Sermon - Good Friday

John 18:1-19:43

                                                                   Another Good Friday

 Perhaps it is foolhardy, or at least ill-advised, but I decided that I would tell you that I am beginning to grow weary in my office.  Thirty years ago, when I lead a congregation through its first Lent and Holy Week and Easter, I was young enough or naïve enough or hopeful enough to think that if only the story were to be told – truthfully and powerfully – then the world would surely change.  But it just hasn’t happened.

Maybe the downfall is my own failure.  Perhaps what I perceive to be the right things to do or to say or to write are not the right things at all.  Maybe I am not as clear in my sermons as I think I am; or as precise in my morning devotions as I would want to claim. 

But after thirty years of going through Lent and Holy Week and Easter – well, I just don’t know that I see the world becoming more likely to avoid the sins confessed in the Ash Wednesday liturgy or less likely to join the chorus for bringing an end to all this and calling for the silencing of the One who tells us that we made a decent show of it but that we really aren’t living the lives God would have us live. 

What do you think?  How would you measure it?   

Not that attending worship services should be our prime indicator, but there sure seem to be fewer gathering for these services than there were in 1983.   

Violent crime statistics are actually going down, but if the actions of the SC Legislature are an indication of how safe we feel then we are moving in the opposite direction.  You did see, a few weeks back, the legislation introduced to eliminate the need for a cancelled weapons permit.  Our Legislatures are moving toward an “open display” of firearms – meaning so long as the gun is in a holster on your hip and not in your pocket you don’t need a CWP. 

Jesus said, “You will always have the poor with you,” and we certainly do.  While personal wealth as a whole has increased in our society, the last thirty years has seen a decrease in the standard of living for the bottom third of the socio-economic ladder.  (By the way.  You really ought to know that when Jesus says that (in Matthew and Mark and John – but NOT in Luke) that he is most likely making a reference to Deuteronomy 15:11.  The full verse reads, “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’”  We are such poor students of our bibles that we think Jesus is giving us license to be extravagant.  Really, he is trying to teach us about the purpose of money and the resources God has entrusted to us.)  Thirty years; the poor are still among us, and getting poorer.

What measure do you have, for determining whether the annual re-telling of the Jesus story is having the desired effect on the world around us? 

I won’t embarrass those of you who have trusted me enough to share family secrets.  But as I look out upon you tonight a whole host of examples of wounded if not broken relationships.  And students – don’t think I am speaking only to the other side of the sanctuary.  You may only be 18 or 20 or 22, but you have your share of tension and in-fighting among those who are supposed to be your closest friends and within the circle referred to as “family.” 

Are we getting closer to the hope Jesus had for us when he opened his arms and died on the cross? 

I tell you the one that is burning at me the most these days.  It arises from my exposure to Martin Luther’s Small Catechism.  This is one where I can get you to do a bit more than just listen to me babble.  Pull out a copy of the ELW.  Do you know that the Small Catechism is printed in the ELW?  Open it to page 1161 – way in the back.  Look with me at the explanation to the 8^th commandment.  That is the commandment which says, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”  See the last line of Luther’s explanation?  It says that we are to interpret everything our neighbor does “in the best possible light”.  Older versions say “defend their actions in kindest of way.”  How do you remember it?  How well do you see it being done among us?  Well I tell you one place where I don’t think we are doing so hot – we seem to be poised to eat each other alive over the kind of addition we will add to this building.  In the argument over a flat roof or a slopped roof we are abandoning the commandment’s instruction to interpret our neighbors actions and thoughts and opinions in the kindest of ways.  (That was a low blow – I apologize for taking such a cheap shot.)

As in each of the past thirty years of my life and work, I read the story of Jesus’ rejection, and betrayal, and trail, and torture, and execution.  I do so out of the hope that a faithful and powerful re-telling will result in a change in the world around us.  But after thirty years I grow weary.  And I hear more voices crying “Crucify him!” than I ever hear saying, “Lord forgive us, we know not what we do.”

I promise that I will be in a different mood on Sunday morning.  I am preaching then, too.  And I assure you that on Sunday I will tell you that regardless of what the world did to Jesus (regardless of how we might ignore Jesus’ story) God will raise him from the tomb and God will say to all of us that we do have every reason to cling to the promise that we too, will rise.

But getting to Easter morning is a cheap ride unless it passes through the Maundy Thursday instruction to love, as Christ has loved us.  It is as hallow as a chocolate Easter bunny unless it follows a Good Friday on which we admit our own insistence that Jesus be silenced; or at least that his words be toned down a bit; or perhaps that we be allowed to see his demands as some philosophical concept of the good society. 

Easter morning is full of promises.  And those promises are made to us and will not be withdrawn or withheld from us.  The One who promises is faithful and trustworthy and true.

If only the same could be said of those to whom the promises are made.

Amen.