Liturgy of the Passion Year C, April 10, 2022

Prayer

Richard Rohr, Roman Catholic Priest invites us

Archive picture shows statue of Christ on cross
on tree in Fricourt, France, during World War I

to consider the cross and Jesus' invitation. He 

suggests we hear these words from Jesus and 

his cross:

"My beloved, I am your self. I am your beauty. I am your goodness, which you are destroying. I am what you do to what you should love. I am what you are afraid of: your deepest and best and most naked self—your soul. Your sin largely consists in what you do to harm goodness—your own and others’. You are afraid of the good; you are afraid of me. You kill what you should love; you hate what could transform you. I am Jesus crucified. I am yourself, and I am all of humanity."

You might sit quietly and listen. 

Then Rohr invites us to pray these words -

responding to Christ crucified. He invites to pray them as we see Christ Jesus hanging at the center of the world, at the center of human history, at the "turning" of God's creation. Pray:

"Jesus, Crucified, you are my life and you are also my death. You are my beauty, you are my possibility, and you are my full self. You are everything I want, and you are everything I am afraid of. You are everything I desire, and you are everything I deny. You are my outrageously ignored and neglected soul.

Jesus, your love is what I most fear. I can’t let anybody love me for nothing. Intimacy with you or anyone terrifies me. 

I am beginning to see that I, in my own body, am an image of what is happening everywhere, and I want it to stop today. I want to stop the violence toward myself, toward the world, toward you. I don’t need ever again to create any victim, even in my mind. 

You alone, Jesus, refused to be crucifier, even at the cost of being crucified. You never asked for sympathy. You never played the victim or asked for vengeance. You breathed forgiveness. 

We humans mistrust, murder, attack. Now I see that it is not you that humanity hates. We hate ourselves, but we mistakenly kill you. I must stop crucifying your blessed flesh on this earth and in my brothers and sisters. 

Now I see that you live in me and I live in you. You are inviting me out of this endless cycle of illusion and violence. You are Jesus crucified. You are saving me. In your perfect love, you have chosen to enter into union with me, and I am slowly learning to trust that this could be true.

This is taken from Richard Rohr's "Jesus: Forgiving Victim, Transforming Savior." [Transformation: Collected Talks, vol. 1, disc 1 (Franciscan Media: 1997).]

Some Thoughts on Luke 22:14 - 23:56 

"Our Lord passed most of the time on the cross in silence: yet seven sentences which he spoke thereon are recorded by the four evangelists, though no one evangelist has recorded them all. Hence it appears that the four Gospels are, as it were, four parts, which, joined together, make one symphony. Sometimes one of these only, sometimes two or three, sometimes all sound together."

From Wesley's Notes. John Wesley (1703-1791).

"Crucifixion was torture intended to teach a political lesson: Rome can crush the humanity out of you. Remember that. But this crucifixion scene is loaded with Jews who cannot be crushed. This is trouble for oppressors. Rome should worry. The centurion who observes the death seems to have figured this out."

Commentary, Luke 23:33-43, Richard Swanson, Christ the King, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.

"Which makes we wonder, Working Preacher, if perhaps on this day we might invite people to call to mind one of those things for which they long to have a second chance so that they might take seriously whatever regret or disappointment they harbor and then take just as seriously the second chance and new life Jesus offers us from the cross."
"The King of Second Chances," David Lose, Dear Working Preacher, 2013.

"What kind of king is this that we honor on this Reign of Christ Sunday? Not one we've ever seen before on this earth, but one who was, and is, and is to come."
"What Kind of King Is This?" Alyce M. McKenzie, Edgy Exegesis, 2013.

"As far as I know, there is only one good reason for believing that he was who he said he was. One of the crooks he was strung up with put it this way: 'If you are the Christ, save yourself and us' (Luke 23:39). Save us from whatever we need most to be saved from. Save us from each other. Save us from ourselves. Save us from death both beyond the grave and before. If he is, he can. If he isn't, he can't. It may be that the only way in the world to find out is to give him the chance, whatever that involves. It may be just as simple and just as complicated as that."
"Messiah," sermon discussion from Frederick Buechner, Frederick Buechner Blog.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text

Let us first begin with God's story and narrative. We shall come to the theology soon enough.

The narrative itself is one that as a whole fits within the wider scripture. We can neither read the crucifixion as an isolated text or as a story within a story. It is in fact THE story and it reaches back to the beginning of creation and reaches forward through Pauline letters and out towards us.

