I want to start our meditation time this morning by sharing with you a story that illustrates
the central focus of our gospel lesson for today, and the problem inherent in the concept of forgiveness. For some
of you that have been in long term relationships the truth of this story may hit very close to home.
Ollie and Frieda had been married for a long time. Like most couples who have been married for a great many years,
they had had their share of troubles, but nothing had been able to shake their commitment to each other. One morning,
as they were eating breakfast, they got into one of the most vicious verbal battles of their marriage. Both Ollie
and Frieda hurled outrageous accusations at each other. Both said such nasty things about the other that it appeared
that their marriage of more than thirty years could come to an end. The verbal abuse was so hostile that it appeared
to scare both of them as they suddenly ceased screaming at each other and sat there for a time in stony silence.
Ollie was the first to break the silence as he began to apologize profusely for his tirade. He asked Frieda to
forgive him as they finally embraced. Frieda assured him that all was forgiven; and that she would forget the whole
thing.
As the next few weeks went by Frieda continued to remind Ollie of what he had said and done. It was as though she
was eagerly seizing every opportunity to jab Ollie with the terrible pain of that morning's hostilities. Finally,
Ollie had had enough and complained to her, "Frieda, when I apologized for the terrible things I said to you
during that argument you not only told me that you forgave me, but that you would forget about it. Yet, over these
past few weeks, you seem to seize upon any opportunity you can find to remind me of the things I said about you
in the heat of that argument."
Frieda replied, "You are absolutely right. I did promise to forgive you and to forget about that nasty incident,
and I do forgive you and I have forgotten it. The reason I keep bringing it up is that I don't want you to forget
it!"
It isn't easy to forgive is it? The problem is we want to own it, and have the other person earn it. It simply
cannot work that way.
Today is The Feast of Christ the King, the Last Sunday after Pentecost, the last Sunday of the Christian Year,
a day on which we pay particular attention to the character of the Reign of God revealed in the life, death, resurrection,
and eternal Lordship of the Son. We are confronted with the paradoxes and contradictions of Christ's Kingship in
crucifixion account from Luke's Gospel, crowned with thorns, enthroned upon a cross, attended by thieves.
For centuries people have been debating the "necessity" of Jesus' death and whether, as one member put
it, "Christ's killers were doing the will of God," just fulfilling a pre-ordained plan of action. There
are a variety of theological understandings of the why's and wherefore's of the Atonement, but we do not find them
in today's Gospel lesson. Of today's reading, R. Alan Culpepper, who authored the commentary on this text in The
New Interpreter's Bible, wrote:
Luke does not defend any particular theory
of the atonement. The traditional theories
generally fall into one of the following
categories: sacrifice, ransom, or moral
influence. Luke never calls Jesus 'the Lam
of God who takes away the sin of the
world' (John 1:29 NRSV); cf. John 1:36;
Acts 8:32). Neither does the Lukan Jesus
say 'the Son of Man came ... to give his life
a ransom for many' (Mark 10:45 NRSV).
At most, the two on the road to Emmaus
report, 'We had hoped that he was the one
to redeem Israel.' (24:21; cf. 1:68; 2:38). No
proof text suffices in these matters, but the
absence of even such references as one
finds in the other Gospels underscores the
extent to which Luke relies on the account
of Jesus' death to carry the message of its
significance. How one chooses to explain it,
after all, is quite secondary to the
confession that Jesus is the Christ, our
Savior.
(Vol. IX, pg. 457, Reflection on Luke.)
That is the confession that parents make on the occasion of their children's baptism, a confession which that child
will be asked later in life to re-affirm as an adult at the time of confirmation, a confession made when joining
a church or transferring membership from one congregation to another, a confession which each of us makes at each
worship service we attend, in each religious discussion we enter into, in each prayer we utter.
We confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and that we follow him in obedience to his call, "If any want to become
my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." (Mark 8:34) This is the path
onto which our feet today are being placed again today, the path of self-denial, the path of self-sacrifice.
There is a custom in the churches of Argentina where the mother of an infant being baptized, wears black mourning
clothes as she presents her child for baptism. Walking though the congregation crying and weeping, she carries
her child to be marked by God and dedicated to Christian discipleship. She wears black because she knows that the
Christian vocation, the call to self-denial and self-sacrifice, includes disappointment, surrender, service to
all others, probably pain, and (in many societies throughout the church's history) violent death. The baptismal
font itself is often in the shape of a coffin, and the child is plunged into the threat of potential destruction
only to be raised again, dripping wet as at birth to the promise of a whole new way of life under the lordship
of Jesus Christ. That is a very graphic image of the transition into a life with God.
