So this is what it has come to. It starts with branches and it ends with a tree. We welcome Jesus on Sunday and crucify him by Friday. What in the world were they thinking in Jerusalem on that first Holy Week some 2,000 years ago? To hail Jesus as a triumphant king and then to execute him like some common criminal? What were they thinking?
But it’s not just about them. It’s about us. It’s about what we do to distance ourselves from Jesus. It’s about how we pay him lip service and how we keep him on the cross. The palm branches spread before the donkey? We cut those. The tree on which they nailed him? We did that. The song we sing each Holy Week? Were you there? We were.
I know we don’t want to admit it, but let me tell you about the dangers of plausible deniability. Ever heard that phrase? It’s a Washington word that describes the general stance of most politicians. Because the risks of acting overtly on any issue are so great, every action is taken in such a way that you can plausibly deny that you had a hand in any perceived negative consequences of the act. For instance, “There’s a rumor going around that Obama is Muslim? I didn’t start that.” “Yes, I voted against the $87 billion in reconstruction money for Iraq but that was after I voted for it.” “We never said that Iraq posed an imminent danger, we were always careful to call it a grave and gathering danger and I’m sorry if you got the impression that we were facing something more menacing.” “When I said that I never had sexual relations with that woman, I assumed everyone would know that what we did is not sexual and didn’t constitute a relationship.” You can add to this list of almost verbatim quotes from your own storehouse of memory.
So what’s wrong with plausible deniability? It’s for wimps. That’s what’s wrong with it. It’s for people who, when faced with clear evidence of failure, refuse to see it. It’s for people who are fearful enough that they believe they must always be seen as unflappable, imperturbable, and unassailable. It’s for people who come to a fork in the road and choose the fork. It’s for people who want to hit a home run without ever admitting that they once struck out or perhaps without even acknowledging that they had a bat in their hands. Plausible deniability is for wimps and I should know because I know that stance, too.
Have you been there? Trying to take the spotlight off yourself and what you might or might not think…what you might or might not have done? I’ve been there. And it’s not just you and me. It’s the Seinfeld world we live in. Do you remember the TV series Seinfeld? Remember how Jerry, George, and Elaine used to take strange comfort in being comfortably detached from all the strange people around them? The Soup Nazi was a great subject of conversation. The strange tics of Jerry’s new girlfriend. The constant question of “Isn’t it interesting how…” We are all commentators on the world. We all see ourselves in the booth calling the game, grateful that we don’t have to actually get out on the floor and reveal how stumbling and bumbling we are. Or if we do get out there, we wink at the crowd and say, “Look at me playing this role. I can’t believe I’m out here either!”
I got over one part of my plausible deniability a few years ago when, for the first time in my life, I stuck a candidate’s name on my coat and went out to staff the polls at my local precinct in Charlottesville. There I was at 6 AM…6 AM!…handing out literature and urging my neighbors to vote for my candidate…I actually called him my candidate! What were they going to think of me? Would they talk to me after knowing my allegiances? Would they go home and tell their spouse…“You know, Joyner down the hill was over at the polls this morning and you’ll never believe who he was supporting. Isn’t it interesting when people get so worked up about politics? I think I detected a maniacal gleam in his eye. Sure glad we aren‘t that passionate.”
Passionate. You know this Sunday is called Palm/Passion Sunday and it is a day when we begin to talk intensively about the Passion of Christ. And the usual way that people misunderstand the word passion is to think it refers to romance, and they giggle to think about Jesus in a romance. Well, they either giggle or they write The DaVinci Code, one or the other. But I want to misunderstand the Passion of Christ in a different way today. I want to think about passion as the fully involved, fully-implicated way in which some people live their lives.
Passion comes from a Greek word meaning suffering and that’s why we use it during Holy Week. But that same root tells us about the other ways we use that word. We burn with passion in romantic love. We are passionate about a cause or a faith. And we suffer because we put ourselves out on the limb. We burn the last bridge. We put all of our eggs in one basket. We throw down our nets and leave it all behind to follow. We leave the dead to bury their own dead. We say, “Here I am, Lord, send me.” And there is no turning back. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “When Jesus calls a person, he bids that one to come and die.”[i] And Bonhoeffer, struggling against the evils of Nazi Germany, did just that. It’s a dangerous thing to leave the sidelines and to become passionate about life.
