St. Paul’s On-the-Hill Episcopal Church

The Rev. Stephen C. Holton, Rector

Lent 4; March 22, 2009

John 3:14-21

Numbers 21:4-9

VULNERABLE LOVE

Jesus’ Death, Our Life, For Others

Believe in Him and have eternal life? Him? Are you kidding? The symbol of death? The symbol of weakness? The symbol of victimization? I find it hard to believe.

How could someone so vulnerable, someone so easily killed be the gateway to eternal life? More like the gateway to death, to failure, to sadness, to loss.

He seems more like the Crucified Failure than the Crucified Lord – which is an oxymoron anyway. How do those two words – “crucified” and “lord” – go together?

There he hangs, on that cross, crucified, bloody; blood dripping down his hands and body, off his mutilated feet. He’s almost naked. You can barely see his face because of the blood from the crown of thorns. His matted hair and beard are stuck to his face and chest. He’s thin, emaciated, hasn’t eaten for days.

His face was beaten black and blue by the guards.

Believe in him? Follow him? You’ve got to be kidding.

He’s not a symbol of success at all, not a symbol of power or happiness or of anything that we want. Follow him and you go – there – to a cross very much like that, living a vulnerable life very much like that one, loving others very much like He did, killed or victimized or rejected very much like he was.

It’s actually not too hard to live his life – because we start with it. We all start vulnerable, we all start easily victimized, we all start easily rejected. The question is – can we all love anyway, endure the vulnerability and weakness anyway, reach out to other vulnerable and weak people anyway, and build a community with them?

Usually we don’t want to. I mean, who would? That fate – the fate of the Cross – is not anything that anybody would want.

So we invent a majestic God, a royal God, a powerful God who lifts us up from weakness, gives us strength and makes us powerful! That’s the kind of God we want and so that’s the kind of God we invent.

And we serve him by seeking money and power.

So God corrects our vision by sending his Son – the Crucified One, the broken one, the failure in the eyes of this rich and powerful world; the One who says: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.”
The serpent in the wilderness was that symbol of death for the Israelites. It was a reminder of how they had been recently sinning and dying.

So Jesus on the Cross is, perhaps, a symbol of how many die in pain and vulnerability.

Perhaps in facing that head on, the Israelites – in facing the serpent and their own vulnerability – could also look beyond it, as the rabbi’s said. Since they were already looking up toward the serpent on the cross, they could also look beyond it up to God; instead of down at themselves, centered on themselves.

In looking up at the Crucified One we are confronted with our own vulnerability, our own weakness, our own possible pain and death. We do not blink. We do not turn back. We do not turn in on ourselves and become centered on ourselves alone in either pride or despair.

We are not told by God that we serve a majestic God and so should become majestic ourselves. We do not serve a commanding God, a domineering God and so should become commanding and domineering ourselves – seeking to Lord it over others and become rich and powerful as if it was our right and God’s will.

We serve and follow and love a weak, vulnerable, servant God.

Well, that we can do. Anyone here feel weak, vulnerable, a possible servant these days? Yes? Then we’re all on the right track. We’ve all made a good beginning. Jesus came to the right people.

Anyone want to become rich, majestic, powerful? It won’t last long. That way is the way of denial, as if it’s even possible to wall ourselves off from a difficult world. Look around. The walls are tumbling down. All that is left is weakness, vulnerability . . . love.

On the other side of the fallen wall of power, the fallen wall of rich insulation from the difficult world, is the cross of Jesus.

We can climb over the fallen walls of our denials and broken dreams, and follow Him.

He’s come to us precisely so we can do this.

“Whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Well, maybe it’s possible – for he meets us right here, right where we are, at the very next step in our path. So it is no great stretch to follow Him, not for anyone anymore. All are weak and vulnerable and acquainted with grief.

It turns out all can love too – the next weak and vulnerable person to this side and that. “Brother, can you spare a dime?” Maybe not. But a smile, a helping hand, a warm heart? That I can do.

Then, as a community, we start to rebuild: a community of love; not individuals in competition with each other but a community in love with each other, and with God, and with each individual broken soul who comes our way.

‘Wow, he looks just like me,’ we say, underneath that happy, shiny veneer; ‘just like me, and just like Jesus, too.’

So, since believing in Him, trusting in Him is the way to eternal life – let’s start eternally living by these eternal rules and ways and habits he’s laid down; habits of love and helpfulness, of strong hands willingly given and passionate hearts willingly shared, building up this eternal community of love that is already at least 2,000 years old and maybe older if God started it elsewhere with other children of light.

Don’t turn back, building a small world of wealth and power that doesn’t last long and only shelters a few people.

Walk forward into the light, with the vulnerability and love that you already have at your disposal, the vulnerability and love that God gave each of us because with each of us he can build a whole community of love.

Believe in Him. Follow His way. Eternal living, eternal loving, starts now.