Sermon for First Sunday of Lent, by Lindon Eaves, February 21, 2010.

First Sunday of Lent, 2010.

Luke 4:3.  "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread."      

Luke 4:9.   ""If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here."

Matthew 27:40 "If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross."

Isaiah 53:7.  "As a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth."

My friend David was an atheist.  Sometimes at conferences and workshops we would hang out in the bar and talk about "Life, the Universe and Everything."   I can't remember where it was, but one night we were talking about religion and how you would prove the existence of God.

David said that the best evidence would be miracles.  If you could really believe the stories (which he didn't) they would prove that there was a supernatural world behind the natural world, that Jesus could manipulate it and that there had to be a "God" behind it.

That is one's version.   I think is the version that Satan offered Jesus in the desert.  "If you are the Son of God, do the impossible; turn stones into bread; jump off a cliff; come down from the cross...because if God is almighty and you are his son, you can do anything."

But is that the God Jesus believed in?   Is that the God we believe in?  Is that kind of God "good news" for the poor, the immigrant, the widow and the orphan?

The truth is that Jesus wasn't much success as a magician.  He wasn't loud enough. There were too many people and there was not enough of him to go round.  That's probably why they strung him up.

Two things made me sad and sick this week.

The first was a TV "ad" for a big Richmond church up the West End.  It's been on several times.  It's a clip from a sermon.  The preacher is white, male, and dressed in a very nice suit.  He is surrounded by ecstatic singers.  He is waving his clenched hands and is shouting at his applauding congregation.   If his preaching style is anything to go by, his God must be very loud and very strong.  The world and how to behave in it must be very straight forward.   It's all there in God's infallible "Word" so you had better suck it up and praise the Lord.

So what was he shouting about with such obvious conviction?   As far as I could make out he was all fired up accusing those secular liberals who go with the flow of "culture" and making sure his flock did not go with the same flow.  The preacher seemed to take it for granted he knew what God was like and what Jesus wanted. They were all applauding and praising the Lord, so I guess he must be onto something.

I'm not questioning his sincerity or his passion, but I am questioning his theology and his reason.   My question is "what?"  What is he on to and is it true?   Does it matter?

That leads to the second reason I felt sick and sad this week.   

I know that Virginia has a budget problem.  I don't think any of us could argue with that.  What makes me a bit sad and sick is how that translates into public policy.    Our democratically elected governor is also speaking for "culture" when, rather than add a nickel to the tax bill, he cuts $1.8M from the budget of free clinics that provide medical care to the poor in our state.   It's not his fault.  He is only doing what culture wants.  He is going with the flow of those who elected him.

I am sick and sad.  Like the preacher up the West End, I also want God's people to go against the flow.  I also want them to stand up and be counted in the name of the God they believe in and the Jesus they are learning to love.   I also want the Church to stand firm be against the tide of culture and history.  And I want us to do it in the name of Jesus Christ who, "though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor."

So what is Jesus' God like?    After all the wrestling in the desert, dragging his cross up the hill to Calvary, what did Jesus come up with?  What is the Gospel for the big city Church and its preacher?  What is the Gospel for the Governor and voters of Virginia?  What is the gospel for the poor who are being asked to bear the cost of recession so that I can make my ends meet?  What is the gospel for me?

If you want to know what God is like just ask Jesus to turn stones into bread, or jump off a cliff, or come down from the Cross.  "If you are the Son of God prove yourself, do something powerful.  Fix it."

But that is not the God Jesus knew.  The world is not saved by "fixing it" from outside. The world is saved when people see the poverty and the powerlessness of Jesus.  Paradoxically, that is his "power".  My Jesus, whom I believe to be the Jesus of the New Covenant refuses to "fix it".   He does not "shout" and there is no applause.  My Jesus speaks through the eyes and lips of Isaiah: "Like a sheep before the shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth."

Jesus' silence on the cross is the silence of the poor.   They cannot speak for themselves.  "Culture" cannot hear them.  We, the voters of the commonwealth, have made our choice.  We have gone with the flow.   The poor have no voice.   Neither does poor Jesus.     The powerlessness of Jesus is the powerlessness of the poor as the lines to see a doctor grow longer.  "Is it nothing to you", cries the prophet, "All you who pass by.  Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow."

Yes , Jesus power is contrary to culture.  It is contrary to what the voters want.  Paul nails it in 1 Corinthians:  "Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called...the power of God and the wisdom of God."

In the Middle Ages, one of the big questions the Church wrested with was "What did Jesus really do and how did he do it.?"   To put it another way,  "What was the source of Jesus power, and how did it work.?"    

There were all kinds of answers.   The one that makes most sense to me, and actually seems closer to the Jesus I read about in scripture is the heretical version of a philosopher from Paris named Peter Abelard.  Peter Abelard was to 12th century theology what Bill Clinton was to 20th century politics.  It's an "R-rated" story,  St Thomas sermons are only PG-13 so you'll have to read about the history of Abelard's "misfortunes" online.  Let's just say as Clinton had his Monica, so Abelard had his Heloise.

So how did Abelard describe the power and work of Jesus?  It was, he said, none other than the power of his appeal from the cross.  Our hearts are changed and the world is transformed when we see the real Jesus for what he is when we see him crucified.        See Jesus powerless and you see the poor powerless.  See Jesus silent and you see the silence of the poor.   See Jesus crucified by the voters of Jerusalem and you see the poor crucified by the voters of Virginia.  

A few years ago, Bishop David Jenkins from England described the power of Jesus as the "powerless  power that overpowers power."  The spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, reaches out from the crucified out to the Holy Spirit in us.  "Is it nothing to you?"  he whispers from his dying lips "You who pass by."     "Consider me", he says..  "Look at me.  Look at what it means to be poor.    And be changed.  Love me.  Love the poor.  Maybe miracles will happen.  Amen