(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on May 6, 2018)
An Outreached Hand
My brother Curt and I grew up
playing soccer, but never on the same team. We were too far apart in age. But not anymore.
Ever since Curt returned home to Richmond a little over a year ago,
we’ve been playing together in an adult league down at the Sports Center of
Richmond.
The soccer field is a curious
place. The moment that my brother
and I step onto it, we are transformed. We lose our inhibitions—suddenly
shouting, sliding into challenges, disputing the referee’s whistle. Some of the teams that we’ve played
might even have trouble believing that my brother and I are pastors!
Talking about this with some
concern after one of our games, my brother and I acknowledged that maybe there might be some moments on the soccer pitch when we were not exactly following Christ. We resolved then to do so, to play with
more compassion for our opponents and the referee. The results have been fascinating. In one instance, after I had made a robust tackle, my
opponent fell down cursing and angry.
I didn’t think that I had fouled him, but even so I gave him a
sympathetic grimace and reached out my hand to help him up. Immediately his curse became a word of
goodwill, “Thanks, it’s nothing bad.”
In another instance, we rushed to get ice for an injured opponent, and
the other team’s grievance dissolved in our shared concern. The same kind of thing happened over
and over again, so much so that I have drawn this general conclusion. On the soccer field, an outreached hand
cuts through resentment and anger like a warm knife through butter.
Of Victory and Conquest
In today’s scripture, there is
some mighty talk. The writer
boasts of victory, and he repeatedly makes claims about conquering the
world. “Whatever is born of God,”
he asserts, “conquers the world.
And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith” (1 John
5:4).
In a world like ours, these words
“victory” and “conquer” paint pretty clearly the picture of a conquest. It’s easy to hear these words and to
imagine Christianity as a competitive force overtaking one territory after
another, a host of Christian soldiers marching ever onward, planting a cross in
each conquered land like a victor’s flag.
A thousand years ago, this vision of conquest led to the crusades. Just a few hundred years ago, it
justified the invasion and subjugation of the native peoples of the land we now
call home. More recently, it has
fed the imagination of some folks who envision a great battle between
Christianity in the West and Islam in the East.
But is this the kind of victory
our scripture is thinking about?
Is this what our writer has in mind when he talks about conquering the
world? And what is this “world”
that needs conquering anyway? Is
the problem other people who are evil or wrong or difficult, or is the problem
something else? Paul has something
to say about this, I think, when he claims in Eph 6:12 that our struggle is not
against other people—not against “flesh and flood”—but against the unseen
powers and principalities that destroy life. Perhaps these are like the powers and principalities I have
seen on the soccer field: things like the need to win or achieve or control,
things like resentment and vengefulness.
Aren’t these the same powers and principalities that rule much of our
lives, much of our world?
Trusting “the One Who Came by Water and Blood”
How, then, can a world like ours
be conquered? Where does victory
come from?
According to the writer of our
scripture, victory comes from believing—and I think a more literal and better
translation here is “trusting”—“the one who came by water and blood, Jesus
Christ” (1 John 5:5-6). In the
gospel of John, water and blood are what flow out from Jesus’ pierced side at
his crucifixion. So I cannot help
but think that by talking about water and blood together the writer of this
letter is trying to make a point.
The cross is where victory is won.
It may look there like Christ is conquered, but in fact he is conquering
the world. Because there on the
cross in his broken body, we see the outreached hand of God cutting through the
compulsion to win and control and achieve, dissolving the vengefulness of our
lives, the hostility of our world.
The victory that will conquer the world is held high on the cross. That victory is love, which is what
took Jesus to the cross. That
victory is forgiveness, which Jesus proclaimed on the cross with his dying
breaths. And that victory is
peace, which he declared to people three days later with painful memories still
etched into his hands and feet.
While most of the letter of 1
John talks about love, our passage today focuses on belief—or as I suggested
earlier, the more literal and appropriate translation would be “trust.” Underneath today’s scripture is a basic
question: what do you trust? Our
world overwhelmingly trusts the force of arms, at best the ballot, at worst the
bullet, whatever it takes to win.[1] Our world trusts the force of arms
because it fights against other people and sees victory as getting your
way. But “the one who came by
water and blood” reminds us that we’re not fighting against flesh and
blood. We’re fighting against the
compulsive need to win and control and achieve. We’re fighting against resentment and vengefulness. And this is a victory that will only
come by the way of the cross: the way of love, forgiveness, and peace.
What is the Real Victory?
This last Tuesday night, my
soccer team had one game left and an opportunity to win the league. But we lost. It was a bitter disappointment. This time around, however, there was very little bitterness
toward the other team or the referee.
Players from both teams left the field together, talking to one another,
remembering various highlights from the game.
As I left the field, I
pondered. What is the real
victory? Is it scoring goals and
winning games? Is it getting our
way with the referee’s whistle and beating the other team? Or is it extending the hand of
fellowship and peace? Is it
binding the hurts of others? One
victory makes me feel good. The
other conquers the world.
I know a soccer game is pretty
trivial in the grand scheme of things.
But as Jesus once said, “Whoever is faithful in a very little is
faithful also in much” (Luke 16:10).
It can be in the trivial moments that our faith is forged. So what about you? What is your “soccer field”? Is there a place where you might be
confusing one victory with another, trusting in the force of arms rather than
in “the one who came by water and blood”?
Is there a place where you might be mistaking the triumph of your own
will and way with the victory that conquers the world? Perhaps it is at the ballot box. Perhaps it is on the road. Perhaps it is at the workplace. Perhaps it is with the neighbors who
speak or dress differently.
Perhaps it is in our national conversations about race and gender and
guns.
It is not other people that we
fight against—“flesh and blood”—but a world of unseen powers and
principalities, like the overwhelming urge to control and to win, like
resentment and vengefulness. It
was into such a world that Christ Jesus came. And it is on the cross, where we see God’s hand reaching out
to us, cutting through the hostility of our world and dissolving the compulsive
need for control—it is on the cross that we see the victory that conquers the
world.
Prayer
Crucified Christ,
Sometimes we trust
In the empty victories
Of our will and our way;
Reach out your hand anew to us
From your cross,
Cutting through our ways
Of resentment and willfulness
And the need to win,
And inspire our trust
In your victory
That conquers the world.
Amen.
[1] The language
here is inspired by Dorothy Day, “The Use of Force,” in The Catholic Worker, November 1936, 4. There, Day explains that the crucifixion opened the eyes of
Jesus’ followers to see that “not by force of arms, by the bullet or the
ballot, would they conquer. They
knew and were ready to suffer defeat—to show that great love which enabled them
to lay down their lives for their friends.”
No comments:
Post a Comment