Luke 23: 33-43

When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. [[Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”]] And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by watching, but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Sermon Text

The death of Christ is something that we as Christians depend upon. The resurrection is the moment that seals our salvation, proves God’s love and power, but that resurrection would not be necessary if we did not reject Christ in the first place. Jesus lived a life without sin, loving in ways we would call impossible, even praying till the very end for those who were actively killing him. A love we can never fully understand, made plain in every way, for the entire span of this amazing God-man’s life. The wonderful, dread sight of a Roman cross somehow spells the most dreadful moment of history, and the one that sealed the salvation of not only all believers, but all creation.

Jesus was not alone on the Hill of Calvary, but was joined by two criminals. The nature of their crime is unclear, as the term used for them across the Gospels can mean any number of condemning things. Perhaps they were thieves, ruffians who attacked their fellow citizens, or tied into something more dangerous and iconoclastic. Whatever the nature of their crime, they were now in the same place Jesus was. Hanging on Roman crosses, stripped of their clothes and their dignity, dying alongside a roadside at eye level with the people who passed by. Did the people turn their gazes? Did they spit and swear? Did they have any mercy for the people who had life draining from them, bit by bit.

The lives of those two thieves are cut off from us, but they are not foreign to us. We have known plenty of people in our lives guilty of all manner of evil. Some have been punished for their crime, others have escaped justice. Sometimes the harm they caused is small, to property or constituting a wound that might heal. Other times the damage is something that we are able to mitigate over time, but that will always leave some scar. Sometimes to the society around us, and other times to us individually or to the people we love.

The dreadful thing about God’s grace is that it truly is open for all people to receive. It is not just to the people we are able to agree with or support, but to all people who are willing to accept it. It can come in the earliest days of a person’s life, infused into them by family and friends since the moment they are born, or it can come as they draw their final breath. Either way, God’s grace cannot and will not be limited by our own imagination or preferences, and that is not something we take lightly.

The atrocities of the ages give us all the reason in the world to be mad that God would dare propose something so against our concepts of justice. It is patently and plainly unfair, and yet somehow it is obvious to us that a good God must always be willing to do something so plainly impossible as forgiving the unforgiveable. A God who suffered being crucified must care for those driving in the nails enough to suffer that kind of death. It is an impossibility, a conundrum and a half, but it is the example laid at our feet for all our own conflicts.

We talked last week about how community requires us to work together or it cannot exist. That means that sometimes forgiveness cannot equal completely with reconciliation, try as we might. We were being general then, applying it broadly to how we live together in community. Now we can be specific – we have people in this life we cannot associate with, not because it is impossible to be reconciled somehow, but because the two parties cannot do the work necessary to make it happen. I can forgive anyone in this world, I can have no ill will in my heart towards them, but I would be aiding and abetting their transgression if I pretended that things were as they always had been.

This is why we have policies in place that allow people who have committed crimes against others, for example, to be members of congregations and participants of ministry, but not without certain caveats. Some would say that absolution of sin is the erasure of consequence, but to do so is to deny the justice due all people and prevents us from cutting off the temptation toward additional harm. In our own lives, there may be people we have allowed back into our life, but cannot trust with the close things of our heart again. There is no erring in that, it is the most natural thing that can be.

I was in a relationship once that was abusive in all ways but physical. I was not happy and neither was my partner. Yet, we stayed together out of some kind of fear or convenience. As part of that cycle of toxicity, I was made to cut certain people out of my life. They had committed no sin against me, had been nothing but good friends, but because of the preferences she held, I found myself fracturing my own soul to keep the piece. Some of those people are now fully restored to the relationship we had before, now years after my seeking therapy allowed me to break my chains and end the abuse. However, not every relationship could come back to where it was. Forgiveness has been given me, but time shifts people and growth happens that puts us in different places. To paraphrase a secular prophet, “Not everyone, [we]’ve abandoned, is still standing by.”[1]

Even for my abuser, forgiveness is something that has settled deep in my heart. I see how their own situations have led them to where they are. I cannot hold any true animosity for them, broken as they are and broken as I was to stay there with them. Yet, I would not ever try to patch things up, to be a friend to them again. There is no outcome of that that would be mutually good in either direction, and so a door is closed that will remain shut. The slate is washed away, but with it comes a block that cannot be removed. So great is the necessity of preserving what is good over what some might call “best.”