The last supper is part of our Holy Week Triduum and it is also tied (especially in Luke) to the event of crucifixion itself. Fleming Rutledge in her magnum opus makes it clear that all of the Christian Gospels make an explicit link between the meal and the crucifixion. (The Crucifixion, 2017, p. 68.)

She points out that the Last Supper narrative begins in both the Gospels and in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, "On the night that he was to be betrayed..." That the meal and the cross are linked further not by betrayal but by the next words Jesus speaks, "My body and my blood given for you."(Ibid.)

The garden scene begins to reveal Jesus' own preparation for the crucifixion and trial. Here in the garden of Gethsemane Jesus suggests that he is girding himself for the battle. The first battle begun in the desert the last battle waged at the cross. Here then there is complete victory over the powers. What was promised in the desert is fulfilled on the cross. Jesus through submission and powerlessness undoes the hold the powers, principalities and evil hold over the world. (Ibid, 373.)

Let us turn to the crucifixion itself for a moment as it relates to Luke's account. Luke omits the cry, "My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?" This is present not only in each of the other gospels but also in Paul's letters and in the Letter to the Hebrews. Why is it not present? Surely Luke has his own traditions around the crucifixion, but given its presence elsewhere it appears to be an intentional omission. Rutledge helps with our question suggesting that it is perhaps Luke's own desire to show Jesus' commitment to the crucifixion and the sacrifice he promised above. He is being faithful and ready to return to God: "Into thy hands I commit my spirit."(Ibid, 104.)

Here in the crucifixion tradition (though Luke reveals the least of it) is the suffering Christ. Suffering is itself not dignified. It is not to be shown or revealed. For the philosopher, the king, the soldier, even in the narrative of the Maccabean martyrs there is a stoic approach to suffering. But not in the crucifixion narrative. Instead there is anguish, pain, suffering, tears, and a shuddering horror. (Ibid, 374.) Luke does not say this is not true, he simply seems interested in other motivations...ones that I think are linked intimately to faithfulness and the table fellowship.

Now, let us for a moment stop and dwell on what is happening. There is much to do about the word substitution that is well worth a moment of our time. There is great distaste for the word. And, there is most definitely some terrible theology out there. 

For instance...God does not ask for Jesus, his son, to sacrifice himself. God does not sacrifice his son. This is poor theology and goes against the teachings of sacrificial offerings - especially in the story of Abraham and Isaac. So, such ways of thinking should be avoided. They are really bad theology and they are bad for mission! What a terrible god that would be. In fact it would be a different god...a god much more in line with Greek gods and goddesses. It is much more in line with national theologies and mythic tales of heroes. No, this is not what we are talking about here when we talk about substitution. Like Fleming Rutledge I would like to redeem the word. Now, she suggests you can find other words like "exchange", etc... Nevertheless, we must for a moment talk about what is happening in the work of substitution.

When we make the substitutionary theory of the atonement synonymous with a god that demands that the son sacrifice himself, this understanding of atonement can be used to sanction the commission of religious violence against others in many varying and inhumane forms for the sake of peace. By contrast, the gospel of peace reveals God as both a victim of human violence and as a human whose dignity was violated by the shame of the cross. As such, I do not advocate for throwing out the substitutionary model of atonement altogether, but only that we hold this particular model in conversation alongside other models of atonement and always in the context of a Trinitarian theology. 

Outside of a Trinitarian theology, penal substitution becomes a god demanding the sacrifice of his son. However, an orthodox perspective always sees God in Christ acting together to save the world. Our belief in the Trinity will always lead to a mature understanding of any theory of atonement. To illustrate, let us turn to Paul’s letter to the Philippians, chapter 2. Here we see that the second person of the trinity, the Christ, the incarnation becomes lower than the angels in the unique person of Jesus. It is not enough to leave Jesus as a victim. This is not the whole of the story. God becomes fully incarnate in Jesus. 

The very God who in the form of Jesus is willing to set the power of God aside to become a victim on the cross is revealed. It is not that a better version of a Greek god requires his demigod son to sacrifice himself, but that God himself makes the substitutionary sacrifice. Paul writes, Christ "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” 

The God through whom all things, all flesh, was made is the one who voluntarily becomes powerless even unto death. All of our sinfulness, brokenness, victimhood, violence and scapegoating hang on the cross with Christ, in Christ, and for Christ. Thus, the atonement reveals that we are connected to the Incarnation itself, in our innermost parts. We stand in the middle of God’s narrative, and thus we find fresh power to make our life a substitutionary sacrifice for others so that the borders of God’s Garden expand in and through our life and the quality of our community. (Doyle, Citizen, 2020.)

