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Green Blades Preaching Roundtable

Reign of Christ

Year C
November 20, 2022
Pastor David Carlson

Jeremiah 23:1-6
Colossians 1:11-20
Luke 23:33-43

“And the people stood by, watching” (v. 35).  In this dramatic scene with loud scoffing at Jesus on the one hand and a contrite voice petitioning Jesus on the other, do we notice the bystanders? How are they, how are we, being shaped by the one whose words and actions don’t seem, at first, to match the kingly inscription over him?  Many years ago, I attended Lutheran Campus Ministry in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was Good Friday, and Larry Rasmussen, a Lutheran professor from Union Seminary in New York, was our guest preacher – and he mentioned these bystanders.  He shared a poem written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Christians and Pagans,” which speaks about how God goes to everyone who is in need, hearing prayers, granting forgiveness to all who call out, but it is the faithful who “stand by God in his hour of grieving.”  I’ll never forget how he ended that sermon.  “Will we stand by God,” he asked, “or will we just stand by?” 

The same question can be asked about that which God loves – those in need, our neighbor, and the earth – toward which we also need to be converted and reconciled.  When another school shooting occurs or another group of people cries out for justice, when another species edges closer to extinction or another water system is imperiled, will we stand by the earth and all its creatures in this hour of grieving … or will we just stand by?  The UN Climate Conference COP27 is being held November 6-18 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.  What decisions or actions might be shared?  How might global convictions for the earth’s wellbeing become lived reality for us at federal, state and local levels?

Indifference, or even a lack of compassion, is not new.  The prophet Jeremiah could see it in the leaders of his time.  It wasn’t simply that Israel’s kings were bad shepherds, allowing the flock of God’s people to be scattered and destroyed; the root of the problem was spiritual.  In wanting kings “like the other nations” the people had rejected God from being their true ruler.  And without deference to God, misleaders became a law unto themselves with the lure of power, an attitude that even today says to us, “take what you can, while you can, whenever you can.”  Archbishop Desmond Tutu once criticized the abuse of political power, saying, “This is God’s world.  Those who are powerful must remember the litmus test that God gives to them: What is your treatment of the poor, the hungry, the voiceless?  God passes judgment on that basis.”  So also, in Jeremiah God reasserts God’s authority, standing by the oppressed and saying, “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock.”  To the powerful, the One who was rejected will have the final say.  And to the downtrodden, God will be faithful even when earthly rulers let us down.  God’s righteous Branch, the Messiah, will reestablish justice and peace. 

Yet meanwhile, “the people stood by, watching.” They were still watching for that king when Jesus came.  Only, the popular idea of God’s Messiah tended to be more of a military-figurehead.  We believe God creates us in his image, but we often make God into our image, glorifying ourselves and our priorities rather than God.  Too often, the kind of leader we are looking for is one who won’t require much from us and let us live our lives the way we want.  But what would it mean to “stand by God” as Bonhoeffer put it?  To allow ourselves to be led not by our own desires but by God’s passion in Jesus?  To see God, Paul says, we look to Jesus, who is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”  That word for “image” is the Greek word “icon.”  When we click on the icon of an app, it runs the program it points to.  In a similar way, Jesus is the icon of God; his actions and words that we can see point to invisible God we cannot see.  Because of Jesus Christ, Luther said, we don’t need to speculate about what the God behind the clouds thinks of us.  God has already shown us that decisively on the cross

And on that cross, we see the kind of ruler Jesus is – one who shows strength not in vengeance but in restraint, forgiveness rather than retaliation.  Into a world that suffers from brokenness and division, Jesus brings true healing – in him we see how deeply God enters into the pain and suffering of the world in order to redeem it.  “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”  Prof. Janet Ramsey from Luther Seminary once said, “Forgiveness does not mean accepting or condoning actions, it is not a sign of weakness or wanting to be hurt again. Rather forgiveness is a shift from the passive suffering of victimhood to the active suffering of moving forward.”  She said the process of forgiveness is taking that terrible thing that happened in one’s life, in one’s history or one’s family, gathering it up and seeing how it intersects with God’s story.  And at that intersection is the cross – where Jesus shows that despite ignorance, hardship, and sin, we are ultimately in the hands of God who gives us strength to endure, working and trusting in God’s reconciling love, shaping a new future. 

While the people stood by, watching – first leaders, then soldiers, then a criminal from the cross, shout, “Save yourself!”  Yet as Jesus shows, the Christian life is not a matter of self-preservation.  It is rather living the truth that we are already saved, that we are being held by God so we can give ourselves away in service to others.  The other criminal from the cross begins to see God’s future emerging here.  “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  More than a request, it’s a confession of faith – that Jesus is Lord, that in his kingdom what matters will be made right again.  And when we repeat it, as we do in the Taize song Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom, it is a prayer for that kingdom to become a reality in and among us.  “Today, you will be with me in paradise,” Jesus replies, reminding the criminal and us that new life in his kingdom begins today, that the forgiveness and peace God grants through the cross impacts how we are to treat one another today – as people not confined by stereotypes, socio-economic status, past deeds or misdeeds, but only by God’s grace.  How might the “paradise” Jesus promises be emerging in the earth-renewing relationships we live out today?

What sets some bystanders apart from others is the capacity to recognize and enter into the new thing God is doing…like the women who followed Jesus from Galilee, who also become witnesses of the resurrection.  At the cross, Jesus shows how far God comes to stand by us in our time of need, forgiving sins, and revealing God’s active suffering for the healing of this world.  May God’s solidarity inspire our faith and service for the wellbeing of the whole creation.

Pastor David Carlson
Pastor David Carlson
Duluth MN

The Rev. Dr. David Carlson is pastor of Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Duluth, MN and co-chair of the Northeastern MN Synod EcoFaith Network. Originally from Denver, CO, he holds theological degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary, the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and Luther Seminary. “Earth Stewardship and the Missio Dei: Participating in the Care and Redemption of All God Has Made” is the title of his Doctor of Ministry thesis, which he defended in 2016. Pastor Dave believes the church in general and Lutherans in particular are well suited to help society address ecological needs and the problems of climate change, and that congregations are ideal settings for modeling the kind of earth stewardship needed for a more sustainable world.

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