Mission and Crucifiction:
Living in – and out – the Gospel
Frederick A. Niedner

Session Two - Saturday

Session One & Two by Dr. Niedner

Session One - Saturday

I am fresh from grading final exams. And since I teach Bible, including the gospels, at this time of year I have just witnessed once again how many ways students have to spell the name of the method of execution used on Jesus and the two others on either side. Cruxification is perhaps the most odd and amusing I’ve ever encountered. Crucifiction is the most common, and perhaps the most interesting. It  combines execution and story-telling. Which is exactly what gospeling is about, as I tried to say yesterday.

Today I’ll share three more ways of doing crucifiction—that’s F-I-C-T-I-O-N, telling the story of the cross and how our own lives are marked by it. But I’ll have to march fast and take no prisoners.

Luke, too, has a way of telling the story of Jesus in such a way that we become characters in the gospel, and in turn become gospelers as well. Luke didn’t write for persecuted people, but for people like us, those who have some position, at least enough to sit in circles where decisions get made that affect the lives of others. So when Luke quotes Jesus calling his followers to discipleship, Jesus says, “If any would come after me, take up your cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23). That little word “daily” changes Mark’s original picture just slightly. Luke’s readers will carry many crosses in the course of a lifetime.

At the end of Luke, we get to see a day of cross-bearing lived out when the execution squad taps Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross for Jesus on the way out to Golgatha. There Luke adds another little word, saying that Simon was to carry that cross behind Jesus—that is, in Jesus’ footsteps, following him. We see the picture clearly. Jesus will now conduct lessons in daily cross-bearing, and Simon, following along, will learn (Luke 23:26-46).

Lesson 1 – In Luke and only Luke, Jesus says to those who lament his fate along his path toward dying, “Don’t weep for me, but for yourselves and your children.”

Lesson 2 – In Luke and only Luke, Jesus prays for those who pound nails into his flesh, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Lesson 3 – In Luke and only Luke, Jesus converses with his fellow-condemned. To the plea that he remembers the one who defends him, Jesus responds, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Observing this pattern, we realize that we’ve seen this kind of thing all along in Luke—and to some extent only in Luke. Back in Gethsemane, Jesus had stopped the violent melee for just a moment and healed the ear of the man who’d lost one to the sword-swinging that broke out when soldiers came (22:49-51).

And in the courtyard, where in Luke everyone in the arrest party and all the hangers on, including Simon Peter, waited for daybreak and the trial before the high priest, Jesus only looks at Peter when Peter, face to face with Jesus, denies that he even knows him (22:61).

Cross-bearing in Luke is witnessing. It includes the gift and practice of healing ears, of telling a story that does not find violence and sword-swinging as the solution to every problem. The world believes that some day, finally, the bullied victim will land on the jaw of the perpetrator a delicious smack of justice. Cross-bearing witnesses say, “No more of this!”

In the face of betrayal and abandonment, the world and the flesh seek reprisal and vindication. The verb Luke chooses for how Jesus looked at Peter on that night of denial suggests that Jesus looked right through him and into his heart and soul. Words could never say what Jesus saw there. No matter what, Peter was still Jesus’ Rock. He was a stumbling stone all right, but he remained Jesus’ own, chosen stone.

And on the road toward crucifixion, Jesus doesn’t fixate on his own sorry fate, but he joins the tears of all who also suffer. He doesn’t promise that the mountains won’t fall on them, but only that he’ll join them when it happens.

He prays forgiveness upon those who execute him. They may not know they need it, but what a life they have (or don’t have), doing such bloody work!

And then the big joke. The gospel is foolishness, remember? It’s nothing, if not a grand joke. In Luke we hear some of it as gallows humor. “Hey, Jesus! The sign there above your head says you’re a king. Remember me, like Joseph did the butler—or was it the baker?—when you come to power. Let me be your right-hand man.”

Jesus says, “Sure, friend, you and me. Today. We’ll do it together.”

Imagine the soldiers listening to all this. “Ah, those dead men walking make such jokes!” they must think. But this is my favorite image of the church—a bunch of crucified folks, hanging around making plans. If we take our rhetoric seriously, that’s who we are.

This, too, is witness. We are crucified, no doubt about it. But we have work to do, and plans to make.

And finally (almost) in Luke, another prayer. Jesus prays at the end the words of an old song, this time Psalm 31:5 – “Father into your hands, I commit my spirit.” That piece of an ancient psalm for eventide was taught by moms back then as a bedtime prayer. Jesus had learned this from his mom, the way many of us learned prayers like, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” This is the perfect way to close a day of cross-bearing, don’t you think? You lay your life in the same hands, night after night, day after day, even on the day you die. It’s also a witness for the bystanders, to some extent, just like Mark’s use of Psalm 22.

And then of course we go back on the road, this time toward Emmaus, and into that rich story by which Luke tells us where we might see and know the risen Christ in our own day (24:13-35). Why, he can be right on the road with us, and we might not recognize him! How can we see and know him?

