Risk & Compassion: Demands of Jesus' Kingdom

Brad Sullivan

Proper 29, Year B

November 22, 2015

Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

John 18:33-37

Risk & Compassion:  Demands of Jesus’ Kingdom

Last week, Lynette, our senior warden, shared with me a video of a testimony given by Travis Tinnin.  Travis just passed away a couple of days ago.  Some of y’all know him.  He grew up here in Bay City and had a wife and two-year-old twin boys.  Travis had had complications at birth and wasn’t expected to live, but he did.  Then he wasn’t expected to walk, but he did.  He lived with the cancer for longer than expected, and had children he wasn’t supposed to be able to have, and in his testimony, given about 4 years ago, he talked about the trust he has in Jesus.  He said:

Trust is agreeing to deal with someone else’s choices, for better or worse.  It’s not that I trust you to catch me.  It’s that I’m willing to fall if you don’t.  In the same way, I trust God with my life.  I don’t trust that he’ll heal me.  I trust that he’ll use me to fulfill his perfect will.       

-          Travis Tinnin

I think it’s safe to say, Travis trusted Jesus as his king, and now knows him fully as his king. 

We live in a very fearful time.  We are not currently persecuted for being Christians here in America, but after the attacks in France last weekend, and the potential of thousands of Syrian refugees coming into our country, the possibility of persecution seems to some like a potential reality.  What if enough Muslims come here that they do take over and do change our laws?  What if enough come that terrorists come too, and we actually start being killed for being Christian (or simply not the correct` terroristic brand of Muslim)?  These are questions which folks have been wondering about and wrestling with to some degree or another since September 11, 2001.

Some folks are pretty adamant that such killings and persecution will happen and want all Muslims to go.  Others don’t voice these questions, possibly having them only in the deepest places of their hearts.  Many are somewhere in between, wondering, “What is right?”  Wrestling with “What do we do?”  Many don’t want to brand all Muslims as terrorists, don’t want to assume that all Muslims seek to subjugate our population under Muslim rule, and yet many also wonder, can we risk not assuming the worst.

We live in a very fearful time.  The people of Israel, living in the first century also lived in a very fearful time.  They faced potential and often actual persecution by Rome, even as they got to live with some measure of autonomy.  They were afraid that their nation would be destroyed by Rome, as eventually it was.  They were afraid that they would have to choose to abandon their faith or abandon their lives. 

In such a fearful time, Jesus stood before the Roman governor, Pilate, as Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”  If Jesus said “Yes,” then he was an insurrectionist, seeking to take the throne from Herod.  If he said “No,” then he’d have denied who he was.  Further, people had been saying that Jesus was the king, so if the chief priests and the Pharisees didn’t turn Jesus over to Pilate, then could have been seen as complicit in his insurrection, and they knew Rome wouldn’t have that.  Finally, Jesus’ disciples knew that if they were caught with Jesus, then they too would likely have been killed as fellow insurrectionists and blasphemers.  It’s easy to look back and think, “What cowards,” as they ran away and had Jesus killed, but the reality is, they were living in a very fearful time.

So too with us, we seem rather quick nowadays to label others as “coward” or “naïve”, as “heartless” or “brainless”.  We want to follow Jesus as our king, and we’re also afraid.  When some say that we should allow Syrian refugees or any refugees into America, others are frightened by that, even just by hearing it.  Of course they are.  We live in a very fearful time.  When others hear folks say that we can’t let Syrian refugees in, they blast those folks, saying that they are not living as disciples of Jesus.  While I personally think the Gospel does tell us to let the refugees come in, I also think we live in a very fearful time, and we’d be better off having compassion and love for each other as we talk about these different possibilities.  I think we’d be better off honoring each others’ fears and honoring each others’ desires to live out the Gospel of Jesus.

 

 “Love one another,” Jesus commands in John 13.  Love one another, not just those who are perfect or right.  Love one another.  Paul sums up Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness in Colossians 3, writing, “Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”  The Gospel demands that we have compassion and love for one another.

The Gospel also demands that we risk.  In John 15, Jesus says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  Again, in Mark 8, Jesus tells his disciples, “Those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”  Jesus guarantees that we will face persecution because of our faith.  Jesus guarantees that living out his Gospel will be risky.  To live out Jesus’ Gospel is to risk our good name, our fortunes, our family and friends’ thoughts of us, our physical well-being, and even our lives. 

Love one another, and risk for the sake of the Gospel are some of the truths which Jesus spoke.  That’s one thing Jesus came to do, to speak the truth.  In response to Pilate asking Jesus if he was a king, Jesus said, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” 

Love one another, and risk for the sake of the Gospel, Jesus’ voice tells us.  Jesus’ voice tells us not to be afraid.  Jesus’ voice tells us tells us to confess him as God son both in what we say and in what we do.  Jesus’ voice also tells us to forgive, just as he forgave those who fell into fear, forgot their love, and denied him.  Jesus voice tells us to feed his sheep, and with the risk involved, Jesus’ voice also tells us that he goes to prepare a place for us in his Father’s house.

That’s because in our Baptism, we have already died.  We’ve shared in Jesus’ death, and we therefore share in his resurrection.  That is why Jesus tells us “be not afraid,” because amidst all the kingdoms of the earth, the only Kingdom that really matters is Jesus’ kingdom.  His kingdom is not from here, but his kingdom is lived out here.  Whenever we love one another, Jesus’ kingdom is lived out here.  Whenever we risk for the sake of the Gospel, whenever we care for the poor, the needy, the homeless, even the refugee, Jesus’ kingdom is lived out here. 

In Jesus’ kingdom, we don’t live every man for himself.  In Jesus’ kingdom, we care for each other in radical ways.  In Jesus’ kingdom, we know we can risk not only because we share in his death and resurrection, but also because in Jesus’ kingdom, we care for one another as Jesus cared for his disciples and asked them to care for him.  As Jesus was dying on the cross, he told the disciple whom he loved, “My mom is now your mom.  Take care of her for me.”  Jesus knew that he could risk death because he knew that disciple would care for his mom after he was gone.  That disciple took her into his home and cared for her as for his own mom.  “Live the way of my kingdom,” Jesus says, “trust in me, and be not afraid.” 

We live in a very fearful time, and in this fearful time, Jesus is still telling us, “Be not afraid.”  “Don’t trust that I will catch you.  Be willing to fall if I don’t.  Don’t trust me to protect me from every harm.  Trust me to use you to fulfill my perfect will.”  In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.