Matthew 21:1-11, 27:50-51, 28:1-2
Palm / Passion Sunday
April 17, 2011
William Carter
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” (21:10)
Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. (27:50-51)
And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. (28:2)
My friend Harry grew up at Disston Memorial Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. Every year, he said, Palm Sunday "reeked of sameness."
Two Palm Sundays were all you needed to figure out the pattern. The first year you experienced it. The second year you lived it all over again. Every year, on schedule, the local florist delivered the same standing order: two large leafy plants in gold foil pots, one on each side of the pulpit. Lang's Floral Shop annually called them "the Presbyterian Palms."
Every year, the minister began the service the same way. He said two ancient lines from scripture. "Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." The congregation mumbled back, "Hosanna in the highest," just like last year.
There were three Palm Sunday hymns in the green hymnal. At Disston Memorial Church, they were always sung in the same order. To hear my friend Harry tell the story, that's just what the people wanted, because it was just what the people expected, because that's just what the people experienced each Palm Sunday.
Of course, what the people really wanted and expected was for Ethel Willard to sing a solo. She was a soprano, the closest thing Disston Memorial Church had to a soloist. And for 28 years in a row, she stood to sing Faure's "The Palms." Nobody ever came to church on Palm Sunday to listen to the preacher. No, they came to hear Ethel Willard.
One year, a new organist tried to play the solo a little faster, but Ethel didn't budge. She was the seasoned expert, after all. She knew how slowly it was supposed to go. After worship, the throngs dashed forward to greet her. With one voice, they declared, "Ethel, it wouldn't be Palm Sunday without you singing "The Palms.""
In the memory of my friend Harry, that's how it was. Year after year, the same.
I can tell a story like that. Maybe you can, too. In the church where I grew up, I don’t remember anybody sang "The Palms." I had to wait until I was a pastor in my first church before the tune arrested me. But we always did the same old thing. We sang the same three Palm Sunday hymns in the same order out of the same old green hymnal every year.
Every year, there's something the same about Palm Sunday. It's the only worship service when Protestants feel comfortable handing out props. We don't normally do that. But year after year, this day is special. In some churches, they are developing the custom for everybody to gather outside the building. At the appointed hour, people parade into the sanctuary. We tried that here one time, but nobody joined in. They wanted to sit in the same old pews.
That seems so comforting. Whether or not there's an annual parade, annual props, or annual solo, Palm Sunday is the same exciting day, year after year after year.
All the Palm Sunday stories in the Bible sound much the same. Jesus climbs on the back of a humble donkey. The disciples lead the way. Since it's Passover time, they are surrounded by a large crowd. To hear Matthew's account, we don’t know if the crowd is there because Jesus is present or because the Passover holiday is at hand. It is not clear.
What we do know is what they sang as they traveled. As Father Joseph Fitzmyer says in his commentary, they sang the same, old Passover song every year: three lines from Psalm 118.
The first line went, "Save us, O Lord!" To put that in Hebrew, the word for "save us" is "Hosanna!" That word Hosanna is a prayer that stretches back to when Israel was in Egypt, and God turned them loose. Now, after hundreds of years of living under the thumbs of Syrians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and now Romans, they sang hosanna in weary hope.
The next line they sang was, "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord." That’s the blessing of a Savior. After praying to be saved, now they prayed for a Savior. They never saw actually one, year after year, but they kept praying.
And then, in case people didn't remember how to do a Passover parade, the third line of the old song said, "Bind the festal procession with branches." (Psalm 118:25-27)
As far as the song was concerned, Father Fitzmyer says, they sang it every year. It might as well have been "The Palms," sung for the 28th year in a row.
But then, in one particular year, in the year Jesus rode his donkey into town, the people sang that song and the whole city shook.
Matthew says it was a seismic event. The verb “shook” is the verb “seismos.” He uses earthquake language to describe it. It's curious, since Matthew is normally a straight-shooter who doesn't talk in metaphors. Yet when he says Jerusalem was "shaking," he means to say that Jesus came to town and suddenly it was 9.7 on the Richter scale! The whole city shook. And that's not what we've come to expect on Palm Sunday.
My friend Harry remembers Disston Memorial Church; nothing ever shook on Palm Sunday. Not even the rafters. Well, maybe when Ethel sang "The Palms," she shook a little bit. It was often noted that, as Ethel advanced in years, the depth of her vibrato grew deeper. Sometimes it sounded like she was singing in two different keys simultaneously. But everybody loved the song, and she had sung it so many times that no one seemed to care.
What if Palm Sunday promises more than the same, old songs and the same, old prayers? If today is Palm Sunday, the whole city should be shaking, for Jesus Christ is coming to town.
When I got started as a preacher, I thought my whole business was to shake people up. I thought my job was to start a series of earthquakes, to the glory of God. Give them some new idea. Upset some established custom. Shock the religious sensibilities. Sometimes I would look for a strange scripture passage they had never heard before and preach it. "How about the 3rd chapter of Leviticus?" As I looked out upon a sea of glazed eyes, I was right: they had never heard that before.
It slowly dawned on me that religious people are quite adept at handling such shake-ups. They anchor themselves to the same pews, cross their arms, and wait out the windstorms.
Then one fateful day, I remember waking up to discover I had become as institutionalized as the people I was trying to shake up. Even though I enjoyed everything fresh and new, I was boring. I drove the same routes and took the same shortcuts. I went through the same motions. Perhaps all of us have our customs, our manners, our ways of coping with chaos. We need routines to repeat, rituals to replay, and songs to sing over and over again.
Such things provide a firm foundation. They offer order. They give stability and coherence. Change for the sake of change can be a terrible, unsettling thing. The cruelest thing we can do is to turn out the lights in someone's favorite room, rearrange the furniture, and leave people to bump around in the dark. That's not cultivating faith; that's destroying it. Faith grows best when we know where the furniture is.
It's hard for whipper-snappers like me to admit it, but it's true. As we get older, our innovations become habits. Our new ideas become annual traditions. That's not all that bad. Sometimes it gives us great security.
Jesus told a parable about two different people who went into the construction business. One of them built a house on firm bedrock. The other built a house on shifting sand. The same rain fell on both houses. The wind blew on both houses. The storms beat upon both houses. One house stood firm, and the other house blew to bits. Guess which one kept standing.
We need some bedrock to build our houses on, some rote practices to get us through the day. Have you noticed how many people are brought closer to God by singing brand-new hymns? Not many. I hate to admit it. If a hymn is in the new hymnal, it's fair game. Let's sing it!
What do we really want to sing? What do we need to sing? The old favorites. The songs we've been singing for 28 years. We need Ethel Willard singing her song.
But we need Jesus, too. And Matthew says that when Jesus appeared on the scene, the whole city shook.
It's not the first time that happened, you know. Way back in chapter 2, some wise men from the East came knocking on King Herod's palace. "We've come to worship the king," they said. Herod said, "Well, here I am. I'm the king."
"No, not you," they said. "We're looking for a brand-new king, who rules over the world. Even the stars in the sky have begun to worship him." When King Herod heard about King Jesus, he and his whole city began to shake.
After Jesus rode into that city, he made a beeline to the Temple. He discovered an institution full of more commercialism than K-Mart at Christmas. So he tipped the tables and drove out the souvenir vendors. The only profit the moneychangers saw that day was the prophet Jesus. And they began to shake.
Then Jesus gave sight to the blind, and dancing lessons to those who couldn't walk, and he heard some children singing. The rule keepers and the holy rollers saw it and heard it. And they began to shake.
Then Jesus went out to the suburbs to spend the night. Traveling back to town, his stomach began to growl. He passed by a fig tree that looked as fruitless as the temple. It made him mad. And even that fig tree began to shake.
If we come every year to see Jesus ride into town, he looks like a gentle prophet on the back of a humble donkey, surrounded by a crowd of people who sing the same old songs. But let’s not be naive. When God sends Jesus into town, there is a whole lot of shaking going on.
He looks so gentle, riding on a farm animal, but he confronts the selfish.
He comes to cure the sightless, and makes the self-righteous to lose their sight.
He comes to make children to rejoice, and curses the fruit tree that refuses his doxology.
A shaken city asks the same questions that will always shake us: Who is this Jesus, and what does it mean to welcome him into our lives? It can be an unsettling place to stand. My very foundations may tremble at the power of God.
The truth of Palm Sunday is that we can never stand totally secure in our own strength. We can never declare ourselves free from God's interference and influence in our lives. It means that we are provoked by two continuing questions, namely: Who is this Jesus? And what right does he have to shake us up?
Those are the questions posed by Palm Sunday. They quickly heat up Holy Week. And they are the questions that ultimately put Jesus on a cross to die.
Please understand this: the people who put him on the cross chose stability over shaking. For them, there was only one real alternative: get rid of Jesus. What else could they do? It took about a week. Plans were made after dark. They had to find an insider to pay off, line up a goon squad to arrest him, trump up some charges, and convince the Romans.
By Friday, they were pretty sure that he wouldn't interfere with anybody ever again. It took a few hours to make sure he was really dead. And then – do you know what happened? At the very moment of his death, the earth shook and shuddered. The rocks split. The tombs opened. The temple tapestry ripped in two. Finally it was quiet. They took him down and sealed him in a tomb. Everybody thought, "Jesus will not ever bother anybody again."
