Sunday 30 May 2010 - The Servant King

I was asked to supply-preach this morning on the general subject of "Memorial Day". I chose to use the assigned Epistle reading from the lectionary, Romans 5:1-11 but I departed from the lectionary for the Gospel reading and chose the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet from John: John 13:1-9

Introduction

I’d like you to imagine with me a screenplay for a television movie.

The main character in my imaginary movie is a CIA agent who I’ll call Josh. Josh has spent the last three years working on a case that is very important to the security of the United States. He’s been hot on the trail of a terrorist cell and he’s just managed to uncover a major attack that is about to go down in one of the biggest cities in the US. Josh has just found out the time and the place for this attack and he’s even found out who is responsible for its planning. Furthermore, Josh knows that the terrorist group is on to him and that they are sending operatives to kill him.

And then, the movie switches scenes. Josh is at home. Knowing that a group of thugs has been sent to assassinate him in the next few hours before the CIA can put effective protection into place, Josh has chosen to go home to his family of twelve sons.

And what does he do? Does he pack his bags quickly and tell his sons that their lives are in danger and that they should leave immediately? No.

Instead, he prepares and shares a lavish meal with them. He tells them to remember him and to always do what is right and that, if they do, they will find that he is always with them. All of this takes hours. It’s not even a rushed meal before a quick get-away. It’s a proper, lavish, sit-down meal. Then he tells each son that, before he goes, he’s going to spend some time with each one of them, leaving each son with a with a personal memory of him because they will probably never see him again. As Josh speaks first to one son and then another, he also washes that son’s feet.

And while each one-on-one conversation is going on, Josh’s sons get more and more panic stricken. “The terrorists are after him! It’s been something like six hours now since he found out they were coming for him! Why doesn’t he leave the house? Does he want to get killed?”

In the final scene of my screen-play, the terrorists burst into the house, take Josh away, try him and execute him. Josh dies and the movie ends.

I wonder if anyone here thinks I’d have a chance of selling this screenplay to a network? Don’t worry, I don’t think that I’d have much of a chance, either.

The story is weird.

Normally, we expect our heroes to get the bad-guy. Or, if they don’t get the bad-guy, we expect the failure in the story to point to some kind of deeper meaning. Even if the meaning is something like the futility of trying to do what’s right or the difficulty of human existence, we want some kind of meaning.

But this story seems, frankly, stupid. If I submitted it as a screen-play to a Hollywood producer, I suspect that the reaction would be “Another illiterate wannabe writer who can’t even tell a coherent story.”

So why did I tell you this story this morning? Because I wanted to try to replicate how stupid and incoherent the story of Jesus’ death would have sounded to most people in his time. For them, as for us - when we are not hearing a story that has already been interpreted for us by 2000 years of Christian tradition - saviors are heroes. Saviors are people who win battles, they are not people who lose. Saviors are people who wield power for good, not people who intentionally give up power and who try to win their battles by serving others. And most of all, savior-heroes do not walk willingly to their deaths.

There are numerous examples in the various Gospels of Jesus demonstrating an approach to power that is very different from the “worldly” view of power. When the disciples argued amongst themselves about who would be the greatest, Jesus told them that it was the least of this world who would be first in his Kingdom. When Jesus, Peter, James and John met Moses and Elijah on the mountain at the Transfiguration, Peter wanted to stay in that powerful and exalted place, but Jesus sent the disciples back down the mountain to serve his people. When the Roman soldiers were coming to get him, Jesus chose service over his own life. Not just the service of the Last Supper or the foot washing or his teaching, but the service of crucifixion.

From God’s perspective, there is something about service that is important to the story of salvation.

God Serves Us

The title of this sermon is “The Servant King” so you might have expected a sermon about how Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, how he served them in the hours before his crucifixion and how we should serve others too. Those are good ideas and I agree with all of them!

And tomorrow is Memorial Day, when we remember those who died in service to their country. So you could also have expected a sermon calling to mind our gratitude for the very real sacrifices made by everyone who has ever given up their life in service to their country. That’s also a good idea, which I agree with wholeheartedly, too!

