Sermon: Palm Sunday, 2005

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You Just Might Find, You Get What You Need

By Charles Rush

March 20, 2005

read recently the results of a survey done on things Americans would be willing to do for $10 Million. 25% of those surveyed said they would be willing to abandon their entire family. 23% said they would become prostitutes for a week or more. 16% would give up their American citizenship. 16% would leave their spouse… [That one doesn't entirely surprise me… I think Kate would take 3 million and run]. 10% would withhold testimony, letting a murderer go free. 7% would kill a stranger. 3% would put their children up for adoption.[1] And here's what I found even more interesting, only 1% of those surveyed said they would be willing to practice law… And only 1/2 of 1% would be willing to do investment banking for a career. Okay, I made the last part up for Cary Hardy, Dennis Bushe, Steve Jones, Jim Love and all the other scoundrels that are gathered this morning with their halo's on. Prostitution, maybe, sell my kids possibly… but investment banking… there are depths of betrayal and conscience I'm not willing to plumb.

Our text this morning ends with a powerful pathos to it. It is one of those lines whose meaning is completely determined by the intonation of the delivery. It could have been sneering. "See my betrayer is at hand."

It could have surprised. "See, my betrayer is at hand."

It could have been resigned and impassive, "See my betrayer is at hand."

Personally, I think it was one of surprise, penetrating insight and humanity. "My betrayer is at hand." It didn't take prophetic insight for Jesus to know that he was in danger of his life. It didn't take prophetic insight for Jesus to know that plots and intrigues were roiling around him, quite out of his control. But sometimes, especially when you are in the middle of a controlled maelstrom, you know but you don't entirely know until these things take shape. And then there is that moment of recognition and it all falls into place. He didn't entirely know, but he wasn't entirely surprised, and it is a betrayal by a close friend and he calls it that. But I think he spoke it in a warm, intimate, human way- a way that Judas picked up on as a plaintive 'why?' spoken from a friend. He did it in a way that ended up haunting Judas.

You know, one of the more pernicious scenes from Mel Gibson's 'The Passion' features Judas being haunted after his betrayal of Jesus. In the movie, the director adds a scene not in the bible story. Judas is fleeing with his money when he sees some Jewish children who morph into demons and these demons scare the living fire out of Judas and he hangs himself to be rid of them. Not surprisingly, Jewish leaders were not real thrilled about seeing Jewish children turn into demons. It may not be overtly Anti-semitic but it is at least in poor taste and frankly it is one of many dangerous images that Mr. Gibson never seemed to get.

Furthermore, spiritually speaking, it is not nearly as powerful to blame betrayal on demonic beings that infiltrate us and make us do things against our will as it is to simply portray the very human dimension of betrayal when the people closest to us misunderstand us and actually do things that cause us harm. There is nothing more deafening or damning than the penetrating eyes of someone we know well and love looking at us with that genuine "I'm so disappointed in you."

You may recall a few years ago, East Germans won the right to open the Stasi files and discover the secret agents with all of their clandestine reports. After a life time of being secretly watched and having intimate conversations reported to the authorities, people just wanted to know once and for all who was doing what. Just who were those secret police that were betraying us?

One Protestant Minister that suffered from depression discovered that his psychiatrist was not in fact a psychiatrist but all along was a member of the Stasi who had been giving him prescriptions designed to traumatize him emotionally.

He even learned that his psychiatrist had sent women to seduce him so they could take pictures and compromise his authority as a pastor and when that didn't work, they sent young men for the same purpose.

Then there was one young man that had attempted an escape to the West which was foiled. Who was it that informed on his escape attempt? His father.