We hesitate to do it and we should! Think how ridiculous we might look! Think how many carefully laid plans we might have to put aside! Think how many committees of inquiry might call us to account for our actions! Think how many times I’ll say the wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment! Think how awkwardly I’ll move, how gracelessly I’ll appear! Think of what the neighbors will say! Think of how I’ll struggle. Think of what it will cost me. Think of how I’ll fail.
That’s the kicker. To live passionately means that we will fail at life, that we will be held accountable for things we never anticipated being responsible for. To live passionately means that we will disappoint others and ourselves. When we leave the sidelines to fully immerse ourselves in life we will fall on our faces. We may say, like the old commercial, “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” And who wants to say those words?
I once passed a sign in front of a church during Holy Week that said simply, “We are all responsible.” What a strange thing to say. Especially in a culture of plausible deniability. We are all responsible? For what?
For Jesus’ death, I’m sure. One of the great controversies in Christian history is how Christians have sometimes held the Jewish people responsible for Jesus’ death. It’s a horrible history that has contributed to the persecution of Jews and even to the Holocaust. I want to say that the question of who is responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion is misguided. The question is not who was responsible for this act, but why do we find it so important to absolve anyone of guilt? Who is responsible? Who isn’t responsible? To not be involved in this story…this central story that Christians point to as the place where the whole universe comes together for them…this basic story that helps us understand what Jesus means when he says, “You must take up your cross”…this essential story that says that God came in a real human form and suffered with a real human body and died a real human death and still said, “Forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”…to not be involved in this story, even as one of the crowd chanting “Crucify!”, is the fate worse than death.
Who’s fully-implicated here? We all are. And there’s the passion. When we can sing “Were you there?”, not as dispassionate observers shaking our heads in sorrow over what those people did to Jesus, my Lord, but rather when we can sing “Were you there?” as people who really were there in the mobs who cheered on Palm Sunday and who jeered on Good Friday…people who really were there with the palm branches and then with the hammers and nails…people who really didn’t understand and still don’t get it. We still don’t get it. That’s passion.
It’s the end of plausible deniability as we know it. It’s the end of the bench warmer. It’s the end of the color analysis in the booth. Being real means getting our hands dirty. Being real means taking a chance at being who God has been calling us to be. It means being fully-implicated in life.
Which is why there is confession. Not because we need to feel bad. God knows we feel pretty wretched a lot of the time. We’re riddled with self-doubt and self-loathing. We’ve got plenty of tapes running in our heads that can make us feel bad. You don’t need confession to drag that out of you.
No, the reason we need confession is because God is calling us to be fully implicated in the plot. We are unindicted co-conspirators in a plot with world-altering consequences. We are guilty of not being content with the sidelines and of entering the fray and failing miserably. We may be headed for perfection, but we’re obviously not there yet. We may be God’s choice to be God’s people but we look pretty God-forsaken in the choices we make. We aim high hoping to bring heaven to earth and we wind up commingled with the forces of hell. It’s a long, long road and we can’t do it alone and we look ahead with a cross placed before us to remind us of how long and lonely the world can be.
But the good news in all this? The good news in all this is that we have something to confess. The good news in the passion is that we have started to live again even in the midst of a dying world. The good news is that we can be passionate because sinners is not all that we are…we are also redeemed…created in love, created in community, and raised up to something more than we have allowed ourselves to become. The good news is that I may be taking halting steps, but I’m taking steps! The good news is that I may be falling, but I’m falling forward instead of backwards! The good news is that I may be a fragile human body, but I am also some-body! The good news is that I may have no more wisdom than a child, but I am also a child of God! The good news is that I may feel like a motherless child, but I have mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers…they’re called the Church. The good news is that I may be up to my neck in troubles, but I am not high and dry.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord? I hope you were because I’d hate for you to be somewhere else. Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there when they pierced him in the side? Were you there when they laid him in the tomb? Were you there? It’s not a rhetorical question. Thanks be to God.
