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November 25, 2007
George Bennett - Student Associate Pastor
Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise
Luke 23:33-43
33When they came to the place that is called The
Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and
one on his left. 34Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not
know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. 35And
the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He
saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen
one!” 36The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine,
37and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38There was
also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” 39One of the
criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not
the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do
you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?
41And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we
deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42Then he said,
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43He replied, “Truly I
tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Jeremiah 23:1-6
23Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the
sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. 2Therefore thus says the Lord, the God
of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who
have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not
attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the
Lord. 3Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the
lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold,
and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4I will raise up shepherds over
them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be
dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord. 5The days are surely
coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch,
and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and
righteousness in the land. 6In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will
live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord
is our righteousness
Prayer
Ever-creating God, We pray that this entire service – readings, music and sermon
be received today as you intend us to receive them & that our Lord present in
the Holy Spirit dwell in our hearts. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Introduction
Let me remind you of the last words that our district superintendent, Rev. Jerry
Smith, shared with us at our recent meeting.
May God bless you, keep you, be gracious to you.
May God give you grace never to sell yourself--or God--short.
Grace to risk something big for something good.
Grace to remember that the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth,
And too small for anything but love.
So may God take your mind and think through it;
May God take your lips and speak through them;
May God take your hands and do something good with them;
May God take your heart and set it on fire.
Rev. Kathy McShane
Last Monday was our churches charge conference. We filled the social hall and
spent three hours discussing the ministries of our church over the past year and
what we hope our ministries will look like in the year to come. By what
authority do we take the responsibility to do these services in the world? We
are providing music, prayers and food. We are giving shelter to the homeless and
sending missionaries to New Orleans. We are climbing mountains and bonding with
the youth, and facing mountains of resistance in our protests for peace and
social justice. We are not a social services agency. We are not a branch of the
government with an obligation to meet the needs of the people we govern. So what
gives us the right, the courage, or the inspiration to be at work like this in
our community?
Some would say that we do these things by the authority of Christ the King.
Since this Sunday is Christ the King Sunday, we have an opportunity to unpack
what the Gospel of Luke is proclaiming about the kingship of Jesus. I want to
discuss how the mantle of kingship is worn by Jesus and how this differs from
the way that kingship has been understood by the world. Moreover, it is even
more import to understand that Jesus has a promise for the convict that accepts
his authority; and that the promise is not one of delayed gratification, but a
promise that is redeemable immediately.
Exegesis
The scene in this scripture is unique to the Gospel of Luke. Only the writer of
Luke tells a story about the conversation between the three convicts that were
executed on Calvary. And even though this conversation is the highlight of the
scripture, it is helpful to have some background. The normal crucifixion took
from three days to three weeks to complete. This punishment was designed to be a
slow agonizing way to die. Usually the victim actually died from suffocation
because they could no longer prevent their rib cage from collapsing down on
their lungs. Some executioners would help to speed the process up by breaking
the convict’s legs, so they could not use their legs to support their weight.
This would make death more likely to occur within three to five days.
In the case of the three convicts in our scripture only Jesus was abnormal.
Jesus was beaten to a bloody pulp prior to the execution. The convicts were
required to carry their own cross bars to the place of execution, and Jesus was
so near death that he required the help of Simon of Cyrene to get his cross bar
to it’s destination. Finally, after only three hours of suffering on the cross,
Jesus was dead. The guards verified Jesus’ demise with a spear. Finding that
Jesus was in fact dead, they proceeded to break the legs of the other two
convicts. The other convicts were clearly not dead, and there is no reason to
believe that they were even on the verge of death at this early hour.
Explaining all of this may seem morbid, but I am trying to show that the author
of Luke has a special message for us in this story. The people of Luke’s time
would be very familiar with the process of execution by crucifixion. Also they
would have had a lot of experience with Kingdoms that enforce their influence by
domination. Both of these themes are important to the Gospel message. We should
make an effort to understand Luke’s concept of domination.
In the way that the Gospel writer lays out the story we can see some interesting
trends in the understanding of kingship.
35And
the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He
saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen
one!” 36The soldiers also mocked him,… saying, “If you are the
King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38There was also an inscription
over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” 39One of the criminals
who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the
Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
Each of the sets of people is assigned a position in the social order. First, we
have “leaders” calling Jesus Messiah of God, His chosen one. Then, “soldiers”
are calling Jesus King of the Jews. Next, there is a posted sign agreeing with
the soldiers. And finally, one of the people closest to Jesus, a fellow convict,
calls Jesus Messiah. In each of these cases the people who were naming Jesus
King were also calling for a form of salvation. They were calling for a
salvation based upon domination. These people did not fail to notice that the
man that they were calling king was on the verge of death. The fact that this
man was obviously incapable of striking down his opponents in an act of dominant
force, made the remarks significantly more spiteful and sarcastic. And there is
also evidence that Jesus openly chooses to avoid the use of domination; even
when salvation would be the end result.
The calls of the people in the passion scene of the Gospel of Luke are
remarkably similar to the temptations of Satan that Luke describes at the
beginning of Jesus’ ministry, during the forty day fast in the wilderness. Here,
Jesus is tempted to turn a stone onto bread and end the suffering of his fast,
to accept the most powerful thrown in the world, and to show that he is immortal
by throwing himself off of a building. Each of these acts would be a show of
force that would compel people to listen and obey through fear. These are
demonstrations that carry the weight of domination, and Jesus would not allow
himself to be a king by domination.