But it seems to me that if Jesus the Messiah, King of King and Lord of Lords, was willing to be the Servant King, that there must be something in the idea of “service” that is central to who God is. There must be something in the concept of “service” that is central to the Gospel and to his Kingdom.

This morning’s reading from Romans brings home this idea when it says, in effect, that most people would find it difficult at crunch-time to die for someone within their own family or their own circle but that God was willing to die even for those who are outside his circle, for those who don’t know him, in order to give them the possibility of reconciliation with him.

So the first thing I want to do is to remind you that, in Christ the Servant King, God has served us. Hopefully, this isn’t a new piece of information for any of us. But sometimes we need to stop and meditate on the things we already know in order to carry the benefits forward into our daily lives.

In Christ the Servant King, God served us. When you stop to think about that, that’s really an awesome and amazing thing!

Martin Luther said that Jesus ultimate service to us was to gain victory over sin, death and the power of evil. Jesus conquered death not by destroying it with force, but rather by facing death. He conquered death by going through it and coming out the other side. In doing this, Jesus trusted that the character of God the Father was a character of Resurrection and Creation rather than a character of death and destruction and that resurrection would be the ultimate outcome of his death.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews uses the analogy of Jesus as a pioneer of salvation: Jesus forged the way through death to resurrection and, by making a path for us, made resurrection, salvation and reconciliation with God possible for us too.

Jesus served us. God serves us. The One who existed before the beginning of time who created everything out of nothing. the one who knew us in our mother’s womb who intentionally created me, who intentionally created you…He serves us.

For me, what is even more mind-boggling about the fact that Jesus died and rose again for me is that God wanted to do this. And if the Gospel of John is to be believed (John 1), God wanted to do this before the beginning of time.

So my first piece of good news this morning is: “God serves us”.

Service is Costly

But the thing about service is that it is costly.

Those who know me know that, for the last ten years or so, I’ve enjoyed discussing Christian theology on the internet. One of my internet acquaintances is a man who just retired this year after many years serving as a Chaplain in the British army. He told me that currently those people who are serving in the British armed forces are the most decorated soldiers since the Second World War.
And he was quick to emphasize that the British army has not “dumbed down” its service metals: these men and women are the most decorated soldiers since the second world war because they have faced the most harrowing combat situations since that time.

Now obviously, the US experience since WWII is somewhat different than Britain’s but I doubt that the combat conditions for current American soldiers is significantly different than for the British forces. I suspect that many of us may know of at least one person who has been deployed to a combat zone at least two or three times. And while many of us probably have a vague idea of what kind of a sacrifice this sort of experience must be, I suspect that those of us who haven’t had it probably can’t even begin to appreciate the enormity of it.

In the same way, I doubt that we can truly appreciate the enormity of God’s suffering as he reached out to reconcile us to him through Jesus.

And I also doubt that we appreciate how costly the sins of humanity continue to be to God as works through his faithful people to bring his Kingdom to fruition.
I believe that God works continually to bring justice and truth into the world, and that when God focuses on justice, his focus is restorative rather than punitive. God is not interested in bringing about the Kingdom by punishment, but rather in bringing about the Kingdom through restoration of those people and situations that have gone wrong.

But justice through restoration is far more costly than justice through punishment. Restorative justice requires forgiveness on the part of the one who is wronged and it requires the one who is wronged to let go.

The cost of restorative justice is borne by the one who is wronged, which is why many people will object that restorative justice is not justice at all.

And, believe me, I do not say this glibly or lightly. My purpose here is not to lightly tell you to forgive someone who has done a gross injustice to you or to suggest that it is an easy thing to do. My purpose here is rather to underline the pain, the difficulty and the costliness of coming to the point of being able to extend such enormous forgiveness. And when you can extend that forgiveness – IF you can – it is the ultimate service to the one who has wronged you as well as to others around you. It is the ultimate act of grace. And the person who you forgive is free and so are you.

That kind of difficult and costly forgiveness is what God does for us. As individual human beings and as societies, it often seems that we humans are engaged in an all-out effort to mess up God’s efforts to bring about his Kingdom. (That effort we put into messing up the coming of God’s Kingdom is called “sin”)

But, because of the service that Christ rendered on the cross, God forgives us over and over. Over and over, God takes us back into relationship with him.

And all of that is costly. My second point: Service is costly

Service builds Relationships

But it is ultimately the costly service that Christ rendered to humanity that makes a relationship between us and God possible. And it’s Christ’s service that also makes it possible for us to build relationships with each other.

That’s my third point for this morning: service builds relationships and so service is ultimately redemptive and restorative.

In serving us by dying and rising again, Jesus made it possible for all human beings to have a relationship with God. In ways that we don’t fully understand and never will this side of eternity, Jesus’ death reconciled us with God. His death forged the existence of forgiveness, reconciliation and a deep peace (Shalom) into the very fabric of creation.

As Christians, we believe that having a relationship with God in Christ is fundamental to being a Christian. And we also proclaim the Good News that God wants to have a relationship with every person who he ever created. And I think it is also logical to assume that God wants us to be connected in relationship to each other – to other human beings - as well as to him.

And service, I think it might be argued, is the ultimate expression of relationship. Because when we do acts of service, we are not asking the question “What can this relationship do for me?” but rather “What can I do for this relationship?” When we serve, we are looking outside ourselves. We are putting the needs of others before our own wants.

Service is an expression of the kind of self-giving love that Christians have always claimed is at the heart of the Gospel.

Those who have died for the sake of their country rendered a very real service to their country. But, ultimately, the Kingdom of God will not be built through war; rather it will be built through peace – God’s deep peace of Shalom that makes everything whole. The Kingdom of God will be built not through service to one group of human beings as it wages war against another group. Rather the Kingdom will be built through the Gospel understanding that Christians are called to serve all people just as Christ died that all might be saved.

Memorial Day originally began as a commemoration of the lives of those who died in the Civil War. About 617,000 individuals, which is about the same number of dead as all other American wars combined. And the date for the celebration of this holiday was originally set near the date of the reunification of the Union.

Whether or not it was intended to be a Christian gesture, I think that such a date indicates some understanding that God does not take sides in our human games of unforgiveness and non-reconciliation. If we are ever tempted to believe that God does not weep for the death of our enemies, we might ask ourselves the question “Which American lives did God fail to weep for in the Civil War?”

From God’s perspective, true service is not the kind of service that prefers one side over another. The foot-washing was more than just service to Jesus disciples, it was also an act of service to the entire world. Jesus served all of humanity because he trusted in God enough to understand that the way to conquer death was to be crucified and walk through death to resurrection.

Conclusion

As we celebrate Memorial Day this weekend, I pray that we will remember all those who gave up their lives in service to their countries. For those of us who have never had the experience of combat, I hope that we take its dangers and sacrifices seriously enough to be thankful to God for people who put their lives on the line in this way.

Although Memorial Day was originally supposed to be a holiday that commemorated those who have died, I think it is nonetheless also appropriate to also say “thank you” those who are currently serving their country; say thank you to them as well as saying “thank you” to God for them.

But I also pray this morning for peace and for the coming of the Kingdom of God. I pray that, as Christian people, we remember that peace (Shalom) rather than war will be a feature of God’s Kingdom. And service, self-giving and forgiveness are the hallmarks of God’s great Shalom.

And I pray that the peace that passes all understanding will keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of Christ. Amen.

Sunday 22 February 2009 - Transfiguration and Transformation

This sermon is based on the story of the Transfiguration in Mark 9:2-9

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Introduction

When the television show 'Grumpy Old Men' first made an appearance, my husband and I enjoyed watching it immensely. We'd sit there, laughing, and we both agreed that - yes - my husband is a grumpy old man.

But then, one Christmas season, I got my comeuppance, didn't I?

Because there was a new show on television called 'Grumpy Old Women'. And my husband laughed at me and said 'You're a grumpy old woman!' And I had to laugh and agree with him.

The gist of all the comments of the grumpy old men and women, of course, is that things were better 20, 30, 50 or even 100 years ago.

