March 20, 2008
Maundy Thursday
Pastor Harry Mueller
There are many aspects to Holy Week. There are a lot of things that seem to come to a climax or a confrontation during this week. In this week we have a washing of the feet story, the last supper, and Peter’s promise of loyalty. We hear about Judas’ betrayal by using a kiss which was a reversal of a kisses usual meaning of affection. There are Jesus’ actions in the garden telling the disciples to be non-violent and put away their swords. We also have the prayer in the garden with Jesus praying that the suffering would be removed. There are many more. Indeed there are so many possible themes for a preacher to briefly touch on that it might be possible to touch on many and essentially avoid saying much of anything.
I want to talk tonight and tomorrow about the relationship of the temple practice to Jesus. Another way of saying this might be that I want to talk about the conflict of Jesus’ mission with the religious practice of the temple. It is also my thought that there are issues here that we need to think about in our own day. How the church, the goals of the state, and Jesus’ mission relate to each other? That’s the important thing. What meaning are they for us? Tonight, I want to focus on Caiaphas, the high priest and tomorrow on the practice of sacrifice. Let me begin by telling you a contemporary story that asks a very tough question that is both contemporary and one that also should be asked or probably was asked about the relationship between Jesus and Caiaphas.
I am very close to my brother. I love my brother. We are very much alike. Many of you met him when he visited here last fall. Dave and I are 20 months apart. I’m the oldest. We went to the same schools, played the same sports. We both were in band and student council. We went to the same college. In one college football game I was the starting right tackle and he was the starting left tackle. We watched our dad and aunt and uncle fight, for 30 years before they died, about the way our grandfather had settled the family farm and we vowed we would never let anything like that happen to us. It won’t!
After college I worked for a year as a chemical sales rep before I went to the seminary which was the beginning of answering a call to become a pastor. Dave, after graduating two years later, had to answer his ROTC responsibilities and enter the Air Force which would eventually take him to Vietnam. He was trained as a forward air controller. This meant he plotted the routes that bombers would take as they bombed villages or enemy strongholds. The bombs or napalm killed whoever was there. Remotely and effectively.
It could have been Viet Cong, women, elderly, or children.
The Vietnam experience battered him as it did many people our age. When he came home he explained how he went into Air Force as a basically trusting person and when he returned home he didn’t know whom he could trust. I grieved over that but our mom was a basket case for nearly a decade. Then he asked the toughest question. How could St Olaf College allow me to be sworn into the military on the steps of the chapel? I have never forgotten that sad question of more than 30 years ago. Not because it singles out some anger towards our alma mater (all schools probably did the same thing and I do love St Olaf) but because here we had a contemporary situation with the most powerful symbols at play that parallels the situation of Caiaphas and Jesus. How could the temple leaders allow the empire to kill Jesus? How could Caiaphas the high priest, cooperate with Governor Pilate and the puppet king Herod?
Let me digress for just a moment to add a tragic fact. Many of you have seen the leather jacket I wear in these cold winter months. The jacket was a gift to me. A sad gift. There was an old man in a former parish that I visited regularly. Actually he wasn’t even a member but I got to know him. I had the funeral for his wife, who died of Alzheimer’s and then I was asked if I would have the funeral for his son who committed suicide.
It turned out his son, too, was a Vietnam veteran. He never fully recovered from his experience and like many couldn’t fit in or forgive himself or feel accepted. One day after the funeral the old man brought in his son’s jacket and gave it to me. So now I wear the jacket and carry the memory. I have had 4 funerals, over the years, for veterans who have committed suicide. That’s unusual enough that it caused me to do some research 10 years ago and I discovered that there were 57,000 American casualties in the war and already 10 years ago 58,000 suicides of veterans. I really fear for our future and what’s in store for younger pastors in the next 30 years. I really do. If the four suicides that I’ve been involved in seem like a lot what will they face? Even more what will veterans face after three and four tours of duty?
Now, I tell you these stories because the issues for me are very related to Caiaphas and Jesus. How could Caiaphas cooperate with the empire to kill Jesus? This question has plagued me for years. I think I’ve begun to understand a partial answer. The high priest must have seen Jesus as a competitor of the most dangerous kind. Jesus spoke with authority and offered healing, and hope and forgiveness on the hill sides, by the lake sides, in the towns and countryside. He did it freely. It wasn’t for sale on the plaza outside the temple and under the domain of the high priestly class. Jesus talked about being non-violent, love your enemy, turn the other cheek, put down your sword. He talked about a kingdom based on justice not military power. He said God’s reign was here now as opposed to something coming violently in the future. He wasn’t promoting the business of collaborating with Pilate. He told John the Baptist’s followers to look at what he was doing by healing a deaf man or a blind man or a hemorrhaging woman, or washing feet and stooping to serve. Maybe it boils down to whether religious motivations and actions serve oneself or others. Caiaphas was obviously self serving and the temple’s collaboration with the empire was the best way to do that. Empire’s too, are about the business of serving themselves. Caesar Augustus’ was. Some writer’s have made a good case that Caesar too, wanted oil. The fish oil and the dried fish that came from the Sea of Galilee fed the armies and much of the empire. The arrangement of powerful people, temple and empire was too comfortable to be challenged by a country preacher and teacher. Crucifixions were political actions. The crucifixion of Jesus was endorsed by the high priest.
If this is true, it raises tough questions for us to ponder for our own life today. There are certainly a lot of religious endorsements of political actions that need scrutiny in the honest light of Jesus’ ministry. There are a lot of people whose futures and mental health are at stake in the long war we’re fighting. My leather jacket and my brother’s story remind me every day. As a young pastor I used to almost dread election years because people listen to every sermon with their own political antenna up. My friends this goes way beyond partisan politics. This gets at an issue that existed before Democrats and Republicans existed. This gets at a question about what made Jesus’ ministry so radical that both the temple and the state wanted him dead. But the simple people who formed the Palm Sunday crowd loved him.
I love this Jesus!