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"Don’t Go There" | Luke 13:31-35
| March 7, 2004 |
Jesus does not respond with a polite “thank you” but says, “You go tell that old fox that I’m going to continue what I’m doing. I’m going to keep on keeping on.” The picture here is of Jesus remaining steadfast in his determination to go to Jerusalem. We find this story as part of the lectionary readings in Lent for that is when the church traces the journey of Jesus to Jerusalem and to the events of Holy Week. Those are the awful events that are depicted in Mel Gibson’s recent film, The Passion of the Christ.
I went to see the film last week. I thought if I was going to mention where Jesus was headed in today’s sermon I had an obligation to see the film that has stirred so much interest, been the topic of so many columns in papers and magazines and has been the source of so much conversation.
The title of my remarks today (Don’t Go There) is not my review of the movie. However I would not urge anyone to go see the film. Gibson has a right to his vision as much as Scorseese (although I wish he would have acknowledged that at first instead of suggesting that he was an instrument of the Holy Spirit.) If you do decide to see the film be forewarned; it is incredibly violent and bloody. I am reminded of a warning that Elie Wiesel gave to those who were reading and viewing material about the horror of the holocaust: he said we must be careful not to be drawn into a pornography of violence. This film is close to that line if not over it.
If you know the gospel stories of the last days of Jesus’ life you will find yourself while watching the film wondering where Gibson got some of the episodes he includes.
Scripture does not have Pilate’s wife giving towels to Mary, nor have a gang of demon children chase Judas to his suicide. You should also be aware that the film is very much a medieval passion play with the stations of the cross all there. We should also be aware of the long horrid history of Passion Plays which were often prelude to attacks on Jews as “Christ Killers.” If you read Clarence Page’s column in last Sunday’s Tribune you noted his quoting what a Chicago rabbi and Holocaust survivor told him. The rabbi grew up in central Europe before World War II. Every year after Easter mass he could reliably depend on some of the Christian children to roam the street, looking for Jewish children to beat up, taunting “You killed Christ.” The film presents the Chief Priests and the mob they assemble in very unflattering ways. But they are not presented in a flattering way in the gospels. Which should lead the thoughtful among us to continue to inquire into how and when and why the gospels have the shape and tone they have.
Perhaps we all should hear again the prayer Pope John 23rd wrote in atonement for all the Jewish suffering caused in the name of Jesus.
“We realize now that many, many centuries of blindness have dimmed our eyes so that we no longer see the beauty of Thy Chosen People and no longer recognize in their faces the features of our first-born brother. We realize that our brows are branded with the mark of Cain. Centuries long has Abel lain in blood and tears because we had forgotten Thy love. Forgive us the curse which we unjustly laid on the name of the Jews. Forgive us that with our curse, we crucified Thee a second time.” (Quoted by Jeff Jacoby in The Boston Globe 2/24/04)
I confess that I was disturbed not only by the graphic brutality in Gibson’s film but also because it reminded me of many of the sermons I heard while I was growing up in one of the denominations that is now hailing Gibson’s film as a great evangelistic tool. You see, I heard sermons that gave fairly graphic descriptions of the flogging and the crucifixion to make the point that Jesus had to die that horrible way to “pay the price” for my sins.
Seared into my memory is an object lesson a traveling evangelist used to try to convert those of us who were children in the congregation. I must have been 6 or 7. The visiting evangelist called the children to the front of the church. He placed two eggs on the table in front of us and told us they represented us, people who had sinned. Then he produced a large wooden mallet which represented the wrath of God that was against sin. He said some of us try to protect ourselves by wrapping ourselves in the “filthy rags of self righteousness” which he illustrated by wrapping the egg in little strips of cloth standing for “going to church,” “attending Sunday school,” etc. Then he produced a soup can that had been painted red to represent the blood of Jesus and placed that over the second egg. Then the wrath of God in the form of the mallet came down on the can–the egg was unharmed. Then SPLAT the mallet descended on the other egg wrapped in cloth which did indeed become filthy. God forgive him for doing that to children. I reject the “Penal Theology” of substitutionary atonement, where Jesus is a substitute who gets the penalty meant for us sinners. I reject the view of God that theology depicts. I do not see God as some vengeful, imperious being who needs someone to suffer because of sin. As a friend of Gary’s and mine responded to an invitation by another colleague to see The Passion at a local theater, “Thanks but no thanks. Tinseltown seems like an appropriate place to see a theological work based on medieval atonement theology and apocryphal stories.”
I believe a different view of God was presented by Jesus who possessed his life so fully, was so devoted to his mission to announce the good news of the realm of God, that he could give his life away without fear. As Marcus Borg writes, “The freedom that marks this man becomes so frightening to those who are not free–and who cannot admit that they are not free–that they rise up in anger to destroy the life-giver. The cross, to me,” he writes, “stands for this destruction . . . The cross does not represent a sacrifice required by a blood-seeking deity; it rather reveals the ultimate portrait of the threatening power of love that is present in the life of this victim. Even when Jesus walked what later came to be called ‘the way of the cross,’ and even when the threat of death became the reality of death, still the bearer of this gift of life discovered that nothing could finally destroy the life he possessed.” (A New Christianity for a New World)
So today’s story of Jesus on the way to Jerusalem is an episode of Jesus “walking in the light of God” (as we will sing at the end of today’s service). In the last part of today’s reading is the image of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. Here Jesus laments the pattern of Jerusalem’s treatment of prophets and the way Jerusalem’s habitual dependence on violence caused them to reject his own loving, healing ministry. His disappointment is not born of defeated plans for an expanded empire, but of thwarted ambition to embody for the city’s people the very love of God.
There have been other followers of Jesus who were warned “Don’t Go There” who none-the-less continued to walk, and march and sing and dance in the light of God, even when it was an unpopular path, even when it led into the shadow of the valley of death.
Those souls, many of them our ancestors in the congregationalist church, who took up the cause of the slaves on the ship Amistad (that is a film I would urge you to see. You will hear music from it for today’s communion); those souls were told “Don’t Go There.” Lewis Tappan was the New York abolitionist who, in the opinion of John Quincy Adams, was most responsible for securing the freedom of the Africans on the Amistad. Contacted by Connecticut abolitionists soon after the Amistad was towed into port, Tappan dedicated himself to securing high quality legal representation for the captives, raising money for their defense and provision, increasing public support for their cause, recruiting teachers to provide them instruction. In 1834, a mob broke into Tappan's home where an Antislavery Society meeting was being held. They threw his furniture out into the street, then burned it. The next year an unnamed person advertised a $100,000 reward to the person who would deliver the dead bodies of the Tappan brothers to any slave state. Tappan was burned in effigy, attacked in the press, unable to purchase insurance for either himself or his possessions. For protection, Tappan carried only a copy of the New Testament in his breast pocket.
The United States will never be the same, because Martin Luther King, Jr. and his colleagues dared to try Jesus’ way. In spite of many telling them “Don’t Go There,” they kept on marching in the light of God.
Nelson Mandela, unembittered after twenty-seven years in prison, went forth to love his tormentors and lead in the dissolution of apartheid. The blood bath so certainly prophesied did not happen, and the process of truth telling and reconciliation continues–in the light of God.
Monica McWilliams is the daughter of a cattle dealer, raised in Kilrea, Ireland. She became the first member of her family to attend college. She says of her days at Queens University in Belfast, “My memories are of many firebombs and people being shot in front of me.” As progress on peace talks between Protestants and Catholics seemed possible she and some of her associates decided that women should have a voice extending beyond religious differences. What should they call their party of Catholic and Protestant women? She said they thought of calling it the Women’s Coalition but decided that “WC” would not look good on a ballot. One of the deputies of an existing party declared, “These women came out of nowhere and they should get back to nowhere.” The Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition replied, “There is no such place as nowhere.” Her contacts with Sinn Fein got a price put on her head. When on Good Friday the group of former enemies were asked to agree to what became known as the Good Friday agreement there was a woman’s voice among the men, it was Monica McWilliams saying “For the Agreement.” In praising all those who had come to the agreement negotiator US Senator George Mitchell said, “It doesn’t take courage to shoot a policeman in the back of the head, or to murder an unarmed taxi driver. What takes courage is to compete in the arena of democracy, where the tools are persuasion, fairness, and common decency.” (Profiles in Courage for Our Time. Caroline Kennedy, editor).
But the democratic process can be one where people will be told “Don’t go there.” Dean Koldenhoven was mayor of Palos Heights, Illinois when a Muslim group asked the city zoning committee to approve the use of a church building they had an agreement to purchase for a Muslim Mosque. The town came apart. Various attempts to stop the Muslims included a City Council vote to buy the church building for a recreation center (even though it had earlier been judged too small). Koldenhoven objected. “We don’t want to be known as the town that kicked the mosque out,” he said. “People have got to look in the mirror. This is not who we want to be.”
The following year, Koldenhoven came in last in a three-way race for mayor. The “Profiles in Courage” citation he received said, “He risked his political career to do what was right for his community, and he paid the price.” (Ibid) This church and members of this congregation have often ignored those who said “Don’t Go There.” May we continue to walk in the light of God.
Amen
Joe Dunham
| Copyright © 2004 by Joe Dunham. All rights reserved. |