Finally, one woman, a vocal dissident in East Germany who later became a member of Parliament, found out that the reason the Stasi were so expert at tracking her every move was that the agent in charge of her case was… her husband.[2]

At the height of Soviet Union, you never knew who you could trust. The secret police seemed to be everywhere and could crawl out of the woodwork to carry you away at any time. Of all the deep impressions left by my travels in college, surely being slammed to the street in Sophia, Bulgaria after midnight by the Stasi, arm behind my back with a boot grinding my face into the pavement, stands out. The smell of Vodka, sour potatoes, onions, and cigarettes as he yelled a few times, 'This Bulgaria, this not America'. It was a Warren Zevon moment- 'Send Lawyers, Guns and Money… Dad get me out of this'. And then they were gone, just disappeared as fast as they came. Just to let you know that they were watching, always watching. I remember standing up, looking around, doors just shut, blinds were pulled, walkers disappeared down side streets… no one would get involved. Like Sargent Schultz from the TV show years ago, "I see nothing, I hear nothing, I know nothing." It is a stifling lonliness in the face of arbitrary and wanton power.

As Solzhenitsyn so vividly described in those years, the heart of the society was the concentration camp and the fear that it engendered. People were most afraid of those that could betray them and those that could betray them were the very people closest to them, so all of your life was an effort to develop a studied distance from everyone, to be intimate with no one, so there could be no effective betrayal. You stayed alive, but at the cost of your humanity, your warmth, you joie d' vivre. It atomized society and made everyone, whether they wanted to be or not, directly related to the Leader, out of fear. Awful world.

Jesus was such a different kind of leader. He didn't negatively motivate people out of fear. He used love and compassion. He had a charisma that people wanted to be around. Even Roman historians of the time noted that he attracted huge crowds because he had a heart for ordinary people and their ordinary ills and problems. He reached out to them. He let them touch him.

He had a transcendent power about him that must have been the case. He healed people. He encouraged people. He inspired people. When they were around him, they just felt better. Remember the wonderful movie many years ago, 'Cocoon' about Aliens that come to Florida and run into a bunch of 70 year old retired guys who have just lost some of their edge. Just by touching the aliens, suddenly these retired guys get that snap, crackle and pop back in their lives. Their youthful zeal returns. They start pulling pranks like they were in college. They become crunchy vegetables again. They start romancing their wives. They are full of energy. They got a shot of the life-force from the Aliens. I think Jesus must have been like that. He gave people a shot of the life force and they just flocked to him because of it. They felt better; they felt healed.

And they projected on to him all of their hopes and dreams over the course of time. If he could heal people, if he could make them feel better, if he was as wise as he sounds, then he must be able to… fill in the blank. They projected on to him the fulfillment of their wish list.

Most scholars now believe that Judas' motivation for betraying Jesus fell in those parameters. They think he was probably influenced by the zealots in the country, if not secretly one himself. The Zealots were a political faction in Palestine. They were looking for a restoration of the throne of David. They wanted the Messiah to throw off the hated Romans and take control of their destiny again. They wanted no more, though no less from the Messiah. Most scholars hypothesize that Judas set up this confrontation believing that Jesus would once and for all show his true colors, start a revolution, suddenly find his fighting aura, and begin the process that would lead to Jewish independence again. His betrayal was really a provocation, a kind of jump start to the new Messianic era. What was tragic about it is the fact that he misunderstood what Jesus was about and he caused him harm because of it.

And this is the point, for we are all Judas at the end of the day. We all project our own wish list upon the Almighty. We all ask the wrong things of the Messiah and betray what God wants to do in our lives in the process.

A surprising number of us only check in with the Almighty when we need a big favor. It starts early, usually when we are students. My friend James Dunn used to say that we don't need any formal school prayer to start the day and keep us on the right track. "As long as we have tests, we will have prayer in public schools." We go to the Almighty for the big favor in the jam. Just before the big game, to play our best, and possibly a curse on the other team… That Rhoda Ginsburg will say yes to a date… For the acceptance letter to Hopkins… For an interview with the Firm… so that the Cop will let me go without a breathalyzer… And mixed in there are more sublime appeals… for a vision of the future that has substance… for healing for a disease that is quite serious… for the victims of a hurricane…

We project on to God the role of the big Man that can help us out of our crises, the great Oz that has the power to supercede normal boundaries and suspend natural law and causation. There is nothing the least wrong with this. And I intentionally mix up the sublime and the banal in our requests for there is something quintessentially human that looks to God to solve things at once profound and pedestrian. And if you look back at the long history of temples, healing centers, and sift through ancient sites across the globe, it appears that humans have been petitioning God in this way since before we started leaving artifacts behind to confirm it. No, there is something quintessentially human in our desire to ask God, to project our needs out into the cosmos.

But if the story of Jesus is any guide, this does not begin to exhaust our relationship with the Almighty. Jesus, too, asks God to be relieved of his burden. The scripture only has him saying plaintively, "Let this cup pass from me." We are told that he went to pray 3 times and the third time, he sweated blood. That means he prayed as hard as we humans can pray. We can presume that he was asking to be spared injustice. We can presume that he didn't want to be tortured. We can presume that, like all young people, he didn't want to die.

But Jesus doesn't get any special treatment. The laws of nature are not suspended. The boundaries of Imperial power are not to be superceded. No… what actually happens is that Jesus' friends betray; Political leaders are inordinately swayed by back room lobbies; the crowd incites a riot; injustice in the service of control is the order of the day; violence and cruelty are impersonally meted out. In short, the world as we know it carries on as usual and Jesus dies.

One of the implications of this story is this. In our relationship with the Almighty- It is not about how God can change the world for us, it is about how God can change us for the world. We keep hoping that we will be exempted from the rigors and challenges of life, but we know that ultimately we must face suffering and death. We don't get to be exempted from it. And ultimately speaking, it far better to be spiritually whole enough to deal with it than it is to avoid it.

God wants us to develop a meaning and a purpose for our lives that can transcend the onslaught of frustration, hardship, and injustice. God wants us to become people of substantial character such that we are not thrown off by the betrayal of others and the compromised ethic of the leaders that surround us. God wants us to develop a warm humanity that is a spiritual antidote to impersonal ridicule and torture. God wants us to develop the courage of our convictions such that we can endure the jeers of seemingly our whole known world and we feel like we are all alone.

God wants us to become strong in our love and long in our compassion. God wants us to break the cycle of retribution and be big enough to return evil with good. God wants us to be in this world but not so much of this world that we cannot shed ourselves of the comforts and pleasures that this world offers in order to take on the more difficult way, the way of conflict and trouble, if we have to do it because that is the right thing to do.

God wants us to keep faith and hope when those around us are afraid, tired, and weak. God wants us to find an inner peace in who we are and what we are about such that we can radiate equanimity when chaos storms all around us.

God wants us to be rounded and whole that we are up to the challenge of whatever the world throws at us. As we become more mature, God wants us to become changed, to grow, to become substantial people.

And that is the point of the Spiritual Life. God wants to change you. Ultimately speaking, the spiritual life is not about saying these prayers; it is not about reciting that religious creed; it is not about doing this religious ritual or following that time honored tradition. These are only guides, important guides perhaps, but only guides. The hardest part of the spiritual life and the part that none of us gets to avoid, is allowing ourselves to spiritually mature and grow. It is letting God change you.

Jesus prays and prays at the end of his life. He lays out his hopes, his dreams, his worries, and his fears, but at the end of the prayer he says, "Not my will but Thine." We can lay out our wish list…. This is what I'd like… But ultimately all of that is minor compared to being able to really say and live "Not my will but Thine." Mold me, shape me; cleanse me, heal me."

That is my hope for you this Easter season… Before the crisis comes, before the serious challenge arises, you can say to yourself, when no one is around, "Spirit of the Living God. Fall fresh on me." You are going to be okay… May God bless you and stand you up. Amen.

[1] From James Patterson and Peter Kim in The Day America Told the Truth cited in Dynamic Preaching, vol. 20, no. 1, p. 80.

[2] Ibid. p. 79 from Chuck Colson's A Dance with Deception.