"Human(e) Sacrifice"
July 1, 2007: 5th Sunday After Pentecost, Year C
The Rev. John MacIver Gage, senior minister
United Church on the Green, UCC: New Haven, CT
www.UnitedChurchontheGreen.org
When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village. As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."
Christ has set us free to
live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness
of slavery on you. It is absolutely clear that God has called you to
a free life. Just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse
to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use
your freedom to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows.
For everything we know about God's Word is summed up in a single sentence:
Love others as you love yourself. That's an act of true freedom. If
you bite and ravage each other, watch out - in no time at all you will
be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be
then? My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's
Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there
is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free
spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These
two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times
one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given
day. Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the
erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence? It is obvious what
kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time:
repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and
emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket
gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition;
all-consuming-yet-never
Sermon:
My favorite moment in C.S. Lewis' deceptively simple theological fantasy, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, comes as the children—Peter, Susan, Edmond, and Lucy—are huddled together in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. Their sojourn in Narnia has begun to turn dark. Terror holds the magical land in an icy grip, ensuring that it will "always be winter and never Christmas," and rumors of war hang thick in the air. But against the rising shadows, the Beavers continue to lift up the name of Aslan the great lion, the Son of the Emperor-Over-The-Sea and rightful King of Narnia. Aslan, it seems, is on the move, and the children will meet him soon.
"Ooh!" asked
Susan, "Is he--quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting
a lion."
"That you will, dearie, and no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver,
"if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees
knocking, they're either braver than most or else silly."
"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.
"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver
tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But
he's good."
Of course Lewis intended Aslan
to represent Christ in the fantastical terms of Narnia, where animals
speak and goat-footed fauns invite little girls to tea. But we may have
a hard time recognizing much of Aslan's ferocity in our own portrait
of Jesus. No, ours tends to be a kindler, gentler savior most days—the
sweet, smiling Jesus who decorated our Sunday school classrooms growing
up, if not the cartoon "Buddy Christ" of Gen X filmmaker Kevin Smith's
Dogma, his 1999 lampoon of institutionalized Christianity.
Not that we're completely
wrong to think of Jesus in friendly terms. Jesus is, as we like to say,
the face of God, of the power of the universe, turned toward the world
in love. But his divine love is more than mere Hallmark-card sentimentality.
Jesus' love is fierce, too, and bold. The Light of the World also
generates a lot of heat, as when he criticizes the scribes and Pharisees
of his days as hypocrites, "blind guides" (Mt 23:16), and "whitewashed
tombs" (Mt 23:27). We have to hold these tougher images together with
the softer side of Jesus we're more comfortable with. Sure, Jesus
welcomed the little children, but he also chased the money-changers
out of the temple... with a whip, no less (John 2:15)!
Especially since Jesus didn't
reserve his harder sayings for the opposition alone. No, Jesus had more
than a few difficult words for his friends and disciples, too. How about
"Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all"
(Mk 9:35)? Or "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute
you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account"
(Mt 5:11)? And there's just no getting around this one: "If any
want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their
cross and follow me"? That's recorded in all three synoptic
Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
So it is with our passage from
Luke this morning. There is more of the lion here than the lamb. This
is Jesus with his face set toward Jerusalem, set like flint, and the
hard confrontation he knows awaits him there. So, when he encounters
three would-be disciples along the way, Jesus doesn't pull any punches.
Want to follow me? Then you'd better be clear what you're getting
into. "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the
Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head"...and neither do his disciples.
Want to work for the reign of God? Then you'd better be prepared.
It's a full-time gig. "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks
back is fit for the kingdom."
