Mark 15:6-15
Now at the festival Pilate used to release a prisoner for them, anyone for whom they asked. Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection. So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom. Then he answered them, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” For he realized that it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead. Pilate spoke to them again, “Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?” They shouted back, “Crucify him!” Pilate asked them, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him!” So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.
Today is Palm / Passion Sunday – but it is also the last couplet in our series: We are Question, we are Creed. Hopefully, we can make these all fit together in one discussion.
We Disciples are somewhat unique within Christianity in that we do not have a codified creed. We actually hold a belief in diversity of opinion, wherein – and I quote – “each person is free to determine their own belief guided by the Holy Spirit, the Bible, study and prayer.” But most of Christianity adheres to a creed of one name or another. We Disciples believe most of the same things but do not make membership contingent on acceptance of the creed.
When the Christian faith was still quite new creeds were an easy way to state just “who we are” and why we aren’t the same as “them.” But as church became bureaucracy, creeds became a tool of legalism and a means to enforce “the rules” as interpreted by whoever was in power at the moment. They even became reasons for wars and killing each other. Questions were – and still are in many circles – viewed with suspicion – as something to be silenced by an even stricter enforcement of the creed.
This brought about a Christianity that I suspect Jesus would not recognize. It is the mindset he was up against throughout his earthly ministry – when the Pharisees constantly sought to catch him out in some broken legalism. His refusal to mindlessly follow the rules without understanding “why” was, in short, the reason he was killed. He threatened the positions of those who had the most invested in control by legalism.
When questions are forcibly suppressed, it becomes dangerous to seek any deeper meaning in one’s faith. Just recite the creed and leave it at that. Don’t consider looking at the question from any but the orthodox position.
This often leads us to take the simplest answer – which may be ‘true’ – but rarely holds all the richness and beauty and breadth of a more nuanced discussion. We humans tend to pin God into smaller and smaller boxes – containing God within the smallest possible image – because to do so is easier for us – and easier to control. And we seem to be more comfortable with a God that we can contain and control. But what do we lose by this?
Ask the average Christian and they will tell you that Jesus came to die for our sins – that’s the proper “approved” answer – (But that’s a whole other sermon – I mean, really? Jesus had to die before God could be forgiving? Really?) and yet, when we take the time to read the gospels, Jesus said very little about sin – and a whole lot about invitation and healing and forgiveness. In all honesty, I don’t believe anyone has ever been “saved,” or set free by adherence to a creed. We are saved by God’s limitless, wild and unconstrained love – and that is what Jesus gave us in his life and in his death.
I chose this reading for today for two reasons: the first is that there is so very much here that begs for forgiveness; and second because of this little reading from Frederick Buechner, which is what set me to thinking of all this in the first place:
We Disciples are somewhat unique within Christianity in that we do not have a codified creed. We actually hold a belief in diversity of opinion, wherein – and I quote – “each person is free to determine their own belief guided by the Holy Spirit, the Bible, study and prayer.” But most of Christianity adheres to a creed of one name or another. We Disciples believe most of the same things but do not make membership contingent on acceptance of the creed.
When the Christian faith was still quite new creeds were an easy way to state just “who we are” and why we aren’t the same as “them.” But as church became bureaucracy, creeds became a tool of legalism and a means to enforce “the rules” as interpreted by whoever was in power at the moment. They even became reasons for wars and killing each other. Questions were – and still are in many circles – viewed with suspicion – as something to be silenced by an even stricter enforcement of the creed.
This brought about a Christianity that I suspect Jesus would not recognize. It is the mindset he was up against throughout his earthly ministry – when the Pharisees constantly sought to catch him out in some broken legalism. His refusal to mindlessly follow the rules without understanding “why” was, in short, the reason he was killed. He threatened the positions of those who had the most invested in control by legalism.
When questions are forcibly suppressed, it becomes dangerous to seek any deeper meaning in one’s faith. Just recite the creed and leave it at that. Don’t consider looking at the question from any but the orthodox position.
This often leads us to take the simplest answer – which may be ‘true’ – but rarely holds all the richness and beauty and breadth of a more nuanced discussion. We humans tend to pin God into smaller and smaller boxes – containing God within the smallest possible image – because to do so is easier for us – and easier to control. And we seem to be more comfortable with a God that we can contain and control. But what do we lose by this?
Ask the average Christian and they will tell you that Jesus came to die for our sins – that’s the proper “approved” answer – (But that’s a whole other sermon – I mean, really? Jesus had to die before God could be forgiving? Really?) and yet, when we take the time to read the gospels, Jesus said very little about sin – and a whole lot about invitation and healing and forgiveness. In all honesty, I don’t believe anyone has ever been “saved,” or set free by adherence to a creed. We are saved by God’s limitless, wild and unconstrained love – and that is what Jesus gave us in his life and in his death.
I chose this reading for today for two reasons: the first is that there is so very much here that begs for forgiveness; and second because of this little reading from Frederick Buechner, which is what set me to thinking of all this in the first place:
Pilate told the people that they could choose to spare the life of either a murderer named Barabbas or Jesus of Nazareth, and they chose Barabbas. Given the same choice, Jesus, of course, would have chosen to spare Barabbas too.
To understand the reason in each case would be to understand much of what the New Testament means by saying that Jesus is the Savior, and much of what it means too by saying that, by and large, people are in bad need of being saved.
So - a couple of points to ponder: The people who saw and heard Jesus had all sorts of opinions about him. They called him Teacher, Prophet, King, Seditionist, son of God, Messiah...and crazy. Each person had to decide for themselves who he was. Some looked deeply, others hardly looked at all – at least not beyond the end of their own comfort zone.
Second point: Everyone of these names comes up somewhere in the Palm / Passion stories. In the spread of this week, Jesus goes all the way from praise and adoration (Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!) to something to be discarded like garbage (Crucify him! Crucify him!)
I mentioned last week that when I was a child Holy Week made me feel horribly guilty – but it that really what it is about? Is this story meant to make us feel guilty that “Jesus died for us” or is there something else here for us? Is there, perhaps, understanding and forgiveness and love?
[Open discussion]
Second point: Everyone of these names comes up somewhere in the Palm / Passion stories. In the spread of this week, Jesus goes all the way from praise and adoration (Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!) to something to be discarded like garbage (Crucify him! Crucify him!)
I mentioned last week that when I was a child Holy Week made me feel horribly guilty – but it that really what it is about? Is this story meant to make us feel guilty that “Jesus died for us” or is there something else here for us? Is there, perhaps, understanding and forgiveness and love?
[Open discussion]
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