« A Prayer for the Start of the Christmas Season | Main | A Prayer for the First Sunday in Advent »
The Third Criminal on the Cross
By Administrator | November 25, 2007
A sermon based on Luke 23:33-43
Palm Bay, Florida November 25, 2007
by Rev. Scott Elliott
If you look up the word “perfect” one of the meanings is to be without blemish, that’s usually how I think of the term. And I grew up being taught that Jesus was that kind of perfect, and that humans could never be like Jesus– blemish-free perfect.
While my up-bringing had me picturing Jesus as perfect, Jesus by most accounts in Christian tradition is supposed to have been fully human.
But how could a being without blemish be fully human? A human without blemish would seem to be (to borrow my son’s phrase) a “person not on, ” a person not fully human. To be fully human is to err along the way, if not in the eyes of one’s self, then in the eyes of the world.
Despite what I was taught, stories about Jesus suggest at least rumors that he had what many in the world would call blemishes. You can sense the Gospel writers tension as they try to explain them. Things like Jesus’ family and others thinking he was insane (Jn 10:20; Mk 3:21); Jesus’ apparent reputation among some for being a glutton and a drunk (Matt 11:19); all those nerdowells Jesus hung around– those prostitutes, lepers, tax gatherers, Samaritans and adulterers.
Today that would be enough blemishes to keep the tabloids busy for a year; and it ought to be enough to satisfy any skeptic that Jesus was far from being “a person not on;” that Jesus was clearly “on” living life fully – with critics pointing out the world’s perceived blemishes.
So make no mistake about it at the horrible place of crucifixion two thousand years ago in today’s story there were three real fully human beings on those crosses feeling pain and dying.
Before I write a sermon I like to let the bible verses sort of sit in my heart and roll around in my head for a bit to see what happens. One night I went to bed thinking how the criminals on the cross might be the most famous in history.
Going to sleep thinking about criminal actvity is not something I recommend. I ended up having one of those toss and turn nights with bizarre nagging thoughts all about criminals and the bible. I woke up all night long with biblical characters in my mind who had committed crimes. It wasn’t fun, but you know what? When I got up I kept thinking about it and was stunned by the revelation that many, many biblical heros and heroines committed what the world did or does call crimes from one perspective or another.
Just take the heroic actors in Genesis. Abraham abandons his wife Hagar and their son Ishmael in the desert and later appears to plan to kill his other son Isaac; plus, he marries his half-sister Sarah. Jacob fraudulently deceives both his father and brother. Joseph’s brothers beat him, planned to murder him, sold him into slavery and then covered up their crimes. Joseph bears false witness against his brother and falsely imprisons him.
That’s just some of Genesis. Many other Old Testament heros committed crimes. Midwives Shiporah and Puah, Moses’ Mother and Pharaoh’s daughter disobey the edict of Pharaoh to kill infants. Moses murdered an Egyptian. Esther trespassed into the King’s chamber and practiced an illegal religion. Jael murdered a general. Sampson committed arson, assault, battery and mass murder. Rahab was a prostitute (and the Israelite spies her Johns). David committed adultery and premeditated murder. Solomon enslaved thousands and threatened to cut a mother’s living baby in half.
And then there is the New Testament: The magi disobeyed the edict of Herod. Mary is pregnant outside of betrothal, a capital offense called adultery. John the Baptist seditiously challenged the authority of Rome and its temple leaders and instigated others to do so. Peter slices off the ear of an officer. Paul is jailed and executed.
While humans may have trouble seeing the good in folks who commit crimes, God, it seems, often not only finds the good in those who commit crimes but is not afraid to use them to do God’s work.
That brings us to the criminals in today’s story, the ones who got me tossing and turning about all the other Biblical criminals. Those criminals are called what is best translated as “rebels” in the other Gospels (1).
The “rebel” label fits with what we know about Roman history. Lower class people convicted of sedition, that is rebellion, were crucified – we know that as a matter of history. The two criminals crucified with Jesus were likely rebels caught trying to bring about peace to Palestine through violent means against Rome, attacking its people and/or its properties. Palestine was rife with the violence of insurgents opposing Rome.
The surly criminal is like the faceless criminals in our culture that we tend to loath. Luke notes his mean disposition as he derides Jesus “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” He is like the devil at the beginning of Luke who tells Jesus to use his powers to save himself: “If you are the Son of God throw yourself down from here . . .[angels will protect you].” (Luke 4:9).
This first criminal has no chance of winning us over. Like the portrait of criminals in countless news stories he does not appear to be like us. We don’t feel we know him personally. He is devil-like. We don’t want to be like him.
But the second criminal? Oh man, he is so like we’d want be in his situation. He tells the bad guy to leave Jesus alone. He admits his crimes. He sees Jesus as having done nothing wrong and asks only to be remembered. The good criminal, what a guy! Criminal or not we feel we know him, we want to save him.
And Jesus does just that saying “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Often I think that we have been raised to want to be like the good criminal. Flawed and blemished, but, remorseful. Human but humble. Of the criminals on the cross at best we seem to set our aim to be like him.
But there is another choice, a much harder choice. Not the surly guy on the cross. Not even the nice guy on the cross with foibles who seems like us. The third criminal on the cross. That extraordinary fully human being: Jesus.
We don’t like to think of Jesus as a criminal – it’s scandalous, but, Jesus was tried and convicted, sentenced and punished by law. We may not want to hear it, we may not like it – the early Christians certainly didn’t– but Jesus was a criminal. It is scandalous. Like the two men reported to be out there on the crosses with him, Jesus was a rebel. There is no getting around it, Rome crucified those found guilty of sedition against Rome.(2)
The Gospels’ authors spin the story to suggest Jesus was framed, but scholars are convinced Jesus committed crimes (3). Ironically the Gospels themselves suggest Jesus broke a number of laws, though they also make a strong case that Jesus’ crimes were done with divine purpose.
John Dear in his book The Sacrament of Civil Disobedience puts it like this:
Jesus challenges the temple as the-go-between for God. He calls folks to God through meals where all are invited, all are equal. He calls folks to God through the caring treatment of all neighbors (even enemies). Jesus’ message is: you don’t have to get to God through the Roman controlled temple, you can get to God through love of God, love of self and love of others.
The temple was the center of Rome’s corruption of Judaism. Virtually all Jews – the vast majority of whom were extremely poor– had to visit the temple and pay sums to the temple authorities who exchanged (for a fee) coins bearing the graven images of emperors for coins suitable for offerings in a Jewish temple.
The temple claimed a monopoly on mediating God; and Rome and its elite profited by it. Jesus entered the temple as large crowds converged on Jerusalem for the Holy days. Then in public acts of civil disobedience Jesus turned over money changing tables and blocked access through the temple. Even today we’d call this a pretty serious act of criminal trespass and mischief. If we read about such conduct in a place of worship in Florida Today we’d expect the perpetrator to be fully prosecuted and punished.
But two thousand years after Jesus committed his crimes we look at what Jesus’ world considered criminal conduct, high treason and insurrection and we don’t see them as blemishes but signs of God, of perfection. Jesus’ non-violent acts to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor are laudable, exemplary, Grace-full, heroic and Godly. In a word they are perfect.
In addition to being defined as “lacking blemish” the word “perfection” has other meanings including “Lacking nothing essential to the whole; . . . Thoroughly skilled in a certain field [and] . . . Completely suited for a particular purpose . . .” Those three definitions describe Jesus to a tee. He lacked nothing; he was as skilled as you could ever hope to be; and he was completely suited for the purpose of bringing about God’s shalom through non-violence and love.
Jesus’ understandings, experiences and connections with God, and his acts on earth, are so amazing and so powerful that he not only shook his world, he has continued to shake the world ever since. You can feel the vibrations in the gospels stories. You can hear it in his voice in today’s story. There on the cross, tortured and dying – fully human. Jesus’ words are full of love: “Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing.”
Fully human Jesus nonetheless magnified God within his very being. Jesus was a person so much “on” in his living – and dying– that he created what theologian John Cobb calls a “field of force,” which continues to exist today (6).
Stepping into Jesus’ field of force we can find a path to the Sacred, to God. The Gospels call it The Way. Jesus open a Way, a portal if you will, through which God can be, and is, experienced. That’s amazing and certainly good news!
But that good news has some tough edges to it. As Christians we are called not to just step into Jesus’ field of force, but to actually try to be like Jesus. 1 John puts it like this “Whoever says ‘I abide in him,’ ought to walk just as he walked.” (2:6).
We may not walk exactly as Jesus walked (no one ever has before or since), but, every step in that direction literally makes a world of difference. It changes the world and brings God’s way of peace and justice that much closer.
Mahatma Gandhi, Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. all walked many a non-violent step like Jesus did, each also had criminal arrest records and look how powerful their lives were. Their legacies continue on even decades after they passed away. They changed our world in our generations.
You don’t have to be arrested to walk like Jesus. The Amish who acted so forgivingly last year when their school children were attacked certainly walked like Jesus, as did Mother Teresa and St. Francis and countless other saints who have lived in obscurity, but loved their neighbors, enemies and God.
We can take small steps too and have powerful affects. The saints whose names we read today and others in our lives that we lit candles for are proof of that. Each one of them in their turn acted in kindness, cared for others and when they walked as Jesus walked had powerful affects in the lives of those who were and still are touched by their love, compassion and care.
Proverbs (10:7) tells us that “the memory of a good person is a blessing . . .” It’s a blessing because that life continues to have meaning, to vibrate with Love long after the person has passed away.
Our lives may not create a field of force like Jesus’ did, but every step we take toward his Way, toward love can also change the world, can bring God’s shalom, Christ’s Reign of love and peace for all creation that much closer. We don’t need to be without blemishes, all we need to be is a “person on” who acts with love; and we can be like Jesus, even if only for the moment and what a difference it makes.
For Christians, Jesus, a man others saw as criminal, began that difference in a world altering way some two thousand years ago by living life fully human, fully on, full of love, full of God. The good news is that we can live lives like that too!
——————-End Notes————-
1. Funk, Robert, The Acts of Jesus, p. 155.
2. Patterson, Stephen, The God of Jesus, 201.
3. Ibid.
4. Dear, John The Sacrament of Civil Disobedience, chapter excerpt on “Jesus and Civil Disobedience” found at: fatherjohndear.org/pdfs/jesus_and_civil_disobedience.pdf.4.
Much of the specifics on Jesus’s crimes that I list were inspired by this excerpt
5. Merton, Thomas. Gandhi on Nonviolence, (New York, New Directions, 1964), 40.
6. E.g., Cobb, John The Process Perspective, p. 41
Copyright Scott Elliott © 2007
Topics: Uncategorized |
WordPress database error: [Can't open file: 'wp_comments.MYI' (errno: 144)]
SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_ID = '35' AND comment_approved = '1' ORDER BY comment_date