And in between there, just
in case you missed it, is where our friend Jesus tells a grieving son
to "let the dead bury their own" and get busy proclaiming the reign
of God. Ouch. There's no doubt that would have struck Jesus' audience
like a slap. Remember, the duty of children to care for their parents
wasn't just a nice idea in their contemporary Jewish culture, it was
the law—the Fifth Law, to be exact, commandment number Five of the
Big Ten—and other regulations in Deuteronomy even prescribed death
for rebellious children. So here's Jesus insisting that anyone who
really wants to follow him must be willing to sacrifice everything,
to give up their standing in the community, even break the law, and
expose themselves not only to ridicule but condemnation and abuse—all
for the greater good, his greater good.
Well, Jesus, since we're
being perfectly honest, that makes me nervous, seeing as we live in
a world of suicide bombers and abortion clinic shooters and patriotic
rhetoric praising our troops for making the "ultimate sacrifice."
Martyr talk, whether it be Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Marxist,
or any other fundamental flavor, frankly makes my skin crawl. Some may
say that extreme times call for extreme action, I know, but I believe
far too many have already sacrificed far too much for far too little
on behalf of far too few for far too long. And far too many have been
willing to shed not only their own blood but lots and lots of other
people's, too, in order to make their point.
We see this unholy sacrificial
system at work nightly on our television screens in grisly scenes from
Baghdad and Darfur, Israel and Palestine, London and New York. On a
much smaller scale, we also see its bloody effect in our own circles
of family and friends. We see it in our workplaces and our houses of
worship. As the prophet Isaiah put it, we see lives misspent "for
that which is not bread," and so much "labor for that which does
not satisfy" (Isaiah 55:2). There's no denying that consumerism,
safety, addictions, self-denial and self-aggrandizement and all our
other modern idols are as bloodthirsty as any Baal of old; in fact,
many of us here today are still bleeding. We ourselves have been victims
of oppressive systems that insist we hack off pieces of our selves—our
sexuality, our reason, our dignity—as costly offerings to their unworthy
gods.
So what are we to do? How do
we reconcile Jesus' persistent call to sacrificial discipleship with
our own very real anxiety about that slippery slope down into brutal
idolatry? I am quite sure I
don't want to embrace the kind of bloody-mindedness that leads to
crusade and jihad and lives of quieter desperation. So, do we simply
set aside readings like the one before us this morning because they
make us uncomfortable? Do we ignore Jesus' own example of fierce,
sacrificial love, all the way up to and including the cross, and instead
make do with a kind of kindly Care Bear Christ? The question is an important
one: As we try to face the living of these days with courage and wisdom,
here in the tension between these competing demands, how do we discern
what sacrifices are worth making?
Enter our other reading, from
the Apostle Paul and his Letter to the Galatians. Sure, they lived nearly
2000 years ago, but First Church, Galatia was facing the very same dilemma,
and we do our ancestors in faith a disservice if we dismiss their situation
as somehow simpler than our own. You see, Paul founded the church in
Galatia on a Gospel of grace, free and available to Jew and Gentile
alike, without any special requirements for anyone other than a willingness
to trust God and follow in the Way of Jesus. But since then, other,
stricter voices have risen up to insist that whereas all persons are
equal in the eyes of God, some persons are more equal than others. God's
love for Gentiles, they say, is conditional upon their first submitting
to Jewish law and practice, including circumcision for all male believers—simpler,
indeed!
How to choose what to believe, what to give? Well in the passage before us, Paul lays out some guidelines to help them, and help us, discern what sacrifices are worth making. Plainly put, Paul insists that good and worthy causes produce good and worthy fruit, the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Fortunately for us, author Eugene Peterson takes that rather stolid list of churchy virtues and puts a little more modern meat on those old bones. As he paraphrases Paul, when we choose to devote ourselves to the way of God:
God brings gifts into
our lives,... things like affection for others, exuberance about life,
serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of
compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates
things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments,
not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our
energies wisely.
