Our Turn

The scriptures referred to Revelation 1:4-8 and John 20:19-31.

I know I started my Easter sermon with a reference to superheroes but bear with me for a minute or two. I was talking to someone about how superheroes today are like the cowboys of my youth, something I heard echoed later in the week on NPR! When I was a child, the most popular genre in TV and films was the Western. I grew up watching Bat Masterson, Maverick, Have Gun, Will Travel, Roy Rogers and The Lone Ranger. The adults watched Bonanza, The Virginian, Wagon Train and Gunsmoke. The biggest star in the movies was John Wayne, who was slowly being edged out by a newcomer named Clint Eastwood. The answer to all the problems that arose in these dramas tended to be the same: who was the fastest draw? We even had a series that was named after the weapon the good guy was proficient with: The Rifleman. Today it's all about superheroes but the appeal is the same: it depicts a mythical world where the problem of evil is solved by might in the right hands.

But as much as I love the genre, superheroes would be much less effective in the real world. Could Superman solve the problem of poverty? Could Spiderman stop the escalating rate of suicides in our country? Could Batman end the political polarization that is paralyzing just about every country? Of course not. Because our problems are not super strong bad guys, or mad scientists with death rays, or mutated monsters, or magical items you wear. They are the results of human nature. As Jesus said, evil is not external; it comes from our hearts. (Mark 7:20-23) Mere might cannot solve problems created by masses of people interacting in numerous short-sighted and selfish ways.

Ever so often, the comics and movies acknowledge this. Occasionally we hear of the Wayne Foundation which funds philanthropic, medical, and educational programs, though one wonders if Gotham City wouldn't have less of a crime problem if Bruce Wayne spent more time focusing on solving social problems than on personally punching every thug who lurked in an alley. In fact, given how often the Joker states that Batman is the whole reason he does what he does, Bruce Wayne's war on crime seems to be making things worse. In the second Avengers film, Tony Stark's high tech attempt to make the world better actually creates the robotic villain of the story. As one Doctor Who episode set in the old West makes clear, violence just begets more violence. A Cracked.com video pretty much proves that super powered people would actually make the world worse. [Here]

One thing I like about the revived Doctor Who series is that it does address the problem of relying on some hero to solve everything magically. One episode actually dealt with the inevitable way all wars end. When a splinter group of Zygons, aliens living on earth disguised as humans, is tired of sharing the planet with us, they decide to reveal their existence and start a war. Eventually the Doctor manages to get their leader and the person in charge of earth's defenses in a room and presents each with a box. Each box has two buttons. One button will give the human or alien who pushes it what they desire—either revelation of all the Zygons or their death by a specially formulated gas. The other button will give them what they don't want—the Zygons made permanently human or the detonation of nuclear warheads under London. But neither the alien nor the human know which button will trigger which consequence. By pushing them, they could win...or they could lose. When they object that the Doctor has reduced this deadly situation to a game, the Doctor says he hasn't. “This is a scale model of war. Every war ever fought right in front of you. Because it's always the same. When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who's going to die. You don't know who's children are going to scream and burn. How many hearts will be broken! How many lives shattered! How much blood will spill before everybody does what they're always going to have to do from the very beginning—sit down and talk!” The Doctor can't solve all the problems leading to war. Only the parties involved can do that.

The alien figures out that the buttons don't do anything. Right, the Doctor says. They were just a way to make the two sides stop and think. “Do you know what thinking is?” the Doctor says. “It's just a fancy word for changing your mind.”

Last Sunday we looked at how the resurrection of Jesus got the disciples to change their minds about his mission. Like most Jews in Galilee and Judea, they were unhappy with the brutal military empire that occupied their homeland. They wanted what everyone wants when things are bad: a Messiah, a superhero who will solve all our problems. They were hoping Jesus would be a King David 2.0, who would use his power to defeat and expel the Romans. They wanted a holy war. That's why they simply could not wrap their minds around the idea that Jesus would die. And when he did, they went into despair. Then when he rose again, they didn't know what to think.

Jesus takes advantage of this state of mind to retrain them. In Acts 1:3 it says that Jesus “appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God.” What did he say? Considering that the gospels are written from a post-resurrection perspective, what they say he taught before his crucifixion is probably what he was reinforcing afterward. So let's look at that.

The phrase “kingdom of God” and the equivalent in Matthew, “kingdom of heaven,” a euphemism to avoid using God's name, do not mean a physical, political region. It means “royal rule.” It might be better translated as “God's reign as king.” It is about life lived by God's people in obedience to God's rule. Nor is it an exclusively end-times event. It will culminate at some future point in a world ruled by God but the kingdom begins now as people enter the kingdom and willingly become citizens of it. The church is meant to be the kingdom in embryonic form, a community where people have pledged their allegiance to Jesus as God's anointed prophet, priest and king and live according to the commands he gave us. And the two primary commands are to love God with all we have and all we are and to love our neighbors as we do ourselves. All other commands are derived from these two.

Jesus spoke of the kingdom as being near when he started his ministry (Mark 1:15), as being present in his ministry (Luke 11:20), and as yet to come (Matthew 25:34). This has caused all kinds of theological debates on whether the kingdom is present or future. Yet Jesus frequently depicted the kingdom as something that starts small and grows, rather like a seed (Matthew 13:1-43). It takes time to see the results. (Mark 4:26-29) My feeling is that is similar to the end of the Second World War in Europe. The D-Day landings at Normandy broke the Nazis' absolute control over occupied Europe. Then the Allies pushed the Nazis back and as they did, they reclaimed territory. Those places were now under Allied control. But the Allies did not totally liberate western Europe till the fall of Berlin. God's entrance into history in his son Jesus established a beachhead in this world. He broke the absolute reign of sin over humanity. But there is a lot more work to be done before the task is complete. God's reign exists now where people have accepted his rule over their lives. But God's royal reign will not be total until, as it says in Revelation 11:15, “the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.”

