Message by John Brierly McCall, D. Min.
Mark 1:9-15
1 Peter 3:18-22
Welcome to Lent, 2012 – a season that calls us to reflect and prepare for the coming of the Easter miracle. This season of the church year runs forty days, beginning with Ash Wednesday and ending with Holy Saturday. In scripture the number 40 is symbolic, not literal. It’s a holy number representing a long but finite period. As such it parallels the 40 years of the flood when Noah was on the ark; 40 years of the children of Israel’s Exodus in the wilderness of the Sinai; and the 40 days of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness after his baptism in the Jordan.
Traditionally, Christians have observed Lent by giving something up and by focusing on the suffering, and death of Jesus as an act of atonement, remembering the claims:
- that God the Father was angry at the sins of Adam and all Adam’s descendants;
- that God’s justice demanded a sacrifice as a ransom for our souls, and that we deserve to die for our sins
- that God substituted Jesus to the Cross to pay that ransom; and
- that you and I are forgiven of our mortal sin and saved for eternal life if, and only if, we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior.
That’s the tradition… what we call orthodox Christianity. But there are other ways to understand the scriptural story. And that’s the quest Elsa and I invite you on this season. This isn’t about theological laziness, or political correctness, or a desire to sanitize the story by denying the horror and cruelty of that week – the arrest and trial and crucifixion.
I’m not saying “that’s yucky so let’s edit it out of the story!” No, we’re saying it is right to ask the question: would the God we see and know and worship demand a ransom, a human sacrifice, for our sins and send Jesus to the cross to pay the price in our place? That’s the undergirding theme for our Lenten observance.
Let’s remember when it comes to being a Christian everything depends on where you start the story and on what you emphasize. It’s all there in our scriptures and our history:
Is slavery lawful or an abomination? Yes!
Are women equals to men or must they be obedient to their husbands? Yes!
Are children more or less attuned to the Holy Spirit than grown-ups? Yes!
Is animal sacrifice a delight to God or disgusting to God? Yes!
Are we to kill or convert or honor those who don’t worship our God as we do? Yes!
And we know that biblical truth is rooted in a prehistoric time and world-view. For generations Christians claimed the earth was flat, fashioned on the third day of creation, and the center of the universe, around which the sun orbited. I haven’t spoke to anyone recently who holds on to that view!
The fact that Christian orthodoxy has claimed a particular set of beliefs, or that the Vatican or a particular presidential contender claims to know an answer doesn’t mean you are wrong in what you believe. Quite the contrary: Christianity is about where we start and what path we take in our authentic desire to come closer to the God we yearn to know. And there has never been one Christianity.
Some will let preacher or Pope tell them what they must believe and what it all means. Our Congregational and United Church of Christ tradition holds that the person in the pulpit is the preacher and teacher who tries to offer the appetizer so you can pursue what you need to decide what you believe. There’s no final creed, no human articulation of precisely what God has done, and no certain claim as to what God can and will do!
Over the years of my ministry I’ve personally moved away from some of those traditional, orthodox claims, and have come instead to a place rooted deeply in scripture without claiming that I’m certain. And this has meant my re-interpreting the whole drama of Holy week, Good Friday, and Easter. The best I can express that comes from a blogger quoting an unknown source, who wrote:
For too long, Christians and non-Christians have assumed that all who yearn to follow the way of Christ universally believe Christ died for our sins. For millions, this not only defines their faith, but their understanding of the very nature of God as well. For others, it is the basis for rejecting Christianity, understanding it as an inherently violent religion, centered on a bloodthirsty God that requires death in exchange for mercy.
http://www.libsandcons.com/5/post/2011/10/did-jesus-really-die-for-our-sins.html
That’s the crux of it. I believe many are turning from the church because orthodox claims contradict our true experience of God. Simply by beginning in a different place; starting with different scriptures, and emphasizing different themes we can become open to a different way of articulating a vibrant and authentic faith.
Rather than starting at the cross and working backwards, today and for the next five weeks we start early in the Gospel of John where we hear the proclamation: God loved the world. God has always loved the world and has spoken through prophets and teachers and leaders.
When the people wandered, God knew our brokenness, our sins, and our rebellion. God tried to address our brokenness through prophets and apostles. Still we wandered in wilderness. And in the fullness of time God came in Jesus our brother, as one of us, to show us what a life overflowing with God really looks like. This love is the starting place – not the cross, the sword, the brutality of crucifixion, but God’s profound love for the world.
And today we remember the symbol of water, the metaphor for the beginning.
- Genesis tells us that in the beginning God separated the light from the dark and the dry land from the waters.
- Genesis tells us that humankind sinned and God decided there was no way to redeem creation except by destroying it all – all but for Noah and his family and the animals; and that God saw the destruction after the flood waters and said “never again.”
- Exodus tells us that Moses led the children of Israel through the parted waters of the Red Sea.
- And Mark’s Gospel tells us that Jesus’ ministry began with his baptism in the River Jordan – a new beginning for his one life and for all creation.
The First Letter of Peter summarizes that salvation story:
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.
And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.
This morning we begin our Lenten journey with a vessel of water on the altar, representing God’s life-giving, life-sustaining love, as the Holy One provides for us all things necessary. Water is one of the fundamental ways God loves the world. Pure water is necessary to life. We can live without food for two to three weeks, but without water for only a few days.
Jesus’ immersion in the waters of the Jordan River took on larger meaning as his ministry of love and justice unfolded. He taught his followers how to live and how to engage the costs and joys of discipleship. “Follow me,” he said, “and you will find abundant life – life beyond death – toward which I will guide you.”
I don’t suggest that we’re able to save ourselves from our sin. It takes the divine and Holy One to save us… not by sending the son to the cross in our place, but by setting Jesus before us as a teacher and healer and guide who says to us, in effect:
If God intended to overwhelm sin and to balance the tables of justice, this God of grace and mercy could have found a different way. The historic claims of the church do not, in my theology, reflect the nature of this God who is worthy of praise and thanksgiving.
If we insist that God sent the son to the cross as a substitute for all of sinful humankind, how can we shout “no!” to crucifixions of every kind?
How can we echo Micah’s call to “do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God,” if we follow a God whose sense of justice includes a human sacrifice on the cross?
How can we claim that living God’s love has the power to redeem the greatest darkness, the greatest sin, the greatest suffering, the greatest spiritual pain?
Frankly, I can’t! I can no longer accept that God intended Christ’s death on the cross as a ransom for my soul; that God’s own scales of justice demanded a human sacrifice.
But the more important question is what you believe. What we find and where we stand ultimately depends on what we choose to emphasize, and what we believe is at the heart of Christianity.
As Elsa and I wrestle aloud with the faith, we invite you to consider that God is still speaking and we are still seeking. Join me for a Davidson Conversation today and on March 25; join Elsa tomorrow evening and two other Mondays to wrestle further.
Together we can ask questions that many have thought can have one and only one answer.
At the very least let it be our prayer that we all can open our hearts and minds and consider that our still-speaking God may have more for us to consider in this wonderful, amazing journey of faith.