These are the gifts that lead to life—sweet, abundant life for all—and they are the signs that our cause is worthy of our costly sacrifice. On the other hand, unworthy causes produce very different harvest. Again, Peterson's choice words give Paul's the zing they need to make us sit up and pay attention all these centuries later. Together they teach us to recognize the signs of an unworthy idol, including:
repetitive, loveless,
cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage;
frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion;
paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never
"I could go on," Peterson's
Paul says, and we're glad he doesn't, because we get the picture.
We know it from the inside-out. We're living it.
To these helpful guidelines
from Paul I want to add another, drawn from our Gospel reading this
morning. Remember that bit back at the beginning where a Samaritan village
refuses to receive Jesus' ministry, and James and John ask Jesus whether
he wants them to "command fire to come down from heaven and consume
them" as a kind of burnt offering, a sacrifice to the truth of Jesus'
divine mission? Well, how does Jesus respond? He turns and rebukes them
both, these members of his very inner circle, for even suggesting such
a thing. Even today's tough love Jesus doesn't roll that way.
It seems that James and John
ran up against another stipulation on what makes for a worthy sacrifice:
It must be a self-sacrifice, freely given. Again, Jesus provides the
example: Even though he is willing to pursue God's call to justice,
peace, and compassion all the way to the bloody cross prepared for him
by the powers and principalities of the domination system, even though
he is willing to offer his own life as a sacrifice for the Gospel of
life, Jesus is not willing to shed one drop of another's blood, even
to accomplish the transformation of the world. The coercive religious
and political authorities of Jesus' day were quick to offer up the
blood, sweat, and tears of the masses as a sacrifice for their own purposes.
But Jesus refuses to play that way. Instead he insists that his disciples
take up their own crosses. Christ calls us one at a time to consider
what sacrifices we will make and why.
So if we look at what's going
on in our world today through those two lenses of willing self-sacrifice
for a greater good-that-really-is-good, how do we rate? Is a war founded
in error and falsehood, pursued in pride and prosecuted so very, very
poorly worth the sacrifice of so many lives? Is a "health care"
system that is, in fact, predicated not on promoting health but constraining
costs in order to maximize profits for the corporate few worth the sacrifice
of so many lives? Is an economy that serves only to make the rich richer
and the poor poorer worth the sacrifice of so many lives? Is a faith
that does not bring good news to the oppressed, bind up the brokenhearted,
proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners worth
the sacrifice of so many lives, spiritually and physically?
What would Jesus think? What
would Jesus ask of us? For, make no mistake, being a disciple of Christ
does involve making real choices and real sacrifices. After today, no
one can say Jesus didn't warn us. But the truth is, the world will
not change unless we do. The powers that be, even the self-serving powers
within us, will not give up their hold on the world without a fight.
But like Christ, we get to choose what we give and why. And like him,
we can say no to all the false messiahs and unworthy idols that demand
the blood of human sacrifice. We can choose instead to make our own
more humane sacrifice, to give our lives as Jesus did so that others
may have life, and have it abundantly. We can spend ourselves not on
the junk food of the flesh but on the bread of heaven, which really
does satisfy in this world and
the next. We can plant our lives like seeds to ensure the flourishing
of the kingdom, the flowering of the fruits of the Spirit.
And so, friends, we come to
the crux of the matter: We must ask ourselves, If we trust God, if we
believe in life, not just as it is now, but in everything it can be,
everything it will be, if we believe in love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, in
abundance, what sacrifice are we ourselves willing to make to bring
us all that much closer to that reality? An hour or two on Sunday morning
hardly cuts it, does it? Missing brunch with your friends, not getting
to read the Sunday Times—not so much. So what more will
you give out there in the world? If you would follow in the footsteps
of Jesus, all the way to Jerusalem and all that that entails, if you
would make his goals your own, what changes are you willing to make?
What sacrifice are you willing to offer? What cross will you choose?
Again, Jesus said it: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." But he also promised that "those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it" (Mk 5:34-35). And save the whole world with them. No, friends, discipleship, true discipleship is never safe, but it is good, or it should be. God bless our discernment, and our giving, that we might be a blessing to others.