In the end, Jesus became a scapegoat. He would hear the hailing voices worthy of an emperor. He would wear a robe and crown that mocked him. (Myers, 380.) He took on all of the might of the empire in vestige, abuse, and political torture. The people and the powers condemned him to death because of his subversive teaching and actions; such as healing the sick and eating with the unclean and unholy.  His engagement of powers calling them to accountability made many enemies. His rejection of violence for rebels who wanted Rome gone allied the rebels with the enemy.

Stanley Hauerwas wrote in his exposition of Matthew’s telling of the crucifixion: 

“Jesus must be killed because Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus must be killed because Jesus has called into existence a new people who constitute a challenge to the world order based on lies and deceit. Jesus must be killed because he is a threat to all who rule in the name of safety and comfort. Jesus must be killed because we do not desire to have our deepest desires exposed. Jesus must be killed because we do not believe in a God who creates us and who would come among us after our likeness. So we have learned from Matthew.” 

Jesus’s is sacrificed on the altar of violence and power. He was killed by humanity as a reenactment of ancient religious and political sacrifice. Jesus’ death is the world’s rejection of God’s narrative that no sons and daughters shall be sacrificed. Instead of sparing him like Issac, the powers demand his death. Jesus participated totally in the mimetic sacrifice that God wants no part of. If that were the end of it, then we would be invested in just another community with a scapegoat theology that repeated the violence of mythic gods. 

Instead, God took our violence and broke it open. Jesus was raised from the dead by God and in so doing, Girard says, God “refutes the whole principle of violence and sacrifice. God is revealed as the ‘arch-scapegoat,’ the completely innocent one who dies in order to give life. And his way of giving life is to overthrow the religion of scapegoating and sacrifice—which is the essence of myth.”  God does not let the world’s demand of sacrifice have the last word. (Doyle, Citizen, 2020.)

As we come to the end we return to the reclamation of the crucifixion as a key to our understanding of the whole narrative. Let me for a bit riff on Rutledge but with the whole scope of God's narrative in mind. What we must see that God in Christ Jesus has the ultimate end of the narrative in mind. The whole of the story of the crucifixion fits within not simply a context of apocolyptic writing of the age, but that the end is the setting for the actions that take place. Here the cross is planted firmly between the alpha and the omega. Christ is firmly planted here in tree form. And, that the perfect image of the incarnation - Jesus - arrives in the midst of a fallen world that stretches between the beginning with Cain and Abel and the end's engathering of God. 

The second theme powerfully woven here is that the way in which the Christ becomes victorious is substitution. By becoming the scapegoat and total victim God in Christ Jesus has taken our place. Remember the words of Deuteronomy form Lent 2. God has removed our slavery to sin. Rutledge is at her best here, and encapsulates Luke's own unique telling of this part of God's narrative. In a few sentences she captures the nature of Christ's substitution. I offer it here in its poetic beauty. (It is probably the paragraph that should be read first before reading the rest of the book!) She writes:

...the way in which Christ became the apocalyptic victor was through the substitution. The Kurios could have achieved his victory in some other way, but God chose this way. The incarnate One exchanged his glory for the shame of the cross (Heb 12:2) from the beginning of his life, being born in shameful circumstances, his infancy mortally threatened by a tyrant, branded an impostor by the religious authorities form the first (Luke 4:28-29), being without a place to lay his head through his ministry (Luke 9:58), meeting with hostility everywhere he went. The shame he endured is often expressed in terms of exchange, closely related to substitution: being in the form of God , he exchanged his glory for the form of a slave, exchanging his riches for our poverty, his righteousness for our unrighteousness, even to death on a cross. That is the manner in which he won the victory - "therefore God has highly exalted him"(Phil 2:9; cf. II Cor 8:9; I Pet 3:18). (Rutledge, Crucifixion, 531.)

The final piece is that this crucifixion undoes some of what humans do regarding the law. Humans turn the law into a means of control, of hoarding power and wealth, and for rejecting the hard work of community. Jesus came and died at the hands of this law...which was supported by both the powers of politics and religion. This is the great exclamation point on the death of religion and all those who seek to use it as a stick to keep others down. While we have law within our scripture, this law was transformed by Jesus' ministry to higher virtues and the rest buried in his tomb with his lifeless body. 

Again, Rutledge...

