The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
‘Oh my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me.’
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How often has Lord these days heard of how modern people have grown tired of the Church, tired of the old religion. How they are disenchanted with its ceremonies; no longer interested in its teachings; bored by its prayers and liturgies; skeptical of its rituals; and, most of all, resentful of its judgment.
Every day He listens to their answer to this ancient question which He once asked Israel through the mouth of the prophet Micah. ‘What have I done to you?’ One cannot spend a single minute in this world without hearing the loud response of tens of millions of our own time who believe they have more than enough with which to accuse the Lord.
I hear them every day:
“God, if that is your name, for too long people have listened to your priests and prophets, your teachers and catechists and men in white robes and black cloth. For too long we lived in fear of their words as you kept us in ignorance through your church and its benighted superstitions.
It is because of you that it took us, mankind, so long to discover science and reason. Instead of searching the stars for the answers, we spent our days rummaging through those hateful pieces of paper you call scripture, which did nothing more than blather on bronze age myths about the world being made is six days or mountains clapping their hands or old bearded Jews on the ground splitting seas, or invisible giant Jews in the sky raining down bread.
Did you think we were stupid? We know that mountains don’t have hands, that seas can’t be split, that bread is baked in ovens, and not in clouds. But because of you, we wasted the best of our minds meditating on such nonsense instead of peering through microscopes or formulating equations to explain the forces of nature.
Not only this, but you sowed divisions upon the earth. I am not sure what the world looked like before your so-called holy men gave their idiotic prophecies to those desert dwellers in the Sinai, but your religion since then has done nothing but cause war, killing, battle, bigotry, racism, hatred, colonialism, patriarchy, oppression, tyranny, and every other evil we can name. Think of the Crusades. Think of the Atlantic slave trade. Think of the Religious Wars in Europe. All done by people who claim your name. You think you’re a God of love? Your clerics do nothing but preach racism and death.
Not only that, but your strange morality has destroyed everything that brings joy in life. It’s a small, petty morality that doesn’t believe in the strength and goodness of people. Instead all it does is try to restrict us, to keep us from enjoying life in the here and now. You force us to stay in bad marriages, to keep on having bad sex, or worse, no sex; to keep serving bad governments, and digging away at bad jobs. You tell us to just be content with our lot, for all comes from God, when what we really need is revolution. You tell us to practice self-control, when what we really need is self-liberation.
And above it all you judge us, you layer us with guilt, with shame, not caring at all about our mental health, our need for self-care, our need to protect ourselves against the difficulties of the world. You could help us with our journey to find happiness. But instead you simply shout ‘thou shalt not’ and point out all the times we have been wrong, calling our understandable mistakes ‘sin’ as if this life isn’t already hard enough without your sneering glare.
Your priests and pastors are lazy, if not corrupt. And your Church is just a money-making racket that peddles lies for cash.
You sick piece of refuse. You dare ask us, mankind, ‘what have I done to you?’ I would say ‘where do I start?’ but the real question is ‘where would I ever end?’ You have done nothing but abuse, attack, control us. And what do you claim you offer in return for everything we have given up to you? Some empty promise of eternal life? Why would we want to sit in some boring heaven praising you forever? Not only does that sound very boring indeed, but why are you so vain as to need praise? You’re just some narcissistic, insecure, sky-daddy, and I would rather party in hell with the devil than have to pant insincere compliments to your smug, undeserving face.
All we want is to just enjoy life, just a little, and what do you tell us instead? To count even our suffering as joy? As if you would give that advice to your own kid, God.
Is it no surprise that atheism is spreading across the earth? You should be glad. Atheism is the kindest thing we could do. We are doing you a favor by simply saying you don’t exist, because if you did exist, you would see what we would do to you then.”
But He does exist.
And He did see what they did to Him then.
They killed the Lord of Glory.
Perhaps some of you are hoping that I will play the apologist, and give answer to the many accusations made by people against God and Christianity. But I will not. For I am but a vicar of Him who did not open his mouth, but like a sheep went unto the slaughter.
It is not quite so interesting that, with all the mass of mankind has to complain about, that they crucified the Christ. What is interesting is that Christ allowed it to happen.
They will say “He died because He wasn’t actually God, just some raving lunatic or some failed zealot.” For He is foolishness to the Gentile.
They will say “He was killed because He is offensive to everything we know to be good and just and right, teaching perverse and oppressive doctrines.” A stumbling block to the Jews.
We must think that He allowed it to happen because He had no choice. Either He deserved it, or He couldn’t stop it. We cannot bring ourselves to believe that He simply opened not his mouth.
For this reason, it is written:
‘For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.’
The cross silences all our accusations. It silences all our negotiations. It silences everything, for it takes two to have a talk. And if He will not speak, the conversation ends.
We might think that we don’t want the conversation to end. Not quite yet. Sure we had a lot of complaints against God and His Church, but we’re reasonable people. We’re willing to entertain God again if He just mends His ways. We’re willing to even go to church if it can just teach the kind of thing we know to be good.
But the conversation is over. The Lord hangs upon the cross, and speaks not a word in His defense.
Some now even look upon the slow, decaying death of civilization and wish the Church would once again speak some life into the world, even if they themselves do not believe. But the Lord does not respond. The conversation is over. Or perhaps you missed His last word from the cross?
‘It is finished.’
There is silence now, O mankind. The mouth of the Son no longer speaks any words as it hangs, drinking from its lips only vinegar, and gall, and blood.
Vinegar and gall, for these are the things that we put into His mouth. For listen to our seemingly endless list of complaints against the Lord. Vinegar and gall are all we have to offer. But it is not what goes into a man’s mouth that makes him unclean.
Yet blood flows from His mouth, and His side, and every inch of the flesh we took untold pleasure in tearing, in mutilating. For if it is the case that it is what comes out of a man that defiles him, does it not follow that what comes out of a man might purify us, if it be pure?
Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps the conversation is not over. Perhaps just because He opened not His mouth on the road to Golgotha, upon Calvary, upon the cross, perhaps the conversation was not quite over.
For I forgot the blood, the blood crying from the ground. The blood that speaks a greater word than that of Abel.
‘See that you do not refuse Him who is speaking.’
What is it that this blood is speaking? What is it that it says as we revile him and persecute him and utter all kinds of evil against him falsely against his name?
I wouldn’t claim to say. I am only a vicar of Him that opened not his mouth but like a sheep went to the slaughter.
I will only hold up His flesh, and the cup of His blood, and say the words given to me to say by the disenchanting ceremonies, and boring prayers, and questionable rituals of His Church:
‘The peace of the Lord be with you always.’
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Preached by Pastor Fields
Sermon Texts: Micah 6:1-8; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12.