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“Denial and Confession”
Mark
A sermon preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley
Here we are on the first Sunday in April, when the world is falling down around us, when wars, or should I say military directives, flood our consciousness and subconscious. We need each other at a time like this to find ourselves lifted up above the same old same old of the world. We who know the Gospel, are supposed to find ways not to be defined by this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds and hearts.
Over the past few weeks we have heard three of our own talk about how this church has lifted them up in the past. They told of how this church or churches like them saved their lives. This church is important. It’s a beacon of light for many of us. It is where we find hope and concrete images of God’s priorities.
In a few minutes, we will come forward to this place up front, bringing our tithes and offerings, bringing our pink ministry commitment forms and our brown pledge cards. Then we will take communion, remembering how important it is to lift each other up. We will do this to show our commitments to God, to each other, to the ministry of this church, but also to commit ourselves to a higher plan. There is so much in this world that convinces us that communities like this are irrelevant. But we are people who have a secret. It’s a secret to share. It’s the secret that saves lives. Communities like these change the world, as we have heard Jonathan say this morning and Tai Shigaki say last week and Gene Velasco say the week before.
We need to
talk about money briefly this morning.
We do this once a year, so please bear with me. We are not exempt from budget problems.
But just like the state does not have a spending problem, but a revenue
problem, we have a revenue challenge before us.
Three factors impact our budget this year:
First, we have a new Custodian who has a tremendous
amount of skill. With this old building
needing constant attention, the Council believes we need to expand the
Custodian position to a near full-time Building Manager. The people in attendance at last Sunday’s
Forum agreed with this, too. While
volunteers have done a tremendous amount of work on this building in the past
years, it’s time to have someone coordinate this without getting burned
out. This will make those pesky projects
happen a bit quicker and free up some of our time to enhance other parts of our
ministry. For this position, we’ll need
to come up with an extra $15,000.
Second, we have made a commitment not only to give cost
of living raises to all of our staff, as a matter of economic justice, we have also modestly added money to our outreach
and our giving mission. The council
feels that we should support mission giving at least at the tithe level of our
budget.
Finally, we have lost some very generous givers in the
past year to death. This coupled with
the decrease in value of our Foundation or endowment, means that there is a
$21,000 gap in projected income for the coming year, that’s before you count
the modest increases in our budget.
This is not gloom and doom, this is reality. But I firmly believe that if we seriously
commit to tithing our personal income to the church, we will be able to easily
surpass our goals. Kim and I have tithed
to church for decades and it has always felt good. It puts our priorities in line. Even without Kim having a job, we have
decided to increase our giving, even surpassing the tithe in the coming
year. I can’t very well ask anyone else
to do something we are not willing to do.
Now, what does this have to do with the scripture, you
may ask? Just this: The powers that be
tried to dismiss the ministry of the Jesus movement as irrelevant those 2000 years
ago. But the grassroots movement itself
proved that it had power beyond the worldly power exacted by civil and even
religious authorities.
Today’s scripture talks about the so-called “trials” of
Jesus. They are a mockery of a judicial
system. Since the third chapter of
Mark’s gospel the Pharisees conspired with the Herodians
to destroy Jesus. But they could never
do it because of the crowds. More about the crowds in a moment.
Remember that there were two courts. First is the Jewish court known as the Sanhedrin. It’s led
by the high priest and 70 other scribes, priests and elders. In this portion of the scripture, we
have the accusers not being able to even agree on the charges. They chose not to bring up the charges he was
clearly guilty of, like breaking the Sabbath or healing and performing magic. What they chose to bring him up on charges
for were claiming to be the Messiah, otherwise known
as blasphemy. These charges unveil the
real motives: jealousy, even Pilate saw through this (15.10).
Since the religious trial was a
worthless folly, they turned to the civil authorities. The second court was the Roman court ruled by Pilate. The religious court tried to condemn Jesus as
a blasphemer. The only reason they would
bring him before the civil authorities was so they could get him killed. But these were no ordinary civil
authorities. These were outsiders who
were occupying Hebrew territory. They
were not well liked, seeing as how they controlled who got land, who got to eat and who was their leader. They even used religious leaders like the
chief priests to keep the peace. While
the Sanhedrin asked Jesus if he was the Messiah, Pilate asked Jesus if he was
the king of the Jews. Very
different questions. And Jesus
gave different answers. To the Messiah
question, he says, “I am.” To the King
questions he says, “You say so.” The
Romans were interested in putting down rival kings. The way they did this was by execution via
crucifixion.
I find it interesting that the crowds change their tunes
around the Roman authorities. When they
are around the chief priests and the scribes and the Pharisees, they are big
Jesus fans, but around the military might of the Romans they change their tune
and say, “crucify him.” I wonder what
kind of pressure the military might have put them under to have them change so
abruptly.
In today’s scripture, there are remarkable parallels with the current world situation. While we need not equate Jesus with any figure in today’s world, it is not Jesus who is on trial in the context of the story. No, the ones on trial are the betrayers and the accusers. Jesus doesn’t defend himself and doesn’t even dignify some of the accusations with responses.
Many people
say that the current military directive in
The first was to enact regime change.
Then it was the connection to Osama Bin Laden and the 9/11 tragedies.
Then it was because Saddam did not follow the rules of the UN Inspection teams.
When the Inspection teams wanted more time, the excuse was that there were weapons of mass destruction, so far we haven’t seen those.
We have spun it as a war for the
liberation of
I think Saddam Hussein has done atrocious things. I think the Iraqi people and the world would be better off without having him in power. But I don’t think the end justifies the means. I also know that crucifixion has ever stopped a movement. Our so-called Christian leaders ought to know that, too.
Hear what Machiavelli said about war: “If you want to have any kind of popular success, you have to wage war in the name of God. But,” he adds, “you’ll never even try it if you actually believe yourself accountable to God.” I believe that we are accountable to God, every one of us. A huge religious and political machine uses God’s many names to justify bloodshed and violence across the world We know that this is not the only valid image of God.
Like Peter, we are tempted to deny Jesus all the time. We are tempted to take the easy road. We are tempted to follow along with the crowd. And most of us would if not for the church. And it is only through communities like this one that we can have the strength, the insight, the courage and the intestinal fortitude to stand up against all of those powers and principalities.
That’s why supporting the work of UBC is so important. It’s how we say, “Here I am, God.” This is how I am accountable to God. It’s how we put our priorities and commitments on the line. It’s how we hold on for dear life to a hope that is both eternal and temporal. It’s one of the ways we garner the strength to pursue the journey ahead of us. We hold people up, we lift people up because that is the main work of the church. It is how God operates on earth, through our hands and our feet.
So when you fill out those pledge cards and those ministry commitment forms, you have the power to resist the tendency to deny, the tendency to betray, the tendency to fall asleep. And through it all we can be lifted up and can lift up a few more people.
Let me close by telling you one more story about how this church has lifted people up. On the Sunday before Christmas, a man who had just moved to the neighborhood came to UBC, looking for a place of rest, refuge and reconnection with God. He stayed after church that day and helped us decorate the church for Christmas. He moved pews. He changed light bulbs and hung banners. As he joined us in eating and conversing, he had a strange recollection of being here before. It finally clicked in his mind that he had stayed here at this church for a week with his daughter about eight years ago. He was one of the hundreds of guests that we served over the years with Families Moving Forward and the Interfaith Hospitality Network.
He told anyone and everyone he could how much it meant for him those many years ago, when he was in severe crisis, that UBC was there to offer him hospitality, hope and a week of security. With the help of our church and many others, he got back on his feet. He told me that he wouldn’t be where he is today, if this church had not been there to lift him up when he was down.
That’s what we do at this church. That’s the important ministry that we share. When we join together to do this, we bring hope to a world and a people in need.