Life Before Death

Luke 24:1 – 12

Easter Sunday:  March 31, 2013

We often talk about resurrection as life after death.  We are not alive, we are born, we are alive in an imperfect/painful world, we die, and then, because we believe in the resurrection, we live again – in perfection, without pain, forever.  And it’s only that last one that is the resurrection.  Resurrection means perfection – and that is unattainable in this life, right?  That comes after we die a physical death.

But death, life, and resurrection don’t seem to be too much about psychological states for Jesus.  In the gospels, just to give a smattering, Jesus talks about the dead burying the dead, he talks about Moses as having never been dead.  Jesus “resurrects” Lazarus right back into a life that is as imperfect as when we left it.  And he says that those who want to save their lives must lose it. Death, the physical kind, is not the dividing line for Jesus between the unresurrected and the resurrected.  It’s not even the dividing line between the living and the dead – at least as Jesus saw it. 

We are all afraid of death – at least sometimes.  And not just physical death.  Maybe not even primarily physical death.  We’re also afraid of the death of the selves we have created to avoid the truths about who we are and the world we live in.  You know this self:  strong, capable, in control of our destiny, nice, helpful, generous. 

But these constructed selves require credentials to be believable.  So we do things to make us look strong: we help others but only if the power to do so stays in our hands.  We amass wealth so we can be seen as responsible providers and generous givers.  We show emotions in only socially accepted ways.  We work and work and work, and amass as much firepower as we can so we can be people who keep our families, our communities, our countries safe.  We do whatever it takes to hide, from ourselves and others, those things that would betray that façade we have constructed. 

Because these selves protect us.  They keep others from seeing those parts of us that we don’t like – and we’re positive others won’t like.  And they keep us from having to deal with the realities of being human in a broken world.  And so hide our brokennes, our vulnerability, our selfishness, anger, neediness, helplessness, fear, hatred.  We deny that things are out of our control, we deny our mortality until the very last second, we deny that our world is complex, that we are likely wrong as much as right, we deny that everyone is dependent on someone in some way, and we deny that we all are as deserving as everyone else of the abundance creation has to offer. 

Our carefully constructed selves hide all of this from the world – and, we hope beyond hope, from our own consciousness.

And that life – the constructed life – well we are at least as afraid of the death of that person as we are of our bodies.  Because the death of those selves entails huge loss as well.  Wealth.  Privilege. Being liked. Affirmation.  Status.  Sense of autonomy and agency.  Security.  Identity.  Comfort.  The selves we have created are to protect these things with all our might, and so it must be kept alive at all costs. 

And this affects how we live each day: 

Our fear of loss makes us cautious;  We fill up our schedules with things that make us look important.  We prioritize security over freedom from oppression; We become people pleasers instead of truth tellers; We live inauthentic, dishonest lives; We beg, steal, borrow and sometimes kill to maintain an illusion of who we are; We justify the unjustifiable; We cling to what we have until our knuckles turn white and our fingernails begin to pierce the skin of our palms; We tune out the suffering of others for fear it might mean we have to sacrifice.

But that life – that constructed life, we find out, is death.

Now, if you think Jesus didn’t have those fears, wasn’t subject to the same desires, didn’t fear the same losses, you are crazy – or at least you forgot that he was human.  And I think it might have been harder for him.  In his case, some of the Israelites had already created a false self for him – there for the taking, and it was a pretty cool false self.  And if he had stepped into it, he would have gained wealth, power, status, followers who worshipped him, and more. 

They had decided he was the Messiah, the savoir.  The fixer of all the world.  They expected him to make every evil disappear, every enemy fall, and to restore them to great glory because they were God’s chosen.  And whether or not a human Jesus could have done all of these things, he could have done everything in his power to try grab this false self and all that came with it, and hold on to it as long as possible.  If he had he could have enjoyed, at least for a while, all that came with being a Messiah.  And that would have putting all his energy into being something he was not…and his life would have looked much different.

But he rejected this.  He let this false self die.  He exposed himself over and over as the “not Messiah.”  He did nothing that the Messiah they imagined would do.  He was poor and chose to stay that way, had no palace or throne, or home for that matter.  He knew the truth about himself:  that he messed up, doubted, he was lowly, a servant, unimportant.  Jesus never denied his mortality – in fact, Jesus accepted his death.

And think about that death.  We’ve been thinking about it all week.  Think about what it meant to those at the time.  On the cross, Jesus was completely exposed for who he was. He did not save them from Rome.  He was no king.  He was vulnerable; humiliated; defeated; anointed by humans – not by God; he was a common criminal who did, in fact, violate both the religious and civil laws of his day.  He was like every other person on a cross that day. 

Messiah?  Hardly.  He let every aspect of being a Messiah die.  He gave up wealth, power, status, followers, friends, religion, and of course immortality, perfection, divinity.  Was he afraid – yes, we know he was:  Abba, take this cup from me.  God, why have you forsaken me.  Was he tempted – yes, we know he was, for 40 days and 40 nights by none other than Satan.  Did he let this control his life:  It seems not. 

And so, in that moment – on the cross – the most humbling of all moments, something was revealed that is so magnificent that we celebrate it year after year with flowers, music, processions:  The resurrection.  Notice:  I didn’t say that the resurrection happened in that moment.  Jesus was not resurrected when he died on the cross.  He was not even resurrected 3 days later.  The big secret, the big revelation, the one our Easter hymns don’t always tell us about, is that because of the death he chose, he was resurrected the whole time.  Resurrection for him meant life before death, not just life after death. 

And here’s something I think we miss in this story – something that can make the resurrection seem so distant:  In resurrection, all the imperfections, all the brokenness, doesn’t go away.  Jesus lived a resurrected life as a broken human being in a broken world.  It wasn’t his perfection that resurrected him.  It was his complete embrace – throughout his life – of his limitations, his humanness, and the ongoing, never-ending brokenness of the world that resurrected him.  Crazy, right?  Perplexing, to put it in Luke’s words.

But it’s worth celebrating, because look at what a resurrected life is like:

Released from his need to be something he was not, he could go where God sent him:  to the nobodies – the ones like him, because everyone is like him: human and broken.  He could love neighbor and enemy alike, in all their brokenness, as he loved himself – because they were all the same.  He could face the suffering of the world without believing he needed to fix it all, which freed him to reach out and heal the one right in front of him.  He could forgive because God had forgiven him.  He could eat with outcasts without fearing people’s judgments. He could admit when he was wrong without feeling like he was giving up himself.  He could give what he had, and accept what he needed.  He could challenge the powerful systems because their only tool of control was the threat of his death.  He could take on those who had distorted his religious tradition because he did not need their approval.  He could carry no weapons when faced with an army, respond to violence with the way of peace. 

He lived a faithful, resurrected life before death, all because of the death he chose.  And that is something to celebrate until the end of time.

What death do we choose?  We’re afraid to die as Jesus did…stripped of everything – stripped of our false selves, and all that we need to keep them alive.  We are afraid to let the self that others see die because we are afraid of being humiliated, scorned, judged.  We are afraid with the loss of this self we would lose our wealth, power, status, control, privilege.

And that’s okay.  It is scary.  We don’t want to end up on the cross.  I don’t think the fear of this ever goes away.  The problem is when these fears control us and conspire to keep our false selves alive at any cost.  If we allow those fears to control us, if we protect with all our might the constructed selves, the things we amass, the identity we love, the affirmation people give us:  If we can’t let those things die in spite of our fears, then all we can hope for is life after death.

Harsh, I know.  But think now about what this means:  If we buy all this, it seems that all that’s required for resurrection…for new life… is embracing that fact that we are broken people in a broken world; we let the false selves die.

Throughout Lent we have been confessing things – those things that are true about ourselves that we don’t always admit or embrace.  We have been writing our confessions either literally or symbolically, on these purple cards and then nailing them to the cross.  But we started off Lent talking about what confession is, and what it is not.  Too often, confession is about owning up to all the bad things about ourselves so we can feel bad, and then fix all the problems so we can be right with God.  The sin, we say, is what keeps us separated from God.

But I suggested that it is not the “sin” that separates us from God – it is the denial that there is any sin that separates us from God.  The barriers we erect around our true selves – those selves that are a wonderful mix of wholeness and brokenness, good and bad, beautiful and ugly – the barriers we put up to mask the brokenness, the bad, and the ugly are what separate us from God.  And not just from God, but from others.  And separation means alienation…and love dies.

In naming the brokenness, the barriers come down and we are united with God and with each other.  Not because we fixed the problem, or because we feel an appropriate amount of shame, but because we are no longer trying to be someone we are not.  In our confession, in our brokenness, we meet God…and that connection frees us – we are able now to be resurrected – to be alive on this earth instead of dead.

The cards are still up on the cross because the first, and maybe only, step to resurrection is naming and embracing the two-fold truth:  First, the truth of our brokenness, the world’s brokenness, and second, the truth that those are never going away, no matter how hard we try.