In a discussion I had recently with someone I stated how the process of reconciliation begins first with the person who did what was wrong realizing they made a mistake. Then they have to go and ask forgiveness of God and the person they did wrong. The next step is baffling to us, but necessary. The person is forgiven in their confessing, their sin somehow washed away in a moment. Then, and only then, are they to do all they can to fix what is broken. “Why?” We might ask, “Would you bother to do work, when you are already in the clear?” Because I would answer, we are not trying to be guiltless in this life, but righteous.

If I wrong my wife every day, and she forgives me every night, but I never change how I act, our marriage won’t grow or flourish in any way. If I go out and lie and cheat and steal, then I can be forgiven a dozen times, but unless I stop my lying and cheating and stealing and face up to the consequences of my evil, I will continue doing harm. We are trying to be better and to be good, like Christ was good before us, and that means that regardless of being forgiven, we have to change. Repentance is the act of turning around, confession of fessing up. If we only ever get to admitting our wrongdoing, but not changing, than we are actively denying the better portion of God’s gifts.

Yet, the thief on the cross shows us that even the very end of life can be the moment we turn our lives around. I do not recommend it though. This thief missed out on a life of shared commitment, of happiness, of friendships and family ties by blood and by association. He enters Paradise a stranger to all who are there ahead of him, able to make friends and connections in eternity and among the perfected. However, it is better to go somewhere knowing some people to welcome us in, rather than having a committee of strangers standing there. It is better to be in Heaven as a Saint in training than a Saint in name only. Today do the hard work and forgive someone in your life, but I implore us to do the harder thing and make things right that we have broken. – Amen.

---

[1] They Might be Giants. Sometimes a Lonely Way. Idlewild, 2013.

2 Thessalonians 3: 6-13

Now we command you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from every brother or sister living irresponsibly and not according to the tradition that they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not irresponsible when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living irresponsibly, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.

Sermon Text

The text we just read is similar to these inkblot tests. Depending on a person’s political and social standing, the text can mean wildly different things. For years in American politics the injunction that “Those who are unwilling to work, should not eat,” has been a foundation of anti-welfare stances and the general Conservative ethos around any government program. Meanwhile, the same text was immortalized by Vladimir Lenin as a core tenant of his brand of communism, and enshrined within the Soviet Constitution.[1] For one group the target of vitriol was the imagined “Welfare Queens,” dreamt up in the political campaigns of the 70s and 80s, for the other the very present reality of the rich making money off of the poor without lifting a finger to help society except in moving money from one rich person to another.

Reactions to this text go in either direction – either we must attack the rich for their unwillingness to work alongside everyone else in society, or the poor for any number of things they may or may not be doing. As with anything in American culture, the words of Paul in this text become a weapon, and we just need to find who we want to hit with it. We are a combative people, and we want to know who is going to get it at the end of the day.

I would submit, however, that this lesson is not meant to be the foundation of an economic system as we presently imagine them to exist. At the time of 2 Thessalonians writing, Capitalism would not emerge for another sixteen hundred years, and Communism another seventeen hundred. To force Paul to support one side or the other of the Cold War is to on one hand apply modern standards to the ancient world and on the other to force Paul to only be relevant in the here and now. Two hundred years from now, when new economic systems are the norm that we do not yet have names for, will people look at this text as we read it today and decide it no longer matters? Only if we lock it in as an argument about something as transient as economic theory.

There is a deeper reality to the words of the Apostle, and they reflect the need for a society, and on a smaller scale a community, to see themselves as being responsible to and for one another. When I come in this room, I am not just someone doing a job, although I am a “Religious Professional,” I am someone covenanting to be a part of this community. I am responsible to help everyone here be well. While all clergy in the Methodist Church belong to the annual conference rather than to any one church, the church we serve is a community we swear to lead with authority and to be a part of in all ways we can. In the same way, every one of us who attends this church, who has taken membership vows to it, or who simply helps when we can, all of us have taken an oath to be with one another and uphold one another.

