What Have You Done?

 John 18:33-37

Rev. Monte Marshall

 

Today is a pivotal Sunday in the church year.  We are leaving behind that long period known as ordinary time that follows the observance of Pentecost, and we’re moving into a new season—the season of Advent—that actual marks the beginning of a new year in the Christian calendar.

The theme assigned to this last Sunday of the church year is the reign of Christ.  This morning’s scripture reading is the designated gospel text for this occasion.  The question posed by this Sunday’s emphasis is profound:  What does it mean for us to proclaim the reign of Christ and to live in it, especially in a time such as this?

Well, John’s story of Jesus before Pilate pulls us into the question.  This morning’s text is actually one of seven or eight scenes involving Jesus’ trial before Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea.  As these scenes unfold, Pilate is portrayed as moving in and out between the group of Jesus’ accusers who are on the outside of the Praetorium (which was Pilate’s headquarters in Jerusalem) and the prisoner, Jesus, on the inside of the Praetorium.

Scott Hoezee imagines Jesus in this scene with his “[h]ands bound behind him, his lip split and his cheek puffy,” the result of blows already delivered by a member of the Temple police department while Jesus was in the custody of the religious authorities who were his accusers.[1]

Pilate’s opening question to Jesus gets to the heart of the matter.  Pilate wants to know:  “Are you the King of the Jews?”  And ready or not, folks, we now find ourselves thrust into the middle of a political struggle between Pilate and Jesus—between the reign of Caesar and the reign of God. 

Pilate, after all, is a political figure with responsibility for governing Judea as a representative of the Roman Empire.  And Pilate’s inquiry of Jesus has a political slant:  As one commentator notes:  “’King’ is a political title, and Pilate focuses on the political question.”[2]

Jesus responds to Pilate, but without answering the question.  In fact, he poses a question of his own as if Pilate is the one on trial.  Jesus says:  “Do you say this of your own accord, or have others told you about me?”  With this reply, Jesus “unmasks Pilate’s collusion”[3] with the accusers of Jesus.

And Pilate gets defensive:  “Am I Jewish?  It is your own people and the chief priests who hand you over to me.”  Quite clearly, Pilate is not Jewish, but he has been engaged in conversations with the Judean accusers of Jesus.

Pilate then asks a question that I find intriguing:  “What have you done?”  I can hear my father’s voice in my ear as a little boy saying, “Son, what have you done?”  With those words I knew my dad was expecting me to ‘fess up to whatever trouble it was that I had caused.  Pilate is expecting the same of Jesus.

But Jesus doesn’t answer the question—at least not immediately.  It’s not until near the end of the text that Pilate gets his answer.  Jesus says:  “I was born and came into the world for one purpose—to bear witness to the truth.” 

So what had Jesus done to be handed over to Pilate with his life on the line?  What kind of trouble had he caused?  What had he done to turn such powerful people against him?  Well, Jesus had done what he was born to do—he had done what he came into the world to do—and that is, he had witnessed to the truth.  He had healed people, and taught people, and forgave people, and fed people, and loved people.  And yes, he had disrupted the corrupt system of the Temple.  And for all of this, before his own people, he was accused of blasphemy—of dishonoring God; and before the Romans he was accused of sedition—of being a rival ruler and a subversive agent within the empire.  In the end, after all that Jesus had done to bear witness to the truth, the Romans killed him on a cross.

“What have you done?”  I must admit that it’s because of this question that I’m preaching this sermon today.  Let me explain.  As I was planning my preaching schedule several months ago, I almost passed up this text from John’s gospel even though it was the assigned gospel reading for Reign of Christ Sunday.  I almost passed it up because, as we’ve seen, John’s story of Jesus before Pilate is inescapably “political.”  And to be honest with you, I often worry that my preaching is already perceived by some as too “political” and not enough focused on the daily personal struggles that claim so much of our attention and energy.  I worry that this might turn people off and turn people away.

And besides, I recognize what’s at stake in a text like this:  If Christ reigns, then Pilate, the empire that he represents, and every other political authority that vies for our allegiance, is put in a subordinate position.  If Christ reigns, then God’s way in the world is supposed to take precedence.  And if we live in this reign, we too might find ourselves in trouble. 

So I had reservations about preaching on this “political” text.  But my concerns didn’t end there.  As I read it, John’s story of Jesus before Pilate reinforces the non-violent way of Jesus and contrasts it with the way of Pilate.  In the story, Jesus says to Pilate:  “’My realm is not of this world; if it belonged to this world, my people would have fought to keep me out of the hands of the Temple authorities.  No, my realm is not of this world.’” 

