Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons
Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, March 20,2016, Palm Sunday.
Texts:Philippians 2:1-11, Luke 19:28-48
What kind of God do we believe in? The answer to this question affects the whole of our lives: how we understand what it means to be human, the nature of creation and our place in it, relationships with others, our social and political engagement, how we set priorities, how we spend our time and money, what we’re willing to take on, what we’re willing to give up. If we believe in a God who is supremely interested in the letter of the law, in rules and regulations, who stands ready to smack us or cut us off as soon as we get out of line, that will certainly affect not only what we do and how we treat others, but how we feel about God and how we understand the way the world works. If we believe in a God who is distant and only mildly interested in the goings-on of humankind or the plight of the planet, that too will guide us into particular ways of thinking and acting. Anthony and I recently finished the first season of the television show “House of Cards” and so have become acquainted with the character of Frank Underwood. For those uninitiated, suffice it to say that Frank is a ruthless politician. I bring him up because of a scene in which, on his knees in a church, Frank says this to God: “Every time I've spoken to you, you've never spoken back, although given our mutual disdain, I can't blame you for the silent treatment.” And then he says to the viewing audience:“There is no solace above or below. Only us. Small. Solitary. Striving. Battling one another. I pray to myself. For myself.” There are myriad ways that people conceptualize and relate to God—not always consciously, but always with concrete consequences.
As we have been playing with the notion of “renovation” throughout Lent, I have repeatedly suggested that the goal of renovation is to make things like new, to mend, to restore, to make things what they are meant to be. In order to know what things are meant to be,we have to have some guide, some vision for what is intended. In seminary I took a year-long course called “Christian art and architecture: changing forms and functions.” It was the first time I had consciously thought about the relationship between form and function; that is, the ways that the function of something provides the vision for its form. In the course we also explored how the forms themselves function to communicate ideas and theologies. A simple example is the way that so many old Protestant churches had a large central pulpit in front of the sanctuary,clearly communicating the primacy of Scripture and the preached word in the functioning of the congregation. Sanctuaries designed “in the round,” a prominent central altar, simple structures without any adornment… All these forms communicate something about both the theology of the community and the functions that take place in the various spaces.
Today in the letter to the Philippians we hear a lot about the “form” of Christ. Though eternally in “the form of God” he emptied himself, humbled himself and took on the form of a human—a finite, limited, subject-to-pain-and-death human. But what was the function of taking on human form? What does this form communicate? Why would anyone willingly resign from a position of absolute power, harmony, peace and joy and take on a task that will most certainly involve ridicule, conflict, violence, and grief? Why would anyone resign from being God to become…us? The only feasible answer is insanity—or love. The only reason we ever freely do anything sacrificial is out of love. Out of love the Christ of God took on flesh and became human. And in human form,Jesus the Christ revealed to us as much as we’ll ever see of the kind of God we are gathered here to worship today. Our God is a God of mercy and compassion, a God of pardon and peace, a God of reconciliation and justice, a God of love and grace. Our God doesn’t ride into town on a war horse as a conquering hero, but on a donkey who he liberated from its bondage, on a donkey in solidarity with all that are humble and carry heavy burdens. Our God draws crowds not because of his wealth or the ways that he cuts others off, but because of his mighty deeds of healing, reconciliation, and inclusion. Our God is not a businessman interested in the bottom line, but a loving Creator who is in the business of turning the tables on those who take advantage of their power by defrauding the poor. Jesus didn’t take just any human form, but took human form as a poor, homeless child. Jesus came not to win votes but to preach good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free (Lk 4:18-19). Jesus took human form to show us the form of God—to show us more fully the God whose image we all bear.
But what difference does it make? Well,it led to what seems to be a fun rally, complete with a parade and audience participation. That is, it seems the crowds in our Gospel today got the message. Perhaps they even picked up on the prophetic sign from Zechariah—that of a king who comes to Jerusalem “triumphant and victorious…humble and riding on a donkey.” (Zech 9:9) But, come on, we know the rest of the story. Even though many were “spellbound” by Jesus how long did it take for the mood of the crowd to turn? I imagine there were those among the throng who remained loyal but, out of fear for their lives or livelihoods, sought cover when things started to go south. But how many others simply couldn’t continue to go along with Jesus when they realized that the whole “humble and riding on a donkey” thing wasn’t just an act to get attention, but a revelation that God really isn’t a war-god after all but rather a God who is truly more interested in solidarity with the poor and humble self-giving? How many people were unwilling to hang in there with Jesus as it became clear that he was not going to save Jerusalem from itself, but rather prophesy its destruction (Lk 19:41-44)? How many decided they were done with him once they realized that Jesus wasn’t going to set up his sycophants in positions of power in the temple system, but intended to turn the whole power and privilege system upside down? What difference did it really make that Jesus reveals God’s love and mercy, God’s care for the poor and oppressed, God’s commitment to peace and reconciliation? It didn’t make much difference at all. At least that’s one way you could look at it. After all, people rejected the God Jesus revealed, rejected Jesus’s way, rejected Jesus. They crucified him.
Furthermore, Jerusalem is still the deeply broken capital city of Israel, a country that bears such a painful history and seems in a chronic state of violent conflict. The safety and security of Israel is the focus of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Convention that begins today right herein DC. I don’t pretend to know all the various buttons I’ve just pushed by even mentioning AIPAC, but the reason I take the risk is due to the extraordinary juxtaposition that helps to set the issue at hand in stark relief: “power players” including most of the presidential candidates are riding into DC to talk about the politically-charged (and, for many, religiously fueled)relationship between the U.S. and Israel even as we tell the story of Jesus who—in the midst of political and religious tension and turmoil—rides into the capital city of Israel to talk about peace, mercy, and the Kin-dom of God. Do Jesus’s actions and words resonate or make any difference in the talks that will occur over the next couple of days? Or will “security” for Israel still be primarily discussed in terms of military might and money, reconciliation and peace in the region remain a faint hope at best, and the burden of the ongoing conflict fall, as it always does, upon the most vulnerable—the poor, the children, the elderly, the oppressed?
And for those of us living in this part of the world, has Jesus’s revelation of God’s loving, peaceful, merciful,humble form and function made any difference? One way to gauge our answer is to ask another question: If Jesus ran for president, would we vote for him? Be mindful if your gut response is “yes.” History suggests otherwise. The fact is that the conversations and dynamics in the public square today are so often devoid of anything remotely resembling the revelation of Jesus and much is in direct contrast to the sermon on the mount (cf. Mt . 5-6, Lk 6:20-49)—what I like to call “Jesus’s Greatest Hits.” We are singing a different song; we’re out of tune with Jesus. These words of comedian Stephen Colbert come to mind: “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”[i]
What kind of God do we really believe in and serve? What kind of God do YOU believe in and serve? It is easy—and painfully common these days—to point the finger at others, to point out the ways others are failing to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. But today the question is this: Is the God YOU march with today the God revealed by Jesus or one of your own making? We can choose to look to other saviors or pray to ourselves, we can make Jesus into a mouthpiece for our own liberal or conservative perspectives or a “supply-side” Christ who is really there to line our pockets, we can fashion a god who celebrates our creative rationalizations and who blesses our violence, our prejudice, our denial, our hypocrisy, our laziness—that is our prerogative.
But thanks be that it’s God’s prerogative to have mercy on us. Thanks be that in Jesus we see that our God is radically free and will not be compromised or silenced or coopted to serve selfish, oppressive, violent human desires. Thanks be that our God hangs in there with us even when we want to trade God in for another model. Thanks be that the form of God is love and the function of God is to freely share love. Thanks be that, even with so much evidence to the contrary, humankind is created in the image of that God. Thanks be that Jesus took the form of a humble, human servant so that we might take the form of a loving, merciful God.
Whatdifference would it make if we—and all who claim the name “Christian”—finallyfunctioned according to our intended form?
[i]http://thoughtcatalog.com/kim-quindlen/2015/09/23-hilarious-stephen-colbert-quotes-that-are-just-ridiculous-enough-to-prove-a-point/
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