Learning the Lesson: the humiliation of the king

Since transitioning from parish ministry to hospice chaplaincy, I’ve preached several funerals but this was the first sermon I’ve delivered since leaping into the arms of God and finding a net before me.  In this sermon, my task was to step into the midst of a sermon series based on Adam Hamilton’s 24 Hours that Changed the World.  My title and text were assigned:  “The Humiliation of the King,”  Mark 15:15-23.  Frankly, I would have avoided these otherwise.  So, I knew that the Spirit would intercede in a powerful way.  Indeed, the Spirit did.

(NOTE:  While serving as a pastor and preaching at least once a week, I never claimed to be a good preacher or worship designer.  Rather, I’d tell anyone who asked that I’m a good editor and know how to make use of a range of resources.  If you choose to use parts of this sermon in your work, please contact me to provide attribution.  You’ll note that I use informal attributions, but offer them nonetheless.  I expect at least the same of you.)

 

Carrying the Cross, by He Qi, contemporary artist

INTRODUCTION: 

…This morning, as I share with you, I come out of a context of over 12 years of parish-based ministry.  One of the most challenging aspects of discipleship is being ready to say “Yes” to our God when he sends us down an unexpected or surprising path.  It’s certainly part of the itinerancy, also known as the annual switch-o-change-o of pastors.  So, in August of last year, I was able to take a risk and say “Yes” to God as I stepped out on faith to follow the path.  Now, I find myself coming to you from an extension ministry in the field of hospice chaplaincy.

Whenever someone discovers what I do, they say, “Oh, it takes a special person to do that work.”  Perhaps, so.  But it takes a special person to do every sort of work with heart-full-ness.

So, let us, in a heartful way, turn to the work of attending to the scripture and discerning God’s Spirit flowing through the Word. …I invite you to step back, to take a deep breath, and to hear the story in a different way.  Perhaps in the turn of a phrase, the Spirit of God will grab hold of you. 

 

Mark 15: 15-23 (CEV)

15Pilate wanted to please the crowd. So he set Barabbas free. Then he ordered his soldiers to beat Jesus with a whip and nail him to a cross.

Soldiers Make Fun of Jesus:  (Mt 27.27-30; Jn 19.2,3)  16The soldiers led Jesus inside the courtyard of the fortress and called together the rest of the troops. 17They put a purple robe on him, and on his head they placed a crown that they had made out of thorn branches. 18They made fun of Jesus and shouted, “Hey, you king of the Jews!” 19Then they beat him on the head with a stick. They spit on him and knelt down and pretended to worship him. 20When the soldiers had finished making fun of Jesus, they took off the purple robe. They put his own clothes back on him and led him off to be nailed to a cross. 21Simon from Cyrene happened to be coming in from a farm, and they forced him to carry Jesus’ cross. Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus.

Jesus Is Nailed to a Cross:  (Mt 27.31-44; Lk 23.27-43; Jn 19.17-27) 22The soldiers took Jesus to Golgotha, which means “Place of a Skull.”  23There they gave him some wine mixed with a drug to ease the pain, but he refused to drink it.

[PRAYER]

A Present-day Image of Humiliation

Maybe you’ve heard of a little novel that has sneaked its way into popular consciousness.  It tells the tale of a 16-year old girl who courageously steps forward to save her younger sister from certain death. This girl narrates the story of a post-apocalyptic North America, renamed and re-divided from our present-day political labels and boundaries.

Twelve poorer Districts are ruled by a powerful, wealthy metropolis called the Capitol.  Due to an earlier rebellion, the Districts are punished annually  with a gladiatorial-like competition.  From each District there must come – by lottery selection – 1 boy and 1 girl between the ages of 12 and 18.  So it is that the heroine of The Hunger Games emerges – in place of her sister – to fight to the death. 

What’s worse is that the horrific competition is broadcast as required viewing for all residents of the Districts.  Families and neighbors watch as their children struggle to the death.  Everyone knows that each year, his or her son or daughter, brother or sister, neighbor or friend, is in equal position to be selected for a gruesome death. 