They say that when most people yearn for the 'Good Old Days', that they yearn for a mythical Golden Age that they most likely didn't live through. That era is part of the story of 'When we were a great society'. And it may not be a real era at all.

I'm not sure about exactly when the British golden era was, but I have a fair idea of what it looks like: A farming village in mid-summer that Constable could have painted, with happy obedient children in their Sunday best walking to church with their plump, rosy-cheeked parents.

And we hear the British Christian media harking back to that golden age a lot. Whenever it was, that age was 'When we were a Christian society'.

Transfiguration and Transformation

I think Mark's Gospel gives us some hints that when Peter, James and John went up to the mountain-top with Jesus that they were yearning for a Golden Era of Israel.

Just before his excursion up the mountain, Jesus has told the twelve that the Messiah must suffer and die and Peter has rebuked Jesus for saying such things.

But the experience on the mountain-top, now that's more like it! I reckon this experience is a lot more like what Peter, James and John had in mind. The three of them, alone with Jesus and two great immortal - literally - figures of Israel's Golden Age: Moses and Elijah.

The Transfiguration is a divine manifestation of God on earth.

Peter wants to stay here. In his mind, this is why he became a disciple of Jesus. This is what he's been waiting for. As far as Peter is concerned, this place on the mountain is the Real Deal. The goal has been obtained.

Transformation

But the Transfiguration is also a transformation.

The Transfiguration doesn't bless the past or the idea that God's people need to go back to a Golden Age. As with all supposed Golden Ages, that Golden Age of Israel never actually existed.

And the Transfiguration certainly doesn't call us to stay in the present.

When the disciples look like wanting to bask in the glow of this fantastical other-worldy moment, Jesus moves them all smartly down from the mountaintop back into the everyday world.

The Transfiguration is about moving into the future, but it's not a future that will look like that Golden Age that we are imagining.

It's not the future where the Messiah cannot die, as Peter imagines. And it's not a future where Jesus is going to be a supernatural conquering king, as James and John imagine when they ask him, just a few verses from now, to sit at his right and left when he reigns in glory.

The Transfiguration is a transformation: not only of the world but also a transformation of our way of thinking about God and his Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God, and God himself, are not to be found only on the mountain-top and only in the Spiritual Realms, they are also to be found in the nitty-gritty of everyday life.

In Matthew's Gospel, this story stands right at the transition-point between the first part of the Gospel in which we hear about Jesus' ministry and teaching. And the second part of the Gospel in which we hear that the Messiah must suffer and die.

This glorious manifestation of God doesn't come at some triumphant point in the life of Jesus. It comes at the point when the disciples and the readers are only just beginning to come to terms with the idea that Jesus' glorious divine mission on earth is not to be a supernatural superhero but it is, in fact, to die a very human death.

How appropriate, therefore, that we should read this story today, in the Sunday before Lent.

Conclusion

The story of the Transfiguration is a story of transformation and it is also a
revelation of Jesus' glory.

The glory of Jesus that is revealed in the Transfiguration is the glory of the cross.

Jesus will destroy sin, death and the power of evil not by obliterating them, but by submitting himself to their full fury.

But Jesus has to come down off the mountain in order to accomplish this mission.

And human notions of 'spirituality' and of what it means to encounter God need to come down off the mountain too.

To be a Christian is not to seek to live always on the mountain-top. To be a Christian is not to put God in a box labelled 'spirit' or 'prayer' and to ignore his presence in the physical world. To be a Christian is not to yearn for a Golden Past nor is it even to believe that salvation will only happen in the future.

Our God is a God whose salvation centres in the very fact that he became human, took on our sins, suffered and died.

Christianity properly understood says that God is in the here and now. Where-ever we go, when we encounter joy and sadness or health or pain, God is there. In fact, God was there before we ever got there ourselves.

The Christian God is to be found in the here and now and God's presence is to be found in suffering and death as much as in health and life.

My prayer for us this morning is that the Transfiguration will transform our hearts so that we can become ever more open to the presence of God in our world. As we come to encounter our Lord present in the Eucharist, may the Spirit of Christ grow in our hearts so that we may see the presence of God in the people and the world around us. Amen