I have rained praise of this congregation time and time again for its ability to love one another, and the community around us, so I do not feel like I have to start from square one on what mutuality looks like. However, I do want to go through Paul’s command here to show us just how broad the issues of a mutual society go. Firstly, by establishing what “mutual responsibility,” looks like. When I say, “Mutual,” What comes to mind? Working together, a single-mindedness of will? A car insurance company that really needs to stop with the emu mascot?

Mutualism, mutuality, mutual responsibility, however we term it, is fundamentally an act of regarding other people as equal to ourselves and treating them as such. If I want to help you, I do not do it as if I am better than you. If I seek help from you, I do not see myself as beneath you for needing that help. If we are fighting, I treat you like someone with equally valid emotions and thoughts as me. In all things, we are equal, except perhaps expertise and circumstance. Whether I am well off a the moment or particularly good at something does not make me better than you, nor would the inverse make you better than me.

That is hard for human beings to accept. We want the world to be hierarchical because it makes it easier to categorize the things around us. In the era of instantly sorted entries on any website we want, we are even more primed than ever to say one thing stands above another. For Thai food and movie musicals that is a fair way to sort our priorities, but it cannot be the same for people. The value of a human life cannot be determined by any measure except equality. The person who lives off the money left to them by their parents is just as valid as the person who works 40 hours a week and just scrapes by, at least in terms of their dignity.

However, if those two people are living together, the reality of their life cannot remain the same while still acknowledging that dignity. The person with all the money in the work, and no need to work, cannot look at the person struggling to get by and say something as blasé as “they should just get another job,” or “they are not my problem.” Something is broken if someone exists who can live without working and another person must work themselves to the bone just to get by.

This teaching affects the comfortable much more than the poor, it is simply a reality of scripture that equality demands more of the well-off than the struggling. We as a culture are primed, by those in power and with money, to distrust one another. Jeremiah talks about this when he searches the streets of Jerusalem, where the rich live for righteous people. Having been primarily out in the farms around the city, he thought that among the well to do he might see something different. Jeremiah instead lays out the reality of the situation. The poor have turned on one another, stealing and cheating to get ahead, and the rich have pretended they do not exist, pushing them far away from view and feasting while they starve outside their gates.[2]

This acknowledges the reality that scarcity can cause people to become unpleasant. When you do not know where food is coming from, you are more comfortable lying, or cheating, or stealing. Survival trumps ethical concerns, our brains are wired that way. More despicable is the mindset that many of us here, more comfortable in our lives than those pushed to that brink, still hold onto. We look to those desperate to make it by, both those who do so through acceptable and unacceptable means, and we see an existential threat that simply is not there. We see in the pilfering of a blessing box that is set up with no strings attached, a violation rather than a fulfillment of purpose.

We see in the occasional theft of items from our porch, some grand sign of human evil, rather than a sign of the societal decay we have facilitated. We see in the faces of the needy, people to regard with suspicion, rather than people just like us, simply trying to get by. All the while, those better off than us pull the strings to keep us all pushed down, to make sure that we do not trust one another. The bread and circuses laid before us are not like they were in Rome, of gladiators and literal bread. They are in the cries to destroy homeless encampments, the entertainment we get from “People of Walmart,” and similar meme pages, the desire to set us on edge against one another rather than work together toward our mutual good.

Younger people are less enthusiastic to join the workforce. Why do we think that is? Many would talk about entitlement or general laziness, but we know that cannot be the truth if we consider young people equally dignified. The answer comes in a knowledge that work does not always contribute to something meaningful in life. We all need to live, we all want to work to help other people, but busing tables at 3 different restaurants just to make enough money to pay rent is not going to do it for anyone. Mutuality would dictate that, in the name of allowing young people a chance at a half decent life, those who run businesses must be willing to take a hit to profits, consumers must be willing to pay a little bit more, and, yes, worker must come to the shift they signed on for.

This bleeds beyond the economic into all aspects of life. Do you have someone who did you wrong, you forgave them and tried to make things right, but they won’t change what caused the problem? Mutuality would dictate they must make as much an effort as you did. If they won’t do that, wash your hands of it. This community in this room stands or falls based on our willingness to regard each other as equals and work for the good of one another. We can sit and pray and wish and dream all we want, action is required to really keep things going. Paul looked at the Thessalonians long ago and saw that there were people not willing to play the game, not willing to be in community with one another, and his words to them were straightforward and harsh – if they will not contribute, they will have no part in this.

We can see that as a weapon, a threat to menace people with. However, that is not what scripture is for. It is “God breathed and good for instruction.” When we hear that we must do our part in our community, we should feel something stirred up within us. For some of us, it may actually lead to laying down a few responsibilities and giving them to the other people who are enabled by this teaching. For others, it will encourage us to seek a new way to contribute to those around us, to see in our neighbor a reflection of our own humanity and dignity and goodness. We can see this as a chance to grow, or as a chance to feel worse about ourselves than we already do.

For my part, I choose growth. I want to be more involved in God’s kingdom, and that means being willing to say yes to helping others, seeing no work as beneath me. I live one the charity of others, though I work 40ish hours in a week, I am paid out of the giving of this congregation. My existence can become exactly what Paul warns against, someone who “Works around,” but never “works with.”[3] I do not want that to be the case. So, this teaching sits in my heart as a challenge.

Again though, this is not just about money, though money is a big part of life. In our lives, we have a mutual responsibility to each other. We must serve with the mindset we are all equal. I cannot rant and rave about something someone did without acknowledging they probably had a reason to do it. I cannot destroy my self-image at the altar of another person either, because I must acknowledge that even the person I have everything in the world to learn from, is just as human as I am. Mutuality, “philios,” in Greek, is simply loving one another as a family, and in Christ, all the world is our family. Rich, poor, Socialist, and Capitalist. In coming together we all must mortify some aspect of ourselves and elevate others, may we do so in the name of the common Good, the pursuit of the Gospel, and the realization of the Kingdom. – Amen.

---

[1] Vladimir Ilyieh Lenin, The State and Revolution (New York: International Publishers, 1943)

[2] Luke 16:19-31

[3] 2 Thessalonians contrasts the people who “work” (ἐργάζεσθαι,) with those who “work around,”
(περι-εργαζομένους,) By adding, “peri,” to the verb he is making clear that his criticism is of the kind of people who, hearing there is a dinner to be prepared, choose to go hang shelves in the garage. Occupying time, but to the help of no one.

Ephesians 1:11-23

In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Sermon Text

How do we know about the glory of God? I’m asking a real question, I’d love to hear a few ways it can happen. There are the things that happen to us in our own life that do it, the miracles we witness and the lives we see transformed. There are the words of scripture that testify again and again that God has and always will be with God’s people. Prayer, the feeling of assurance and connection that it brings. Each of these are some of the ways that we connect to the reality of God’s presence among us. No force is more powerful, in my opinion, than the community of faith which we are called to be a part of.

When we are called into the Church, we join something much bigger than ourselves. We are all in this room part of something together, and so are all other Christians in this town. All Christians in this town, this county, this state, this world, are all part of something far beyond ourselves. This is the Church, the body of Christ, the Communion of the Saints. Those who are saved by faith in Christ are made sacred by the grace of God working upon them. The Greek faithful called these people, Ἁγιας, “Holy Ones,” and through a series of translations we called those same people “Saints.”

We usually use the term Saint, in protestant contexts at least, to refer to those who have died and are present with God. We in our earthly existence are still prone to sin, only a few of us being perfected so as to avoid all intentional sin. Yet, even the most perfect human will fall short of the mark somewhere along the line. Only when we experience death are we fully cleansed of the effects of sin, exposed fully to the sanctifying grace of God which grows into a glorifying presence within us. Our souls, awaiting the perfection of the physical self, go beyond us and become present with God, we enjoy the state between death and resurrection with all those who went before us. We live in peace, fully and truly, with one another.

The life of the dead in Christ is something we can never fully comprehend. We can imagine what Heaven may be like, but scripture gives us very little to work on. Oftentimes scripture uses the image of Jerusalem, an idea more than it is a city in much of the history of God’s people. This city upon a hill represented the hope of a return from exile, the end of the long walk from Egypt into Canaan, and a place where all people might someday meet to find the God that had created and adored them. Yet, we cannot see Heaven as just a city, not a municipal power with roadways and sidewalks, and plumbing. This is just one way of understanding the future of God’s people.