Even more terrible is that some of the children born in more advantaged Districts have access to better resources to equip them for the battle:  training and food.  For those born in the poorest Districts, death is almost inevitable.  

Plainly, such a game isn’t about competition.  It’s about control.  It’s about fear.  It’s about power on the scale of the ancient Romans as they practiced the terrors of flogging and crucifixion.

The Humiliation of God in Jesus of Nazareth

From the moment God decided to take on human flesh, God began not only humbling God’s self but also humiliating God’s self.  This might be a strange thought for those of us who have so romanticized the Teaching of the Incarnation:  A sweet, little baby boy, born to a gentle mother mild on a starry night in a far off land who came to save the whole world.  The lilting carols of Christmas-time gentle our spirits.

But in truth, the context into which Jesus was born was anything but gentle and pretty.  His mother gave birth to him in rough, smelly stable overflowing with the muck, mire, and grime of livestock in a city teeming with too many people gathered all at one time.

In truth, Jesus didn’t know the safety and comfort of a nursery readied for him with pastel colors and stuffed animals and quiet music played through an iPod docking station.

Instead, Jesus was born into a world of violence, with the anger a raging ruler who demanded his death and instead settled for the slaughter of scores and scores of male children when he was unable to locate the so-called newborn king. Jesus and his family were cast into refugee status, fleeing for the possibility of survival under the promise and protection of the angels.

The story of Jesus’ birth, infancy, and childhood foreshadow his suffering, death, and resurrection.  The Gospel of Luke tells the story of an old man by the name of Simeon who recognized the arrival of the Messiah in the person of the 8-day old Jesus and declared to his Mother Mary:

“This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed— and a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Lk 2:34-35).

Jesus became just as Simeon had foretold. And so it was at the age of 33, the 24 Hours That Changed the World [Adam Hamilton, 2009] began to unfold.  Thus we find ourselves once again at the point of humiliation.  It is a full-circle moment.  Life full of glory comes into complete human-ness, in its goodness and in its humiliation.  Life full of glory knows complete suffering, shame, and sorrow, exiting in complete humiliation and despair which yields utter glory through Resurrection.

This is, at least, one of the joys for followers of the Jesus-way. Whenever we hear, or share, or sing the story, we know it doesn’t end in ruin, but in hope.

Humiliation Changes a Man

This is the role Simon the Cyrenian plays in today’s reading. For how could we study a passage and focus only on the trouble?  How could we not claim the grace present even in these dark and terrible moments?

Simon was fortunate.  He missed the flogging. Flogging was an instrument of terror. We get the sense that Pilate had sincerely wished that flogging would satisfy the blood-thirsty crowds.  After all, it was a method, that could leave a man dead. Straps with bone, glass, metal or stone embedded in the ends thrashed against the backs of its victims. This implement could not only tear open human skin, but also rip muscles and sinew, and reveal entrails to the next lash.  It is a wonder that Jesus survived it.

Simon was fortunate, indeed. He missed the mockery the Lord faced. The whole effort at dissolving Jesus’ sense of dignity, both human and divine, was intense.  A whole cohort of soldiers was present. In case you miss the scope, anywhere from 300-600 men joined in the vicious sport of tearing Jesus to pieces, not physically with a whip, but emotionally with words and taunts; nagging jears, mock clothing, a ridiculing crown. 

We wonder how they could have done it.  We can excuse it away as their obligation to authority, they were only doing their duty.  We can spiritualize it, claiming that radical evil had overtaken them. We can rationalize it, arguing that a mob can easily flow from the basic bully-drama.  We can look to history and show that its occurrence throughout human history. 

But we cannot escape the fact that it could just as easily have been us.  We could have become that crowd of torturers just as many Germans, including the German church, became a part of the Nazi-agenda; just as many South Africans, including the church of South Africa, became a part of the devastating practice of apartheid.

Yes, Simon of Cyrene was fortunate to have missed the physical and emotional torture of Jesus.  But coming into Jerusalem to observe the Passover, Simon is right on time to become a powerful witness. It’s as if the hand of God designed it.

The thing is: it doesn’t matter how good your boundaries are, if you become a primary actor in events such as these, it is impossible to remove yourself from the act of reflecting on the meaning of it all.

In the end, that’s how we know about Simon the Cyrenian. Mark mentions him not just as a factoid for evidentiary support but to make a connection with his audience. You see, Mark writes this gospel for a particular church.  Apparently, they knew Simon… or at least his sons.  How would Church of Mark know Simon?  Because he was so changed by the experience of carrying the cross and watching Jesus’ death that he would never be the same. 

How could he…. be the same?  It was a moment of transformation; a moment of total life-change.  By the evidence, we can tell Simon became a believer… a believer who influenced his sons who, in turn, became believers in Mark’s church.  Simon became a believer who could say to the world, “Indeed, it happened as they say: Jesus, died. I was there.  But he also lived again and was exalted.”

The thrust and influence of that profound experience of Jesus’ dying and death changed Simon forever.  Never again could Simon be the same man. For us, as we hear the Jesus-story in its fullness – in a mindful, heartful way – we can never be the same.

 

Learning the Lesson: Transform Humiliation

Something in Simon’s gut must have cried out:  “Such a thing can never happen again.”  Still, it has and it does and it is.  We’ve already remembered what happened under the Third Reich and in South Africa not too long ago.  Look at The Sudan for the past 20 years or so.  Today, we recognize what happens in schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, and yes, even churches.  You’ve seen it and so have I: intimidation, manipulation, and humiliation all of which seemingly get more awful every day.

         …

Regularly, I hear people theorizing that some terrible event will occur that will bring an end to the world as we know it.  Such a theory sparks at least part of author Suzanne Collin’s novel.  While neither you nor I can predict what will or won’t happen  before Christ comes again in glory, I hope and pray that we will have learned enough about his story of suffering and humiliation that we will not allow anything close to happen again.  I hope that books like The Hunger Games will be only the stuff of fiction.

So, as followers of Jesus, what are we to do? We tell the story of Jesus so that it isn’t just the stuff of a book, but that it becomes part of our identity as human-beings… so that – with depth and power – it impacts each one of us … and everyone who comes after us in order that we will not fail to remember and we will not allow anything like it to happen ever again.

How do we do this?  We stand alongside those who are being humiliated.  A dear friend of mine is active in a congregation wherein she is being bullied and harassed in a multiplicity of ways. Do you hear me?  By people who call themselves Christians – little Christs!  When her bullies discovered that they weren’t as effective as they hoped, they started in after her children.  The pastor has preached, taught, and confronted the bullies, but they are undeterred….   What will change it?

In order to stop such a force, others must stand alongside their sister in Christ, determined that they will not allow such action within the Body of Christ. 

Even more, they must decide that they will not be governed by a Spirit of Fear but by the Spirit of Love.

 …

If we choose to lay down the practice of humiliating others, with what shall we replace it? (There is, after all, a void when we remove something that will be filled by something else.  Humiliation can slip back into that void unless we intentionally replace it with something else life-giving.  So with what shall we fill the void?)  I’m convinced there are two answers:  the first applies to humans, the second the Divine.

To end humiliation, we must seek the dignity of the other.  (Think “They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love,” that old spiritual song from the 1960s [Peter Scholtes] wherein we are charged to “guard each one’s dignity and save each one’s pride.”)  We must protect the well-being of other people.  We stand alongside even those who are different from us. The ways are myriad and blessed. This is the Teaching of Incarnation Made Real and Present.  This is “God With Us.”  This is “Emmanuel.”

In the case of Jesus – the Divine One in our midst – the remedy to humiliation is glorification.  [While I wish this notion of glorification had been original to me, it isn’t.  My classmate and friend FS Cutshaw shared this kernel of wisdom.] We see evidence of glory:  from a man whipped and stripped, mocked and murdered,  to the Holy One who triumphed over death, who stepped out of an Empty Tomb and went on to reveal the Power of the Living God in manifold miracles and in the Exaltation as he was lifted up on the Day of Ascension.  He did not stop revealing his glory there but went on to fulfill the promises he’d made before he died:  he sent the Spirit of God to abide with us, to transform us, to empower us, to reveal the unending glory of God.

