Pr. Joseph Crippen

Christ Jesus is absolutely the King, the ruler of all, who rules in giving up power for the sake of love, and healing the creation through that.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sunday of the Passion, year A
Texts: Matthew 21:1-11; 26:14 – 27:66

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

When David wanted Solomon crowned as the next king, he commanded that Solomon ride David’s mule.

Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet led Solomon on the king’s mule in procession and anointed him as his father’s successor. Riding on the king’s humble beast was unmistakably kingly. Solomon’s brother Adonijah, who also sought the throne, fully understood and despaired at what this action meant.

So when Jesus entered David’s city on a donkey in a procession, the crowds cheered and called him “Son of David.” They got it. Matthew underscores this for us with the prophet Zechariah’s promise that the true king would come riding on a donkey. Today Jesus showed himself heir to the great David’s throne.

Millions gathered across our country yesterday in “No Kings!” rallies, protesting authoritarianism and the usurping of democratic processes by our president, and many more will gather today across our country for the Palm Sunday Path faith rallies, with the same protest but in the context of this day Jesus acted as a king. People protest because we threw off the monarchy in this country 250 years ago and don’t want anyone acting as king or dictator over us.

So what do we do with Jesus’ overt claiming of the role of King today?

The answer lies in the fullness of what we do today.

From the earliest centuries, faithful followers of Christ gathered on this day and remembered the kingly entrance of Jesus, waved palms, told the story. And then, just as we do, they gathered to hear the story of the Passion of this King, his suffering and death.

These aren’t two different things we’re cramming together, they’re one story. Only together can we fully understand what’s happening. Jesus enters Jerusalem unmistakably showing himself the King of Israel. And then he proceeds to act very oddly for a king. He doesn’t assemble an army to take over, he does his usual teaching, gets into his usual trouble. But he’s now in the heart of the religious establishment who oppose him, so he gets arrested. Then he willingly allows himself to be tried and executed.

And that’s the only kind of king Jesus will ever be. One who loves his people to the fullest, offering his life as a witness to that divine love that lives in him, the love of the Triune God for the universe that will die rather than overpower, lose everything rather than force obedience.

This way goes against all assumptions about power and rule.

 Our politics have evolved to people seeking office not to govern but simply to be in power and retain that power by any means necessary including violence and oppression and lawbreaking. Even in our daily lives, we often assume being strong and in control is important.

But clearly Jesus isn’t controlling or acting strong as he lives into his kingship this week. He gives no sense of worldly power or rule. Look at the mocking thrown at him on the cross: “He saved others, he can’t save himself. He’s the King of Israel; let him come down from the cross now and we’ll believe in him.” They assume no proper King would let himself be killed as a criminal.

The world has no way to comprehend the servant kingship of Jesus.

Because Jesus proclaims and lives a reign of God that turns the world upside down. Or as has been said, Jesus comes to us standing up, but we’ve been standing on our heads so long we think he’s the one who’s upside down. In the kingdom of God, the greatest are the least: the weak, the wounded and broken, the children, the oppressed. And the King, the Son of God, is the lowest, the servant – down in the dirt with the people, suffering on a cross to love the creation back to God.

And that’s exactly the king we really need. A King who invites you to follow his way and live only by love.

Because the world’s alternative isn’t a way you’d want to live.

 To control others, dominate others, manipulate others. A life fully lived that way would be terrible. I’ve never gotten my way by force or coercion and been happy about the result, never. Exercising power over others will ultimately corrupt, and leave empty victories. Something we’re seeing in our nation and world so much today. Destruction, death, power over people, abuse, hatred, and we’re getting further and further from a world of justice and hope for all people.

So can you see Jesus as the true king he actually is?

Can you look at what seems like a losing way, a dead end, a dying King, and see hope and life? We know so much more than the crowds in Jerusalem that Sunday and Friday. We know Christ is risen and is the ruler of the universe.

But even risen from the dead, Christ still rules from the cross, through suffering, through self-giving love. And life in God’s reign is following our King in servanthood and love, giving, sharing, caring, forgiving, losing like our King loses. Christians who live this way know the joy of life in ways no one in the world’s power game will ever know.

And God promises to fill you with such faith and trust in our servant King, and strength and grace to follow, that you will find abundant life truly worth living, now and always, and become a part of God’s bringing that abundant life to all people and the whole creation.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

The Triune God sees you as precious and beautiful, scars and all.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday in Lent, year A
Text: John 11:1-45

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

There’s something troubling in this story.

Jesus responds to news of his dear friend’s illness saying that it won’t lead to death, “rather it is for God’s glory,” he says, “so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

So, Lazarus got sick so Jesus could be glorified? Is that what Jesus is saying? It sounds like what Jesus said last week about the blind man: “he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” So this poor unnamed man spent his whole life blind, as a beggar, so on this day God’s works might be revealed?

What are we to do with this? Scripture doesn’t describe the Triune God as One who targets people with suffering to achieve some divine end. Certainly people throughout history have believed that, assumed that about God.

But that’s not the God we know in Jesus, or in Scripture. It’s not how Jesus dealt with suffering. When he meets the sisters later he has deep empathy with them, weeps with them, shares their grief. He’s not manipulating a friend’s pain to put on a show for the crowds.

So is there another way to understand this?

The Japanese have a beautiful art form called kintsugi.

It’s the art of repairing broken pottery by mending the broken places with lacquer mixed with powdered gold or other precious metals. Rather than throwing out a treasured piece of pottery because it’s broken, it’s mended.

The beautiful thing is the gold. The mended pottery openly shows all its cracks where it was broken. It gleams with bright gold lines crossing its surface.

Brokenness isn’t a reason to throw a thing away. Brokenness is the way of this world. And there is beauty in that brokenness, beauty where the mending isn’t hidden away but shown to the world as part of that beauty. The glory to be praised isn’t the skill of the mender. It’s the beauty of the thing mended.

Like a man who now can see after a lifetime of blindness. Or a man raised from the dead and returned to his family. That’s the glory Jesus means. Neither were put through suffering to help Jesus show off who he is. The glory of God is that God sees them as beloved before and after the healing. Their brokenness, their need, is part of their beauty.

It depends on how you think God sees you.

In our Western branch of Christianity, we tend to understand God as judge, who sees our brokenness – especially our actions, thoughts, tendencies to separate from God – as sin. And God’s wrath needs to be appeased, we’re taught. God is perfect, we sin, therefore God must be angry with us and see only the sin.

But what if we trusted the Bible? Certainly, there are places where God is angry, where the people’s sin is decried. No one doubts that. The question is, how does God view us, all people? As sinners who are worthy of destruction unless somehow someone saves us?

Or, as Jesus and Paul and the prophets repeatedly show, as beloved ones, even in our brokenness, even in our sinfulness? So precious there’s no question of God throwing us away. So beloved, God endures suffering and death to show us God’s true heart.

We belong to a Triune God who was broken at the cross and still bears those scars in the resurrection. Even God has broken lines, cracks, that have been healed. And because we find life in those scars, we see God’s scars as beautiful.

But what if you could see your scars, your wounds, as not something to be hidden away? Loved by a scarred God, can you see your wounds, your scars as as beautiful as you see God’s scars?

The glory of God is in God’s love for broken people God sees as precious.

Lots of blind people in Jesus’ day didn’t receive their sight. The glory of God seen in this man was God’s love for him his whole life, not just that moment of physical healing.

There were lots of grieving families in the same week as today’s story, maybe even in the same town. The glory of God isn’t that one of them was raised from the dead.

No, the glory of God is that God loves you and me in every part of our lives. If we’re angry at God for not stopping a tragedy, like Martha, God-with-us will hear our anger and promise us life now, with God at our side. Martha has no idea Jesus is going to raise Lazarus till the very last minute. Her beautiful statement of faith is simply that living with the brokenness of her grief knowing that God was and is with her is enough.

If we’re weeping or in despair, the glory of God is the Son of God simply weeping with Mary, loving her, deeply sad himself at the death of his friend. Mary also doesn’t expect Lazarus to be raised until he is. But it is enough for her that God-with-us is with her, weeping. And Jesus mends all their cracks – the brokenness of their anger, their grief – gold. They’re still there, even after Lazarus is raised. But they’re not a sign of failure or a flaw. They’re part of their beauty.

The Holy and Triune God looks at you and sees beloved, beautiful.

From Genesis 1 onward this is your truth. John 1 once again confirms it. Your cracks, your scars, your sins, your brokenness, are part of your beauty. Some will be mended in ways no one can see. Some scars will remain for others to see the rest of your life. But those scars are golden, beautiful, because God has healed them or is healing them still.

That’s the glory of God. That you, too, are glorious in God’s eyes, and so precious that God’s forgiveness is always yours, for the healing of your sin. So precious that God’s Spirit is always yours, for the healing of your spirit. So precious that God’s touch is always yours, in whatever places you are broken, to make those scars beautiful. Because they are in God’s eyes. You are, in God’s eyes.

Will you tell God otherwise, beloved one?

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen