Community Church Sermons
Year B
March 15, 2009
The
Third Sunday in Lent
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
As we continue our journey through the Season of Lent, the symbol of the Cross comes more clearly into view. There is no way to get to the joy of Easter Sunday without passing through the sadness of Good Friday. And it is impossible to think of Good Friday without considering the Cross upon which Jesus was crucified.
Today’s Christians do not always know that the Cross did not become a meaningful symbol of our faith until sometime in the 2nd-century - long after the death of Jesus. In the earliest days of Christianity, the Christian fish was the preeminent sign of those who followed Jesus. The cross was nothing more than a bad memory – the instrument of crucifixion imposed by the Romans not only upon Jesus but upon thousands of other Jews. Can you understand why the early Christians didn’t like crosses? Although not on the same scale by any means, the idea of an early Christian wearing a cross as a piece of jewelry would make as much sense as Jewish people today wearing an image of Auschwitz around their neck. The cross originally was a symbol of oppression, injustice and death.
So how is it that the cross came to be something so beloved among Christians that we now display it on our steeples – our steeple, if you haven’t noticed, is a cross in every direction! - and in our sanctuaries, and in our homes, and around our necks as pieces of jewelry, and on some of you as a tattoo on your arm, or thigh – or maybe not? Why is it that when we baptize babies we make the sign of the cross upon the child’s forehead, and why do Catholics and others respond to the invocation, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” by making the sign of the cross upon themselves?
Well, as time went on, the early Christians started thinking of the cross not for what it literally WAS - an instrument of execution - but for what it MEANS in light of Jesus’ resurrection. So the cross of Jesus became less a symbol of the terrible things the Romans had done, and more a symbol of what God did for Jesus, and what God has done for us. And the writings of St. Paul were very influential in bringing about this new understanding of the Cross. Listen to him in 1 Corinthians 1:18:
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.”
The message of the Cross is powerful! It is the power of God!
And St. Paul – with these words – pretty much describes the dilemma faced by Christians in every generation. There is a way to “hear” the Cross, to “see” the Cross, to understand the Cross that has the power to bring about new life in us through the grace of God. The message of the Cross is powerful in its ability to make us and the world well! But there is also a way of “hearing,” “seeing,” and understanding the Cross that can suck the life out of you, and others, and has the power to destroy us.
In the little Philippine town of Pampanga, a custom takes place every year on Good Friday. About ten people reenact the crucifixion. They carry their crosses through the village streets and are flogged by the spectators lining the streets. Then, in the village square, they are actually nailed to their crosses for a time. It is painful and bloody and terrible! But it’s also a big tourist attraction and local merchants thrive on the business brought into town by the influx of tour buses. But for those who undergo the bloody reenactment, it is much more than that. A 37-year old man named Fernando says that each time he experiences the terrible pain of the cross-nailing, it feels like more and more of his sins are being cleansed away – and he feels that he needs to purge himself of his sins in order for his sick little boy to be healed from an illness with which he suffers.
For Fernando – and for some of us - the message of the Cross is a reminder about all that we are not – it is about our sin, our shame, our dirtiness, our failure to be the people God created us to be. And even today, some 2,000 years after Jesus died on the Cross, many Christians engage in a kind of ongoing self-flagellation that seems to think that feeling bad about ourselves is the message the Cross is intended to convey. In fact, some of us here today come out of religious traditions and churches that are all about making people feel bad about themselves…in the name of God.
I heard a story the other night about Clarence Jordan, the founder of Koinonia Farms in Americus, Georgia. Jordan’s understanding of the Bible and Christian Faith formed his vision for building a community of people who shared resources, welcomed people of all races, and modeled the life of Jesus. Back in the 1940’s that was a very radical idea! But wonderful things came out of it. Koinonia Farms is where Habitat for Humanity was born, and many other wonderful expressions of Christian love and cooperation.
Well, the story I heard goes like
this: one Sunday – before integration - some black folks were visiting at the Farms
and Jordan took them to a certain church in town. The deacons refused to let
the black people in, saying it was unbiblical to mix the races. So Clarence
Jordan reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his ever-present New
Testament. He handed it to one of the deacons and said, “You show me one place in there where it says you can reject these
people because of the color of their skin.” Well, the deacon took the
Bible, thumbed through it, and then passed it on to the next deacon…who passed
it on to the next deacon… and finally to a deacon who said, “Look, let’s just leave the Bible out of
this!”
A great deal of the Christianity many of us grew up with is a religion that’s not found in the Bible. It’s a religion centered on the rejection of people - what’s wrong with people – black people, people of different religions, even people of different denominations! I grew up in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood where my friends could not come with me to play basketball in our church gym under threat of being struck by lightning! And any Protestant kid who dated a Catholic girl was sure to go to hell. Because catholic girls were really hot stuff!
It was a religion of what’s wrong with everybody – what’s wrong with THEM out there, and what’s wrong with YOU in here! Most of us grew up hearing that to God we are first and foremost sinners who are undeserving of God’s love. And many of us live with the idea that God is always looking for some excuse or reason to inflict his wrath upon us and send us to hell.