In the breaking of the bread, of course. This is important, and complex beyond our time to unpack it all today. But note this: The language of coming to recognize Jesus is exactly the same as what happened to another couple at the scene of the Bible’s first meal, the one in Genesis 3 (when read in the Greek Septuagint translation).

Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.

This meal somehow stands as an eschatological parallel to the first-ever meal, the one that sent us all off to hiding ourselves from God and from one another.

Then that Emmaus couple remembered their pre-dinner heart-burn! The study of the scriptures, if you do it looking for a Christ who had to suffer, lets you see the risen Christ, to whom the law and prophets bear witness.

But none of this would have happened except this pair showed hospitality to a stranger. And this time they didn’t merely entertain an angel unawares, but Christ himself! The guest became the host, as so commonly happens amidst genuine hospitality. This is the meal we set at our family table, inviting strangers one and all—estranged insiders, the simul justus et peccator, and outsiders we hardly know. And through this meal we tell our story. All are welcome.

Which takes me to Mathew’s way of gospeling, for Luke’s Emmaus scene shares in the truth of Matthew’s parable about what it means to do something to or for those who are the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters. And what we see there almost makes me accept that famous old quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel always; if necessary, use words.” Matthew almost goes there.

But we’re moving rapidly, so I’ll quickly show a single example of our story gets told and shaped Matthew-style. Matthew is filled with weeping and gnashing of teeth, you’ll recall, and lots of threatening. Sometimes I think Matthew does what Lucy boasts of, namely, smacking us with his lunchbox in order to get us to believe his gospel.

But those who really lived and told their stories in the pattern of Matthew’s complex teaching about forgiveness would gospel the world in a remarkable way. And maybe we can join them.

Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 18:15-20 outlines that well-known procedure for handling sin and dealing with sinners. If someone sins against you, first talk one-on-one, then with two or three to back you up, and finally have a congregational meeting. And what do you say? “Point out the fault,” say most English translations. I can only confess, this doesn’t work at my house. I have tried in countless ways to point out all the faults others have.

Some years ago I discovered through study that the verb really means “to convince,” not “to blame.” (It can mean “convict,” from the same root as “convince,” but that’s only one possibility). But convince of what? I take the ultimate content and goal of that talk as something illustrated in the parable that immediately precedes the directions for handling sin. It’s the parable about the shepherd who loses one of his 100 sheep and cannot rest until every last sheep is gathered and home. Then the party can commence.

There is a helpful way we can do fault-telling. We can point out the tragedy of plate-tectonics resulting from our sins. We’ve drifted onto separate continents! We cannot let this happen! So, we talk as much as necessary to get everyone back. If we fail, we treat the lost one like a tax collector or Gentile. Which is how?

If Jesus is our model, we’re going to spend lots of time eating in strange restaurants for a while. We mingle among those who will not come in to join us, even should the Pharisees murmur about our habits.

This is our witness. We do not tell a story of how effectively we cut out the dead wood, sloughed off the slackers, cleansed our community of evil-doers, etc. We are the community of restless reconcilers who will never, ever let you slip into the netherworld of the forgotten, any more than the Holy Spirit ever abandons us without an advocate to speak for us when we’re wordless. Even if we must sink all the way to hell to talk to you, we will stick by you. Which, of course, is another cherished line in our story.

That’s the promise we make to all we baptize. In the name of the risen Christ, we will never, ever forget you, and by the power of God’s Spirit, we will not let you go. Period.

Do we have time for John? Ha! There’s never enough time for John. It takes forever. But maybe we can do one piece. John 9 would fit our “amazing grace” theme (I once was blind, but now I see.)

But we’ll look instead at the pattern of our family story as it appears in John 4, the story of the Samaritan woman’s encounter with Jesus at Jacob’s well. It takes me an hour to unpack this for my students. We don’t have that long, but I do want to share with you what I also want my students to know, namely, that Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code is partly right. Jesus was married!

Every Jew in Jesus’ day knew what it meant for a man to visit a well while on a journey and have a woman appear to speak with him. It had happened for the servant of Abraham who sought a wife for Isaac (Genesis 24). Fair Rebekah ran home and told her family, “I met this guy!” They said, “Where is he? Bring him here!” The servant came to visit, and he eventually returned home with Rebekah.

It had happened also to Jacob, as he fled from Esau (Genesis 29). Rachel, who stole Jacob’s heart in an instant when she arrived at the well, ran home and said, “I met this guy!” They said, “Where is he? Bring him here!” Jacob came to visit, and he eventually—very eventually!—left with Rachel and her sister Leah.

In Exodus 2, Moses flees for his life and comes to the well of Midian. He rescues Reuel’s daughters as they water their flocks at a well. The women run home. “We met this guy!” they say. “Where is he? Bring him here!” says Reuel. And Moses had a bride.

