Lent 4 (NL4)
March 11, 2018
John 18:28-40
INTRODUCTION:
“He suffered
under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.” We all know his
name: Pontius Pilate. He lives in infamy in our creeds. All four Gospels
include in the passion narrative an account of Jesus’ trial before Pilate. But
John’s account is the longest. We’ll hear part of it today, and more of it next
week. So before we get into it, I wanted to give you a little info on this
famous character in the story of Jesus’ passion.
Pilate was a
Roman prefect, and a notoriously brutal one. He even had to be removed from one
post in Samaria because he had been so harsh in stopping an uprising. In the
first century, Philo, the Jewish philosopher, described Pilate as having
“vindictiveness and furious temper.” In governance, Philo describes Pilate’s
“corruption, his acts of insolence…, his habit of insulting people, and his
cruelty, and his continued murders of people untried and uncondemned, and his
never-ending, and gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity.” Yeesh! All this
makes it especially curious that Pilate seems to be trying to set Jesus free! Certainly
an interesting character.
Now, about Jesus’
and Pilate’s conversation: Remember back when we started John’s Gospel, I
talked about how in John, Jesus pulls a kingdom of God canopy over the world,
and Jesus talks from “up here” in the land of spirit and light, while people of
“the world” (and Pilate certainly represents “the world”!) talk “down here”
from the land of flesh and darkness. This is abundantly clear in this exchange
between Jesus and Pilate. Jesus talks about how his kingdom is not of this
world, and Pilate has no clue what he’s talking about. So, let’s see if we can
figure it out. Please rise. [READ]
 |
| Antonio Ciseri, Ecce Homo ("Behold the Man") |
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
In an
exercise with our confirmation class this past week, I asked the students to
describe the world 20 years ago, the world today and what they predict the
world will be like in 20 years. It was hilarious to hear them try to describe
the world as it was when I was their age. But it was disheartening to hear some
of their descriptions of the world today. “Scary,” they said. “Violent. High
crime.” I agree with them. The world today is a scary place, for a lot of
reasons. In many ways, it does not feel physically or emotionally safe, and it
is difficult for people or societies to thrive in that environment.
“My kingdom
is not of this world,” Jesus tells Pilate. Well, I should hope not! I hope that
God’s kingdom is something utterly different than this world so often full of
tears, loss, pain, and sadness. Yet, I don’t think Jesus is talking here about
an afterlife, or heaven. Throughout John, Jesus has been the light of the world,
dwelling in and overcoming this darkness. He has brought God’s kingdom to
earth. And so, I think when he refers to “his kingdom,” he is referring not to some
different place, but to a way of life – right now – that is of God. A way of
life that is “belonging to the truth,” as he says. Isn’t that what we pray for,
after all, when we say, “Thy kingdom come”? We’re not praying that we would go
to God’s kingdom, somewhere else, but that God’s kingdom would come here, on
earth as it is in heaven. Whatever it is that makes God’s kingdom, God’s
kingdom, we pray that it would come here, to earth, and soon!
So… what
does that mean? What is it that we are praying to come here? Well, looking back
over John, Jesus has made pretty clear that to “belong to the truth,” to have
abundant life, to live as a part of God’s kingdom… means to be in an abiding
relationship with God. In other words, God’s kingdom is about relationship. And
while yes, the primary relationship we’re talking about here is the one we have
with God, we could also say that our relationship with God is played out in our
relationships with one another. After all, what commandment did Jesus give
after he washed the disciples’ feet? … That we love one another as God has
loved us.
Love one
another. That’s what it looks like for God’s kingdom to be here and now. Love
one another. Sounds simple enough, yeah? Of course depending on the situation
and the people involved, loving one another can be pretty difficult. I wanted
to talk about one such difficult situation for loving today because Jesus
brings it up, and that is: violence. “If my kingdom were from this world,”
Jesus says, “my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over
to the Jewish authorities. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” In other
words, in the kingdom of this world, “down here,” the one of flesh and
darkness, people fight one another when they feel threatened – just like we saw
last week, when Peter pulled his sword in the garden. Peter, Jesus’ follower, was willing to fight for him to keep him
from being handed over! But Jesus says no. Jesus told him to put that sword
away, because that is not the way of his kingdom. Jesus’ kingdom is something
different. In Jesus’ kingdom, his followers don’t resort to violence.