Death and brokenness are givens.  We can’t overcome them.  But we scurry about trying to live as if we can – as if others could.  When we accept that these are givens, it is right there that we meet God.  And that encounter can free us from the grip that the fear of death has on us.  In that encounter, brokenness remains, death is still a given, but we are resurrected because they no longer control us. Now we can live resurrected lives and free others to do the same.

And that might make us less cautious; we might prioritize freedom from oppression over security; we might be truth tellers; live authentic, honest lives; release our iron grip on what we have; embrace change; feel the suffering of others. 

And think about what happens then.

We are released from the need to be something we are not, and can go where God sends us:  to the nobodies – the ones like us, because everyone is like us: human and broken.  We can love neighbor and enemy as we love ourselves – because we are all the same.  We can face the suffering of the world without believing we needed to fix it all, which frees us to heal the one right in front of us.  We can forgive others – no matter how broken they are, because we know what it’s like to be forgiven for our brokenness.  We can eat with outcasts without fearing people’s judgments. We can admit when we are wrong without feeling like we are giving up ourselves.  We can give what we have, and accept what we need.  We can challenge the powerful systems.  We can take on those who have distorted our religious tradition because we don’t need their approval.  We can carry no weapons when faced with an army, respond to violence with the way of peace.  We can live a faithful, resurrected life before death, because of the death we choose.

And doesn’t the world need that:  Isn’t that exactly what the world needs:  Freedom from the powers that destroy – that make us the dead in the here and now.  When we become alive, we can raise up those around us.  Isn’t that what the world needs?  A little life before death.  A little resurrection.  Amen.

Laudable

Luke 19:29 – 40

Palm Sunday:  March 24, 2013

One Spring, a couple of years before Jesus’ birth, the city of Jerusalem was full of Jews who had come from all over to celebrate the Passover.  This happened every year, and every year the sitting king, in this case Herod the Great, rode into the city with great fanfare and of course many soldiers.  The people lined the street, and as the king passed by they shouted things like, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”   It was all a great drama meant to show who ruled whom.

This year, 4 BCE, the soldiers were particularly important because the king knew there were some dissident Jews tired of foreign occupiers.  Herod was concerned that they would incite the masses and with so many Jews in the city at once, things could get ugly fast.  Some of the dissidents were hanging out in the temple.  They were trouble makers.  They did not accept the one who claimed to be king.  They weren’t bowing down, shouting blessings, or offering their allegiance in any way.  Instead, when the royal parade of King Herod came into Jerusalem and approached the temple, these dissidents began to throw stones. 

And the only thing that could have happened that day happened:  King Herod and his soldiers slaughtered 2,000 Jews that day and took tens of thousands as slaves.  When you don’t show complete allegiance to the king, there is a hefty price to pay.

Fast forward some 30 odd years.  It’s Passover again, and King Herod’s ruthless son, Herod Antipas, knows it’s a time ripe for political unrest.  He’s headed into Jerusalem in the royal parade, surrounded by Roman supplied soldiers.  He makes his display of power among the people, requiring them to reaffirm their allegiance, listening to their cries:  “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.”  Few, I’m sure, have forgotten the last slaughter, and all know there will be no tolerance of dissent. 

But this year there’s another parade coming in on the other side of the city.  “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord,” people are crying out.  But Herod Antipas is nowhere to be found.  It’s a royal parade, only Jesus sits at the center of this one.  Jesus is the one hailed as the King who comes in the name of the Lord.  This was more than throwing stones.  This was laying down the gauntlet; it was a direct challenge to the king’s authority.  Calling another person “king” was high treason and it would not go unnoticed. 

All glory, laud and honor, to you O Christ we sing; to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.  Our Palm Sunday recreates the joy and glory of the parade that day when people hailed Jesus as the king, sang his praises, laid down their cloaks.  We have children waving branches, people singing at the top of their voices, proclaiming Jesus as the one who comes in God’s name.  Our Palm Sunday worship generally has a festive atmosphere, because that’s what parades are like.  Festive, joyful, full of hope.  And I’m guessing that’s pretty close to the atmosphere at the parade on that Passover day.  Hope and excitement. 

But this isn’t 4^th of July parade kind of excitement.  There’s really nothing sweet about this.  This parade is full of glory, but only in the way the marches led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were filled with glory, laud and honor.  You might go in singing praises, but you knew you would eventually come face to face with armed soldiers with order to stop you.  No matter how festive, you didn’t hail another king and not know the risk you were taking. 