It was a comforting thought. I know a lot of people who hope for that. More than anything else, they want their lives to be free from any act of God.
There's only one problem. After a day of rest, some women went to the tomb on early Sunday morning. And just as they got there, the ground began to shake.
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Pilate's Dilemma
Matthew 27:15-26
Lent 5 / Congregational Memorial Service
April 10, 2011
William G. Carter
Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You say so.” But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?” But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.
This is a text that starts a lot of conversations. Any one of them could be pursued.
We learn that Barabbas had a first name: “Jesus.” He was “Jesus Barabbas,” prompting Pilate to ask the crowd, “Which Jesus do you want? Do you want Jesus Barabbas or Jesus the Christ?” That’s intriguing, since if you translate “Barabbas” it means “son of the father.” In case, the people are stirred up to choose Barabbas the criminal over Christ the Innocent. Sometime we could have a conversation about the downside of getting what we want.
In this text, Pilate’s wife sends the message of a holy nightmare. With apparently no warning, Jesus has invaded her dreams. Since the Gospel of Matthew begins with a number of God-drenched dreams, we need to pay attention to this. In the beginning of the book, in the Christmas story, Joseph is guided by four dreams; that’s how God protects the baby Jesus. And the three wise men have a dream; that’s how God protects them. Now Mrs. Pilate has a dream, which would offer protection for Jesus; but nobody listens to her.
A few weeks ago, we heard this text announce one of the most notorious verses of the Bible. It was verse 25, where a mob of people declare, “His blood be on us and on our children.” I made the case then and I would make it again: Matthew is making an unfortunate generalization. What was probably meant as a corporate confession of sin was twisted into a blanket accusation. It fueled Hitler’s hatred and torched many synagogues.
We could talk about Barabbas, talk about Pilate’s wife and her dream, talk about anti-Semitism. We could even talk about torture; in the text, we hear the empire “flogged” Jesus. They probably attached bits of metal to the cat of nine tails, as Mel Gibson showed us relentlessly in his snuff film from seven years ago. We could talk about the appropriateness of torture in light of God’s grace.
But the most compelling word of the text is not a word at all. It is the silence. Jesus takes all of this in silence. He never said “a mumbalin’ word.” That might be the most unsettling detail of this very unsettling text.
All the Gospel writers agree on his silence. When he is asked, “Are you the King of the Jews? Are you a politician?” Jesus says, “You say so.” Pilate doesn’t know that means, and neither do we. Jesus does not speak another word while he is condemned, tortured, humiliated, and nailed to the cross. Only then does he speak four words from a psalm.
The scene sets before us Jesus and Pilate in an unsettling silence. They are very different from one another. One is bound, the other is free. One is a prisoner, the other is his judge. One has restored life in other people, the other has the authority to take away life and does so regularly. They meet for an unfinished conversation, the details of which differ slightly between the Gospels. But all the stories agree that Jesus concludes the conversation by refusing to say another word. He refuses to defend himself. And the silence is so unnerving that the Roman politician walks out of the room.
Silence has that kind of power. A preacher I know once read his sermon text from the prophet Habbakkuk: “The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him!” (2:20). Then he began his sermon by staring them down. Didn’t move his lips. Didn’t fill the air with cute stories and religious mumbo-jumbo. Just stood there mute. Two minutes went by, five minutes went by. People started to fidget and twitch. One looked at her watch. Another decided to pull his check out of the offering envelope. Still - - nothing. At last a voice rang out; it was one of the ushers. “Hey preacher, would you say something? We aren’t a bunch of Quakers.”
Do you think any of them heard the sermon? I think they did, and they didn’t like it.
Silence is unsettling. The oncologist says, “I will call with the report at 9:00 on Wednesday,” and then the phone doesn’t ring at all. The single mother sleeps with one eye open on prom night, waiting for her daughter to get home, and it’s a quarter past three; nothing. The employment office promised to get right back to you with an offer, and now it’s been two weeks. You get down on your knees to pray, you pour out your heart, you want to grab God by the collar and shake out an answer – but not a sound in return.
Today we hear of a career politician, stuck in a tinderbox town where everybody seemed to have a set of matches. The religious phonies drag some troublemaker in front of him. He can read it for what it is: this Galilean chap has some charisma and they can’t stand him. Pilate doesn’t care about the specific charges. He will not step in the middle of a contest among theological skunks. They hurl their curses and accusations at the prisoner – but he will not say a word. The Roman governor asks incredulously, “Don’t you hear what these people are saying?”
Jesus just stares at him. His eyes, like lasers, drill two holes in the governor’s heart. He will not speak a word. It is a brief moment, filled with haunting ambiguity.
Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, says this ambiguity is the most important detail in all the stories of when Jesus goes on trial. These stories of judgment question our human judgment. The authorities judge Jesus, and in the process they are judged. And that unsettles every aspect of human authority.
The soldiers have had their chance to rough him up. An officer of the temple police smacked him in the face and gave him a swollen lip. They have kept him awake all night and forced him through two interrogations. Now his enemies shove him down to the Roman headquarters. They have no regard for Jesus. They hand him over as a criminal, although they have no specific charges. They insinuate how he deserves the Roman death penalty, yet refuse to explain why. His enemies force Jesus to go through all of this, yet he remains calm, centered, focused, and still.
Pontius Pilate asks, "What evil has he done," knowing the crowd has no rational answer. He makes an offer that could release the man, but other voices prevail. He washes his hands of the matter – but somehow that doesn’t let him off the hook. It is unsettling.
The whole scene reminds us once again how the world resists the love and justice of very Christ through whom all things were made. As another Gospel warned us at Christmas time, "The world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own home, and his own people did not accept him" (John 1:10-11). This is the moment when the world is judged. The Light of the World has come into the world, and the world said, "Turn off the lights!"
And in the thick of it, Jesus stands silent. He doesn't have to say anything or do anything. He leads no revolt. He does not call in a high-priced attorney. His very presence exposes both the sham of his arrest and the indifferent arrogance of the Empire. This is not how we were meant to live: betraying one another, picking on one another, stirring up trouble against one another, striking one another, murdering one another. Yet Jesus neither strikes out nor gives in. In deep and holy silence, he confronts the truth about power with the power of truth.
Kent Groff, our guest speaker for later today, has a brief prayer-poem about this moment. He captures it in just ten words:
Silent statement,
Political action.
Paucity of words,
Audacity in deed. (“Facing East, Praying West,” p. 63)
A friend of mine stopped to see me when his mother was dying. Most of the time, she was at peace about her impending death, and her peacefulness was the disturbing thing for a lot of other people. Friends would stop by to see her, and many were anxious about it. They didn't know what to say. They didn't know what to do, so they brought some things. Some brought food, even though she couldn’t eat very much. Some bring little gifts, and she laughed, "What am I going to do with this?" All the time, he said, she remains still and steadfast -- because nothing could shake her.
My friend and I were talking about that. He said, "Did you ever notice that the person who has true power is not the one who fusses around, stays busy, does all the talking, or tries to push their way upon others? No; it's the person who stays rooted and focused on the ways of God. People like that don't have to prove anything. They just be. Much of the time, they don't have to say a word."
In all of Pilate’s questions, Jesus stands in secure silence. He doesn't have to say or do a thing. So it is Pilate who grows anxious. It's Pilate who tries to appease everybody. It's Pilate who tries to put a lid on the pressure. It's Pilate who goes on trial. Jesus may be bound in chains, but actually he is the One who is free.
Pilate has the army, but Jesus has the power.
Pilate has the throne, but Jesus has the authority.
Pilate asks the questions, but Jesus holds all the answers.
Tell me something: who's the One who is really in charge? And so he stands in silence.
It would be enough to join him in that silence this day. To be quiet. To hush, and to be still. There is nothing to say, there is nothing to prove – not any more. No amount of blathering or babbling on the church’s part is going to correct the injustice of Jesus’ condemnation. There are no words that will undo what the world has done.
Not yet, at least. That day is coming.
We will find our voices on the Third Day. “On the third day . . .”
Lent 5 / Congregational Memorial Service
April 10, 2011
William G. Carter
Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You say so.” But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?” But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.
This is a text that starts a lot of conversations. Any one of them could be pursued.
We learn that Barabbas had a first name: “Jesus.” He was “Jesus Barabbas,” prompting Pilate to ask the crowd, “Which Jesus do you want? Do you want Jesus Barabbas or Jesus the Christ?” That’s intriguing, since if you translate “Barabbas” it means “son of the father.” In case, the people are stirred up to choose Barabbas the criminal over Christ the Innocent. Sometime we could have a conversation about the downside of getting what we want.
In this text, Pilate’s wife sends the message of a holy nightmare. With apparently no warning, Jesus has invaded her dreams. Since the Gospel of Matthew begins with a number of God-drenched dreams, we need to pay attention to this. In the beginning of the book, in the Christmas story, Joseph is guided by four dreams; that’s how God protects the baby Jesus. And the three wise men have a dream; that’s how God protects them. Now Mrs. Pilate has a dream, which would offer protection for Jesus; but nobody listens to her.
A few weeks ago, we heard this text announce one of the most notorious verses of the Bible. It was verse 25, where a mob of people declare, “His blood be on us and on our children.” I made the case then and I would make it again: Matthew is making an unfortunate generalization. What was probably meant as a corporate confession of sin was twisted into a blanket accusation. It fueled Hitler’s hatred and torched many synagogues.
We could talk about Barabbas, talk about Pilate’s wife and her dream, talk about anti-Semitism. We could even talk about torture; in the text, we hear the empire “flogged” Jesus. They probably attached bits of metal to the cat of nine tails, as Mel Gibson showed us relentlessly in his snuff film from seven years ago. We could talk about the appropriateness of torture in light of God’s grace.
But the most compelling word of the text is not a word at all. It is the silence. Jesus takes all of this in silence. He never said “a mumbalin’ word.” That might be the most unsettling detail of this very unsettling text.
All the Gospel writers agree on his silence. When he is asked, “Are you the King of the Jews? Are you a politician?” Jesus says, “You say so.” Pilate doesn’t know that means, and neither do we. Jesus does not speak another word while he is condemned, tortured, humiliated, and nailed to the cross. Only then does he speak four words from a psalm.
The scene sets before us Jesus and Pilate in an unsettling silence. They are very different from one another. One is bound, the other is free. One is a prisoner, the other is his judge. One has restored life in other people, the other has the authority to take away life and does so regularly. They meet for an unfinished conversation, the details of which differ slightly between the Gospels. But all the stories agree that Jesus concludes the conversation by refusing to say another word. He refuses to defend himself. And the silence is so unnerving that the Roman politician walks out of the room.
Silence has that kind of power. A preacher I know once read his sermon text from the prophet Habbakkuk: “The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him!” (2:20). Then he began his sermon by staring them down. Didn’t move his lips. Didn’t fill the air with cute stories and religious mumbo-jumbo. Just stood there mute. Two minutes went by, five minutes went by. People started to fidget and twitch. One looked at her watch. Another decided to pull his check out of the offering envelope. Still - - nothing. At last a voice rang out; it was one of the ushers. “Hey preacher, would you say something? We aren’t a bunch of Quakers.”
Do you think any of them heard the sermon? I think they did, and they didn’t like it.
Silence is unsettling. The oncologist says, “I will call with the report at 9:00 on Wednesday,” and then the phone doesn’t ring at all. The single mother sleeps with one eye open on prom night, waiting for her daughter to get home, and it’s a quarter past three; nothing. The employment office promised to get right back to you with an offer, and now it’s been two weeks. You get down on your knees to pray, you pour out your heart, you want to grab God by the collar and shake out an answer – but not a sound in return.
Today we hear of a career politician, stuck in a tinderbox town where everybody seemed to have a set of matches. The religious phonies drag some troublemaker in front of him. He can read it for what it is: this Galilean chap has some charisma and they can’t stand him. Pilate doesn’t care about the specific charges. He will not step in the middle of a contest among theological skunks. They hurl their curses and accusations at the prisoner – but he will not say a word. The Roman governor asks incredulously, “Don’t you hear what these people are saying?”
Jesus just stares at him. His eyes, like lasers, drill two holes in the governor’s heart. He will not speak a word. It is a brief moment, filled with haunting ambiguity.
Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, says this ambiguity is the most important detail in all the stories of when Jesus goes on trial. These stories of judgment question our human judgment. The authorities judge Jesus, and in the process they are judged. And that unsettles every aspect of human authority.
The soldiers have had their chance to rough him up. An officer of the temple police smacked him in the face and gave him a swollen lip. They have kept him awake all night and forced him through two interrogations. Now his enemies shove him down to the Roman headquarters. They have no regard for Jesus. They hand him over as a criminal, although they have no specific charges. They insinuate how he deserves the Roman death penalty, yet refuse to explain why. His enemies force Jesus to go through all of this, yet he remains calm, centered, focused, and still.
Pontius Pilate asks, "What evil has he done," knowing the crowd has no rational answer. He makes an offer that could release the man, but other voices prevail. He washes his hands of the matter – but somehow that doesn’t let him off the hook. It is unsettling.
The whole scene reminds us once again how the world resists the love and justice of very Christ through whom all things were made. As another Gospel warned us at Christmas time, "The world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own home, and his own people did not accept him" (John 1:10-11). This is the moment when the world is judged. The Light of the World has come into the world, and the world said, "Turn off the lights!"
And in the thick of it, Jesus stands silent. He doesn't have to say anything or do anything. He leads no revolt. He does not call in a high-priced attorney. His very presence exposes both the sham of his arrest and the indifferent arrogance of the Empire. This is not how we were meant to live: betraying one another, picking on one another, stirring up trouble against one another, striking one another, murdering one another. Yet Jesus neither strikes out nor gives in. In deep and holy silence, he confronts the truth about power with the power of truth.
Kent Groff, our guest speaker for later today, has a brief prayer-poem about this moment. He captures it in just ten words:
Silent statement,
Political action.
Paucity of words,
Audacity in deed. (“Facing East, Praying West,” p. 63)
A friend of mine stopped to see me when his mother was dying. Most of the time, she was at peace about her impending death, and her peacefulness was the disturbing thing for a lot of other people. Friends would stop by to see her, and many were anxious about it. They didn't know what to say. They didn't know what to do, so they brought some things. Some brought food, even though she couldn’t eat very much. Some bring little gifts, and she laughed, "What am I going to do with this?" All the time, he said, she remains still and steadfast -- because nothing could shake her.
My friend and I were talking about that. He said, "Did you ever notice that the person who has true power is not the one who fusses around, stays busy, does all the talking, or tries to push their way upon others? No; it's the person who stays rooted and focused on the ways of God. People like that don't have to prove anything. They just be. Much of the time, they don't have to say a word."
In all of Pilate’s questions, Jesus stands in secure silence. He doesn't have to say or do a thing. So it is Pilate who grows anxious. It's Pilate who tries to appease everybody. It's Pilate who tries to put a lid on the pressure. It's Pilate who goes on trial. Jesus may be bound in chains, but actually he is the One who is free.
Pilate has the army, but Jesus has the power.
Pilate has the throne, but Jesus has the authority.
Pilate asks the questions, but Jesus holds all the answers.
Tell me something: who's the One who is really in charge? And so he stands in silence.
It would be enough to join him in that silence this day. To be quiet. To hush, and to be still. There is nothing to say, there is nothing to prove – not any more. No amount of blathering or babbling on the church’s part is going to correct the injustice of Jesus’ condemnation. There are no words that will undo what the world has done.
Not yet, at least. That day is coming.
We will find our voices on the Third Day. “On the third day . . .”
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Have You Met My Friend Judas?
Matthew 26:14-16, 47-50, 27:3-10
April 3, 2011
Lent 4
William G. Carter
Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I betray him to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he began to look for an opportunity to betray him . . .
When Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. He said, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” But they said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” Throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed..."
Of all the people who populate the Bible, Judas Iscariot may be the most complicated. His story is told in three scenes today.
Whenever Judas is mentioned, two defining details are repeated. First, he is always called “one of the twelve.” He is a chosen disciple of Jesus who called him a friend. Second, Judas is always called “the betrayer.” His very life points to a theological mystery: what happens when the doctrine of election goes badly? Judas is chosen by God in Christ, and the chosen one turns out poorly.
The New Testament struggles to understand him. Three reasons for his actions are given.
He was Under the Influence: In Luke 22:3, we are told “Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve.” Satan tempted Jesus at least three times, says Luke, “departing until an opportune time.” Judas is one of Satan’s opportunities, and if his faith is not strong, he will be “sifted like wheat” (22:31). Similarly, Luke says the jokers around the cross will also tempt the Lord, saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” (23:37)
Judas represents the Dark Side of Predestination: “He was a devil from the beginning,” says the Gospel of John (6:70). In this view, Judas was part of a larger plot -- or a pawn in the divine plan. Some would say he was used by God, perhaps condemned before birth. He never had a chance. In Matthew, Jesus says an enigmatic word: “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have better for that one not to have been born” (26:24).
In the end, it was the Free Choice of Judas to betray the Lord. Was it greed? (Matthew 26:14) Disagreement with Jesus? (John 12:4-7) Depends what you read. Whatever his tangled thinking, Judas’ free will was misused. It could happen to any of us. As Matthew reports, Jesus declared one of the disciples would betray him. Each of them said, “It isn’t me, is it?” Any one of them had the capacity to betray. Judas is singled out for doing what any one of them might do.
Most likely, he was a tangle of motives. Some popular studies suggest Judas was a militant and wanted to force the hand of Jesus. He saw the miracles, knew the power, affirmed Jesus’ authority, but didn’t think Jesus was changing the world fast enough. So, goes the idea, he cut a deal with the enemies to press Jesus into step up into his kingship. Maybe so. We can’t say.
Back in the seminary, Dr. Bruce Metzger peered through owlish spectacles and told us about a variant text for John 6:71. Judas was “son of Simon from Karyot (Kerioth),” a small town in the south of Israel. “Ish-cariot” may have been the Man from Kerioth. If so, since all the other disciples were from the Galilee up north, Judas may have tired of the preferential treatment toward those Yankees. We don’t know.
In one of Barbara Brown Taylor’s sermons, she makes a suggestion that makes sense to me:
Maybe he just fell out of love with Jesus. That happens sometimes. One day you think someone is wonderful and the next day he says or does something that makes you think twice. He reminds you of the difference between the two of you and you start hating him for that - for the difference - enough to begin thinking of some way to hurt him back.
Whatever his reason, Judas is the betrayer. He embodies the horrible words of Psalm 55:
It is not enemies who taunt me - I could bear that;
it is not adversaries who deal insolently with me - I could hide from them.
But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend, with whom I kept pleasant company...
The hard truth about each one of us is that we are capable of building relationships and capable of breaking them. We can make promises to people we love and then sell them out for a lower bidder. We might lean on friends and family for help, and other times we're in it only to take advantage of them. One of the hardest things about being a grown-up is realizing that, in every choice we make, we are going to affect a lot of people. We have the ability to deeply hurt others by choosing only what will please ourselves.
It gives us a glimpse of what God is up against in choosing to save the world. God is faithful and constant with us, even when we are selfish, destructive, and turned toward ourselves. Judas is not struck down with a lightning bolt for considering his betrayal or following through on it. Neither are we struck down. It’s that divine self-restraint that keeps the human race alive. God is full of mercy.
But this brings us to a really troubling part of the story. According to Matthew, God is full of mercy, but his representatives are not. For me, that is the hardest part of this tale.
Our storyteller is clear that Judas repents (27:3-4). He returns to the people who paid him off. He acknowledges his sin. But the religious leaders are harsh and unbending. They show Judas no leniency and allow him to wallow unforgiven. They have no interest in restoration. They show no capacity for compassion. The leaders make no room for a repentant sinner while refusing to acknowledge their own complicity in his crime. Matthew shows us a heartless church, so to speak, formed in grace but refusing to be gracious.
And so goes the church, exiling the member who makes a mistake, shrugging off the deacon who embarrasses his wife, refusing to welcome anybody who is not yet housebroken. The hopeless boozer is shunned. The public thief remains unvisited. All the while, the shrill church lady with an unpleasant mouth offers her commentary, parsing the world into good Christian folk like her and those who are unworthy of her angry God.
When my friend Brent took his own life, he did it because he felt he had nowhere else to go. He was a minister, and he was gay. He was a complicated man, on the one hand, raised by a church to despise people like himself; on the other, inclined to love every child of God. When life turned sour for him, when a tabloid reporter threatened to embarrass him for profit, Brent did not feel he could trust himself to people who might turn against him. All he could do, he wrote, was to throw himself on the mercy of God, who he trusted to be more merciful that the church he knew.
I would like to think my friend misread the situation. Four and a half years later, his friends still feel betrayed. But I can’t deny how he felt – imprisoned in an invisible cell without another way out.
When we make no room for the brokenness of another, we perpetuate the brokenness in ourselves. After Judas betrays Jesus, he is betrayed by the children of God. The people in his day who are most responsible for teaching the love of God are the same people who withhold that love from him. The Unforgiving Church gives him nowhere else to go.
The Bible never declares suicide to be a sin. It frowns on it, of course, because it is the taking of a life. But suicide is never called a sin by scripture, much less an unforgivable sin, any more than the betraying of Jesus is declared to be an unforgivable sin.
No, says Jesus, there is only one unforgivable sin, and that is to speak against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31-32). It is unforgivable to deny that the Spirit casts out demons, makes broken people whole, lifts up the lowly, empowers the inadequate, and blesses the poor in spirit. The unforgivable sin is to deny that God is forgiving, that God comes in the grace of Jesus Christ to heal and show mercy.
And that’s why we come to this Table: not to impress the God who knows how imperfect we are, but to claim the power of our crucified Savior. The church of Jesus Christ is created in his grace. We are called to live by his grace. We are chartered to welcome everybody home. In bread and wine, we declare that Christ is here, to forgive, to welcome, to embrace whatever and whoever the world pushes away. It is not our self-righteousness that we celebrate; we celebrate God’s mercy.
Matthew tells us that Jesus died because of the sins of Judas. But I think we can believe something more than that. We can believe Jesus died for the sins of Judas. Yes, I think we can believe that. Jesus died for the sins of Judas, just as he died for the sins of those who pushed Judas away.
Has the winter been so long that we have forgotten the Sermon on the Mount? Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
April 3, 2011
Lent 4
William G. Carter
Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I betray him to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he began to look for an opportunity to betray him . . .
When Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. He said, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” But they said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” Throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed..."
Of all the people who populate the Bible, Judas Iscariot may be the most complicated. His story is told in three scenes today.
Whenever Judas is mentioned, two defining details are repeated. First, he is always called “one of the twelve.” He is a chosen disciple of Jesus who called him a friend. Second, Judas is always called “the betrayer.” His very life points to a theological mystery: what happens when the doctrine of election goes badly? Judas is chosen by God in Christ, and the chosen one turns out poorly.
The New Testament struggles to understand him. Three reasons for his actions are given.
He was Under the Influence: In Luke 22:3, we are told “Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve.” Satan tempted Jesus at least three times, says Luke, “departing until an opportune time.” Judas is one of Satan’s opportunities, and if his faith is not strong, he will be “sifted like wheat” (22:31). Similarly, Luke says the jokers around the cross will also tempt the Lord, saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” (23:37)
Judas represents the Dark Side of Predestination: “He was a devil from the beginning,” says the Gospel of John (6:70). In this view, Judas was part of a larger plot -- or a pawn in the divine plan. Some would say he was used by God, perhaps condemned before birth. He never had a chance. In Matthew, Jesus says an enigmatic word: “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have better for that one not to have been born” (26:24).
In the end, it was the Free Choice of Judas to betray the Lord. Was it greed? (Matthew 26:14) Disagreement with Jesus? (John 12:4-7) Depends what you read. Whatever his tangled thinking, Judas’ free will was misused. It could happen to any of us. As Matthew reports, Jesus declared one of the disciples would betray him. Each of them said, “It isn’t me, is it?” Any one of them had the capacity to betray. Judas is singled out for doing what any one of them might do.
Most likely, he was a tangle of motives. Some popular studies suggest Judas was a militant and wanted to force the hand of Jesus. He saw the miracles, knew the power, affirmed Jesus’ authority, but didn’t think Jesus was changing the world fast enough. So, goes the idea, he cut a deal with the enemies to press Jesus into step up into his kingship. Maybe so. We can’t say.
Back in the seminary, Dr. Bruce Metzger peered through owlish spectacles and told us about a variant text for John 6:71. Judas was “son of Simon from Karyot (Kerioth),” a small town in the south of Israel. “Ish-cariot” may have been the Man from Kerioth. If so, since all the other disciples were from the Galilee up north, Judas may have tired of the preferential treatment toward those Yankees. We don’t know.
In one of Barbara Brown Taylor’s sermons, she makes a suggestion that makes sense to me:
Maybe he just fell out of love with Jesus. That happens sometimes. One day you think someone is wonderful and the next day he says or does something that makes you think twice. He reminds you of the difference between the two of you and you start hating him for that - for the difference - enough to begin thinking of some way to hurt him back.
Whatever his reason, Judas is the betrayer. He embodies the horrible words of Psalm 55:
It is not enemies who taunt me - I could bear that;
it is not adversaries who deal insolently with me - I could hide from them.
But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend, with whom I kept pleasant company...
The hard truth about each one of us is that we are capable of building relationships and capable of breaking them. We can make promises to people we love and then sell them out for a lower bidder. We might lean on friends and family for help, and other times we're in it only to take advantage of them. One of the hardest things about being a grown-up is realizing that, in every choice we make, we are going to affect a lot of people. We have the ability to deeply hurt others by choosing only what will please ourselves.
It gives us a glimpse of what God is up against in choosing to save the world. God is faithful and constant with us, even when we are selfish, destructive, and turned toward ourselves. Judas is not struck down with a lightning bolt for considering his betrayal or following through on it. Neither are we struck down. It’s that divine self-restraint that keeps the human race alive. God is full of mercy.
But this brings us to a really troubling part of the story. According to Matthew, God is full of mercy, but his representatives are not. For me, that is the hardest part of this tale.
Our storyteller is clear that Judas repents (27:3-4). He returns to the people who paid him off. He acknowledges his sin. But the religious leaders are harsh and unbending. They show Judas no leniency and allow him to wallow unforgiven. They have no interest in restoration. They show no capacity for compassion. The leaders make no room for a repentant sinner while refusing to acknowledge their own complicity in his crime. Matthew shows us a heartless church, so to speak, formed in grace but refusing to be gracious.
And so goes the church, exiling the member who makes a mistake, shrugging off the deacon who embarrasses his wife, refusing to welcome anybody who is not yet housebroken. The hopeless boozer is shunned. The public thief remains unvisited. All the while, the shrill church lady with an unpleasant mouth offers her commentary, parsing the world into good Christian folk like her and those who are unworthy of her angry God.
When my friend Brent took his own life, he did it because he felt he had nowhere else to go. He was a minister, and he was gay. He was a complicated man, on the one hand, raised by a church to despise people like himself; on the other, inclined to love every child of God. When life turned sour for him, when a tabloid reporter threatened to embarrass him for profit, Brent did not feel he could trust himself to people who might turn against him. All he could do, he wrote, was to throw himself on the mercy of God, who he trusted to be more merciful that the church he knew.
I would like to think my friend misread the situation. Four and a half years later, his friends still feel betrayed. But I can’t deny how he felt – imprisoned in an invisible cell without another way out.
When we make no room for the brokenness of another, we perpetuate the brokenness in ourselves. After Judas betrays Jesus, he is betrayed by the children of God. The people in his day who are most responsible for teaching the love of God are the same people who withhold that love from him. The Unforgiving Church gives him nowhere else to go.
The Bible never declares suicide to be a sin. It frowns on it, of course, because it is the taking of a life. But suicide is never called a sin by scripture, much less an unforgivable sin, any more than the betraying of Jesus is declared to be an unforgivable sin.
No, says Jesus, there is only one unforgivable sin, and that is to speak against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31-32). It is unforgivable to deny that the Spirit casts out demons, makes broken people whole, lifts up the lowly, empowers the inadequate, and blesses the poor in spirit. The unforgivable sin is to deny that God is forgiving, that God comes in the grace of Jesus Christ to heal and show mercy.
And that’s why we come to this Table: not to impress the God who knows how imperfect we are, but to claim the power of our crucified Savior. The church of Jesus Christ is created in his grace. We are called to live by his grace. We are chartered to welcome everybody home. In bread and wine, we declare that Christ is here, to forgive, to welcome, to embrace whatever and whoever the world pushes away. It is not our self-righteousness that we celebrate; we celebrate God’s mercy.
Matthew tells us that Jesus died because of the sins of Judas. But I think we can believe something more than that. We can believe Jesus died for the sins of Judas. Yes, I think we can believe that. Jesus died for the sins of Judas, just as he died for the sins of those who pushed Judas away.
Has the winter been so long that we have forgotten the Sermon on the Mount? Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Blood on the Hands
Matthew 26:57-68, 27:24-26
Lent 3
March 27, 2011
William G. Carter
So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” Then the people as a whole answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” So he released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.
I can’t imagine that they meant what they said. The Jews of Jerusalem looked to the cross and said, “His blood be upon us and on our children.” Did they have any idea how people would regard those words for the next twenty centuries?
I had brunch last Sunday with Sam Levine. He is a studio musician in Nashville, in the buckle of the Bible Belt. He was raised a Jew but is now a Presbyterian, an elder at Westminster Presbyterian Church. I mentioned the scripture text that I would read today and he visibly flinched. It wasn’t so long ago that Christian kids threw stones at kids like Sam, because some Sunday School teacher told them that the Jews were Christ Killers. They got that from this text. “His blood be upon us and on our children.”
On Friday morning, John Conklin and I went over to pick up the painting that is now on loan in the narthex. Our church is borrowing it through Lent from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. After wrapping it carefully and loading it on a large rental truck, we were invited to lunch at the conference center where we were picking up the painting. Within a few minutes of sitting down, we were joined by a female rabbi who heard why we were there. She was very interested in learning what a group of Christians were going to do with a painting of Jesus crucified in a Jewish death camp.
“You know,” she said, “the relationship between Christians and Jews hasn’t been so hunky-dory. Just thought I’d ask.”
She has a right to be suspicious. Jewish people have been kicked around by most of the countries where they have lived. In the time of Jesus, they were kicked around in their own country. The Empire had stomped in with bloody boots. They set up battalions and plundered the commerce, all in the name of peace – Roman Peace. They maintained control through sheer brutality. Any Jew that got in the way was considered expendable. That’s what empires do – they roll over anybody who gets in the way.
Through the centuries, the Jewish people of God have had far more than their share of brutality. Ever since the ancient Pharoah who did not know Joseph, Jews have been the victims of abuse. So I expect the rabbi in New York and my friend Sam in Tennessee to be quite sensitive to how the Jewish people would be portrayed by a Christian congregation.
I think we have to hear our text with a similar sensitivity. We are playing with dynamite here.
Maybe you have heard it said that Matthew is the most Jewish of the Gospels. I don’t think that’s true. Luke is actually a cozier Gospel for Jews: there is high regard for the Jewish Temple, Jesus is described in terms of a Jewish prophet, and Luke is constantly alluding to the Jewish scriptures in the way he tells his stories.
By contrast, Matthew writes down his Gospel at a very painful time and place. The church was going through a bitter divorce from the synagogue. Christianity had begun as a small sect of Judaism, but the day had come when both affirmed irreconcilable differences. In 80 AD or so, the Jerusalem Temple had been demolished by the empire, and Judaism had to make its way without the central sanctuary of the faith. Congregations grew up around local synagogues. Rabbis took on a stronger role, replacing temple priests who were obsolete. With this, Judaism got nervous about those who believed the Messiah was Jesus.
At the same time, Christian congregations continued to gather non-Jewish believers. The church was slowly becoming an international movement. Christians decided to define themselves over against their Jewish grandparents. Matthew was writing in Syria, at Ground Zero for this major religious shift.
That’s probably why he remembers some of the things that he does. In Matthew’s Gospel, and only there, Jesus says, “I did not come to abolish the law and the prophets; I came to fulfill them.” Do you hear that? In Matthew, he hears Jesus say, “You have heard what the Jewish Law said, but I say something different to you…” Hear that? In Matthew, Jesus is very critical of the scribes, Pharisees, and the religious officials of his time.
In chapter 23, Jesus harangues endlessly against the hypocrites who say one thing and do another. He criticizes a religious system of heavy rules and ungracious legislation. He points an accusing finger at the nitpickers who always seem to bottom-feed in any religious community. Matthew never says Jesus is condemning the Jewish faith. But he does take on anybody who numbly follows the rules and forgets the graciousness of God that lies behind them. His Jesus says, “They strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (23:24)
The problem we have is that good Christian people have thought he was talking about all Jews everywhere. Not so! We can’t universalize a first century critique of a recurring ecumenical problem. Maybe you’ve noticed: Christian people can nitpick just like the people of any other faith. Sometimes they can put their brains on the shelf and function without their hearts. I am embarrassed at some of the mean-edged nonsense that some Christian pastors say when somebody points a TV camera in their direction. It seems the more extreme the position, the more play it gets on the news.
There is no place for hatred in the name of a Jesus who teaches us to love our enemies. There is no place for racism in the name of the Christ who says, “Blessed are the merciful and the peacemakers.” There is no possibility of moral superiority for those who hear their Master say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit and blessed are the meek.”
Nevertheless a lot of trouble got started by our text. Matthew takes a broad brush to paint the trial of Jesus. That is unfortunate and probably inaccurate. To quote him, he does say, “The people as a whole answered (Pontius Pilate), ‘his blood be upon us and our children.’” He says, “The people as a whole.” That cannot be. Historically that was not true. There were Jews who were very sympathetic to Jesus – there still are. To declare uncritically that they spoke with one voice would be to misunderstand how crowds work.
And as my rabbi friend says, “Have you ever known a group of Jews to agree on anything?” I responded, “I have never known a group of Presbyterians to agree on anything.” Even if the vote is unanimous, it is never unanimous. You never hear all of the opinions until you get out to the parking lot. Even if the majority is crying out for blood, there is always somebody in the crowd who does not agree. So we have to be cautious of universalizing the voice of the crowd.
Now, the account is clear: the chief priests and the whole religious council have it in for Jesus. They have grown annoyed at his teachings. They have paid off Judas to turn him in. By chapter 26, they have captured Jesus and roughed him up. They have even broken God’s commandments, particularly the ones that say, “Do not bear false witness, and do not lie!” Instead, they are skulking around, wondering out loud, “Surely there’s somebody here who would lie about Jesus.” To nobody’s surprise, a few such people speak up, twist the truth, and Jesus refuses to dignify their lies by making any response.
The condemnation of Jesus is a complicated matter. There are mixed motives, ambiguous feelings, divided hearts, jealous urges, even guilt and regret -- especially in Judas, his betrayer. We don’t make it any better by flattening the whole complicated mess and saying there’s only one way to perceive this.
Just take that self-inflicted curse, “His blood be upon us and our children.” They were painful words for generations of those children. Christianity began as a minority sect within the minority faith of Judaism. Some three or four hundred years later, the Roman Empire changed and became the Holy Roman Empire. With Christians on the throne, it was only a matter of time before the same unimaginative nitpicking began in those in charge.
In latter days, they read Matthew’s ancient report and flattened it out. The Jews supposedly said, ‘His blood be upon us and our children.” In some narrow minds, that justified pogroms, inquisitions, and exterminations. This is what Empire Status tends to do to insensitive people. They start using their God-given imaginations in most unholy ways. They convert trees into crosses. They turn showers into gas chambers. And they operate on the ambitious belief that they, not God, shall decide who is acceptable and who is not.
What did we lose in Hitler’s empire? Six million Jews, 75,000 disabled people, 500,000 Gypsies, 2.8 million Russian POWs, unnumbered thousands of homosexuals. Those are the ones we know about. Just like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, the empire murdered in the name of God. It could happen again, unless we say no. For genocide never comes in the name of the biblical God, the God of Israel. It comes in the name of an unholy trinity of arrogance, abuse, and power.
So who killed Jesus? Who bears the responsibility for his death?
The religious leaders played their part – chief priests, scribes, Pharisees, whoever. None of them wanted Jesus around. They heard his criticism and wanted to silence his voice. But they had no authority for a capital execution, especially in an occupied country.
There is the empire’s governor, Pontius Pilate. He had the authority to decide for death. Historians say he probably exercised that right every day. But Matthew says Pilate wanted nothing to do with the matter. Even his wife came out of the shadows and said, “Have nothing to do with that innocent man; he’s giving me nightmares.” So Pilate asks for a bowl of water, washes his hands, and says, “I want nothing to do with this.” That is, until he gave the order. The empire always gives the order.
