INTRODUCTION:
Last week, Nancy shared the opening of Act 2 of the unfolding drama as the biblical story moved from what has traditionally been called the Old Testament to the New Testament.  In this transition we saw why many biblical scholars prefer that we call these two sections of scripture the First Testament and the Second Testament.  In the words Old and New, the suggestion is there that New replaces the Old. Jesus, himself, makes the bridge between the two testaments showing that both are important to the drama. Jesus says, “I did not come to do away with the law but to fulfill it. The Law or Torah is the first 5 books in the First Testament. And if Jesus came to fulfill the teachings and stories in these books, then we need to know and understand them as a part of our own faith story. The foundation of our Christian faith, The Great Commandment, is not an original teaching of Jesus’.  The command to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as you love yourself” are two foundational teachings in the Torah.  In the life, death and teachings of Jesus we find the modeling of these two cornerstone teachings of our faith.  In Jesus we see the very presence of God in our midst modeling the very character and nature of God.  A character which consists of grace and compassion. Grace, which means unconditional, unearned love, and compassion, meaning walking in the life of another so completely that you understand and even experience life from their perspective.  So what was the impact upon the lives of those who experienced first hand the presence of God with us?  This is where the story begins today.

Read Matthew 21:1-11

As we continue today with the unfolding drama of scripture, it seems to me that this chapter of the drama may be the most puzzling and perplexing of all.  Last week, Nancy reminded us that if we can speak Spanish, we can understand the word incarnation as it contains the cognate “carne.”  Carne means meat or flesh. So incarnation literally means a deity coming into our presence in the flesh. That in the person, Jesus, God is with us, God is present in the flesh with us in life.  And that in Jesus we experience the essence of God’s character which is grace, meaning unconditional, unmerited, unearned loved.  So here is a person who lives perfectly out of God’s love for all of humanity.  Because of this the opening of today’s story from Matthew seems to make sense.  Crowds line up along the street cheering his arrival in Jerusalem, and shouting “Hosanna, hosanna” which means “save us now.”  This seems to be an affirmation by the crowd that they believed that Jesus was truly someone special from God in their midst.  Here is someone who may be able to save them from their occupation and bring God’s rule back to their lives.  So what happens that in just a few short days, we find another crowd shouting “Crucify him!  Crucify him!” How does someone who lives out of his love for his world and all within it find himself in the position of people wanting to kill him?

This experience sure makes you rethink the second part of the “Great Commandment” where Jesus challenges us “to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.” And yet, maybe, we should not be surprised.  I remember going to see the movie “Gandhi” and thinking this would be a nice peaceful, philosophical kind of movie. Here was a man who loved his neighbor and believed in peaceful resistance to further the cause of justice for his neighbors. The word peaceful lead me to a false sense of what I was about to see.  Much to my surprise, it turned out to be one of the most violent movies I have ever seen.  I was amazed what people were willing to do to their fellow human beings especially when those demonstrating, or practicing peaceful resistance, only wanted to stand up for another’s human and civil rights.  I was surprised to see what someone could experience when they only wanted those in power to be more respectful of their brothers and sisters in the family of humanity.

So what happens that takes a man of compassion and causes him to experience what we call the passion, his crucifixion.  Biblical scholar Marcus Borg claims that what ultimately got Jesus executed was his table fellowship.  Remember we hear the religious leaders of Jesus’ day complaining to his disciples that Jesus sat at table and ate with sinners and tax collectors. Jesus affiliated himself with those who were the most undesirable and most on the fringes of society. The people the religious leaders saw as unclean and in God disfavor.  So, why would Jesus sitting at table with those held in judgment be upsetting to these religious leaders?  When you sat at table with someone you were making a statement to those around you that you found those at table with you acceptable and worthy of your friendship.  But in Jesus’ case it stated even more.  Jesus was recognized as a specially chosen one of God. He was seen at minimum as a prophet. Remember, a prophet was named, “The Word of God,” in scripture. A prophet was seen as one chosen by God to express God’s wishes and direction for God’s people. So when Jesus eats with the people who are deemed unworthy by the main stream, he is not only saying that he finds them acceptable, but because he comes as the “word of God” he is saying that God also finds them acceptable as well. This statement calls the very foundations of the Jewish faith into question.

Jesus lived his calling, showing us the very character of God, showing us God’s grace and commitment to all of creation.  Jesus lived his integrity, but in doing so it called other’s most core beliefs and behaviors into question.  It is a challenge to us today as we seek to love our neighbors.  Who are the people, who are the groups who are rejected and called unclean and unacceptable today? Who are we told are the ones unworthy of God’s love, so unworthy of ours? Who are the people who find themselves on the fringes of our society experiencing our rejection? Are we willing to stand up for their humanity? Are we willing to acknowledge our table fellowship with them? When we take communion, we celebrate a table fellowship with all of God’s people in the human family of life. Are we willing to live our integrity, especially seeing the cost of doing so? Whoever says Christianity is for those who are weak and needing a crutch do not fully understand what Jesus asks of us. Our compassion for people, especially those who are not receiving the original blessings of life, can cause us to experience our own times of passion. Are we prepared to face the crowds in our own lives.

When Nancy and I went to the Holy Land, we discovered there is a church in Jerusalem called the Church of Flagellation. It is built upon the spot where tradition tells us that Jesus was whipped before his crucifixion. Consequently, it is a church dedicated to all those who suffer in their lives. It seemed appropriate that there is a church for those who experience the injustices, the disappointments of life. It was for these peoples that Jesus came to be a message of God’s good news, God’s love, and an example of God’s compassionate character. In this church, we find a holy place where the lives of the poor, disenfranchised, the widow and orphans, the oppressed are still remembered, and prayed for, as the people of God.

It was Jesus’ love, Jesus’ integrity, Jesus’ compassion and the living of it that may have been what took him to the cross. Here is where my understanding of the unfolding drama may depart from others. I do not believe that Jesus died for our sins. I believe that Jesus died because of our sin. Because we rejected the love that was and is in our midst, we find ourselves living in separation from God. Paul Tillich, a major theologian of the mid-twentieth century, says that the word sin should never be plural and should be capitalized. What he means by this is, Sin is a state of being, which means being separated from God. In fact sin literally means missing the mark as in missing the bulls-eye on an archery target. He goes on to say that sins, plural with a small “s” are simply the logical consequences of the bad choices we make in our separation from God and God’s loving direction. It is in our state of being separated from God that we miss the mark, and find ourselves, using the words from Deuteronomy, choosing curses and not blessings and choosing death and not life. In our separation we continually miss receiving God’s original desire for us and all of creation to be a source of blessing to all God created and all God loves.

Yet, in the midst of all of this, what is God’s response? Good Friday may at first seem like one of the darkest days of our Christian faith, as we relive the crucifixion, the death of Christ on the cross. But, I believe it may be the most important, because for me it is the day we are saved, meaning that we find our way to being brought back to at-one-ment in our relationship with God. As we turn to the passage from Luke, what do we hear from the mouth of Jesus?  “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” In the midst of Jesus’ passion, we hear yet again, Jesus’ compassion. Biblical theologian Robert Countryman suggests how important Jesus’ words truly are. He says that, “Jesus could have simply said I love you, but he said more. He said I forgive you, which means I love you in spite of who you are or what you do.” It is at this moment that we learn how true the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 8 are for us. Paul says “that nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

In a book entitled, Crucifixion, we learn how absolutely sadistic and brutal death by crucifixion is. In fact, it was so horrible that many in the Roman culture tried to ignore and even deny that it happened. They were embarrassed by its practice. The book leaves little doubt that there has been no more horrible way for one human being to treat another. So, in this story, I believe we see that even in the midst of the worst the world and we, as humanity have to offer in our rejection of God’s love, we still hear in Jesus’ words that God will not give up. God will not stop trying to be our God and have us be God’s people. God continues to live in God’s integrity, and prays for us to receive God’s forgiveness, God’s love as the gift it has always been and will continue to be to bring life.

Yet, Jesus’ dies and his enemies laugh. Does God’s grace lose? As wonderful as those last words of Jesus from the cross are, how do we know that they have the power to bring new life? How do we know that in those words, God shows us that we can never lose our at-one-ment with God unless we simply choose not to receive the gift of love? How do we know that these words of Jesus are the last word? How do we know God’s love and compassion ultimately win? Come back next week as the drama continues to unfold.

Sermon delived by Rev. George Cushman on April 9, 2006.