"Hosanna!" (John 19:16b-22)

“What Is God’s Job Description?”

Within the previous church whom I served, there was a woman named Lu. (She passed away a few weeks ago and has been on my mind lately.) Lu’s mind was as sharp as a tack and her heart as soft as a sponge. She cared deeply for the needful, especially for the homeless and the hungry, and she readily swatted away all of the easy excuses that people give to justify the reality of poverty and to ease their own conscience. Lu had little patience for people who wouldn’t acknowledge the plight of those less fortunate. But when I first met Lu, the person with whom she had the least patience…was God.

I still remember how Lu confronted me after an early sermon. “I really wish,” she said exasperatedly, “someone could tell me what God’s job description is.” Lu had grown up in the church, where she had learned to see God as a divine butler. She recounted her experience as an editor for a religious journal, where she once read a pastor explain the importance of praying as specifically as possible. The pastor wrote, for example, that if a people prayed for rain but did not specify the amount of rain that their fields needed, then they might experience a drought. This pastor also explained their righteousness factored into the equation. If they’d been living sinfully, then God might not hear their prayers.

This picture of a divine butler really troubled Lu. She could not reconcile it with her experience. See, Lu had a father who had a crippling form of mental illness and ended up living on the streets. He had a childlike faith and prayed regularly, trusting that God would provide for his needs. But what Lu saw, was a God who didn’t listen, who didn’t respond. If God really was this divine butler she’d been taught to believe in, then he was pretty miserable at his job.

Hence her question: “Just what is God’s job description?”

Living Up to His Name

Today is Palm Sunday. The Narrative Lectionary—the scripture-reading calendar that we’re following this year—has already advanced in the gospel of John well beyond Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which is the main event of Palm Sunday. In fact, it has led us to the beginning of the crucifixion.

But not entirely without reason. The beginning of the crucifixion in John echoes with the cries of Palm Sunday. In fact, the gospel of John sees the two events as inextricably linked. Notice how in today’s text the main theme is Jesus’ kingship. Pilate makes a sign that reads, “Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews” (John 19:19). But then the religious leaders protest that it should read instead “This man said, I am the king of the Jews” (John 19:21). If we look back to Palm Sunday, however, we see that it is not Jesus proclaiming his own kingship. Rather it is the crowd of people welcoming him to Jerusalem who shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord—the king of Israel!” (John 12:13).

All this talk in today’s scripture about Jesus as “king of the Jews” points back to Palm Sunday. It points back, specifically, to the people’s expectations of Jesus. They see him as a king. Their shouts of “Hosanna” are literally a cry for Jesus to live up to his own name (John 12:13). In Hebrew, hosanna comes from the same root as the name Jesus (or Yeshua), the root yasha, which means “to save.” The na on the end of hosanna is an additional particle that conveys a sense of urgency, similar to the words “now!” and “please!” in English. So when the people proclaim Jesus to be “King of Israel,” they’re doing so with the expectation that he’s going to live up to his name, that he’s going to make good on his job description—that he’s going to “save” them…now!

What Is “Salvation”?

But what is “salvation?” How do the people expect to be saved? Remember, this is the day before the Passover celebration. Many of the people in the crowd have journeyed tens, even hundreds, of miles to gather in Jerusalem to commemorate when God delivered their ancestors from slavery in Egypt. I imagine their expectations for salvation are for a repeat performance, a Passover: Part Two, a miraculous deliverance from the Roman occupying forces. Perhaps some of the people gathered have also witnessed or at least heard about some of the extraordinary healings and feedings that Jesus has accomplished, and they expect more such accomplishments—just on a social or political level. Whatever their expectations are exactly, I think it’s safe to say that they are imagining salvation in this life rather than in some afterlife. When Jesus tells Martha that her brother Lazarus will rise again, she responds that she knows he will rise on the last day (John 11:24); her concern is the here and now. In the biblical mindset, the ancient Jewish mindset, salvation is for this world, this life.