And then there’s the crowd: “His blood be upon us” – if, in fact, they actually said that. Clearly there were many people in that day could not welcome Jesus with an open heart. But before we dare to accuse one group or another, let’s confess our own thirst for blood. Violence is a human addiction, a spectator sport. The most civilized nations in the world pay money to watch grown brutes knock heads together, and then retire them when their brains are damaged. We bomb dictators who live far away. We continue wars even after they lose their purpose. We grow comfortably numb with our viciousness. We love blood – even if it’s God’s blood.
“His blood be upon us.” And it is. Upon all of us.
The sermon illustration that I have for you is the stirring painting in our narthex. While it remains here during the season of Lent, I invite you to spend some time before it. It is called “Christ at Auschwitz.” The man on the cross wears a yarmulke. He is humiliated as one in a death camp. A religious priest on the left looks away in willful ignorance. The nun on the right scowls at a naked Jew and misses what is really going on – she is straining her own gnat, so to speak, while swallowing the camel. And it corrects every flattened-out, anti-Semitic spin on the crucifixion. See this: Jesus was not so much crucified by his people; he is crucified among his people.
The Man on the cross is surrounded by people who are tattooed, abused, and condemned. He is in the middle of them all. And he remains with them until the human race decides that violence is not God’s way.
Not then. Not now. Not ever.
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
Lent 3
March 27, 2011
William G. Carter
So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” Then the people as a whole answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” So he released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.
I can’t imagine that they meant what they said. The Jews of Jerusalem looked to the cross and said, “His blood be upon us and on our children.” Did they have any idea how people would regard those words for the next twenty centuries?
I had brunch last Sunday with Sam Levine. He is a studio musician in Nashville, in the buckle of the Bible Belt. He was raised a Jew but is now a Presbyterian, an elder at Westminster Presbyterian Church. I mentioned the scripture text that I would read today and he visibly flinched. It wasn’t so long ago that Christian kids threw stones at kids like Sam, because some Sunday School teacher told them that the Jews were Christ Killers. They got that from this text. “His blood be upon us and on our children.”
On Friday morning, John Conklin and I went over to pick up the painting that is now on loan in the narthex. Our church is borrowing it through Lent from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. After wrapping it carefully and loading it on a large rental truck, we were invited to lunch at the conference center where we were picking up the painting. Within a few minutes of sitting down, we were joined by a female rabbi who heard why we were there. She was very interested in learning what a group of Christians were going to do with a painting of Jesus crucified in a Jewish death camp.
“You know,” she said, “the relationship between Christians and Jews hasn’t been so hunky-dory. Just thought I’d ask.”
She has a right to be suspicious. Jewish people have been kicked around by most of the countries where they have lived. In the time of Jesus, they were kicked around in their own country. The Empire had stomped in with bloody boots. They set up battalions and plundered the commerce, all in the name of peace – Roman Peace. They maintained control through sheer brutality. Any Jew that got in the way was considered expendable. That’s what empires do – they roll over anybody who gets in the way.
Through the centuries, the Jewish people of God have had far more than their share of brutality. Ever since the ancient Pharoah who did not know Joseph, Jews have been the victims of abuse. So I expect the rabbi in New York and my friend Sam in Tennessee to be quite sensitive to how the Jewish people would be portrayed by a Christian congregation.
I think we have to hear our text with a similar sensitivity. We are playing with dynamite here.
Maybe you have heard it said that Matthew is the most Jewish of the Gospels. I don’t think that’s true. Luke is actually a cozier Gospel for Jews: there is high regard for the Jewish Temple, Jesus is described in terms of a Jewish prophet, and Luke is constantly alluding to the Jewish scriptures in the way he tells his stories.
By contrast, Matthew writes down his Gospel at a very painful time and place. The church was going through a bitter divorce from the synagogue. Christianity had begun as a small sect of Judaism, but the day had come when both affirmed irreconcilable differences. In 80 AD or so, the Jerusalem Temple had been demolished by the empire, and Judaism had to make its way without the central sanctuary of the faith. Congregations grew up around local synagogues. Rabbis took on a stronger role, replacing temple priests who were obsolete. With this, Judaism got nervous about those who believed the Messiah was Jesus.
At the same time, Christian congregations continued to gather non-Jewish believers. The church was slowly becoming an international movement. Christians decided to define themselves over against their Jewish grandparents. Matthew was writing in Syria, at Ground Zero for this major religious shift.
That’s probably why he remembers some of the things that he does. In Matthew’s Gospel, and only there, Jesus says, “I did not come to abolish the law and the prophets; I came to fulfill them.” Do you hear that? In Matthew, he hears Jesus say, “You have heard what the Jewish Law said, but I say something different to you…” Hear that? In Matthew, Jesus is very critical of the scribes, Pharisees, and the religious officials of his time.
In chapter 23, Jesus harangues endlessly against the hypocrites who say one thing and do another. He criticizes a religious system of heavy rules and ungracious legislation. He points an accusing finger at the nitpickers who always seem to bottom-feed in any religious community. Matthew never says Jesus is condemning the Jewish faith. But he does take on anybody who numbly follows the rules and forgets the graciousness of God that lies behind them. His Jesus says, “They strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (23:24)
The problem we have is that good Christian people have thought he was talking about all Jews everywhere. Not so! We can’t universalize a first century critique of a recurring ecumenical problem. Maybe you’ve noticed: Christian people can nitpick just like the people of any other faith. Sometimes they can put their brains on the shelf and function without their hearts. I am embarrassed at some of the mean-edged nonsense that some Christian pastors say when somebody points a TV camera in their direction. It seems the more extreme the position, the more play it gets on the news.
There is no place for hatred in the name of a Jesus who teaches us to love our enemies. There is no place for racism in the name of the Christ who says, “Blessed are the merciful and the peacemakers.” There is no possibility of moral superiority for those who hear their Master say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit and blessed are the meek.”
Nevertheless a lot of trouble got started by our text. Matthew takes a broad brush to paint the trial of Jesus. That is unfortunate and probably inaccurate. To quote him, he does say, “The people as a whole answered (Pontius Pilate), ‘his blood be upon us and our children.’” He says, “The people as a whole.” That cannot be. Historically that was not true. There were Jews who were very sympathetic to Jesus – there still are. To declare uncritically that they spoke with one voice would be to misunderstand how crowds work.
And as my rabbi friend says, “Have you ever known a group of Jews to agree on anything?” I responded, “I have never known a group of Presbyterians to agree on anything.” Even if the vote is unanimous, it is never unanimous. You never hear all of the opinions until you get out to the parking lot. Even if the majority is crying out for blood, there is always somebody in the crowd who does not agree. So we have to be cautious of universalizing the voice of the crowd.
Now, the account is clear: the chief priests and the whole religious council have it in for Jesus. They have grown annoyed at his teachings. They have paid off Judas to turn him in. By chapter 26, they have captured Jesus and roughed him up. They have even broken God’s commandments, particularly the ones that say, “Do not bear false witness, and do not lie!” Instead, they are skulking around, wondering out loud, “Surely there’s somebody here who would lie about Jesus.” To nobody’s surprise, a few such people speak up, twist the truth, and Jesus refuses to dignify their lies by making any response.
The condemnation of Jesus is a complicated matter. There are mixed motives, ambiguous feelings, divided hearts, jealous urges, even guilt and regret -- especially in Judas, his betrayer. We don’t make it any better by flattening the whole complicated mess and saying there’s only one way to perceive this.
Just take that self-inflicted curse, “His blood be upon us and our children.” They were painful words for generations of those children. Christianity began as a minority sect within the minority faith of Judaism. Some three or four hundred years later, the Roman Empire changed and became the Holy Roman Empire. With Christians on the throne, it was only a matter of time before the same unimaginative nitpicking began in those in charge.
In latter days, they read Matthew’s ancient report and flattened it out. The Jews supposedly said, ‘His blood be upon us and our children.” In some narrow minds, that justified pogroms, inquisitions, and exterminations. This is what Empire Status tends to do to insensitive people. They start using their God-given imaginations in most unholy ways. They convert trees into crosses. They turn showers into gas chambers. And they operate on the ambitious belief that they, not God, shall decide who is acceptable and who is not.
What did we lose in Hitler’s empire? Six million Jews, 75,000 disabled people, 500,000 Gypsies, 2.8 million Russian POWs, unnumbered thousands of homosexuals. Those are the ones we know about. Just like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, the empire murdered in the name of God. It could happen again, unless we say no. For genocide never comes in the name of the biblical God, the God of Israel. It comes in the name of an unholy trinity of arrogance, abuse, and power.
So who killed Jesus? Who bears the responsibility for his death?
The religious leaders played their part – chief priests, scribes, Pharisees, whoever. None of them wanted Jesus around. They heard his criticism and wanted to silence his voice. But they had no authority for a capital execution, especially in an occupied country.
There is the empire’s governor, Pontius Pilate. He had the authority to decide for death. Historians say he probably exercised that right every day. But Matthew says Pilate wanted nothing to do with the matter. Even his wife came out of the shadows and said, “Have nothing to do with that innocent man; he’s giving me nightmares.” So Pilate asks for a bowl of water, washes his hands, and says, “I want nothing to do with this.” That is, until he gave the order. The empire always gives the order.
