin? A woman who had done real and terrible wrong to lots of people, who really deserved to be executed and have her remains eaten by dogs?

That's the kind of offense that the Jewish Christians were taking at Paul for welcoming non-Jews into Christian fellowship without circumcision. It's like he was saying, well, that God loves sinners, for heaven's sake.

But Paul's own experience of conversion was exactly this. In the midst of doing the most terrible wrong a person can do, Paul encountered Jesus Christ. Christ met Paul on the cross. Paul found himself hanging on a cross next to Jesus, like the rebel robber in Luke's gospel, guilty of what Jesus was not, of insurrection and rebellion and murder, crimes against the kingdom of God. Jesus, though he was not guilty, was there with him, welcoming him into paradise.

Some of us encounter the cross in the course of experience, without actively seeking it. But it is possible, and this is a wonderful gift from God, to seek the cross. It's possible to find in oneself the many ways, through commission or omission, we make ourselves superior to others, the many ways we plot and scheme to undermine our perceived enemies, the ways we stand quietly by and say nothing about injustice because it so richly benefits us, the tantrums we throw when we don't get what we want or think we deserve. We can seek the cross by seeking out our rebellion and our willfulness. When we find our sin, when we find enough evidence to convict us of rebellion against the kingdom of God and yes, even murder, we will find Jesus Christ, hanging on the cross next to ours.

It's at the cross that we encounter God, and it is the only place we can encounter God, at least in the sense of being able to begin a relationship. Forgiveness and salvation are really something else. The cross is simply the place we begin. It's the place everyone has to begin. There's no other entrance into God's presence. If there is, to paraphrase Paul, Christ died for nothing.

What if we saw our worship on Sunday the way the "sinful woman" saw it? What if we came intending to lay on the floor and bathe the beautiful feet of Jesus with our tears?

Amen.

No comments: