Lectionary Link
Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday Cycle A April 17, 2011
Is.45:21-25
Ps. 22:1-11
Phil. 2:5-11
Matthew 26:36-27:66
In the Nicene Creed, we confess one holy and
apostolic church. And yet we know that
historically in actual on the ground circumstances the church has never been
catholic because there has never been universal acceptance of the Gospel. So catholic, which means, “on the whole” or
universal has more to do with aspiration rather than actual attainment. Historically, "catholic" can simply mean the agreement of the Church Councils. Surely we aspire for the persuasiveness and winsomeness of the Good New of Christ beyond our Church Councils.
So what is actually
“catholic” about the church? (I am glad
I asked; so I can attempt an answer; nothing better than a press conference
when one can ask and answer the questions desired). What is catholic about the
church involves the topics of the church that have universal relevance. And what would be those universal
topics? May I suggest a few? Birth? (Christian Baptism as being born
again) That’s pretty universal. Eating?
That’s pretty universal. (Holy Eucharist as the presence of Christ known to be as close to us as the food we eat) Family/Community? That's pretty universal.(The Church as a
welcoming community to everyone) Water?
That’s quite universal. (The
element of baptism) Thoughts about the
afterlife? I imagine that’s universal.
(God’s preserving power of resurrection) And Death?
And what is more universal than death?
On Passion Sunday and on Good Friday, the
topic is death, and in particular, the topic is the death of Christ. Death as a universal is a valid theory but
the experience of particular death can be quite unpleasant since we regard the
mode of physical presence to be the chief element of life. And death can inspire fear. Though Woody Allen once stated: “I’m not afraid
of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
We must admit that the topic of the death of
Jesus has become highly romanticized in Christian theology. Talk about making a silk purse out of a sow’s
ear. How is it that the death of Jesus
has become a most glorious accessory in the church’s theological wardrobe? How is it that a cruel instrument of torture
came to become the preferred jewelry of young and old alike and rendered in
gold and silver and wood and jewels?
The most significant theological architect of
the cross of Jesus was St. Paul. St.
Paul as Rabbi Saul, was not present at the actual crucifixion. He did not walk with Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, he was interested in making the
followers of Jesus imitate Jesus since he participated in the killing of the
followers of Jesus. Rabbi Saul snapped
on his way to Damascus on his way to kill some more followers of Jesus. The Romans thought it valid to kill people
who were deemed a threat to the state; but Rabbi Saul had the sixth commandment
to deal with: Thou shalt not kill. And
when it occurred to him that his jihad against the followers of Jesus was not
exempt from the sixth commandment, he realized that he could not use killing as
a way to get rid of people with whom he disagreed. In a vision he encountered the risen Christ;
he realized that he had been acting exactly like the Romans: using death as a
way to getting rid of people deemed inconvenient to them.
What happens in the understanding of the
death of people who are good people and who are killed unjustly? Their lives and the power of their deaths
become inspiring; inspiring to the point of extreme poetic license in
language. In the study of the births of
religious movements, it is often noted that when people are martyred, the
success of the movement flourishes.
Rabbi Saul became Paul the Apostle and he who
did not encounter Jesus of Nazareth became the architect of the theology of the
Cross of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote his
theology of cross before the actual Gospel Passion Narratives were
written. That is confusing for us
because we often think chronologically.
Jesus did die before St. Paul wrote about it, but when the writers began
to write down the Passion narratives; they did so with a theology of the cross
that they inherited in part from St. Paul. One obvious result of writing the Passion
narratives from Paul’s perspective and after the split of synagogue and the
Jesus Movement, is that the Jews in the narratives get more of the blame for
the crucifixion than do the Romans.
Blaming the Jews for the crucifixion has shamefully involved the church
in anti-Semitic inquisitions in the long history of Christianity.
What did the death of Jesus become for St.
Paul? It was an event of communal
identity. Paul wrote: Christ died for
us, while we were sinners. When we are
immersed in the waters of baptism, we are dying with Christ. Paul wrote that our old selves are crucified
with Christ, so just as death ends all physical suffering, the death of Christ
has an interior power to interdict our selfish natures. The death Christ died, he died to sin, once
and for all. Paul said that our death is
to the Lord, because we in our deaths belong to Christ. Paul said that he proclaimed the death of
Christ as a stumbling block to the Jews (their messiah never would be put to
death on the cross) and the cross was proclaimed as foolishness to the Gentiles
(is it reasonable to think that death could have a positive power?) St. Paul wrote that when we eat bread and
drink the wine, we are proclaiming the death of Christ. Paul, who once tried to killed followers of
Jesus went on to say, that he had been crucified with Christ…and now Christ
lived within him. And those who belong
to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. He said that both Jews and Gentiles could be
reconciled to each other through the cross.
Paul said that Jesus emptied himself completely of divinity in
subjecting himself to the cross. Paul
said that we all had guilty records and those guilty records and the deserved
punishment was nailed on the cross of Jesus.
Paul wrote that Jesus gave himself, a ransom for all.
On Passion Sunday and on Good Friday, we
perform the Passion Gospels as though they are reported as eye witnessed
events; but we really are reading the participatory liturgy of the early
church. We are encountering more the
theology of the cross rather than the actual historical event of the cross.
And so we are a part of this long tradition
of the theology of the cross. In the
theology of the cross, the power of the death of Jesus is to be contemplated as
a spiritual methodology in the way of personal transformation. In the theology of the cross we are to
accomplish the most incredible alchemy of all; to experience the power of
killing the holy Jesus as the power to bring to an end all that is unworthy
within us.
Now of course, in our liturgies we are
performing a chronological order and we perform this act of the play, even
while we know the earlier acts and the subsequent ending of the play. Act One: Jesus was born, lived and
ministered. Act Two: Jesus is put to
death. Act Three: The risen Christ
appears: Act Four: The risen and
ascended Christ is with us in the Holy Spirit.
The meaning of Act Two….the power of the death
of Jesus, is only known because of Acts Three and Four. You are invited to return next week for the
performance of act Three. I apologize if I’ve ruined the story for you by
giving you the title of Act Three.
Let the Gospel for us today be: We are crucified
with Christ and we receive the power of his death to be the power that can
eradicate all that is unworthy in our lives and in the life of this world. Amen.