To say it another way:  “My realm is not like your realm, Pilate.  In your realm, Caesar is sovereign.  In my realm, God is sovereign.  In your realm, violence is at the heart of establishing and maintaining power.  But in God’s realm, violence is not an option, either as a means of defense, or as a method for defeating our enemies.”

Now you’ve heard me preach on this sort of thing many times before.  I even addressed the issue in last Sunday’s sermon.  And I worry that I’m paying too much attention to the issue.  I realize that taking up the theme of non-violence as an essential component of the reign of Christ, isn’t exactly a prescription for filling the pews on Sunday mornings, especially in the face of ongoing wars, terrorist attacks, and increasing calls for escalating counter-violence to defeat and destroy our enemies.  I understand that we depend on our capacity to use violence to keep us safe.  And there are already so many young men and women in our nation’s military who are in harm’s way and who depend on the use of violence for their defense.                              

I resonate with the reflections of Dr. Janet Hunt as she ponders the kind of rulers we may want to address the threats we currently face, and the kind of ruler that Jesus is.  She begins by recalling a text from the Old Testament:  “It has been ringing through my mind these last days—the cry of the people in 1 Samuel.  You remember it.  They are in the land which was promised to them.  They have been watched over and led by a series of Judges—some of whom did better than others.  And now terror is rising within them as the forces of the world are bearing down on them.  They cry out to Samuel, refusing to listen to his voice of reason and warning, they say, ‘No!  But we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.”  (1 Samuel 8:19-22)

Samuel has wasted his breath trying to convince them that an earthly king will do more harm than good.  And finally, God gives in and says to Samuel, ‘Listen to their voice and set a king over them.’ 

These words have been echoing in my mind in these last days as I have sat transfixed before the news once more:  witnessing terror attacks in Paris, yes, but in countless other places around the world as well.  Oh yes, we hold deep within us the desire to be safe, particularly when the violence of the world threatens what we hold most dear.  And we see no other way, too often, than that which plays out before us every day.  We feel as though we must compete on the same battlefield the world has set up for us.  We cry out as people have always cried out, for someone to at least protect us.

“And then we encounter Jesus now in his exchange with Pilate.

• Jesus, who by now has been betrayed by one trusted disciple and denied by another and abandoned by all the rest;
• Jesus, who has been shamed by the high priest and who will soon be beaten by Pilate’s soldiers;
• Jesus, who will shortly be wearing a crown of thrones and a mocking robe of purple;
• Jesus, whose cross is not but hours away.

“We are yearning for a king who will fight our battles in a world marked by abject terror and God sends us this?  [meaning Jesus, of course]

“Yes, God sends us this.”[4]

And “God sends us this” even in the midst of our present crisis.  But just because we live within the non-violent reign of Christ doesn’t mean that we can’t contribute to finding solutions to the long-term conditions that give rise to terrorism in our modern context.  We obviously won’t be recommending bombing campaigns or boots on the ground or targeted assassinations or other violent solutions, but there are non-violent alternatives.  Erin Niemela, for example, proposes three pathways to peace:

1. Immediately stop sending funds and weapons to all involved parties.
2. Fully invest in social and economic development initiatives in any region in which terrorist groups are engaged.
3. Fully support any and all nonviolent civil society resistance movements.[5]  Believe it or not, movements like this actually have a better track record of success than the violent alternatives.  Derek Flood notes that in 2011, “a groundbreaking study on civil resistance…found that ‘between 1900 and 2006, nonviolent resistance campaigns were nearly twice as likely to achieve full or partial success as their violent counterparts.”  Derek Flood adds that “In addition, successful nonviolent resistance campaigns are less likely to descend into civil war and more likely to achieve democratic goals.”[6]

 

When we give ourselves to the nonviolent reign of Christ, we discover a truth that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. discerned a long time ago.  He wrote:  “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.  Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.  Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.  Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate.  In fact, violence merely increases hate.  So it goes.  Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.  Darkness cannot drive out darkness:  only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”[7]

So I admit it, I almost let my anxiety get the better of me; I almost passed up this text for fear of what some of you might think.  And yes, I could have easily picked another passage that wasn’t so “political” and that was silent on the issue of Jesus and non-violence.  But then I pondered Pilate’s question:  “What have you done?”  And I realized that I wanted to be able to give a simple answer to the question:  “I followed Jesus.”  And if following Jesus stirs up trouble, then so be it.  

All I want to do is live within the reign of Christ without fear of the trouble it might cause.  And so I decided to listen for the voice of Christ, to go with the text, and then bear witness to the truth as I discern it.  

So now, I pose the question to you:  What have YOU done?