So why were these people taking this risk?  Each had their own personal reasons, I’m sure, but basically it was because they wanted Jesus to take Herod’s place.  They wanted a new king, and they were ready to die and kill for it.  And Jesus seems up for the game.

But there’s a twist in this scene, as there so often is with Jesus.  From the very beginning of this day, Jesus is doing two things simultaneously:  He is, with every action, making two claims:  I am your king – I am not a king. 

Yes, I will lead the parade, he says.  I will accept the role of king – the one who enters the city to shouts of allegiance.  I will accept the titles “Lord,” “Master,” “King.” In that day, kings could send their messengers ahead and commandeer any person or animal they thought they needed, and so Jesus did just that.  He sent his disciples to commandeer a colt, no permission asked.  Jesus seemed more than willing to act the part of King.

But Jesus accepted this role of king only to make the point that he would never be a king – not like Herod.  He did not commandeer soldiers or horses to carry a chariot:  He commandeered a humble colt.  There were no signs of power in his parade:  No wealth on display, no weapons or soldiers in sight to remind people that he was willing to kill to be the new King.  No crown.  He will not be lifted into a chariot, he will sit low on a colt.  When they call him king, it will be awkward because he is the anti-king.

It must have been confusing to the people there.  “The multitude of disciples,” we’re told.  This is the crowd that has been building over three years – it includes Jesus’ friends, disciples, the people he healed and those who have seen what he did.  It includes people from the neighboring village, but likely also people who had been walking with him for miles and miles.  There were undoubtedly poor people, hungry people, people the world shoved down and out. 

Most surely found hope in the vision of a kingdom Jesus described, though they didn’t understand how that would come to be.  Each was there because something about Jesus changed the way they looked at the world.  And now, here he was, both fulfilling their expectations – he was willing to be their king and make that kingdom a reality – and upsetting them at the same time…where the heck was he going to get the fire power he needed to take the throne – the necessary first step to change the world in which they lived?

That’s how it is with Jesus, isn’t it?  People were always both hearing and loving what he said, but not understanding a lot of it.  There was genuine confusion, and at times willful misunderstanding.  Depending on who you were, you had a different idea about who Jesus was:  prophet, shaman, politician, instigator, spiritual leader, friend, traitor. 

But whoever they thought he was, somehow it was enough; because they chose Jesus as the one to celebrate that day – they chose his parade and that choice had risk.  Even in their confusion, probably believing one thing and then another, they chose Jesus, and they were willing, at least on Palm Sunday, to risk their lives for the one to whom they gave all glory, laud and honor.  For them, that day, even as their hopes were being both fulfilled and undermined, they knew Jesus was laudable. 

The multitude of disciples.  That’s what we are, right?  We are the multitude of disciples; many, diverse, human beings who know Jesus in different ways and follow him for different reasons.  We’re the crowd.  And we show up on Palm Sunday and we sing loudly, “All Glory Laud and Honor, to you O Christ we sing.”  We “hail the power of Jesus’ name,” and “crown him Lord of all.”  We call him king – boldly, loudly, in great celebration.  Waving branches, with in symbolic parade.

But do we get it?  Do we know that this is the anti-king?  Do we know the risk involved in hailing this one?  Does our pomp match the humility Jesus took on?  Does our joy reflect the reality Jesus faced?  Do we forget that Jesus will never sit on the throne?  He will never have soldiers, wealth, power, dominion.  When we hail Jesus as king, what are we thinking?  In other words, why are we here?

The answer is different for each of us.  Our answers will differ from our neighbors, and our answer will be different at different points in our lives.  In part, because it’s still a little confusing.  Is it appropriate to celebrate unabashedly on Palm Sunday – to call Jesus King with such zeal – or does it make us look ridiculous because we have no clue what we are saying, and the fate we are sealing for Jesus?  Do we sing because we get it?  Or because we still think Jesus is something he is not.

Regardless, we are here.  We do celebrate.  We know there is something laudable here…we do see there is something different:  this is the king of peace…like no other king we have known.  We are the crowd, present that day waving branches, singing to our king, sending him in to Jerusalem to an inevitable battle that would risk his life.  Given the confusion, the irony, the risk, the understanding and lack thereof, it’s a good time to ask:  Why are we here waving Palms today?

Jesus symbolizes different things for us.  When we read the scriptures, we hear different messages, get different pictures of Jesus.  We don’t know who was in the crowd that day, but I think it’s safe to say they weren’t all there for the same reason, and neither are we all here for the same reason.  When we sing, “Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord,” it means something different to each one of us here today, and that’s okay.  We don’t need all the answers to be here.  Whatever our reason is, it’s good enough that we’re here.

Some of us, like the lame, are here because we yearn to be healed.

Some of us, like the poor, are tired – oh so tired – of the same old parades where we are forced to bow before the ones that crush us and treat us like animals.

Some of us, like the widows, are looking for a community that will care for us when we can’t care for ourselves.

Some of us, like the aged, are here to learn how to die and live to see the other side.

Some of us, like the marginalized, see in the way of Jesus a world where all are fully included.

Some of us, like the curious, just want to see what all the fuss is about.

Some of us, like the disciples, want Jesus to be the Messiah that replaces a ruthless king; the messiah that lives and takes the throne from Herod.

Some of us, like dissidents, want Jesus to stir up trouble, incite the masses and bring Herod down.

Some of us, like the bystanders, have seen things happen because of Jesus we never thought were possible and we’re waiting to see what’s next.

Some of us, like Mary of Bethany, are here because we know the cross is the only way to resurrection.

Some of us, like the Pharisees, are here, want to follow Jesus, but just wish it would all be a little less loud so it doesn’t evoke the ire and stares of others.

Those are all the right reasons to be here.  Those are all the wrong reasons to be here.  Each of us gets it – Jesus is the one we must call king.  Each of us misunderstands what it means to call Jesus “king,” and how high the stakes are.

To be clear, no one is better than the other.  I mean, let’s face it, if we are anything like the story in the scriptures, really none of us follows Jesus all the way to the cross.  All of us turn back at some point disappointed that it didn’t turn out like we expected.  No matter what, when we sing these festive songs, we both get it right and woefully miss the mark.  When we call Jesus, “king,” we’re both dead on, and foolishly wrong.

When we call Jesus king, too often we forget that he is the anti-king riding into Jerusalem to disappoint all of our expectations.  When we show up at the parade, we find what we’re looking for, then lose it again.  We are too joyful, forgetting the slaughter that inevitably awaits, and we are not joyful enough, forgetting the truth that the world is truly changed when service and humility are embraced more than power.  On Palm Sunday we know that Easter is coming, yet too often we think we’ve already arrived and the death in between has no meaning.  On Palm Sunday we rightly tell the world that Easter has arrived because ultimately death has no meaning against a new world order.  We get it right, we get it wrong.  But we show up.  We know the stakes are high.  Like the people that day, we choose the right parade.  We know, even if the reasons elude us from time to time, that Jesus is laudable. 

And in that, my friends, we are the stones.  We are the ones shouting out when others in the world are trying to silence this parade in favor of the parade for King Herod.  Even though we may not know why we sing, why we shout hosanna, we do so and people take notice.

Maybe deep in our hearts we want a different ending.  Maybe I want Jesus on a throne – a glorious one.  Maybe we want resurrection without the cross.  Maybe we’ll follow him, maybe we won’t.  Maybe we get it, maybe we don’t.  Maybe we’ll go part way, then try again another day.

But we sing:  we laud.  And so finally, we are all the stones.  This is not a simple song – this is not a fun parade without danger and risk.  And always we should sing and shout with humility knowing that when we call Jesus king, we both get it and don’t.  Bur our reasons for showing up, each of us, they’re good enough – because we’re here.  We’re willing to walk through this next week with Jesus – watch him die on a cross, and in that, somehow, find resurrection.

Confession:

Maybe we can get a taste of that day in our Palm Sunday worship:  As we sing our parade hymns today, as we choose to laud Jesus as king, hail the power of Jesus’ name, what do we feel today.  We will, with words, crown him as king – as Lord of all…over and over we’ll sing, “and crown him lord of all.”  What do those words feel like coming out of your mouth?  Should they feel awkward?  When we sing them, are we thinking of a colt?  Are we singing from a place deep inside because Jesus has touched our lives and we see him alone as our ruler?  Are we aware that our accolades send him to certain death?  Are we aware that we are not just at a party, but a pre-funeral wake?  Are we aware that his kingship does not solve all our problems?  Are we uncomfortable with even saying king because we don’t want him to have power over our lives in any way?  Do we resist, or sing unabashedly?  We get the chance to be in that crowd that day and see where we sit – where we are as we go into Holy Week. 

It’s confession:  It is naming truth.  And it is recognition that no matter what we write, we will not get it right – there is no expectation of that.  But Jesus rides on, and we have chosen the right parade.  We’re here, we are modern day stones when we sing.  We are crying out, come join this parade with us – the anti-king is surely the way to go.