First Presbyterian Church
Atonement Discord 5
Sermon for March 13, 2005
by Pastor Susan Barnes

The prophet Ezekiel preached during the exile, when Israelite hopes for ever returning to their land and having a political region of their own were at their lowest. The book is full of strange imagery, some of it scary, designed to warn people of the dangers of turning against God. Even the comforting parts, like today's lesson, are a little bizarre. Listen for the word of God as it is found in the book of Ezekiel, chapter 37:1-14.

1 The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?”

I answered , “O Lord GOD prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD . Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD .”

So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.' Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD , when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD , have spoken and will act, says the LORD ."

This ends our reading from Ezekiel. Let's listen to the choir interpret it.

Anthem

Listen for the word of God as it is found in Romans 8:6-11

To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law-- indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

This ends our reading of God's word.

Resurrection, death, bones, sinews, blood – most of us would prefer the stories in the Bible earned no more than a PG rating. I've heard people complain about those parts of the Bible that are violent and bloody. We don't like blood imagery, and we don't like violent imagery. We want everything to be nice. The problem is, much of life isn't nice. The Bible doesn't sugarcoat those realities. Sin is a problem. People are cruel to one another. How can humanity be saved? For Christians, the answer is Jesus Christ. The Bible explains his saving action in different ways. Today I'll be talking about two of them, as a sacrifice and as a conqueror.

God's people routinely demonstrated their repentance to God by bringing sacrifices to the temple. Sacrifices were also used to mark important occasions of birth and healing. The sacrifices were used to distribute food, especially meat, to people. After a calf or a lamb or a goat was butchered, its meat would be distributed to the priests and to the poor, and sold in the market.

The priests were concerned with the disposition of blood, and there are plenty of laws governing sacrifices so that atonement and forgiveness can take place.

To give you an idea of how important this was to God's people, all 27 chapters in Leviticus deal who offers what sacrifice wearing what clothes and using blood from which animal slaughtered in what manner and brought where.

But it's not in our own experience. It's a little hard to understand. It's easier for us to ask questions like

Q: What do skeletons say before they begin dining?

A: Bone appetit!

Q: What did the skeleton say when his brother told a lie?

A: You can't fool me, I can see right through you.

Q: Why didn't the skeleton eat the cafeteria food?

A: Because he didn't have the stomach for it!

Q: Why couldn't the skeleton cross the road?

A: He didn't have the guts.

Q: Why are skeletons usually so calm?

A: Nothing gets under their skin!

Q: Why do skeletons hate winter?

A: Because the cold goes right through them!

Q: How did the skeleton know it was going to rain?

A: He could feel it in his bones!

Q: What's a skeleton's favorite musical instrument?

A: A trombone!

Q: What do you call a skeleton who won't get up in the mornings?

A: Lazy bones!

Q: What happened to the boat that sank in the sea full of piranha fish?

A: It came back with a skeleton crew!

We can enjoy jokes about skeletons without complaining about how morbid it is. We're used to that genre; we're familiar with jokes and riddles.

The people in Jesus' time would be very familiar with the system of sacrifices and offerings. Those of us who are accustomed to buying our meat in styrofoam and plastic are sometimes grossed out by this rich blood imagery. For the peasants, it meant a treat; most of them did not eat meat often.

In the temple, taking an animal's life was not done lightly; the sacrifices were carried out with great ceremony. The sacrifices were important. They demonstrated people's dedication to God.

The theological problem with this is the idea that God requires these sacrifices, as if we have to pay God to forgive us. It's a fine line between demonstrating our sincere repentance and buying God off with a calf. The prophets complained about the sacrifice system.

Micah 6 asks the questions: “Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

The answer is “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Can I tolerate wicked scales and a bag of dishonest weights? Your wealthy are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies.”

And so those who take Micah's words seriously have worked for justice. One recent example is the Taco Bell boycott. For the past four years, a coalition of farmworker supporters has been calling for a boycott of Taco Bell, the major buyer of Florida tomatoes. A few years ago, the Presbyterian church joined the boycott. We first heard of the boycott when our youth and leaders returned from Triennium last summer. Youth have a lot of passion regarding what's fair and what isn't.

The Presbyterian church doesn't undertake boycotts lightly. The charges have to be clear and serious. In 1978, tomato pickers earned 40 cents per 32-pound bucket of tomatoes picked . In 2001, they were still earning just that amount, so that to earn $50 a day, a worker had to pick and haul two tons of tomatoes in a day. As if that weren't bad enough, there were cases of indentured servitude, or slavery. I don't know how many; I did read that the FBI and US justice department prosecuted 5 cases of farm worker slavery, liberating over 1,000 workers.

So I was overjoyed to read this week that the boycott is over. Taco Bell secured an agreement with its tomato suppliers to raise the workers' pay by a penny a pound, almost doubling their wages. Yum's president, Jonathan Blum said “We are challenging our tomato suppliers to meet those higher standards, and will seek to do business with those who do. We have already added language to our Supplier Code of Conduct to ensure that indentured servitude by suppliers is strictly forbidden — and we will require strict compliance with all existing laws. Finally, we pled ge to aid in efforts at the state level to seek new laws that better protect all Florida tomato farmworkers.”

      The coalition agreed to call off the boycott and said the agreement “establishes a new standard of social responsibility for the fast-food industry.” (1)

The prophets were more concerned with justice than they were with sacrifices. Nevertheless, sacrifice was a long tradition for the Hebrews. And so, when Jesus died, his followers naturally chose the metaphor of sacrifice to describe his death.

For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. 1 Corinthians 5:7

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, …with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. 1 Peter 1:18

That's where we get the hymns about blood: “I'm washed in the blood of the lamb,” “There's a fountain filled with blood.”

The letter to the Hebrews describes Jesus as the high priest, making a sacrifice for the sins of the people by offering himself.

“Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.” Hebrews 2:17.

I can understand how Jesus' followers, trying to make sense of the suffering death of their savior, used an idea that was already familiar to them. They understood the procedures of sacrifice; they could understand that Jesus' death was the last sacrifice.

The problem with the sacrificial atonement is that it makes Jesus a victim.

Another theology of the atonement turns that around. Jesus becomes not the victim, but the victor. The theory is helpfully called Christus Victor. Christ has conquered sin and death. He fought the forces of evil, and won.

Here are some verses that show Christ triumphing over the devil:

[God] has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it. Colossians 1:13, 15

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 1 Corinthians 15:25-26

For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters… Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Hebrews 2:11-17.

Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. I John 3:8

Paul said “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed , and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.” Romans 6:6.

Christ annihilates sin. As Christ lives in us, so our sin dies in us. By meeting the forces of evil in the human realm, Christ broke their power.

But again, the imagery is that of violence. Christ commanded us to love our enemies and behave as neighbors to one another. Why are so many of the theologies of the atonement violent?

Part of it is that we live in a violent world --we understand metaphors of violence. And part of it is that political leaders can make good use of violent theology. They can use war-like metaphors in the Bible to convince people that God is on their side, not their opponent's side. Their cause is just and right.

Each atonement theology emerges out of a specific time in history. The Bible is full of metaphors for Christ's reconciling work, the way he makes us at-one with God. Every age uses one image more than others to give them hope and courage and a little understanding so that they have faith that God can and overcome sin and death -- even make dry bones live.

Next Sunday will be my last in this sermon series on atonement. I will speak on the atonement theology that is closest to my heart, the one that I think speaks to the concerns and sins of this age. It's called liberation theology.

Amen.

(1) “Immigrant farmworkers win major victory in struggle with fast-food industry,” RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights, March 8, 2005.