Matthew 27:25 (NRSV)
Then the people as a whole answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”
Acts 2:22-23 (NRSV)
You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know -- this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law.
But it’s not just about them. It’s about us. It’s about what we do to distance ourselves from Jesus. It’s about how we pay him lip service and how we keep him on the cross. The palm branches spread before the donkey? We cut those. The tree on which they nailed him? We did that. The song we sing each Holy Week? Were you there? We were.
I know we don’t want to admit it, but let me tell you about the dangers of plausible deniability. Ever heard that phrase? It’s a Washington word that describes the general stance of most politicians. Because the risks of acting overtly on any issue are so great, every action is taken in such a way that you can plausibly deny that you had a hand in any perceived negative consequences of the act. For instance, “There’s a rumor going around that Obama is Muslim? I didn’t start that.” “Yes, I voted against the $87 billion in reconstruction money for Iraq but that was after I voted for it.” “We never said that Iraq posed an imminent danger, we were always careful to call it a grave and gathering danger and I’m sorry if you got the impression that we were facing something more menacing.” “When I said that I never had sexual relations with that woman, I assumed everyone would know that what we did is not sexual and didn’t constitute a relationship.” You can add to this list of almost verbatim quotes from your own storehouse of memory.
So what’s wrong with plausible deniability? It’s for wimps. That’s what’s wrong with it. It’s for people who, when faced with clear evidence of failure, refuse to see it. It’s for people who are fearful enough that they believe they must always be seen as unflappable, imperturbable, and unassailable. It’s for people who come to a fork in the road and choose the fork. It’s for people who want to hit a home run without ever admitting that they once struck out or perhaps without even acknowledging that they had a bat in their hands. Plausible deniability is for wimps and I should know because I know that stance, too.
Have you been there? Trying to take the spotlight off yourself and what you might or might not think…what you might or might not have done? I’ve been there. And it’s not just you and me. It’s the Seinfeld world we live in. Do you remember the TV series Seinfeld? Remember how Jerry, George, and Elaine used to take strange comfort in being comfortably detached from all the strange people around them? The Soup Nazi was a great subject of conversation. The strange tics of Jerry’s new girlfriend. The constant question of “Isn’t it interesting how…” We are all commentators on the world. We all see ourselves in the booth calling the game, grateful that we don’t have to actually get out on the floor and reveal how stumbling and bumbling we are. Or if we do get out there, we wink at the crowd and say, “Look at me playing this role. I can’t believe I’m out here either!”
I got over one part of my plausible deniability a few years ago when, for the first time in my life, I stuck a candidate’s name on my coat and went out to staff the polls at my local precinct in Charlottesville. There I was at 6 AM…6 AM!…handing out literature and urging my neighbors to vote for my candidate…I actually called him my candidate! What were they going to think of me? Would they talk to me after knowing my allegiances? Would they go home and tell their spouse…“You know, Joyner down the hill was over at the polls this morning and you’ll never believe who he was supporting. Isn’t it interesting when people get so worked up about politics? I think I detected a maniacal gleam in his eye. Sure glad we aren‘t that passionate.”
Passionate. You know this Sunday is called Palm/Passion Sunday and it is a day when we begin to talk intensively about the Passion of Christ. And the usual way that people misunderstand the word passion is to think it refers to romance, and they giggle to think about Jesus in a romance. Well, they either giggle or they write The DaVinci Code, one or the other. But I want to misunderstand the Passion of Christ in a different way today. I want to think about passion as the fully involved, fully-implicated way in which some people live their lives.
Passion comes from a Greek word meaning suffering and that’s why we use it during Holy Week. But that same root tells us about the other ways we use that word. We burn with passion in romantic love. We are passionate about a cause or a faith. And we suffer because we put ourselves out on the limb. We burn the last bridge. We put all of our eggs in one basket. We throw down our nets and leave it all behind to follow. We leave the dead to bury their own dead. We say, “Here I am, Lord, send me.” And there is no turning back. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “When Jesus calls a person, he bids that one to come and die.”[i] And Bonhoeffer, struggling against the evils of Nazi Germany, did just that. It’s a dangerous thing to leave the sidelines and to become passionate about life.
