Palm Sunday. 07                                      April 1, 2007

The first Christians regarded the crucifixion
        as a rich and complex mystery.
It was a concrete historical event,
        a tragic, bloody execution.
But it’s meaning was deep, awesome, inexpressible.
It was an essential part of our salvation,

        – but how it saved us was beyond words or logic.
We could only grasp pieces of it
        with multiple explanations.
That’s why our Scriptures contain four separate accounts
        of the Crucifixion – each with its own distinct feel,
                 its own different interpretation.

The Epistles offer still more ways of glimpsing its meaning.
In just two pages of Romans alone, Paul gives
        eight different ways to understand it.
St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, and St. John Crysostom,
        spun out even richer interpretations.

But a thousand years after the fact,
        a single new interpretation took hold.
St. Anselm invented it and John Calvin refined it.
They conceived of a moral algebra equation in which
  x quantity of sin must be satisfied by x quantity of suffering,
  because God insists that moral equations be balanced.

This doctrine compressed the ineffable mystery
        of Christ’s atoning death
                into a logical party-line dogma,
                with one prescribed response
                        we are supposed to have.

Now, whether we see a Jesus movie, read our Bible,
        or partake of the sacrament,
        the model of God’s algebra equation
                 is the lens through which we see.

That doctrine does a great deal of harm.
If you want to know more about that, I invite you to read
        Fr. Gray Temple’s The Molten Soul.
But I won’t argue against it myself today.

I only ask you to lay it aside for a few minutes,
        to lay it aside just long enough to see another view,
        a view closer to the way St. Luke tells the story.

Throughout Luke’s Gospel,
        Jesus is always healing and reconciling,
                showing us that healing and reconciling
                         are Godly actions.
They are the actions that make God “God.”

God isn’t keeping a moral ledger and punishing.
God isn’t thirsting for anyone’s blood.
And that isn’t what’s happening in crucifixion.

The late New Testament scholar, Raymond Brown,
         observed that in Luke’s Gospel,
         as Jesus proceeds through each step of his Passion,
                 he keeps on healing and reconciling.
He somehow reconciles Herod and Pilate;
         he forgives and reconciles the dying thief;
         he forgives and intercedes for his persecutors.

The God Jesus reveals isn’t intent
         on someone paying a price
                 to satisfy his sense of justice.
He’s intent on healing our broken hearts
         and our broken relationships.

Jesus becomes the victim of sin
         so that he can forgive sin.
The cross gives him the right to do that.
And when he invites us to take up our cross
         it’s so that we can forgive too.

Jesus’ mission was reconciliation.
Paul says,

         “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself,
         not counting their trespasses against them,
         and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.”

Point one: Jesus went to the cross to reconcile.
Point two: He calls us to follow him.
       He gives us the mission of ongoing reconciliation
That’s why the Catechism says the Church’s mission
       is to reconcile all people to God and each other in Christ.

The cross represents the central paradox of Christian life.
We are here to reconcile,
        but reconciliation is not cozy.
It isn’t sentimental.
It doesn’t consist of snuggling up to each other.

Reconciliation isn’t so much about closeness
        as it is about a healthy emotional distance.
The first thing we have to forgive people for
        is being themselves instead of our puppets,
        following their own paths instead of conforming
               to our expectations,
        acting like the stars in their own narcissistic dramas
        instead of being the supporting actors in our drama.

In Genesis God creates the world
        not by commanding things to be,
                but rather by allowing them to be.

“Let there be light.
Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures.”
It’s even more clear in the Kabala,
        God creates the world by setting it free
        to be itself, not his puppet.

Reconciliation is a continuation of the same process
        God began in creation.
By forgiving sinners, Christ lets them be.
God reconciles the world to himself
        not by dominating it
                but by allowing it to be itself

        – even when it goes drastically wrong.

The troubles among human beings
        do not lie so much in our indifference to each other,
        as in our over-investment in each other,
        our insistence that other people be
                 what we want them to be.

We all want reconciliation, but we want it on our terms.
We want people to say,

         “Oh yes, now I see. Of course you are right.
         I’ll do it your way.”

But it doesn’t happen.
Reconciliation is possible
         only when we forgive each other
         for being the perverse idiosyncratic characters
                  that they are.
Rilke gave us the best description of reconciliation
         I have ever encountered.
He said:

         “Once the realization is accepted
         That even between the closest human beings
         Infinite distances continue to exist
         A wonderful living side by side can grow up
         If they succeed in loving the distance between them
         Which makes it possible for each to see the other
         Whole against the sky.”

Creation and reconciliation are huge risks.
They take courage.
They take faith.
Anxiety makes us take control of situations,
         try to dominate the players,
         determine the outcomes.
Faith lets the wind carry us.

God has shown enormous faith in us
         by the act of creation
         and the act of reconciliation.
God invites us to join in that faith,
         by forgiving one another
         and waiting patiently for each of us
                  to flower in our own way.

                                                 Amen.