The accursed, Godforsaken death suffered by Jesus was, in some way that we cannot fully articulate, the death that should have been ours, a death under the cursing voice of the Law wielded as a weapon by the Power of Sin. The incarnate Son took our place under the sentence of Death....(Ibid.) 

The death of Jesus on the cross is God in three persons acting together, with one will, for one purpose - to deliver all humanity from the curse of Sin and its not-so-secret weapon, the Law. Jesus, the representative man, our substitute, not only shows us how human will can align itself with the will of God, but also makes it happen in his own incarnate person; and then, in the greatest act of love that has ever taken place , he gives his own person back to us, crucified and raised form the dead, the first fruits of all who belong to him. (Ibid, 534.)

Here then we finish our meditation as we turn to Richard Rohr for a bit of help. What has happened is that our culture has taken one idea of the crucifixion (and a bad theological one at that) and used it to dismiss deep Christian theology. In fact we helped the whole world to do so. Our congregations are filled with people who believe that God asked Jesus, his son, to sacrifice himself. 

This has been combined with the notion that this is a contextual story that can be lifted out of the whole of the God's narrative. That it happened once and for all. The effect is good at the end.  Rohr reminds us that this is not true. . This is instead, he suggests, 

an ongoing transformational lesson for the human soul and for all of history. Christianity’s vision of God was a radical departure from most ancient religions. Instead of having God “eat” humans, animals, or crops, which were sacrificed on altars, Christianity made the bold claim that God’s very body was given for us to eat! This turned everything around and undid the seeming logic of quid pro quo thinking. A view of God as punitive and retributive nullifies any in-depth spiritual journey: Why would you love or trust or desire to be with such a God? The Franciscan School of theology claimed that the cross was a freely chosen revelation of Love on God’s part, meant to utterly shock the mind and heart and turn it back toward trust and love of the Creator. The Divine Mind transforms all human suffering by identifying completely with the human predicament and standing in full solidarity with it from beginning to end. This is the real meaning of the crucifixion. Jesus did not come to change God’s mind about us. It did not need changing. Jesus came to change our minds about God—and about ourselves—and about where goodness and evil really lie. This is taken from Richard Rohr's "Jesus: Forgiving Victim, Transforming Savior." [Transformation: Collected Talks, vol. 1, disc 1 (Franciscan Media: 1997).]

Some Thoughts on Philippians 2:5-11 

"There is nothing better, there is nothing more affectionate, than a spiritual teacher; such an one surpasses the kindness of any natural father."
Commentary by St John Chrysostom: Homily V


"...what works are chiefly to be done? I reply: Especially those which promote chief righteousness and decrease original sin: thus to each and every one is the appropriate examination necessary of his own thing, because original sin expresses itself in one person so, and in another thus."
"Sermon on Three-fold Righteousness" by Martin Luther, c. 1525.

"This revision of a hallowed text throws a monkey wrench into the inner workings of Christian theology. So, let's do it."
Commentary, Philippians 2:1-13 (Pentecost 20), David E. Fredrickson, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2008.

"Paul reads his own life constantly in the light of the story of Jesus (1:20-26). He wants them to read theirs similarly. The great treasure of this passage is that it challenges us to do the same. It is, however, easily subverted into an opposite attitude, a paradigm for success and power."
"First Thoughts on Year A Epistle Passages in the Lectionary," Pentecost 16, William Loader, Murdoch University

"Like Timothy and like Paul's audience, leaders and members of our own congregations are called to imitate Jesus by refusing to insist on their own prerogatives or status, whatever they may be, and serving others in humility."
Commentary, Philippians 2:5-11, Elisabeth Shively, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.

"What's in a name? From a biblical perspective -- everything!"
Commentary, Philippians 2:5-11, Elisabeth Johnson, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

Paul in this passage uses a first century Christian hymn (possibly even one they would have known) to urge the members of the community at Philippi to have the same mind as Christ. That means that they are to seek to not insist on their own way or their own rights (determined by their social status) but they are to become lower than their stations. Like God in Christ Jesus they are to seek to become power-less and to serve.

Paul invites them to not be better than the other - this is not after all a quality that Christ illustrated.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form,8he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. 9Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,11and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Here as in above, there is physical and spiritual connection between all humanity and the Incarnaiton, between all human labor and the cross, and all human suffering and the crucifixion. Just as God delivers us from sin and the law so does God reveal to us how we are to live and move and have our being. Paul's letter invites just such alignment. Paul desires not simply that we understand the physical and spiritual length but the alignment of life and community.