Wesley White once wrote this about domination,
“We need to
be careful about this king business and not assume that with Jesus it is OK, but
with humans it is not OK. There is simply a downside to kings that no amount of
holiness can overcome – yes, even with David and Solomon and Jesus” Wesley
White
King was never a term that Jesus used to describe himself; and if the kingship
that the world was projecting upon Jesus was in error, so was their vision of
salvation. In fact, the most he would admit to, when asked by Pontius Pilate if
he was a king to the Jews, was that “you say that I am.” The word king just
carries a lot of baggage in this world. Even Samuel wanted God to rethink the
idea of anointing any of the Hebrew people king. Egyptian kings wanted to be
worshiped as gods and so did some of the Roman Emperors. On the other hand,
Jesus did act in royal ways. Jesus offered forgiveness, as in
34Then
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
And pardons were commonly known to come
only from a king. Jesus used his power to serve rather than to dominate. Through
Jesus we can see that infinite power is power shared not power possessed. Did
this royal behavior put an idea into the third convicts head?
With only the release of death as a hope of ending
a torturously painful mode of execution, to speak, the third convict summons
enough—what?—faith—hope—trust—to ask to be remembered in whatever kingdom this
other dying man had in mind to offer. Without using a title like King or
Messiah, the criminal had spoken to Jesus about His, "reigning"
and Jesus talks to him about paradise. In the Book of Genesis, paradise had been
presented as a state that existed at the beginning of humanity. The writer of
Genesis intended that we not look backwards. He presented the future goal of
humanity for us. The prophets, like we heard in Jeremiah, spoke of paradise as
something that would be in the future. They identified it with the time of the
Messiah, with the branch of the house of David! And Jesus says that paradise
(His reigning or the new Age) begins that afternoon when He dies! But, now that
the time of the Messiah is upon us, it is important to note that the presence of
paradise does not require the death of any one else. Paradise exists in the now
as well as in the hereafter. The third convict was not dead the day that he
experienced paradise, and neither are we. Paradise is upon us. Paradise is the
experience that Jesus serves, and that Jesus is able to use us, in our limited
bodies, during our short life-spans, through times of joy or times of sorrow, to
be a holy presence in God’s creation.
Hermeneutic
The Ministries that we shared at our charge conference and the ministries that
we are yet to create are the passions of our lives that are spoken of in the
benediction that Rev. Jerry Smith offered. They are how our minds, our lips, our
hand, and our hearts are used by God to do wonderful things in the world. These
ministries sometimes show us that we are willing to risk something important for
something good. These ministries are our evidence that Jesus offers paradise in
the now as well as in the hereafter.
My decision to go to seminary was and is a destabilizing event in the life of my
family. When we talk about risking something important for something good, my
process of education and ordination come quickly to mind. The possibility of
serving a worshipping community as a pastor is the good that is intended to come
from my efforts. The risk is much more difficult to understand. In the early
days of making this decision it felt like I was causing an intentional
earthquake in the stable foundation of our family unit. I imagined that if I
would have made the decision to stay in my past line of work, then none of the
relationships in my life would have had to suffer though the changes that I was
putting them through.
Now that more than two years has passed since this decision to seek my education
and ordination was made, the risk seems quite different. First of all, risking
the relationship with my family does not necessarily mean that we will take a
loss. The fact that I now rely on Leann for financial support has deepened my
ability to trust and depend upon her and upon other people in general. The time
that I spend with my daughters has changed, but in many ways I am more available
than I was in my previous occupation. The feeling of personal change has driven
me to be more intentional about sharing my life with my long distance family as
well. I currently call several members of my family throughout the greater
United States once a week just to stay up to date.
Thinking back from here, I wonder why I was so overcome by fear in the first
place. Why did I think that I was the only one causing change? My daughters are
growing up, one of them is a teenager; stability is definitely a delusional
idea. Leann and I have never been closer; I wonder what I cherished so much
about the way things use to be. God is working in our lives to reveal that
service is meaningful in so many ways. I have had more first experiences in the
last two years than I have had in the twenty years prior combined. These
experiences range from visiting jails – writing worship bulletins, and I am
truly exploring an entirely new life.
The life I have today is not my life the way I understood my life to be ten
years ago. If you would have described a week of my current life to me in 1997
and suggested that this was my destiny, I would have had you drug tested. The
same faith – hope – trust that it took for the third convict to ask Jesus to
remember him in whatever kingdom that Jesus has to offer is exactly what it
takes for us to begin or continue to pursue the ministries that we are called to
do today. For me it was a call to seminary, but we are all called to something.
On this day when we recognize Jesus as our leader and redeemer, offering himself
on a cross, serving us with forgiveness, and promising us paradise now and
hereafter; we have the opportunity to offer ourselves in return.
Just as the gospel of Luke has showed us a king that rules by service rather
than domination, we are challenged to imagine the salvation, the paradise that
such a king would offer. Our culture would have us envision God swooping down
from the heavens in a chariot with vengeance and wrath in tow, to slay the vast
majority of creation and caste the human waste into the lake of fire, but that
vision is not consistent with Luke’s image of Jesus. Instead, we can imagine our
world erupting with people who are dedicating their lives to caring and serving
each others needs in different ways.
I heard a statistic this weekend about champagne; each bottle of champagne
contains about 49,000,000 bubbles. We can imagine creation as a bottle of
champagne and each life dedicated to ministry as a bubble. When the bubble
reaches the surface, it bursts and gives off the sweat aroma of the wine. This
is the sacrifice which offers a scent that is pleasing to our God. In the now,
we are a bubble embodying our king’s promise of paradise and giving character to
God’s own creation. In the hereafter, we are the aroma of sweetness that is
pleasing to our God. So, as we go forth in this celebration of the New Christian
Year, we enter advent with the knowledge that we will be in paradise today. Let
us be the bubbles in our world. Let us have God work through us to pop the cork
on this bottle.
Amen.
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