The Message about the Cross

(Micah 6:1-8; Matthew 5:1-12; I Cor 1:18-31)

I remember years ago reading an essay of C S Lewis’ called, ‘Is Christianity hard or easy?’ As I recall, his shorthand conclusion was ‘yes, both’! Faith in Christ is both hard and easy. Hard because there is an uncompromising demand in it. If you want to be my disciple, Jesus famously said, ‘take up your cross and follow me.’ There’s nothing soft about that. Jesus’ own commitment to God took him to a literal cross.

But, on the other hand, Jesus also, and again famously, said ‘come unto me all you who labour and are heavily laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’ That seems really different; an invitation to lay down distressing burdens and accept a gift of divine liberation.

Take up the cross. My yoke is light. Which is it? Not so easy to say. One thing seems clear, though. If we simply focus on one of these emphases to the exclusion of the other, we almost certainly wind up distorting the reality of living faith. Yes, faith is gift and generosity on the part of God. The world is loved by God without conditions. That is deeply true. But if that is the only truth we see, or want, something goes rotten in the garden of faith. It breeds a sort of carelessness towards the cry of suffering and injustice in society and in nature. The world in which Christ is involved is a contested world at almost every level. To share seriously in God’s grace (the easy yoke) means to share in the struggle that confronts God’s grace in a fallen world. Christ’s compassion included the cross. That is also true.

And so Lewis concluded that faith is both hard and easy; both dangerous action and grateful acceptance. We can’t really have the one without the other.

I am afraid that has been a rather windy way to get to this morning’s texts. But the readings from the prophet Micah and from Paul (again to the Corinthian church) set a kind of parallel puzzle for us. Is faith in God straightforward, clear, and plain to see? Or is it counter-intuitive, against the grain of common sense, and even offensive?

Reading Micah we are confronted with the first possibility. Micah rehearses some of the fraught history between Israel and Israel’s God since the time of the Exodus. And, looking at the ups and downs of their stormy relationship, God is brought to the exasperated cry, ‘O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you?’ In short, ‘It’s not that difficult to get on with me really, is it? Is it?’ And then Micah lets fly with one of those biblical statements that stick in our minds. ‘He has shown you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.’

That’s it. Box and dice. And it’s not rocket science. Act for justice and against injustice, wherever you are. And love kindness, or love mercy, as the word is sometimes translated. The world needs kindness as well as justice; mercy as well as fair play. To walk with God is to learn to forgive and be forgiven. And the reason justice and mercy are central is, of course, because justice and mercy are central to the character of God. To walk humbly with God means to walk in the qualities that characterize God; and justice and mercy are central here.

We find this same straightforward approach in many places in the New Testament. James is perhaps bluntest. ‘If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what good is that … faith without works is dead. (James 2.15-16; 26) There it is. What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and love mercy?

I think a good many of our fellow Australians who haven’t got much time for the church as such, would be happy to affirm that; not just give assent in word, but affirm in action. The response to the flood crisis is evidence enough of that in the average ozzie.

Dorothy Green, a wonderful teacher of literature at the ANU in the last century, came to the same conclusion about the best of Australian writers, both poets and novelists. They may not, she said, be explicitly theological in their stories (though some, like Patrick White and Martin Boyd are), but so many are solidly committed to Christ’s second great commandment, to love our neighbor as ourselves. This, Green argues, is a truth about the spirit of our people that embraces believer and unbeliever alike. There is more faith, faith on the ground, so to speak, in Australia than the results of our census figures show, she thinks. And I am inclined to agree. What does the Lord require of us, but to do justly and to love kindness? It’s pretty straightforward; let’s get on with it.

But then here comes Paul talking to the church at Corinth: ‘the message of the cross is foolishness,’ he says to them. It’s not as straight forward as it looks. Indeed, it looks weak and silly, out of place, and a bit embarrassing, in face of the ‘no nonsense’, ‘let’s-get-on-with-what-matters’ approach of wise and competent people in Paul’s day or in ours.