When Jesus sat down by the well in Samaria and that woman approached him, his pulse must have quickened. And sure enough, the same story unfolds. The woman ran home and told her family, “I met this guy!” They said, “Where is he? Bring him here!”

Jesus  accepts their hospitality, but here the story takes a different turn. Jesus did not come away with a bride. Yet. And think, too, about this. All those other women who ran home to tell their families they’d met a guy were eligible for betrothal. Not so the woman who came to the well at noon in John 4, and from whom Jesus requested a drink. She’d been in and out of five marriages and God knows how much heartbreak and trouble.

In any case, the story remains incomplete, until, on a subsequent day in John’s account, once again at noon, Jesus asks for a drink. “I thirst,” he said (19:28-30). In John’s gospel he accepts the drink. It wasn’t good wine they offered, but oxous, cheap and sour wine like soldiers and workers carried, and most interesting for our purposes, the same kind Ruth got from Boaz in her curious, reverse version of those betrothal-at-a-well stories.

There on the cross, with that cup, that drink of sour wine dripping from a sponge on a hyssop branch, Jesus took his bride. And who is she? The bride is you, me, each of us. All of us together, dressed in our baptismal attire, are the bride of Christ. She comes down as the new Jerusalem, adorned as a bride to meet the bridegroom, in the book of Revelation’s wedding scene of Christ and the baptized.

But my goodness, have we been around the block just like our Samaritan sister, five times and more, in our various and sundry relationships! Do we have stories to tell! I have a habit of collecting tales of our adventures wherever they appear. I get this stuff from the newspaper, but I don’t merely read the obituaries. I read about the weddings in our small town paper, and I read the divorce records. I even read the want ads and advice columns. Here’s a sampling of our tangled stories.

From the want ad in our local paper: “Wedding rings. 12 Karat. His and hers set, used three months. $50 for the pair, $25 separately.”  (Wouldn’t you like to know that story? Probably not.)

I could share with you the whole story of a truck driver who visited a brothel because a friend recommended a particular woman who worked there. When he entered the room for his much anticipated dalliance, the man found his wife, housewife by day, call-girl by night. Predictably, he beat her up and served time for assault.

I have the story of a 75-year-old man who murdered his 71-year-old wife with a blow to the head because she was more hard of hearing than he was and refused to turn down the volume on their TV. He covered her with an afghan and went to bed.

Here, too, is the story of a California couple who each pulled a gun in the office of a California pastor in the midst of a marital counseling session. They fired on each other. Both survived. The marriage did not.

Not all the stories are tragic. For one final view of the marriages that the Samaritan woman and some of the rest of us have endured and that we bring to our relationship with Jesus, we turn to the advice columns. . .

Dear Ann Landers,

My wife and I will soon be celebrating our 30^th wedding anniversary, and although we’ve been quite happy together, I can’t bring myself to tell my wife something that’s been bothering me since our honeymoon. When we unpacked our things in a nice little resort hotel, my wife opened a large suitcase and took out an accordion.

“Louise” had never told me she played the accordion and that she took it with her everywhere. I was flabbergasted that night as I sat through three recitals of “Lady of Spain” and an old English madrigal with some surprisingly ribald lyrics. Those are the only tunes she knows.

Our social life has always been rather quiet. Our only close friends are “Bernice” and “Murray.” They come over quite often and join Louise in a rousing chorus of “lady of Spain.” Murray plays his head – that is, he raps his knuckles on his head while opening and closing his mouth, which produces changes in tone. Bernice clacks two spoons together and hums the harmony.

Ann, I’ve had about all I can take of this. How can I tell my wife after so many years that she is no musician and the racket is driving me crazy? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Had it on Long Island.

You must know how Ann replied, right?

Dear Long Island,

You’ve been truly wonderful. Please don’t blow 30 years of sainthood by losing your temper.

Surprise Louise with a dozen accordion lessons and several pieces of sheet music.

Sorry, but I can’t think of a thing you can do about Bernice and Murray.

Do you recognize us? These are our stories, aren’t they? We’re all over the map when it comes to how we manage as spouses, parents, friends, colleagues or neighbors. And given all the ways we tangle things up in the rest of our lives, we do the same as the church and the people of God. And yet, we are the bride of Christ. The world is not what it could and should be, and neither are we. But we are marked with the cross of Christ, and we have a story to tell of faithfulness that transcends all our failures.

We have those wedding garments, which are no more and no less than our baptismal clothes, washed new each day by the cleansing power of the Spirit.

We are one with him, and he with us. That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it. And we are joined to each other as one flesh, the real bone and tissue existence of the body of Christ, the only body he’s got right now. He gave his life precisely to have each one of us as his bride, his beloved, to have and to hold, in sorrow and in joy, in poverty and want, in sickness and health, from this day forward, so long as. . .

Well, so long as he lives and reigns with the Father and Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.