sermon
preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Bellingham, WA
by
the Rev. Josh Hosler, Associate Priest for Adult Formation
Good Friday, March 30,
2018
We are all born
with a survival instinct: we want to prolong our lives. We know that our end
will come, but that doesn’t typically alter our urge to keep on living. The
survival instinct is a real gift in some ways, just like pain and fear are
gifts. If we know what we might lose, we will work harder to keep what we have.
But in the
Garden of Gethsemane just before his arrest, Jesus looked his own survival
instinct squarely in the eye and said, “No. There are things far more important
than staying alive.” As Christians, we trust that in some mysterious way Jesus’
death accomplished something unique: salvation for all of us, and that it planted a seed that would eventually sprout,
grow, and reconcile the entire world to its Creator. But Jesus’ rejection of
his survival instinct is a tool for justice that has served many others since.
Next Wednesday
will be the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. On the day before his death by bullet, Dr. King
said:
Like anybody, I
would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned
about that now. I just want to do God's will … I may not get there with you.
But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised
land![1]
Last Saturday
was the anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. Days before
his death by bullet, the bishop asserted, “As a Christian, I do not believe in
death without resurrection. If they kill me, I will be reborn in the Salvadoran
people.”[2]
The message can
be found even in our children’s fiction. Dumbledore says to Voldemort: “Your
failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always
been your greatest weakness.”[3]
Many people throughout
history have figured it out: salvation trumps survival. Survival is great for
keeping us alive. But salvation infuses us with eternal meaning. And it manifests
itself specifically in giving our lives for those who are powerless and in
danger.
So imagine, if you will,
a conversation in the human mind between salvation and survival.
Survival
screams: “They’re all after you, and they want to take everything away from
you. Fight fire with fire.”
Salvation
concedes: “You’re probably right; just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean
they’re not after you. But I will not defeat the enemy by becoming the enemy.”
Survival
asserts: “You can’t love these other people;
they hate you. Don’t you see where they come from, what they’ve done, who
they’ve voted for, the labels they wear?”
Salvation replies:
“You will try to separate us, but we will come together. We will fight for
justice in ways you don’t even recognize as fighting, because we will not use
violence.”
Survival rages:
“Why do you refuse to defend yourself?”
Salvation
responds: “I choose to defend others instead. It may look to you like I’m just
standing here in silence and crying. But my tears are defeating death.”
Survival
seduces: “You don’t know anything. You’re just being brainwashed by people with
an agenda.”
Salvation
speaks firmly: “I know my pain, and I trust my scars to guide me.”
Survival
whispers: “I always have a plan. Why don’t you
have one?”
Salvation’s
voice trembles: “I don’t know the solution yet, but I do know that I would
rather lose
for the sake of love than to win for any unjust purpose. So I stand with
love—whatever the cost—now and always.”
I have been dropping
references here to some young people I want to honor today for their
sacrifices. When fifth-grader Naomi Wadler speaks eloquently on
behalf of children of color whose murders by bullet don’t make the headlines,
we’d better listen. When teenagers like Emma González, Sam Fuentes, and David
Hogg march for their lives, we’d better show up and act to help them. When
Malala Yousafzai returns to Pakistan for the first time since a bullet nearly
ended her life, she brings with her a strength that transcends her mere survival.
 | |
| Emma González (Source: Mother Jones) |
These young people could
just put their heads down and keep muddling through school, nursing their indelible
traumas. Instead they are placing themselves in harm’s way. They are being
ridiculed and trolled and slandered and subjected to ad hominem attacks by powerful adults, because they dare to speak out
for those who are being “wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our
iniquities.” Our children are placing crucifixion in front of our faces, and in
so doing they are unmasking evil forces. The indelible image of Emma González
standing in front of the camera in complete silence, tears streaming down her
face, is an image of Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, standing in the place of
sorrow and bearing the brunt of evil. How will we respond? If we want change,
we have to be willing to sacrifice.