Religion in our world is so often used as a weapon – a weapon to make people feel despised and rejected by God, and that they are headed to hell in a handbasket. And the result of that abuse is usually one of two things: some end up altogether rejecting religion and God. You know, the fastest growing religious movement in our country is the Church Alumni Association. So some just turn away and never come back.
But others remain, and buy into the illness. They become indoctrinated into this guilt-driven religious system that thrives by making people feel guilty, and by dividing people one from the other. And feeling rejected themselves, they spend their lives finding reasons to reject others.
For them, the message of the Cross is all about sin and shame and guilt.
And that message has the power to destroy people, societies, nations, and the world.
So one way of thinking about the Cross is as a symbol of our unacceptability to God.
But St. Paul saw the cross differently. The Cross, Paul teaches, is not about what we are not, but about who God is and what God is like! The Cross is not about our guilt, but about God’s grace! The message of the Cross is not, “You are rejected!” but rather that God has done everything that can be done so that, “You are ACCEPTED!”
And listen to how St. Paul describes the wonder of the message of the Cross as the symbol of God’s acceptance of people:
“Brothers and sisters, remember what you were when you were called. Not
many of you were wise by worldly standards; not many were influential; not many
were of noble birth. But – and listen carefully – God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise; God chose the
weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things and the
despised things – and the things that are not – so that no one may boast before
him.”
Last Sunday, we looked at Paul Tillich’s famous sermon that is titled, “You Are Accepted.” And those three words fully describe what Paul is telling us about the meaning of the Cross.
The foolish are accepted. Do we have any foolish here? Have you heard about that woman who had in vitro fertilization and gave birth to octuplets? And those 8 babies are in addition to six other children she already has! And she is unmarried – publicly supported – and lives with her parents! How foolish!
But listen to Paul – the message of the Cross is that God CHOOSES even the foolish.
And the weak are accepted, too. Have you ever succumbed to your own human weakness and were not strong enough to do the right thing, or to solve the problem, or resist the temptation? Do you know someone who struggles with addiction and doesn’t have the strength to get out from under it, or who ran away from God when life fell apart? All around us there are weak people.
But listen to St. Paul – the message of the Cross is that God CHOOSES the weak.
The lowly are accepted. Welfare mothers and their children. People who live in schoolbuses in their front yard. The homeless men and women on the streets of our cities. God chooses the lowly…and the DESPISED.
I once had a Bible class in another church where we talked about this passage, and I asked the people to list some of the folks and groups that are despised in our society. Well, what a list they came up with! Who would YOU put on such a list?
Then I asked them which of those people or groups they believed God accepts! And then we had a problem! God would NEVER accept people like that, they said!
You see, they believed in a Cross
that says, “You are rejected!”
instead of the Cross that says, “You are
accepted – even you foolish, even you weak – even you lowly – even you who are
utterly despised!”
Which kind of Cross do you believe in?
And what would happen if you were to take up this message of acceptability – if you believed it with all your heart – if you lived it with all your strength?
Well, on a personal level, it would mean that you don’t have to run away from God anymore. No matter who you are, not matter what you’ve done, no matter what circumstance in life you find yourself in you don’t have to run from God anymore because God loves you and accepts you. You don’t have to beat yourself up for the mistakes you’ve made, and I know there are some major mistakes that have been made by all of us in this congregation. You don’t have to beat yourself up because of your mistakes and failures, but you CAN find courage to pick yourself up and either try again or try something different! You don’t have to remain trapped in those unhealthy habits and ways of living and experiences that you inherited from your parents or your society because God is on your side and you can trust in God!
In short, if you can accept that God accepts you, you can start accepting yourself! And that’s where growth for the better always begins.
The message of the Cross also gives you the power to get along with others. And boy, do we ever need that in our world! If you see other people as the subjects of God’s love and acceptance, then you have the basic building blocks for creating healthy relationships.
I was so saddened a while ago to hear from a young gay man who cannot go home to his family for the holidays because his father does not accept him. Where does it say anywhere in the Bible that there is a reason for a father to not love his son?
St. Paul spent his Christian life trying to bring different people together – Jews and Gentiles, free and slave, rich and poor. The message of the Cross drove him to find ways of helping people get along with each other. Don’t you think we could use a St. Paul today in the Middle East? Don’t you think we could use a St. Paul in Washington, D.C.?
The Cross has the power to help you accept yourself, accept others, and to transform this world into the kingdom of God.
So – as the hymn says - lift high the Cross, the love of Christ proclaim!
And my prayer is that our church steeple – that cross in every direction - will send the message to our neighbors and all who see it, “God accepts you as you are and you are welcome here!”
In our homes, I pray that the cross you have on the wall or the mantle will tell every family member and every guest, “You are accepted here, and are welcomed in this family!”
And I pray that the cross around your neck, or in your pocket, or in that tattoo, may remind you every day who you are, Whose you are, and what you are:
We are the world God loves so much he gave us His only begotten Son.
We ARE accepted!