We hesitate to do it and we should! Think how ridiculous we might look! Think how many carefully laid plans we might have to put aside! Think how many committees of inquiry might call us to account for our actions! Think how many times I’ll say the wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment! Think how awkwardly I’ll move, how gracelessly I’ll appear! Think of what the neighbors will say! Think of how I’ll struggle. Think of what it will cost me. Think of how I’ll fail.
That’s the kicker. To live passionately means that we will fail at life, that we will be held accountable for things we never anticipated being responsible for. To live passionately means that we will disappoint others and ourselves. When we leave the sidelines to fully immerse ourselves in life we will fall on our faces. We may say, like the old commercial, “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” And who wants to say those words?
I once passed a sign in front of a church during Holy Week that said simply, “We are all responsible.” What a strange thing to say. Especially in a culture of plausible deniability. We are all responsible? For what?
For Jesus’ death, I’m sure. One of the great controversies in Christian history is how Christians have sometimes held the Jewish people responsible for Jesus’ death. It’s a horrible history that has contributed to the persecution of Jews and even to the Holocaust. I want to say that the question of who is responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion is misguided. The question is not who was responsible for this act, but why do we find it so important to absolve anyone of guilt? Who is responsible? Who isn’t responsible? To not be involved in this story…this central story that Christians point to as the place where the whole universe comes together for them…this basic story that helps us understand what Jesus means when he says, “You must take up your cross”…this essential story that says that God came in a real human form and suffered with a real human body and died a real human death and still said, “Forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”…to not be involved in this story, even as one of the crowd chanting “Crucify!”, is the fate worse than death.
Who’s fully-implicated here? We all are. And there’s the passion. When we can sing “Were you there?”, not as dispassionate observers shaking our heads in sorrow over what those people did to Jesus, my Lord, but rather when we can sing “Were you there?” as people who really were there in the mobs who cheered on Palm Sunday and who jeered on Good Friday…people who really were there with the palm branches and then with the hammers and nails…people who really didn’t understand and still don’t get it. We still don’t get it. That’s passion.
It’s the end of plausible deniability as we know it. It’s the end of the bench warmer. It’s the end of the color analysis in the booth. Being real means getting our hands dirty. Being real means taking a chance at being who God has been calling us to be. It means being fully-implicated in life.
Which is why there is confession. Not because we need to feel bad. God knows we feel pretty wretched a lot of the time. We’re riddled with self-doubt and self-loathing. We’ve got plenty of tapes running in our heads that can make us feel bad. You don’t need confession to drag that out of you.
No, the reason we need confession is because God is calling us to be fully implicated in the plot. We are unindicted co-conspirators in a plot with world-altering consequences. We are guilty of not being content with the sidelines and of entering the fray and failing miserably. We may be headed for perfection, but we’re obviously not there yet. We may be God’s choice to be God’s people but we look pretty God-forsaken in the choices we make. We aim high hoping to bring heaven to earth and we wind up commingled with the forces of hell. It’s a long, long road and we can’t do it alone and we look ahead with a cross placed before us to remind us of how long and lonely the world can be.
But the good news in all this? The good news in all this is that we have something to confess. The good news in the passion is that we have started to live again even in the midst of a dying world. The good news is that we can be passionate because sinners is not all that we are…we are also redeemed…created in love, created in community, and raised up to something more than we have allowed ourselves to become. The good news is that I may be taking halting steps, but I’m taking steps! The good news is that I may be falling, but I’m falling forward instead of backwards! The good news is that I may be a fragile human body, but I am also some-body! The good news is that I may have no more wisdom than a child, but I am also a child of God! The good news is that I may feel like a motherless child, but I have mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers…they’re called the Church. The good news is that I may be up to my neck in troubles, but I am not high and dry.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord? I hope you were because I’d hate for you to be somewhere else. Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there when they pierced him in the side? Were you there when they laid him in the tomb? Were you there? It’s not a rhetorical question. Thanks be to God.
Matthew 27:25 (NRSV)
Then the people as a whole answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”
Acts 2:22-23 (NRSV)
You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know -- this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law.
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