It is in serving that one is great. It is in taking the lower seat that you shall be known. It is in washing feet and loving each other regardless of station. It is feeding the poor who have no right to be fed and healing the sick who have not fulfilled the law. It is in eating with those who are not worthy to be eaten with. It is in loving those whom you would not dare to love.  These are the qualities by which you will be known as a follower of Jesus.

This is the work of Christ that they are to continue in the world.  

People will talk about a lot of reasons why our church is failing.  They will ponder the reasons why we are shrinking in numbers.  I think in the end it is because we don't do these things very well.  

We do not have the same mind as Christ Jesus and are unwilling to become low. We actually regard equality with God as something to be exploited and lorded over those to whom we do not believe deserve such equality.  We are unwilling to empty ourselves. We will not serve God or his mission over our own needs and desires.  We are quick to take the highest seat. We are not eager to wash each other's feet - especially not the feet of the poor. We are unwilling to hold back or deny ourselves. We will not sit with those unlike us.  We will not dine with those we don't agree with. We will not be seen with those who are not like us. We are wholly unwilling to do the hard and difficult work of following Jesus as Jesus has invited us to follow.

Perhaps this is why Paul has us squarely figured out.  The truth is like the Philippians what is so bad about our church. It is a comfortable place, for comfortable people, comfortable in our going out and our coming in.  Yet Paul may have us figured out...comfortable is not a whole lot like the ministry and character of God in Christ Jesus.

Some Thoughts on Isaiah 50:4-9a 

"The Lenten color of violet hints at the violence sometimes suffered by faithfulness in the short-term, and also sends shivers down the spine. This Sunday the color of a bruise is replaced by that of blood-red, lethal wounds. The full impact of faithfulness is not yet accounted for."
Commentary, Isaiah 50:4-9a, James Matthew Price, A Plain Account, 2016.

"The servant's confidence springs from past actions of God in calling the servant and bestowing gifts up him as well as God's present helping actions in the face of confrontation by enemies."

Commentary, Isaiah 50:4-9a, Tyler Mayfield, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2014.

"What will it mean for us to preach the word of God with the tongue of students, listen like students do, and still stand up to testify confident in God's help?"
Commentary, Isaiah 50:4-9a, Anathea Portier-Young, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

The prophet suggests that God has invited him to be a teacher, to offer a word to the people, to instruct them in God's ways. This is a for a particular purpose though. It is to bring hope and strength to the people...it is to sustain the weary.  God invites the prophet to awaken to the work at hand - to bring comfort and hope.

The prophet listens and does not rebel against the message. This of course implies that the prophet would in fact like to rebel against the message of hope. Perhaps the the notion here for the preacher is that it is easy to become one of the people. But the work of the prophet is to rise above the people's anxiety and weariness in order to offer a vision of God's hope and care.

Moreover, that when we do this as prophets, teachers, and preachers we may not always be liked. People might rather live within their misery. They might rather live within the world of political conflict and power manipulation. They may wish that the preacher parrot the media source of their choosing. In this way the people may not always like the prophet's message.

There is on the one hand sacrifice here ad on the other there is a sense that God works to be the redeemer of both preacher and people. There is support and power in knowing that we are standing, preaching, teaching, and prophesying in the midst of God's narrative.

Sometimes the preacher is tempted to simply mimic the words of the world and the power plays that are all around us. To pick up the narrative of humanity instead of the narrative of God. Let me confess I fall prey to this. All the more reason to take time to listen and ponder God's story of hope and help for the weary soul. All the more reason to offer a true word instead of the word of the world disguised in gospel mimicry.

This is the work that Jesus undertakes in his own preaching and reorienting relationship with God from a temple/church oriented faith to a direct relationship with God. In so doing, he receives the same treatment as Isaiah describes. See especially Mark14:65 and Matthew 26:67. In this way Isaiah's passage here offers a future vision of the suffering servant of Israel. Like all prophets before him, and many prophets after, Jesus receives the prophet's welcome.

The world of human affairs is eager to maintain sibling rivalry, mimetic desire and violence, and scapegoating. We do this to secure our own place and powers. The message of a God who intends that you understand you are invited into God's story and not the other ay around will always be a difficult thing for people to come to grips with. Everything in our lives, from relationships, workplaces, and our technology leads us to believe we are the center of the world/cosmos. God however, through the work of Jesus, the prophet, the teacher, and preacher would like us to understand this is not the situation.