Rev. Teri Peterson
PCOP
no king but Love
John 19.1-16a
6 April 2014, NL4-31,
Lent 5 (at the threshold)
Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And
the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed
him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the
Jews!’ and striking him on the face. Pilate went out again and said to them,
‘Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against
him.’ So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.
Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the man!’ When the chief priests and the police
saw him, they shouted, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take
him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.’ The Jews answered
him, ‘We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has
claimed to be the Son of God.’
Now when Pilate heard this, he was more
afraid than ever. He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, ‘Where are
you from?’ But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, ‘Do you
refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and
power to crucify you?’ Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no power over me
unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over
to you is guilty of a greater sin.’ From then on Pilate tried to release him,
but the Jews cried out, ‘If you release this man, you are no friend of the
emperor. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor.’
When Pilate heard these words, he brought
Jesus outside and sat on the judge’s bench at a place called The Stone
Pavement, or in Hebrew Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation for the
Passover; and it was about noon. He said to the Jews, ‘Here is your King!’ They
cried out, ‘Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!’ Pilate asked them,
‘Shall I crucify your King?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but
the emperor.’ Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.
This weekend, I finally watched the movie Frozen. The
friends I was with got tired of me saying, over and over again, “hey, that
would totally work in a sermon!” The only part they agreed with me was when the
trolls are singing to Kristoff and Anna, and they say “people make bad choices
when they’re mad or sad or stressed, but with a little love, you can bring out
their best!” In addition to being true and difficult, it also reminded me of
this story of Jesus and Pilate and the Jewish leaders.
Last week we watched as Pilate went in and out between Jesus
and the crowd of religious leaders, trying to make up his mind as to which way
to choose. This week we have the second half of that story—three trips through
the door last week, and four this week. Still Pilate is caught between two ways
forward: the way of popularity with the world, and the way of Truth. We heard
him ask last week “what is truth?” and we remembered that Jesus said “I am the
truth.” In the face of The Truth, what happens?
Well, if today’s reading is any indication, fear is what
happens. While scripture, and Disney, tells us that perfect love casts out
fear, it is still true that fear won’t go without a fight.
Sometimes fear looks like anxiety. Sometimes it looks like
uncertainty or nervousness. Sometimes it looks like wild over-indulgence and
flitting from thing to thing. Sometimes it looks like withdrawing and
isolating. Sometimes it looks like making plans for every contingency, even the
ones that will never happen. In today’s story, we see three really common
manifestations of fear—and what happens when we let fear guide us.
At the beginning of the story, fear lashes out—in the form
of whips and words, put-downs and sarcasm and mocking. It’s often our first
line of defense, to bolster our own egos by denigrating others. They should
have tried harder, they made bad choices, they deserve what they got. They just
don’t understand us, don’t commit the way we used to, are only looking for easy
answers and a handout. We do it on an individual level and a corporate one—we
look for a scapegoat that can bear the burden of our anxiety, and we push it
out into the wilderness and breathe a sigh of relief that we’re better than
that.
Yet Jesus said that whatever we do to the least of these, we
do to him. Our mocking and put-downs weave together into a crown of thorns that
can only be worn by the One who intentionally places himself with the outcast,
even as I congratulate myself on my quick wit. And the leaders and police and
guards and politicians who turned their abuse on Jesus, they end up declaring
the very thing they are decrying—that Jesus is Lord. They think it’s a fun
game, to hurt and abuse and put down, to turn Jesus’ words against him.
But it only lasts a little while. Pretty soon we need
another scapegoat, because I don’t know about you but when I’m relying on
myself and my ego, I need a boost pretty quickly. Not to mention that, more
often than not, we find out along with those who pressed that crown into Jesus’
head that our words turn back on us. Jesus doesn’t respond with hateful words
of his own, he just keeps on being the same Love, the same gateway to Abundant
Life, the same King who came to serve, not to be served.
The religious and political leaders can see that this is not
working—Pilate is still trying to navigate some middle path that will allow him
to be both right and popular, but they want him to come fully to their side, so
they bring out the biggest charge against Jesus: he claimed to be the Son of
God.