When God’s throne is described, the image is far more abstract. Gemstones take on unnatural tones and stretch across miles, while many faced cosmic entities praise the flaming presence of God at the center of reality. The locus upon which everything turns, radiating heat and light and life itself. This image screams opulence, it screams power, it testifies to the inexplicable nature of the divine. Yet, it is still just another way of describing something we cannot yet grasp.

Our eternity with God is described more helpfully in terms of family. We are adopted by God, we are adopted into Abraham’s lineage, we are adopted as Children of the Most High and Siblings of Jesus Christ. Alongside our new relations, we have all the believers who have ever lived. We celebrate together, we weep together, until all things are set right, we suffer the troubles of life together. The joy of Heaven, mixed with the melancholy that it is not yet joined to Earth, that is the nature of the people of God until all things are set right with Christ’s final victory over sin and death.

The hardest part of losing someone we love to death, as people of faith, is not often a complete feeling of loss. We have hope in the life that comes after this one, so we do not give in completely to despair. Yet, we cannot deny the complete separation that death brings. One moment you are living your life with someone, making plans, putting off phone calls, skipping a social event, enjoying meals together, or sitting in comfortable silence. We both take for granted and fully appreciate people in equal measure throughout our life. Death, shuts off the potential to grow into that. The whole rest of our life we are spent with that relationship left off wherever it was.

We cannot, in the face of eternity, pretend that later there will be enough time to make up what we do not do here. There are some friendships I did not treat well in college, people who I pushed away, and later reconciled with. Those friendships were not able to just go back to how they were, nor will they ever. We grew apart over that time, and we grew separately into better and different people. Those who are with God, likewise grow, more merciful, more loving, more accepting. They will embrace us when the time comes, they will be better than earthly people are at picking up where we left off. However, we can avoid those issues if we treat each other well now.

We all have regrets, we should not cling to them for those who are gone. They will find us, they will have ample forgiveness and absolve many things that we feel guilt over that they never thought of. For the living though, our responsibility is much plainer. Next week we will tackle some of what that means, to live together in mutual love and respect. For now, let today be a reminder that while our life in Christ does not end, we have no excuse to use that not to treat one another well on this side of eternity. There will come a time where we cannot meet up and enjoy a meal, or apologize for the sins we committed intentionally or accidentally. The time to ask forgiveness, and give it, is now. The time to grow closer together in love, is this very moment.

What example do we have in this? Why, the example of the saints who went before us. We all know people we loved who are with God now. They taught us how to be good, how to love, and forgive. Also, probably, they taught us a fair share of bad habits too. However, the glory of God is not shown through most anything except other people. I see the glory of God when I look in the face of another person, and I see their humanity. Irenaeus put it this way, “The glory of God is a living person, and the life of a person is in beholding God.” The dead see God face to face, we see as in a mirror darkly, but all of us bask in that glory.

Today, as we observe All Saints Day, we testify to the people who have gone before us. We remember that life has an end, and that we only have so much time to make things right before God must step in and do so. No one owes us the restoration of a relationship, but we can choose to be part of that healing. We can practice in many ways, but continuing the legacy of those who came before us is a good way to testify God’s goodness. Whenever I care for my family, I do so with the lessons my grandfather gave me close to my heart. Whenever I lose hope in love, I remember a woman I once knew who, despite not understanding the things that had come between her and her child, did everything she could to understand and love him.

In gathering at this table today, we are joined with those we have lost. They testify to the grace of God, so as to absolve us of any guilt we feel about how we treated them. They testify to the goodness of God, so as to inspire us to be better now. They show us that God has rectified the gap even between life and death itself, so that we can reach out and do what we can to fix any relationship that might be broken in this life. Christ has set a table for the living, those alive on earth and alive in Paradise. May we who feast today do so as people with hope, people who want to love each other more fully, and people who want to leave a legacy of love and peace that we might leave as an inheritance to all who come after us. – Amen.