First Presbyterian Church
Atonement Discord 6
Sermon for March 20, 2005
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Children's time

Have you ever seen palms like these? They're different from what we usually have, aren't they? Now we get them from a different plant shop. Today's Palm Sunday. Do you know why? Right, people waved palm branches as Jesus came into Jerusalem. That's in the gospel according to John. But Mark and Matthew says the people welcomed Jesus by spreading branches and cloaks on the road. Today, we're going to spread them under the communion table. So, when I say “hosanna,” please go out to the congregation and collect the palms and bring them back. Hosanna!

Listen for the word of God as it is found in Matthew 21:1-11.

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, 'The Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately. "

This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, "Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey."

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.

A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!"

When he entered Jerusalem , the whole city was in turmoil, asking, "Who is this?"

The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee ."

This ends our reading from Matthew.

Anthem

Listen for the word of God as it is found in Philippians 2:5-11.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited , but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obed ient to the point of death-- even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This ends our reading from the word of God.

This is the last of my Lenten series on the atonement. I know some of you will breathe a sigh of relief. I know I will. I've talked about different theologies of atonement: ransom, substitution, satisfaction, moral influence, and Christus Victor. Part of my difficulty has been that the theories blend into and out of each other. It's hard to tell where one leaves off and another starts.

I would have liked to have found a book that summarizes all the different theories, instead of having to spend my study time looking in different books, papers, and websites. As I researched, I learned that most theologians, wouldn't say that the Bible speaks of Christ's reconciling work in many different ways. Instead, they trashed previous theories and promoted their own. I found it difficult to sort out their invective from their ideas.

I'm more comfortable looking at the Bible. I found this series really hard. I wanted to do more research, and be a little more sure of my sources. But Sunday waits for no preacher; I had to make do with what I had. This series was hard, but it was something I had to do for my soul. I needed to remember vocabulary and history so I could have a kinder attitude toward popular Christian theology as seen on tv, or bumper stickers or t-shirts. After preaching the series, when I see a slogan that makes me wince, I think “Oh, their theology is centuries old. They haven't read those other Bible verses. They don't know there's other atonement theologies out there.” They haven't read any theology after the tenth century.

We can't interpret the Bible without knowing a little about theology. It influences the way we see the verses, even the way we translate the Hebrew and Greek words.

I remember years ago, I wanted to be able to play the piano a little better. I asked my son's piano teacher if she could teach me how to play hymns out of the hymnal. I really had a hard time playing bass clef. So Miss Marty gave me some easy music to try. Well, I didn't think that piece was easy. I struggled and struggled, and it sounded strange. The next week, I went for my lesson and played what I had practiced. After the first line, the teacher stopped me and said, “Susan, stop, look.” She pointed at the music. On the bottom staff, where the bass clef sign usually is, was the treble clef sign. Both the upper and lower staffs were in the treble clef. She wanted to help me by giving me easy music that I made hard. I didn't have enough background to recognize that the discords I was playing meant that I was playing the wrong notes; I just focused on playing exactly the notes in front of me, rather than looking at the beginning of the piece to get the context. Theology gives us a frame of reference and helps us to know what to listen for.

The early Christians weren't trying to construct a cohesive theology; they were just trying to figure out how to be Christians, and what Christ's death meant. They used a lot of different metaphors. So far, concentrating on just one or two leads us to a skewed theology of the atonement.

An atonement theology that makes the most sense to me is one that takes into account this metaphorical variety. It doesn't have just one name yet. I don't suppose it will have one name for another hundred years or so. It's called non-violent atonement, or Jesus' third way, or narrative Christus victor.

It came out of liberation theology in Latin America, and has assisted in the development of womanist, black, and feminist theology. It speaks of Christ's death not as a payment to the Devil or to God, but as resistance to evil and solidarity with the life, ministry, and incoming realm of God.

Liberation theology reads the Bible from the perspective of poor and oppressed people. It emphasizes the need for systemic change, and sees it as a theological problem. It developed among the poor in Latin America. Since the majority of the people in Bible times were poor peasants, it makes sense that poor peasants are in a unique position to interpret the bible.

The comments of peasants of an island in Nicaragua called Solentiname were gathered into a book. These peasants lived at a time when Nicaragua was under the corrupt Somoza regime. The priest who served that church said “The peasants began to understand the core of the Gospel message: the announcement of the kingdom of God, that is, the establishment on this earth of a just society.” Here are some of their comments about our Matthew text:

Alejandro said, “He has entered Jerusalem acclaimed as king. But he entered as a humble king, on a working donkey, not in a fancy automobile. All that business about being received in Jerusalem like a leader, with a political rally in the streets, with banners (branches were like banners) that must have upset the authorities a lot, and they decided to get rid of him.

Ernesto said, “And on good Friday Pilate will tell them their king is subversive—outside the law—and that his crime was a political crime. That means that we Christians must follow his example and be subversives

…. Hosanna means... ‘Free us, then!' …. They are shouting ‘Hurray for King Jesus.'” Jesus has been anointed king and that he comes to free the people and establish the kingdom of God .

Olivia says, “That's very different from what the rest of the people had been saying, that he was a new prophet. Because prophets used to announce the kingdom, while with Jesus the kingdom came.” (1)

Someone asked me just last week how we can sing “Lord, listen to your children praying, Lord send your spirit in this place. Lord, listen to your children praying. Send us love, send us power, send us grace.”

She wondered how we could sing the words “send us power” as our prayer response. She thought of power in destructive terms. In our culture, we hear “power' differently. We associate it with empire or multinational corporations. We think of power as bad, or greedy or evil.

What we ask for when we sing is the power of God's realm, God's kingdom is not destructive. In Jesus Christ, God demonstrated the power to heal, to listen, to build, to restore, to fix, to hold fast. Christ held fast to God's words of love and justice. On the cross, Christ demonstrated the power of non-violence.

Dying was not his purpose—proclaiming the kingdom, or realm, of God was. Jesus' disciples knew that what he spoke was dangerous; Jesus did too, but he didn't let that stop him. Jesus' death is not about God demanding sacrifice, but about God taking part in being sacrificed . It's as if, in the crucifixion, God says enough. This is going to be the last sacrifice. I'm going to expose your sinful and evil love of violence, of finding scapegoats to relieve tension and promote social order. It's not going to work this time.

Jesus never succumbs to the perspective of the persecutors. He does not return evil for evil; he does not retaliate. His followers did not retaliate against the Romans. They did something far more dangerous to the powers that be; they started churches. They told Jesus' story. They invited people into the gospel.

The Roman empire tried to co-opt Christianity when Constantine became a Christian in the fourth century. Throughout history churches and denominations have used violence to “save” people by forcing them to convert to Christianity. The powers that be have tried to keep Christ's atonement personal and individual. Jesus died for your individual sins; confess your personal faults and be forgiven. While that is true and helpful, the atonement is much more than just personal. Jesus came for the reconciliation of the world.

I said earlier that our theology influences how we translate the bible. Walter Wink, who wrote three books on the theology of resisting evil, translated our text from Romans as “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be seized by violence.” Our Bibles have it as “something to be exploited.” The old RSV has it as “something to be grasped .”

We can't do just Bible; we have to do some theology as well. Six weeks ago, I told you that I gave up the idea of the Bible as a single-paned window and adopted the view of it as a multi-faceted prism. When I was growing up, my sister had a crystal in her window that swung from her curtain rod. It looked round from a distance, but close up you could see that the surface was made of many flat facets, all a slightly different angle from their neighbors, kind of like a mirrored disco ball. And like a disco ball, it would throw sparkles into the room. But because it acted like a prism, the sparkles were rainbows; the light from the sun shown through the crystal, and the crystal diffracted the light at many different angles.

If I were inside the crystal, looking out, what I would see depends on my position inside. It depends on which facet I'm looking through, and what surface the diffracted light touches.

We have to pay attention to which facet we're looking through, and what grime over the years has accumulated on the surface. Every once in a while, we have to clean it off.

I started out this series with the metaphor of music. I imagined the atonement theologies as discordant tones, and wondered whether they could all harmonize with one another. I think its best to think of these different atonement theologies as individual songs; some are old favorites that bring us a lot of comfort when we're troubled. When we are looking for fresh solutions, we need newer songs.

But at the very least we need to be sure we're plunking the notes according to the clef of the composer, who doesn't flinch at our discordant efforts – just so long as we try our best.

(1) The Gospel in Art by the Peasants of Solentiname,ed ited by Philip and Sally Scharper, p.48.