In every
service of Holy Eucharist, we make our own “sacrifice of praise and
thanksgiving.” It doesn’t sound like much at first. But in baptism, we vow to come
to church, and do ministry, and give away our money—hopefully even ten
percent—for the sake of that ministry. The church serves an unbelieving world,
and the baptized are those who join in that work.
So “a sacrifice
of praise and thanksgiving” means so much more than dragging ourselves out of
bed on a Sunday. It means dedicating ourselves to the practice
of resurrection. This is the kind of sacrifice God wants: not innocent bloodshed,
the system Jesus put to death in his death, but rather, living blood dedicating
itself to love. For most Christians, that practice begins in church and then
spills out into society.
Cornel West said,
“Justice is what love looks like in public.”[4] Reinhold Niebuhr said,
“Justice is an approximation of brotherhood under conditions of sin.”[5] And so we engage in the
world of politics: the imperfect, day-to-day compromises and sacrifices of our
common life together. The church must never be partisan, since no political
party can come close to what love demands of our souls. But the church must
always be political, tugging our society in the direction of justice and thus
our best approximation of love.
Jesus stands boldly
before Pilate, and the voice of salvation proclaims, “Everyone who belongs to
the truth listens to my voice.” That happens even among people who’ve never
heard of Jesus, and people who have heard of him but misunderstand him, and people
who have been clobbered with his name and want nothing to do with it. These
people, too, hear the voice of Jesus when they demonstrate that they belong to
the truth, when they make clear that salvation trumps survival.
Now, I know
that many of you here today are busy dealing with unspeakable pain of your own:
the sudden death of a loved one … the ongoing grind of caring for someone in
failing health … the seeming void of a life that was once so full of optimism …
the diagnosis that wakes you up to worry … the knowledge that you have hurt
someone so deeply that they may never recover. You may be jobless, or
friendless, or foodless, or addicted, or you may fear that nobody will ever
truly understand or forgive you. Redemption is yours, but you’re not yet
experiencing it, and so we pray with you and stand with you. And we will love
you through this by making sacrifices.
Sacrifice comes
in all types and sizes, and without it we cannot love. Good parents sacrifice
sleep. Good executives sacrifice big paychecks and luxury jets. Conscientious
people voluntarily sacrifice some of their God-given freedoms so that those
with less power may become free.
I want to close with a
story: a conversation I have been given
permission to share, overheard at coffee hour this past Sunday.
Parishioner 1:
“I’ve been so depressed lately. I used to be on medication for it, but it’s
been awhile. I actually have a new prescription from my doctor, but I’m scared
to go back on it because of the potential side effects.”
Parishioner 2:
“I’ve just recently gone back on my anti-depressant; I also delayed doing so
because of the same fears. Tell you what. If you go back on yours too, we can
compare quirky side effects. Sound good?”
Parishioner 1:
“OK! Let’s shake on it.”
This kind of
sacrifice isn’t huge, but it’s far more than nothing. It’s not the passive lip
service of “thoughts and prayers.” It’s not even the sincere but noncommittal
“if you need anything,” which isn’t bad, which is sometimes all we have to
offer, but which still isn’t much. Rather, what I witnessed is direct loving
action, and it demonstrates and strengthens our salvation. And it’s something
you can do, too.
I was struck by
this incident because this resurrection work doesn’t come naturally to me. I
miss chances all the time to do something very much like what this parishioner
did: to dedicate a part of herself to another in an ongoing way. But God is
growing me. And so I watch and learn, and then I seek opportunities to
practice. The survival instinct prods, “Don’t get involved; it’s too much work,
and you’ll be less free.” But salvation insists, “This is what I was born to do,
and it will free me in ways I can’t yet imagine.”
We are Easter
people, the ones for whom Jesus was willing to be betrayed and murdered. We belong
to the truth, and so we practice resurrection. So this Easter—tomorrow
evening!—“let us
approach [the risen Christ] with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with
our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with
pure water … Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds,
not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one
another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Amen.
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