Which, of course, Jesus has done, more than once. And Son of
God is a title that the Romans reserve for just one person: the emperor. To
claim to be the Son of God in the Roman world is treason. And to claim to be
the Son of God in Jewish world is blasphemy.
For all we talk about how Jesus was sinless, there is also
the reality that when it comes to breaking these two laws, he was guilty.
And Pilate, John tells us, is more afraid than ever.
In his fear, he starts doing the next thing many of us do
when we are terrified: he asks a zillion questions, none of them the one that
will bring him an answer. He wants to know where Jesus is from, why Jesus won’t
answer, does Jesus understand anything at all about power. He cannot wait for
an answer, of course, because in his fear his mind and his mouth are running a
million miles a minute, in all the wrong directions.
How often have we confronted something scary with a bunch of
questions? I know I do it, and I bet most of us do. I’ve gone round and round
with questions like “how can I fix her? why is this happening to me? what on
earth is he thinking? If I say this, what will they say?” We have questions for
doctors, questions for church experts, questions for coaches, questions for
teachers, questions for friends, questions for ourselves. But rarely are they
the right questions. Pilate’s questions don’t lead him any closer to choosing
which door to walk through—they lead him deeper into his fear instead, deeper
into his own understanding of power rooted in violence, while Jesus is
embodying power rooted in love.
Now Pilate and the other leaders are feeding on each others’
anxiety, the same way politicians and advertising executives count on us to
feed each others’ anxiety, and we get to the final step in giving in to fear:
the chief priests, the very ones whose job is to ensure that everyone carefully
follows all the religious rules, are so desperate that they break the first
commandment. They declare “we have no king but the emperor.” And, just as
Peter’s denial of his identity as a disciple was accidentally the truth, so the
chief priests have accidentally told the truth. In one place, they proclaim
there is no God but God…but outside those walls, their words and actions tell a
different story: security and power are their real gods. They so caught up in
the possibility of losing their status and safety, they let God go without a
second thought.
And here’s where we really hit close to home. There are lots
of ways we too finish that sentence: “we have no king but _____.” What are the
things we bow down to, pledge our allegiance to, serve? we have no king
but…busyness? money? our political party? the military? no king but our memory
of the way things used to be? no king but our picture of what life is supposed
to be like? what church is supposed to be like? We have no king but our own
desires, which we’ll ask God to bless?
We have no king but the emperor, the chief priests cry. And
so Pilate comes out to the judgment seat, to the stone table where the
sacrifice is made, and at noon on the day of preparation for the Passover, he
gives the order to sacrifice the Lamb of God, whose life will pour out for the
life of the world.
Pilate wants desperately to have it both ways—he is caught
between the doors, with no way to walk through both. He has to choose, as we
must choose: the ways of the world, with power, wealth, status, and security?
Or the way of Jesus, which insists on meeting people’s pain with compassion,
meeting contempt with hope, meeting anger with love. When we are afraid, we so
often lash out and hurt others, or we lash in and shame ourselves, but the way
of Jesus is about faith, hope, and love. It is about being a peacemaker and a
caretaker, even when that way seems impossible and ridiculous. It is about
choosing the door to the cross, which will mean leaving all else behind.
That is a scary proposition, even though Jesus has walked
this way before us. Jesus has already traveled this road of suffering, grief,
hope, compassion, friendship, loss, laughter, tears, pain, frustration, and
joy. He told us that we too know the way, so we do not need to be anxious.
After all, perfect love casts out fear—which does not mean we will not feel
fear, it means we don’t have to act on it. Perfect love pours itself out,
washing away the well-worn ruts of our mocking, our questions, our idolatry,
making new paths of faith, hope, and love. Or, as the trolls in Frozen sing:
“People make bad choices when they’re mad or scared or stressed, but true love
will bring out their best.” One of my friends reminds us often that “hurt
people hurt people”—but we don’t have to hurt them back. Perfect love calls us
to love as well—to follow in Jesus’ footsteps even when that means letting go
of the paths we have always known, even when it means saying “We have no king
but Love.”
May we step across the threshold into abundant life, today
and every day.
Amen.
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