Popular Christian thought has largely deferred or postponed salvation to a later time and place—a heavenly afterlife when everything will be fixed. Salvation still rests on the expectation of some desired result; it’s just that the desired result has been delayed or pushed back. In one sense, this postponement of salvation results in a very weak or anemic faith. For some Christians, Jesus “saves,” but not until you die. Before then, you’d be better off trusting in your own savings account than in Jesus’ saving you. Before then, you’d be better off learning to wield the sword than to bear the cross.

But whether we think of salvation as something that happens in this life (as people in the Bible do), or as something that happens in the next (as many Christians do), we humans seem to take it for granted that what “salvation” really amounts to is an expected outcome or result. God’s job description is that of a divine butler, a holy fixer, who ultimately gives us what we want.

Not What We Expect

Whatever else the cross does, it firmly dispels any simplistic notions of God as a divine genie who grants our wishes. In Christ on the cross, we discover that God’s salvation does not look anything like our great expectations.

It’s worth noting that when Jesus first shares with his disciples the news that he will eventually be crucified, he also issues an invitation: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). In other words, the cross is not something that Jesus bears so we don’t have to. It is, rather, an experience in which Jesus invites us to participate. It is a way of living. (For this reason, the earliest Christ-followers were called not Christians, but members of “The Way.”) Jesus describes the way of the cross as the way of salvation, saying, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who [take up their cross and] lose their life for the sake of the good news will save it” (Mark 8:35).

I find the wisdom of the Desert Tradition especially instructive for how we understand salvation. (By “the Desert Tradition,” I refer to the third and fourth century movement, in which many followers of Christ fled society to practice their faith in the wilderness—in large part because they saw Christianity becoming domesticated by its increasing collaboration with the Roman empire.) There is much conversation in the Desert Tradition about “salvation.” A novice or beginner in the faith will often approach their elder (their abba or amma) with the question, “What must I do to be saved?” Not once does the elder respond with that well-known line from Paul, favored among many contemporary evangelicals, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). Instead they offer practical instructions that are tailored to the individual and that invite them to live more fully in the way of Christ, which is the way of the cross. Listen to a few of their responses: “If you want to be saved, whenever you go to see anybody do not speak until he asks you something.” “Sit in your cell, and if you are hungry, eat, if you are thirsty, drink; only do not speak evil of anyone, and you will be saved.” “Like the dead, take no account of the scorn of men or their praises, and you can be saved.” “Do no evil to anyone, and do not judge anyone. Observe this and you will be saved.” “If you observe the following you will be saved: ‘Be joyful at all times! Pray without ceasing! And give thanks for all things!’”

As I read today’s scripture and reflect on God’s strange salvation, I hear Lu asking her question, “Just what is God’s job description?” The cross suggests that it’s nothing like our expectations. On the cross, Jesus does not give us what we want: namely, control. He gives us what we need: namely, love. And it’s not a transaction, as though our account has received a credit, as much as it is an invitation, as though we are being invited to dance, to give as we have received. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34).

The beauty (and irony) of Lu’s life is that, even as she frequently voiced her doubts and protests against the divine butler “God” whom she’d been taught, she embodied a faith in the crucified God. Which is to say, she walked the way of the cross, putting love of others before her need for control. In her words, Lu was always contesting a God she didn’t really believe in; but in her deeds, she gave flesh to her true faith—her trust in a God who does not control things but rather cares for all creatures. Always mindful of the plight of her homeless father, she poured her life into ministering to the homeless. She was  a shining example of a motto popular among the earliest Christ-followers in northern Africa, who regularly said, “We do not speak great things. We live them.”

What is God’s job description? I think it is nowhere clearer than on the cross, where Christ relinquishes all control and loves us to the end.

Prayer

Christ Jesus,
To whom we cry, “Hosanna! Save us please!”
…
Grant us eyes to see the cross
Not as the frustration of our expectations
But as the way of your love,
Which is redeeming all things.
Amen.