What’s this about? And does it matter? Note that Paul does not say the cross is foolishness; he says the message about the cross is foolishness. The history of Jesus’ passion, his journey from Bethlehem to Golgotha, in and of itself is pretty straightforward. It’s a story we know too well. The powers that control things in this world, those who are strong and wealthy and shrewd in the affairs of politics and money, are always willing and able to organize things so that trouble makers, stirring things up on the sidelines of the main game, can be thwarted, stopped, and if really necessary, disposed of. We all know the logic of a Pilate, a Caiaphas, and a disappointed crowd. The country needs a scapegoat, and here he is. The cross of Jesus makes perfect sense in this too, too human world.

It’s not the history of the cross that’s the puzzle; it’s the interpretation the gospel put on it that muddies the waters. According to Paul the cross of Christ is an act in which God is embroiled, not just Pilate, Caiaphas and the rest; and embroiled in such a way that God’s justice and mercy are enacted and revealed in an unjust world. That’s the puzzle. That’s what seems foolish. And for many reasons. But let me note 3.

1. God’s freedom. This is the real mystery according to Paul. God chose to be involved in the world in this strange way. God chose to involve himself in Jesus’ journey to the cross. ‘But God chose …,’ Paul says time and again. ‘But God chose what is foolish in the world, … God chose what is weak in the world, … God chose what is low and despised in the world …’ There is nothing forced or inevitable about this divine decision. It happens because, and only because, God chooses it. The cross confronts us with God’s mysterious freedom. This event might not have happened. But it did. And it did because God chose to do it. But that then becomes an act in which God declares who God is and what God is concerned with. In the act of God’s freedom in the cross, God says to us ‘this is who I am; and this is what I am on about in the world.’ And that is a surprise to my no nonsense view of faith.

2. God’s embodiment. If God chooses to undergo the violence of the world in the cross of Jesus, it means God is ‘in Christ’ in some fundamental and immediate way. What happens to Jesus on the cross happens to God. And this implies, of course, the idea of incarnate presence. God, or at least the Word of God, becomes flesh in Jesus Christ. And that is a strange understanding of God. From now on, those who hear this interpretation, can only name God, by naming Jesus crucified and risen. To say what God’s justice and mercy truly mean, requires that we pay close attention to how Jesus lived, spoke, acted, died and rose again; for this is God in God’s freely chosen being and freely chosen action in the world.

3. God’s suffering. If God chooses to be in Jesus; and if God chooses to be in this Jesus whose life takes him to the cross; then God chooses to be in our world as one who bears the violence and injustice of the world in himself and in mercy. God does not treat a violent world with counter-violence. God takes violence into Godself and returns mercy and forgiveness. That seems pretty foolish in the light of common sense and day to day power operations. Our world lives by the idea of redemptive violence. Violence is met with stronger counter-violence and, as almost every western and murder mystery film makes clear, the rest of us live in the hope that the guns of the good guys will outshoot the guns of the bad guys. It’s salvation through ‘good violence’. God in the cross doesn’t choose that way. God deals with the world in non-violence, mercy and peacemaking. And that has some really challenging implications for us, as our series on peace last year showed so powerfully.

So, then, is faith simple and straight forward? Yes, of course. ‘What does the Lord require of you but to do justice to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?’ Let’s get on with it.

But is faith simple and straight forward? Well, no, not quite. The message of the cross confronts us with the mystery of God’s freedom. God chose the cross. God chose to become a real part of the material world. And God chose in the cross to break the cycle of violence and counter-violence that marks so much of our socio-political wisdom; to offer us reconciliation instead of injustice; peace instead of violence; mercy instead of vengeance.

Is faith simple and common sense, or counter-intuitive and against the grain? With C S Lewis we answer, ‘yes’ to both. To be sure let us join with our fellow citizens who don’t have much time for theology or church, but who willingly give themselves to the great work of justice, peace and mercy in the world. But for us who have heard the message of the cross, we have the added privilege of bearing witness to the self-revelation of God in Christ: to the freedom of God; the incarnation of God; the non-violent salvation of God; to whose name be praise and glory.

Graeme Garrett

Canberra Baptist Church

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

30 January 2011