To be called into radical discipleship - and thus to answer as an adult - is one thing. This is a decision adults
can make freely, but is an act of tremendous courage and faith to offer our beloved children to a life in which
each will be expected to pick up their own cross and follow the crucified Lord.
The portion of Jeremiah's prophecy that we heard today, verses 1 through 6 of the 23rd chapter, is at the end of
a much larger section of oracles beginning with chapter 21. This group of pronouncements have to do with the kings
of Judea and their seat of government at Jerusalem. Patrick D. Miller of Princeton Theological Seminary says of
this part of Jeremiah's prophecy:
This whole literary complex is dominated
by the relationship between kingship and
justice. That the two are mutually
interdependent so that one cannot survive
without the other is the central claim of
these oracles. It is set forth so insistently
that one must take the whole matter
seriously. Visions of the kingdom of God
can function on a very spiritual plane,
remote from the realities of the human
community. The Old Testament, however,
persistently insists on that vision's
centering in justice and regularly sets the
criterion for determining whether justice is
present in the way one treats the weakest
members of the community, the powerless
and the marginalized, the economically
depressed, and the vulnerable. The judicial
structures, including the appeal to the king,
are the locus of justice, but the content of
it rests in the treatment of the weakest of
the weak.
(The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. VI, page 745, Patrick D. Miller, Reflections on Jeremiah.)
The apparent contradiction, the paradox of Jesus' Kingship and his redeeming power is found in the simple fact
that he placed himself right there in the position of the weakest and accepted the treatment given them by the
judicial structures of his day. He had already told his disciples that this was necessary when he told his disciples
to allow children to be brought to him: "Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as
a little child will never enter it." (Mark 10:15; Luke 18:17) And before that he had said, "Whoever welcomes
[a] child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all
of you is the greatest." (Luke 9:48; cf. Mark 9:37)
When we welcome our newest members this morning into this community of faith, this household of God, we welcome
our seemingly contradictory, paradoxical king.
For those of us who have trouble identifying with the image of a King, (being democratic North Americans and all
that...) the epistle for today provides the same idea, without the foreign imagery. "Head of the body."
"One who rescues, redeems, forgives." "The One for whom all things were created." "The
Peacemaker." "The One in whom the fullness of God dwells."
There are so many events and issues that pull us apart. Politics, war, economic downturns, and competition which
pit neighbor against neighbor. We spend so much of our lifetimes locked in power struggles, spouse with spouse,
parent with child, subordinate with employer, neighbor with neighbor. Though September 11 gave us some unity against
a common enemy, the divisive elements abound.
We need a savior,-- one who can hold things together. We are intelligent, sophisticated, ingenius, creative, wealthy
and powerful. But we are also self-centered, envious, dysfunctional, and powerless over our own problems. We cannot
in the end save ourselves.
God has seen fit to provide what we could not provide, an inheritance of the saints in the light, redemption, forgiveness
of sins. God has done this in and through Christ. For in him all things were created. In him all things hold together.
While many families enjoyed their time of feasting this Thanksgiving, some individuals were alone. Victims of divorce
or death or disappointment, they may well have tried to hang in there while feeling as though everything in their
world was falling apart. Other families came together simply to prove that reality wrong, and some families departed
happily after old fights and memories had been revisited. If you count yourself among such groups you know what
it means to have fading or lost hope of family togetherness and even now dread the next mandatory holiday gathering.
Such people, all people, need a Savior.
That last verse of the epistle is perhaps the most challenging one.
"God was pleased to reconcile ALL things?"
Terrorists? Muslims? Bleeding-heart liberals? Right-wing war Hawks? Gentiles, Romans, Christ killers? All things?Hitler,
Stalin, Hirohito, Mao, bin Laden? My dysfunctional family members…your dysfunctional family members. Our weakest
links, our own sinful selves.
Jesus prayed from the cross,"Father forgive them", who took his innocent life.
And at least one of those who died with him that day said "Remember me when you come into your Kingdom."
I like the way Verna Dozier says to her Bible discussion groups: "We're all going to heaven. We're ALL going
to heaven... And SOME of us are going to LIKE it!" After that sinks in a little, she goies on, "So our
job now is to practice learning to like being with EVERYONE."
When the secular world celebrates the final day of the year, UM church congregations will reaffirm the reality
of their new nature in the Wesleyan covenant service the prayer of which begins with the words :"I am no longer
my own but thine."
What an awesome privilege and responsibility.
UMC Bishop Woodie White used to charge his congregations with this disturbing benediction:
"Now, may God torment you --- May God
disturb you --- May God keep before you
--- the hungry, the dying, the oppressed,
the rejected. Then, may God give you the
compassion to do the work you have to do
--and may you do your best --- and then --
and only then -- - May God grant you
peace --- until we meet again. -Amen-
Go then, as servants of the King and do the same
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