And then there’s the crowd: “His blood be upon us” – if, in fact, they actually said that. Clearly there were many people in that day could not welcome Jesus with an open heart. But before we dare to accuse one group or another, let’s confess our own thirst for blood. Violence is a human addiction, a spectator sport. The most civilized nations in the world pay money to watch grown brutes knock heads together, and then retire them when their brains are damaged. We bomb dictators who live far away. We continue wars even after they lose their purpose. We grow comfortably numb with our viciousness. We love blood – even if it’s God’s blood.
“His blood be upon us.” And it is. Upon all of us.
The sermon illustration that I have for you is the stirring painting in our narthex. While it remains here during the season of Lent, I invite you to spend some time before it. It is called “Christ at Auschwitz.” The man on the cross wears a yarmulke. He is humiliated as one in a death camp. A religious priest on the left looks away in willful ignorance. The nun on the right scowls at a naked Jew and misses what is really going on – she is straining her own gnat, so to speak, while swallowing the camel. And it corrects every flattened-out, anti-Semitic spin on the crucifixion. See this: Jesus was not so much crucified by his people; he is crucified among his people.
The Man on the cross is surrounded by people who are tattooed, abused, and condemned. He is in the middle of them all. And he remains with them until the human race decides that violence is not God’s way.
Not then. Not now. Not ever.
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Why Are We Here?
Matthew 21:12-17
Lent 1
March 13, 2011
William G. Carter
Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.”
I can't hear this story without remembering Shirley Seibel. She was married to the minister of the church where I grew up, and she was known to have a bit of a temper.
Up until Shirley and her husband came to town, most of the minister's wives did the things that minister's wives were expected to do. They baked cookies and served tea. They played the piano and consoled their ruffled husbands. They stayed in the background. You realize, of course, that was back in the days before ministers were allowed to have husbands. In our community, Shirley was the first to break the mold. She refused to join the choir. She boldly announced, "I don't teach Sunday School." And if that wasn't enough, she publicly denounced the annual rummage sale in fellowship hall.
The rummage sale was quite an institution. For one weekend every October, the women's association took over fellowship hall. They put up tables and invited people to donate their used mammon. A couple of volunteers spent the better part of a day writing prices on little pieces of masking tape and sticking them to each item. Then on Friday and Saturday, they opened the doors and invited the community to buy Presbyterian leftovers.
Shirley thought it was awful, and she said so. "The church isn't supposed to get involved in the buying and selling of junk," she said to anybody who would listen. "That’s not why we are here. If we're not careful, Jesus is going to come down here and cleanse this temple." That was my first real contact with this Bible story; ever since, I've been a little bit nervous.
The usual way we understand the story of the cleansing of the temple is that Jesus is condemning the buying and selling of merchandise on religious turf. I don't know how you feel about it, but I get uneasy whenever money changes hands. Some churches sell books, tapes, or videos in the narthex. I heard about a church that sells hot lattes. Sometimes the kids sell hoagies and chocolates so they can go to a mission trip. That’s innocent enough until the money becomes more important than worship. This is a house of prayer, first and foremost. And that’s why we are hear.
The usual way to interpret this story from Matthew 21 begins there. We condemn any kind of commercialism within the church. We may be strangely silent about commercialism outside the church, but within the church, we don't want to see it.
I remember a children's Bible that I sold on eBay. There was a picture of today’s Bible scene. Beneath was a caption: "Jesus is chasing some people out of the church. They didn't come to church to love God and pray. No, they are selling things to get a lot of money and be rich."
Whether or not you agree with that perspective, I should probably remind you that most of the Jews in the time of Jesus would not have seen the issue in quite this way. Never mind that the temple and the church were two very different institutions. For the first century Jew, there was no split between "sacred" and "secular." They would never have said, "Prayer is sacred, but buying and selling is secular." Oh no, that's a modern construct. It is usually perpetuated by people who don't want to part with any of their money when they go to worship.
No, the Jesus we meet in the Gospel of Matthew has the authority to rule over all of life. As an act of God’s mercy, he healed the blind and the lame who came to him in the temple. They come to him, says Matthew. They come to him – even though the book of Leviticus was clear: “anybody who is blind or lame shall not come near God’s altar” (Lev. 21:18). But they come to Jesus – and he cures them. He has the authority of God to do that.
The children know this. They come to Jesus in the temple – even though children were widely expected to be never seen and never heard. They shout out the praises, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” They name him as the Messiah, and the chief priests and scribes went ballistic. “Do you hear this?” they bellowed. Mere children, the weakest and littlest, dared to affirm Jesus. Jesus looked at the religious leaders and said, ‘Go and read your own Bible, Psalm 8 to be exact: “Out of the mouths of babes you have prepared praises.’” He could say, because he had the authority.
This Jesus, the man who drove out the temple merchants, was a rabble rouser with a purpose. He goes to God’s house to do a little housecleaning. And whenever we go to God’s house, we might have our own houses turned upside-down.
Shortly after he turns over the moneychanger's tables and shoos away all the doves, some people come up to trap him while he's in the temple. They say, "Teacher, should we pay taxes to Caesar?" He responds to that question with another question: "Anybody here got a quarter?" (One of them says, "Sure.") He asks, "Whose head is on the quarter?" Well, it's the emperor's head. So in our kind of thinking, we say, "Give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor, give to Obama what belongs to Obama, and sometime next month, give to the IRS what belongs to the IRS. Then and only then, give to God what belongs to God; that is, the leftovers."
But the first-century Jew didn't see it that way. You give to God what belongs to God. And what belongs to God? Everything! "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." (Psalm 24:1) If you believe God is involved in everything, you have to recast your life so that God is served by everything, even that little silver idol with Caesar’s face on it.
That's why people went to the temple. They went to honor the God who is concerned about the whole of human life. The temple was the place where heaven touched earth. It was where people returned back to God something of what they received from God. If you receive a baby who opens your womb, you offer a sacrifice to say thank you. If you are cured of a disease by the Great Physician, you offered up an animal to express your gratitude. If you committed some sin, and wanted to atone for it, you could purchase an unblemished lamb as a sin offering.
In the ancient world, every good religion had a temple, and commercial activity was normal. Joachim Jeremias, the great Bible scholar, says the Jerusalem temple was the basis for the city's economy. If you wanted to offer up prayers to God, you had to have the right goods. Fortunately for most worshipers, the Jerusalem temple provided the very goods you needed in order to worship God. As one commentator puts it quite plainly, "If you're traveling all the way down from Galilee from three days away, do you really want to carry a couple of doves in a cage, where they might become sick or bruised or impure? Why not wait until you got there, and pick up what you needed at the temple?"
So why is Jesus so hot and bothered? He is not condemning the sacrificial system of Jerusalem. Otherwise he would be going after the high priest, who was authorized to do the sacrifices. No, he lets the theologians deal with that one after his death.
Rather, his attack is quite focused. He goes after the money changers. Do you know who they are? They are the street representatives of the Jerusalem financial district. They make a little money on every little sale, kind of like a legitimate tax collector who charges a little extra and skims off the top. According to the scholars, do you know who stood to benefit most from their sales? It wasn't the poorest of the poor; you can be sure of that. No, it was the priests' union. The whole religion was mandated by the priests, who stood to profit by their mandate. The poorest worshipers, the one who needed the most help, were the ones who gained the least.
Not only that, Jesus goes after the dove sellers. Not the lamb sellers, but the dove sellers. There was a difference. In the book of Leviticus, it says, "If you're going to offer a sacrifice, and you don't have enough money to buy a good lamb, you can buy a couple of doves as a poor person's offering." (Lev. 5:7, 12:8)
For what it's worth, that is how we know Jesus was born into a poor family. When he was dedicated in the temple, his parents offered a couple of doves as a sacrifice, because they were too poor to afford an unblemished lamb.
So why does Jesus go after the dove sellers? Because they exploit the poor. The whole system is requiring the poor to make religious sacrifices, and then charging them money to provide for the sacrifices. It was not only about profit; it was about exploitation. The religion of God the redeemer became more and more distant from those who needed it most.
So Jesus goes into the temple, and he throws out those who are buying and selling, and he casts out the money changers, and he stops anybody who gets in his way. If you know the Gospel of Matthew, you know what this is: it's an expression of his authority. He has the authority to cure the blind and the lame. He has authority to cast out the forces that oppress and demean human life. Now he goes right into the Jerusalem temple and throws out the money-changers. This Jesus is more than a reformer. He is a Savior, and he confronts any authority or any power that puts people down and keeps them down.
As a result, those who have a vested interest in the institution look for a way to kill him. It isn’t long before the chief priests and the scribes begin to plot against him.
The Bible wants us to know that Jesus comes to heal something more than ruffled feathers, broken fingernails, and bruised feelings. He comes to save the whole world. Jesus comes to attack the forces that hurt us and damage others. He is the Messiah of God, whom death cannot confine, whom illness cannot destroy. And he questions any form of religion where the rich and famous are honored and adored, while widows are plundered and people with basic human needs are thrown away.
"In fact," he said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees! You sit on the seat of Moses, the great teacher, but you do not practice what you teach. You lay religious burdens on the shoulders of others, but you are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. You prance around in public, take the places of honor, and love to have everybody bow down in respect. You forgot that you were called to be servants, and exalt yourselves above everybody else.” (23:1-12)
I realize that's the way of the world. In our time, the gap between the mighty and the lowly continues to grow. The chasm between the few affluent nations of the world and the many, many poor nations continues to widen.