Entrance to the kingdom of God requires repentance or a turning from sin and to God (Mark 1:15) and a childlike faith or trust in the gospel, or good news about God's royal reign (Matthew 18:3). That trust must be sincere and not just lip service. As Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter into the kingdom of God, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21-23) Doing God's will, that is, obeying the commands to love God and other people, are evidence that one is part of God's kingdom. In his parable about the last judgment Jesus says, “Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was naked and you clothed me. I was a foreigner and you took me in. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me....Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of these, the least of my siblings, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:34-36, 40) In other words, treating other people the way you would like to be treated (Matthew 7:12)—with love—is obeying God's commandments to love both him and our neighbor, since God created them in his image and Jesus died to redeem them.

Central to the idea of a kingdom is the king itself and so Jesus is central to the kingdom of God. Jesus called himself the Son of Man, a messianic title from Daniel 7:13-14, where it says, “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” The Son of Man is the supernatural person who is God's agent in bringing about his kingdom. Consequently the people of Jesus' day were expecting to see some big Hollywood-style miraculous signs. They saw the Son of Man as a superhero. But as Jesus said, “...the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45) Indeed Jesus' healing, his mastery over demons, disease and death, is the principle sign of his being the Son of Man, which is why he gets exasperated when people demand more flashy, magical signs (Luke 11:14-16). Even his cousin, the Baptist, had questions about whether Jesus, who was a lot less fiery than John, was the Messiah. Jesus said to John's followers, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” (Matthew 11:4-5) The signs of God's reign being present are the Messiah's works of restoring order and health and life to the world. Where Jesus is, the kingdom is.

In superhero stories, ordinary humans are just there to be attacked by bad guys or rescued by good guys. Even in classic Doctor Who, his companions were just there to ask questions, trip while running from monsters and be used as hostages to stop the Doctor. In the rebooted series, this changed. The companions were given more personality and more to do. They even became heroes. This was underlined by a villain steering at the title the time traveler had given himself: the Doctor, the one “who makes people better.” And indeed a consistent theme is that the ordinary people the Doctor encounters are inspired by his example to be braver, wiser, more compassionate. In some stories it has become quite obvious that the Doctor has become a Christ figure, creating disciples.

But aren't we as Christians just supposed to believe and wait for Jesus to return? Not according to the Bible. We are to be actively applying the principles of the royal reign of God in our everyday lives. When Jesus talks about the delay in his coming, he says, “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.” (Matthew 24:45-46) We are to be taking care of one another, nourishing one another. When confronted with 5000 hungry people, Jesus says to his disciples, “You give them something to eat.” (Mark 6:37) But they just talk about how impossible it would be and so Jesus steps in to show them how. But at the last supper Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12) How is that possible? Well, for one thing, we are not asked to do this under our own power. In fact we can't without Jesus. He says, “you are in me and I am in you.” (John 14:20) Specifically, he gives us God's Holy Spirit, who lives with and in us. (John 14:17)

In the recent Shazam! movie, a wizard gives Billy Batson tremendous power when he says the wizard's name. When faced with enemies too numerous for him to defeat, Billy has his foster family say the name and thereby shares his power with them, enabling them to do what he does. I don't know if the writers realized they were mirroring what happens in today's gospel passage but it makes a very good cinematic parable. Here we see Jesus giving his Spirit and authority over sins to his disciples. Jesus wants us to be like him. That's the whole point of following him.

Every ambassador is a representative of the government which sends him or her and is empowered to act on its behalf. And Paul says, “We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” (2 Corinthians 5:20) Similarly, every embassy, wherever it is geographically, is still considered part of the country it represents. Just so, the kingdom of God is not limited to one place or time. In Luke 17:20-21, we are told “Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, 'The coming of the kingdom is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is in your midst.'” You could say, “it is within your grasp.” The kingdom of God exists wherever the people of God are doing the will of God.

What is his will? That we love God above all and love our neighbors as ourselves. That we even love our enemies and act as peacemakers. That we put our trust in Jesus and proclaim the good news. That we go into all the world, make disciples, baptize them and teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded of us. That we be the light of the world so that people may see our good works and praise God.

After shooting up the town and killing the bad guys, the cowboy rides off into the sunset, leaving the townfolk to bury the bodies and repair all the broken windows. Jesus didn't kill anyone; he let himself be killed in place of all us bad guys. Most superheroes fly away when they are done, leaving the ordinary people behind to clean up the destruction they wrought. But Jesus took upon himself the brunt of the evil we wrought and then gives us his power to spread the healing he brought. And though we no longer see him in the flesh, he hasn't left us. (John 14:18) Jesus said, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23) We are to embody the love of God, the love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father in the unity of the Spirit throughout all eternity. Having God's Spirit in us makes us all parts of the body of Christ. He anoints us in his name to continue his mission to a sick and broken world. During his earthly ministry Jesus paired up the Twelve, and later the seventy, and gave them the power and authority they needed to overcome the forces of evil they would encounter. As Luke puts it, “ And he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.” (Luke 9:2) Go and do likewise.