Now, I think
a word about the meaning of violence is necessary here. Usually when we hear
that word, “violence,” we think of physical violence – weapons, or hand-to-hand
fighting, the sort Peter demonstrated. But I think words can be just as
violent, maybe even more so. The childhood chant about sticks and stones is
simply not true – words can and do hurt us. Bones heal in a few weeks, but the
damage done over the years to our hearts and spirits – and yes, to our
relationships – by people’s words can be incredibly difficult to overcome. And
so if we are talking about a kingdom of God that is based on loving
relationships, we need to address how we talk to one another.
This past Wednesday, as a part of our
Lenten series on healing and wholeness, a group of us gathered with Kit Miller
from the Gandhi Institute for Non-Violence. We talked about whether it was
possible to have “conflict without contempt.” What would be required, she
asked, for us not just to agree to disagree, which is sort of passive, but to
actively work toward peace and restoration, even if we don’t end up agreeing
with each other? We talked about how usually when we feel angry, it is a sign
that there is some other emotion going on that is presenting itself as anger.
If a child runs in front of a car and narrowly escapes injury, the parent will
grab the child by the arm and say, “Don’t you ever do that again, do you hear me??” The parent seems angry. What
do you think is the real emotion there? … Fear. So Kit challenged us, next time
we are acting angry, to consider what the real emotion is behind that anger. We
talked about how, when a conflict is present, whether big or small, it is
because some emotional need is not being met, and she provided some tools for
determining what our needs are. Once you can name the need, you can start
working toward seeing that the need is filled in a healthy way, and conflict
without contempt becomes possible.
I can’t speak for others who were
present, but for me, as we worked through various scenarios, it felt as if my
heart was weeping and healing, all at once. I felt like the struggles, needs
and hopes of my heart were being acknowledged, named, spoken aloud. I felt hope
– hope that we as a society can, actually, love each other, even in the midst
of division and conflict, and that there is indeed such a thing as “conflict
without contempt.” I felt hope that Jesus’ “out-of-this-world” kingdom can
exist even in this broken world.
Martin Luther King, Jr., as you know,
was a champion of non-violence. He drew a lot from the teachings of Gandhi, but
his primary strength and guidance came from Jesus, especially his words in the
Sermon on the Mount. This week I came across this wonderful quote from Dr. King,
that could have come straight out of John’s Gospel: “The ultimate weakness of
violence,” he says, “is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very
thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor
establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not
murder the hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning
violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night
already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do
that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
Jesus’ kingdom, Jesus’ truth, invites
us to something different from violence – something a whole lot harder, but
absolutely worth the effort. Is it risky? Sure. Who ever thought love wasn’t
risky? Love is what got Jesus hung on a cross, after all. Love makes us
vulnerable. It softens our hard hearts, and removes our guard.
But it also offers a lot more hope
than the alternative. Love does
diminish the evil. Love does
establish the truth. Love does decrease
the hate. And love does bring the Truth and the Light – indeed Christ himself –
into the darkness of this world.
So… which followers do we want to be?
The followers of this worldly kingdom, who try to overcome violence with
violence, who fight to keep Jesus from being handed over? Or do we want to do
the hard work of the followers of Jesus’ kingdom, who strive toward love and
non-violence, who strive to mend and heal and build relationships, even when
conflict threatens to destroy?
“For God so loved the world that He
gave his only Son so that we would not perish but have eternal life.” What a
gift of love. If God loves us that much, then I, for one, would like to find it
in myself to seek the more difficult, but also more loving path in my
encounters with God’s other beloved children. It is hard work. But I believe
this work can bring healing to this dark and broken world.
Let us pray… Loving God, you are the Light that dispels the darkness. You are the
Love that establishes truth. You are the Truth, and the Way, and the Life. Help
us to be citizens of your kingdom, who seek to overcome contempt and darkness
with your love and light. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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