But listen to what Jesus goes on to say. "Do you see the big stones of this temple, which were constructed on the backs of the poor? Do you see these large buildings which are monuments to injustice? The day is coming when this entire oppressive machine will be pulled apart piece by piece. The day is coming when selfishness will be dismantled, greed will be dethroned. Not one stone will be left upon another." Tell me: is that good news? Or is that bad news? Depends on where you stand.
In the meantime, I do know this: anybody who talks like this could get themselves killed. Anybody who keeps standing up for justice is going to get crucified.
And if there's any justice in heaven, they will also be raised from the dead.
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
Lent 1
March 13, 2011
William G. Carter
Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.”
I can't hear this story without remembering Shirley Seibel. She was married to the minister of the church where I grew up, and she was known to have a bit of a temper.
Up until Shirley and her husband came to town, most of the minister's wives did the things that minister's wives were expected to do. They baked cookies and served tea. They played the piano and consoled their ruffled husbands. They stayed in the background. You realize, of course, that was back in the days before ministers were allowed to have husbands. In our community, Shirley was the first to break the mold. She refused to join the choir. She boldly announced, "I don't teach Sunday School." And if that wasn't enough, she publicly denounced the annual rummage sale in fellowship hall.
The rummage sale was quite an institution. For one weekend every October, the women's association took over fellowship hall. They put up tables and invited people to donate their used mammon. A couple of volunteers spent the better part of a day writing prices on little pieces of masking tape and sticking them to each item. Then on Friday and Saturday, they opened the doors and invited the community to buy Presbyterian leftovers.
Shirley thought it was awful, and she said so. "The church isn't supposed to get involved in the buying and selling of junk," she said to anybody who would listen. "That’s not why we are here. If we're not careful, Jesus is going to come down here and cleanse this temple." That was my first real contact with this Bible story; ever since, I've been a little bit nervous.
The usual way we understand the story of the cleansing of the temple is that Jesus is condemning the buying and selling of merchandise on religious turf. I don't know how you feel about it, but I get uneasy whenever money changes hands. Some churches sell books, tapes, or videos in the narthex. I heard about a church that sells hot lattes. Sometimes the kids sell hoagies and chocolates so they can go to a mission trip. That’s innocent enough until the money becomes more important than worship. This is a house of prayer, first and foremost. And that’s why we are hear.
The usual way to interpret this story from Matthew 21 begins there. We condemn any kind of commercialism within the church. We may be strangely silent about commercialism outside the church, but within the church, we don't want to see it.
I remember a children's Bible that I sold on eBay. There was a picture of today’s Bible scene. Beneath was a caption: "Jesus is chasing some people out of the church. They didn't come to church to love God and pray. No, they are selling things to get a lot of money and be rich."
Whether or not you agree with that perspective, I should probably remind you that most of the Jews in the time of Jesus would not have seen the issue in quite this way. Never mind that the temple and the church were two very different institutions. For the first century Jew, there was no split between "sacred" and "secular." They would never have said, "Prayer is sacred, but buying and selling is secular." Oh no, that's a modern construct. It is usually perpetuated by people who don't want to part with any of their money when they go to worship.
No, the Jesus we meet in the Gospel of Matthew has the authority to rule over all of life. As an act of God’s mercy, he healed the blind and the lame who came to him in the temple. They come to him, says Matthew. They come to him – even though the book of Leviticus was clear: “anybody who is blind or lame shall not come near God’s altar” (Lev. 21:18). But they come to Jesus – and he cures them. He has the authority of God to do that.
The children know this. They come to Jesus in the temple – even though children were widely expected to be never seen and never heard. They shout out the praises, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” They name him as the Messiah, and the chief priests and scribes went ballistic. “Do you hear this?” they bellowed. Mere children, the weakest and littlest, dared to affirm Jesus. Jesus looked at the religious leaders and said, ‘Go and read your own Bible, Psalm 8 to be exact: “Out of the mouths of babes you have prepared praises.’” He could say, because he had the authority.
This Jesus, the man who drove out the temple merchants, was a rabble rouser with a purpose. He goes to God’s house to do a little housecleaning. And whenever we go to God’s house, we might have our own houses turned upside-down.
Shortly after he turns over the moneychanger's tables and shoos away all the doves, some people come up to trap him while he's in the temple. They say, "Teacher, should we pay taxes to Caesar?" He responds to that question with another question: "Anybody here got a quarter?" (One of them says, "Sure.") He asks, "Whose head is on the quarter?" Well, it's the emperor's head. So in our kind of thinking, we say, "Give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor, give to Obama what belongs to Obama, and sometime next month, give to the IRS what belongs to the IRS. Then and only then, give to God what belongs to God; that is, the leftovers."
But the first-century Jew didn't see it that way. You give to God what belongs to God. And what belongs to God? Everything! "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." (Psalm 24:1) If you believe God is involved in everything, you have to recast your life so that God is served by everything, even that little silver idol with Caesar’s face on it.
That's why people went to the temple. They went to honor the God who is concerned about the whole of human life. The temple was the place where heaven touched earth. It was where people returned back to God something of what they received from God. If you receive a baby who opens your womb, you offer a sacrifice to say thank you. If you are cured of a disease by the Great Physician, you offered up an animal to express your gratitude. If you committed some sin, and wanted to atone for it, you could purchase an unblemished lamb as a sin offering.
In the ancient world, every good religion had a temple, and commercial activity was normal. Joachim Jeremias, the great Bible scholar, says the Jerusalem temple was the basis for the city's economy. If you wanted to offer up prayers to God, you had to have the right goods. Fortunately for most worshipers, the Jerusalem temple provided the very goods you needed in order to worship God. As one commentator puts it quite plainly, "If you're traveling all the way down from Galilee from three days away, do you really want to carry a couple of doves in a cage, where they might become sick or bruised or impure? Why not wait until you got there, and pick up what you needed at the temple?"
So why is Jesus so hot and bothered? He is not condemning the sacrificial system of Jerusalem. Otherwise he would be going after the high priest, who was authorized to do the sacrifices. No, he lets the theologians deal with that one after his death.
Rather, his attack is quite focused. He goes after the money changers. Do you know who they are? They are the street representatives of the Jerusalem financial district. They make a little money on every little sale, kind of like a legitimate tax collector who charges a little extra and skims off the top. According to the scholars, do you know who stood to benefit most from their sales? It wasn't the poorest of the poor; you can be sure of that. No, it was the priests' union. The whole religion was mandated by the priests, who stood to profit by their mandate. The poorest worshipers, the one who needed the most help, were the ones who gained the least.
Not only that, Jesus goes after the dove sellers. Not the lamb sellers, but the dove sellers. There was a difference. In the book of Leviticus, it says, "If you're going to offer a sacrifice, and you don't have enough money to buy a good lamb, you can buy a couple of doves as a poor person's offering." (Lev. 5:7, 12:8)
For what it's worth, that is how we know Jesus was born into a poor family. When he was dedicated in the temple, his parents offered a couple of doves as a sacrifice, because they were too poor to afford an unblemished lamb.
So why does Jesus go after the dove sellers? Because they exploit the poor. The whole system is requiring the poor to make religious sacrifices, and then charging them money to provide for the sacrifices. It was not only about profit; it was about exploitation. The religion of God the redeemer became more and more distant from those who needed it most.
So Jesus goes into the temple, and he throws out those who are buying and selling, and he casts out the money changers, and he stops anybody who gets in his way. If you know the Gospel of Matthew, you know what this is: it's an expression of his authority. He has the authority to cure the blind and the lame. He has authority to cast out the forces that oppress and demean human life. Now he goes right into the Jerusalem temple and throws out the money-changers. This Jesus is more than a reformer. He is a Savior, and he confronts any authority or any power that puts people down and keeps them down.
As a result, those who have a vested interest in the institution look for a way to kill him. It isn’t long before the chief priests and the scribes begin to plot against him.
The Bible wants us to know that Jesus comes to heal something more than ruffled feathers, broken fingernails, and bruised feelings. He comes to save the whole world. Jesus comes to attack the forces that hurt us and damage others. He is the Messiah of God, whom death cannot confine, whom illness cannot destroy. And he questions any form of religion where the rich and famous are honored and adored, while widows are plundered and people with basic human needs are thrown away.
"In fact," he said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees! You sit on the seat of Moses, the great teacher, but you do not practice what you teach. You lay religious burdens on the shoulders of others, but you are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. You prance around in public, take the places of honor, and love to have everybody bow down in respect. You forgot that you were called to be servants, and exalt yourselves above everybody else.” (23:1-12)
I realize that's the way of the world. In our time, the gap between the mighty and the lowly continues to grow. The chasm between the few affluent nations of the world and the many, many poor nations continues to widen.
But listen to what Jesus goes on to say. "Do you see the big stones of this temple, which were constructed on the backs of the poor? Do you see these large buildings which are monuments to injustice? The day is coming when this entire oppressive machine will be pulled apart piece by piece. The day is coming when selfishness will be dismantled, greed will be dethroned. Not one stone will be left upon another." Tell me: is that good news? Or is that bad news? Depends on where you stand.
In the meantime, I do know this: anybody who talks like this could get themselves killed. Anybody who keeps standing up for justice is going to get crucified.
And if there's any justice in heaven, they will also be raised from the dead.
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
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