        And so it is.

        And so it shall be.

        For lo, he is with us even until the end of the age.

four little words

Two minutes early, I slid into the waiting room chair at the beauty parlor where my mother, sisters, and I all have our locks trimmed.  Two minutes early and within five seconds of my bottom touching the vinyl seat, I hear those four little words that follow me seemingly wherever I go.  Regardless of community, geography, age, race, gender, socio-economic realities, education level, employment status, sexual orientation, or marital status, those four little words echo across the globe, or at least this great nation of ours.  “I don’t like change.” 

Curiosity stirs.  I wonder who first uttered these four humble words (or those of equal sentiment).  Let’s go back to the United States of America.  One of the key reasons we came into existence was a hunger for change.  For 12ish years, my most consistent context has been the local church which I pastored in various forms, sizes, and locales.  Each one had bastions built to resist change as if the next World War were ready to erupt.  Yet, the Protestant Church came into reality out of a passionate need for change. 

“I don’t like change,” said the woman with the ultra-dark, black-dyed bouffant.  Really?  Whilst you’ve tried to pretend that it’s still the 1960s, your body shows signs that change is all around you:   your wrinkles, your dye job, your posture, osteoporitic as it is.  Still more than physical realities remain, dear one:  your wisdom, your knowledge, your awareness of current events.  You have such beauty, courage, and honor that has helped you to make it thus far.  Would a continuing education event really hurt you that much?

Change came for me.  Perhaps those three or four of you who are my consistent audience were already aware.  My last post here was in May 2011.  My aunt died.  That death released a new level of awareness in me about where I was and who I was and who I was going to become if I didn’t change some key things.  Sure, there is always diet and exercise, but my food intake is not very extravagant and most would consider it quite healthy.  I’m talking about core issues that kept stirring over and over.  God grabbed a hold of me and wouldn’t let go this time.  No more backing down.   Change with grace must happen.

So in August, I snapped-to like Jacob’s hip when the angel pulled it out of socket.  After a foot/ankle injury, I’d already been limping all summer.  I decided that I might as well complete the total picture.  As God grabbed hold of me, I grabbed hold of God.  “I won’t let you go ‘til you bless me” (Gen 32: 26).   And I didn’t.  So God did.  As Jacob saw the face of God, he was ready to cross the Jabbok River (Gen. 32: 30).  Likewise, I was ready to cross the New and head back to the land of my home, the land of the Holston.  This time with a new/old name, a new/old approach, a new way of living out the same realities of whom I had always been.  

Today, I write from that new context:  hospice chaplaincy.  Who could have thought that those who are dying are the ones most ready to live honestly, fully, and well?  One doesn’t get a second chance at dying, so let us make the very best of it.  Let us learn and grow as much as we possibly can as we are being born into the mystery of life-without-end.

Regularly, I count my blessings — growing and striving to learn more about myself;  perceiving and enacting my purpose in the kingdom-coming and kingdom-present; pushing myself at the raw edges; amazing loved ones and the opportunity to be with them; the opportunity to be instead of do; the ability to re-engage a spirituality of creativity — all of these things are deeply meaningful to me.  Helpful as it is to hear others honor the courage out of which I’ve lived, I would have done it even without that recognition.  I suppose I’ve learned I’m nothing if not resilient.

Still, as one might imagine, the past 9 months have been painful.  But then, every pregnancy and birthing includes its fair share of pain.  Gestationally, it has been fruitful.  Rest and freedom and hope and companionship and authenticity and no more obscuring truth because it is too dangerous or difficult for others to handle.  Still, I cannot try to hide that the grief of leaving the womb is an ever-present reality.  I wonder if it will fade.  In no way would I be willing to return to that pre-birth state, but I do miss elements of its known-ness and safety.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so critical of those who don’t like change… or still hold on desperately to that mile-high bouffant.  After all, when I googled the hairstyle, there appeared several photos of present-day celebrities whose up-dos look hauntingly like what I imagine mine does when I twist it up on the back of my head.  Four little words.  Four little words.