Preached at Silverton Friends Church, December 8, 2024
Novelist Flannery O’Connor, in her novel Wise Blood, wrote about a street preacher named Haze Motes who has given up on religion, and preaches the Church without Christ. He harangues people with this: “Where in your time and your body has Jesus redeemed you. Show me where because I don’t see that place….If you had been redeemed … you would care about redemption but you don’t.” (84, 72) I’m still intrigued about what Jesus’s crucifixion and our redemption means for us, and as Haze wonders, what it means specifically in our daily lives.
Let us just remember that Jesus ministered and died and was resurrected in a world where the Roman Emperor was a god and demanded worship, where his own homeland and was occupied by the Roman army and governed by Roman puppet rulers, and where executions took place in public and with regularity, for offenses from theft to murder to political protest and insurrection. So what Jesus says applies under those very unpleasant circumstances.
We’ll start with what Jesus said before the crucifixion about what it would mean to be his follower. In Mark 10, with similar passages in Matthew and Luke, Jesus tells his disciples, “All those who want to follow me will have to deny themselves, take up their crosses, and then follow me.” Matt 16:24, Mark 10:24; Luke 9:23. I have puzzled about what I am denying when I deny myself, because I have also felt confident that God loves that self, and God wants me to rejoice in my life and humanity. But what I want us to consider is that denying oneself refers to saying no to the need for admiration, approval, praise, control, fame, power, position.
We can see that no one wanted to hear that message, because shortly after, two disciples, expecting him to become king, wanted Jesus to promise them pride of place on his left and right hand. Understandably, this infuriated the other disciples (who may have regretted not getting in there first) until they heard Jesus’s answer: You don’t know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with? They answered: We are able. In hindsight we can see the giant warning in Jesus’s metaphors, but they didn’t have our understanding that the cup was his suffering and the baptism was his death.
Jesus said, “You will indeed drink the cup that I drink and you will be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with, but those seats of honor are already assigned.“
Then he went on to say some home truths about power vs discipleship to his followers then and now; “The nature of rulers is to lord it over their people, the great ones exercise authority over the people; You can’t be like that. Whoever wants to be one of the great ones must be your servant and whoever wants to have first place must be the slave of all.
For even the Son of Man (namely Jesus) did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.”
Remember this verse:
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in this body I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Gal. 2:20
So what does it mean that we are with Jesus in his crucifixion? What does it mean to pick up the cross daily? St. Paul was working on this when he wrote, “I die daily.” Or this: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” (Gal. 6:12)
The idea of “denying one’s self” links up with “the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world” and “Christ lives in me.” These truths can help us live meaningfully and hopefully and humanely in troublesome times.
In early November, I pulled out The Roots of Goodness and Resistance to Evil by Ervin Staub, which I referenced last time I was here. Staub was sheltered from the Nazis by a Christian family, which began his interest in why people choose goodness in circumstances which make it dangerous to get involved, circumstances where evil is easier. The writer I want to bring in today is Tzvetan Todorov, who grew up in totalitarian Bulgaria. As a scholar, he inquired into the nature of virtue under the Nazis and in the concentration camps and wrote about it in Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps.
One of his main conclusions is to differentiate between heroic and ordinary virtues. And this is where we can see how dying to the world, denying one’s self, and Christ living in us can help us make decisions about our responses and responsibilities.
We aim for ordinary virtues, rather than heroism.
Heroes are courageous and willing to risk their own lives for an ideal; but also Heroes are careless of others’ lives. Heroes are willing for any number of people to die so that the ideal can survive; the beneficiary of their deaths is an abstraction such as humanity or history or democracy or freedom. heroes prefer the ideal to the real.
People of ordinary virtues are also courageous and willing to risk their lives, they also refuse to accept that things have to be this way, they also do not mindlessly follow orders. But, unlike those of heroic virtues, they prioritize the safety and escape of other people. They embody the ordinary virtues of dignity (remaining a subject with a will) and caring (contributing to the welfare of others). In complete contrast to the heroes, they live or die for individuals rather than for ideas. The beneficiaries of their courage are real individual persons. They will be active bystanders, aware of their surroundings and their companions and choosing to disrupt the actions of hatred and violence that afflict them. At the same time, it is best not to be a martyr if possible. As Jesus advised, “Be wise as the serpent and as harmless as the dove.” Pay attention, be aware, and intervene with as little harm done as possible.
I grew up in Central Africa under a military dictatorship, and during two civil wars. In the one from 1960, a young man who had studied in the U.S. and was on the army's hit list took refuge in the house of a Quaker missionary doctor. When the soldiers came to his door, Perry met them and said, "This man is a guest in my home. If you want to take him, you will have to take me also." This seemed too risky to the soldiers, since they were afraid that the U.S. might retaliate if they harmed an American, so they went away. The young man was spirited across the border and eventually found safety in the U.S. Perry used his privilege as a white American to deflect violence without making the situation worse and without harm to anyone. He exemplified a person of ordinary virtue.
How does this relate to taking up the cross and dying to self? First, dignity and caring, the ordinary virtues, are not about exercising power, only choice. It is hard for humans to give up trying to be the powerful one, the leader, the charismatic prophet, particularly if there are followers to be had. Second, recognizing that I am responsible to do all the good I can for as long as I can removes the impulse to go out in a blaze of glory, glory being another kind of ego trip. Third, my impulse to remain as safe as I can takes a back seat to my choice to disrupt violence, hatred, and evil. Fourth, I don’t waste my time saying I care; instead I do caring actions.
St. Paul says that our old worn-out habitual self is crucified with Jesus. Certainly the instinct of facing danger with fight, flight, or freeze are old habits that we can choose against. Certainly the natural and unhelpful impulse to grasp the upper hand, to be or to follow idealistic leaders is something we can question. Paul says that this old mindset is dead on the cross, and that from now on we should choose not to serve it. He calls it sin, and I want us to think about this meaning something other than lust or avarice, something instead that causes us to acquiesce to systemic evil. He says in Galatians that he is dead with Christ, and the life he lives now is lived by the faith of God’s Son. He is alive because Christ is faithful. He says that because Christ is raised, we also will live with him in a setting where death has no dominion. (Romans 6:6-9) Thus we do not fear death, but also we do not run towards it. “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain,” is not the slogan of a man hurrying toward martyrdom.
I want to draw attention to the number of times Jesus simply evaded dying by slipping away in the crowd. Even when he was encircled by a mob of angry and self-righteous men wanting to stone an adulterous woman, he responded to their mood quietly and disruptively, standing with the woman, but not inciting or inviting violence toward her or himself. When he protested against the systemic evils of temple merchandising and priestly corruption by overturning tables, he exposed only himself to retaliation, and when he was captured in the garden, he made certain his followers lived to see another day. He made his choices with dignity and purpose, and he cared for those within his sphere. This is a leader who is dead to ego needs and alive to God and his neighbors.
As we face into an uncertain and worrisome future, I encourage us to be persons of ordinary virtues, persons who recognize everyday evil and choose to act to diminish, deflect, or disrupt it rather than ignore it or comply with it. Let’s live so that we show in our time and body where Jesus has redeemed us. Let us respect our own ability to choose, let us care for our neighbor, and let us rejoice in the faithfulness of Jesus who lives in us.
