The Misfit
“The chief priests and scribes and the principal men of the people sought to destroy him...”
March 30, 1980
They sought to destroy Jesus. For a while on a Friday we call Good, although there was nothing good about it, it looked like they had succeeded. But why? Why would anyone want to hurt a nice guy like Jesus? After all, he had talked about birds of the air and lilies of the field whose beauty and artistry show God's concern for all living things, especially humans. He said each of us is so precious to God that our heavenly father even knows how many hairs are on our heads although that is easier to figure on some of us than others. He made losers feel like winners; and he made broken down cripples feel like they could run the four minute mile. So, why did they give him the Roman version of the electric chair? Who and why did they do it? It is a serious question. The answer to the question has consequences for your and my lives: life and death consequences.
Today, I would like to talk about the "theys" who did Jesus in. And before you write this off as a dusty historical lecture, I have a warning. Don't be shocked if you see in the midst of the "theys" a familiar face or two. Maybe your face. Maybe my face.
THE SADDUCEES – THE ESTABLISHMENT LID KEEPERS. The group in Jesus' day probably most directly responsible for his death was the Sadducees. These priests and scribes of the temple in Jerusalem, and the principal men of the community are the ones who plotted to silence Jesus in our scripture reading. The priests who ran the temple and the elders from the wealthy families of Jerusalem formed a power elite who controlled the religious business and legal affairs of the city and surrounding Judea. These priests and elders formed a council called the Sanhedrin which kept the people in line. The Sanhedrin's chief way of keeping control over the people was through the temple. In the name of God the temple demanded all sorts of religious rituals and sacrifices from the people – always at a price. In fact the temple had become a lucrative business trafficking in religious ceremonies and the sacrificial animals required for the services. Money changers with cash and cages were set up right in the temple.
Jesus came on the scene and made big waves. He kicked over the moneychangers' tables saying that God's temple was a place for prayer not profit. Evidently, the people responded to his message that their status with God was not based on picky Sabbath rules and temple duties but on their willingness to accept God's love and to pass that love onto others. He threatened the power and profit of the establishment. The problems he caused went deep. The Sanhedrin had an "I’ll scratch your back you scratch mine" deal with the Romans who occupied their land. The deal was that the Sanhedrin was allowed to keep internal control and power as long as they made sure Rome got its taxes and made sure the people were submissive. It meant profit and power for the Sadducees; it gave Rome one less headache. So when the Sadducees saw the handwriting on the wall with Jesus, they, no doubt, hightailed it to the Roman governor Pilate saying: "This Jesus is stirring up the people. They are listening more to him than us. If we lose control, then you will have problems, too. Do something." And Pilate did, Jesus was given the cross, Rome's usual execution for criminals and political insurrectionists. He didn't fit in, so they did him in.
You see, when people profit from the way things are, it is difficult for them to feel for those who don't benefit from the status quo. Sadly, more than once have religion and government teamed up to silence those who don't fit in through history. We are all for honesty, fairness, and ethics in business and government until it threatens our profit margin, power, and position. Jesus disturbs systems where some of us get a lot while others get little. Maybe your and my contact point is not with the sophisticated, power elite Sadducee but with poor old, trying to keep the lid on things Pilate. Although some historical reports depict Pilate as a grisly character, the Biblical accounts don't particularly portray him as a Satanic Christ-killer. He comes across more as a harried Roman government careerman not sure whether he would be classified now as civil service or military trying to keep things under control in a fractious Podunk province in the low rent district of the Roman empire. Pilate looks not so much like a demon as a guy trying to make it to retirement with his pension intact. Could it be that the worst crime you and I commit is not some overtly wicked deed, but simply a matter of keeping our head down, doing our job, asking no questions and following orders as long as the paycheck keeps coming? Guys like Jesus who ask questions like "who is getting hurt or left out in all of this?" cause waves. They are misfits
who care too much for their own good.
THE ZEALOTS - THE VIOLENT. On the other end of the gamut from the Sadducees who accommodated themselves to the Romans were the people called Zealots. Zealots were patriot Jews who pledged and plotted to violently overthrow the pagan Romans who dared occupy the land of God's chosen people. These Galilean-based guerilla fighters may have been initially attracted to Jesus. He did speak of a revolution on earth: the people on bottom joining those on top, the first becoming last, and the last first. Unintimidated by the Sadducees' rules, Jesus went about his business loving the unloveables, touching the untouchables, and feeding the hungry even on the Sabbath Jesus marched by the beat of a different drummer than the temple bunch or the Romans. At least one place the New Testament records the name of one of Jesus' disciples as Simon the Zealot. One scholarly theory is that Judas was a Zealot. When he saw that Jesus' idea of the messiah was not one of a General Patton who would kill the Romans, he betrayed him in order to get him out of the way.
As revolutionary as Jesus was to the people who ruled the society for profit and power, keeping everyone in their place, his was a revolution of loving not hating. With Jesus, you don't overcome your enemies by fists and retaliation but by unconditional forgiveness. It takes a whale of a lot more strength to forgive someone than to physically or verbally knock their block off. You convert people to God's way of life not by making others suffer but by your willingness to suffer for them. And so, from Zealots who were ready to thrust their deadly short sabers into their enemies' gut, Jesus did not get any support. misfit there, also.
It is tough to admit that there is more connection between us as the Zealots than first meets the eye. Yet any time we resort to force to get our way, we are one of them. It doesn't have to be physical violence. It happens when we use our connections at city hall or wherever to fix someone who has crossed us. It happens when we get someone back by taking them off our Christmas card list, give them the cold shoulder, or give someone else an earful about them. The Zealot response to life happens when nations think they can make the world secure because they have produced over 20 tons of nuclear explosives for every one of the 4 billion men, women, and children on earth. People in armed camps don't like misfits who say such subversive things as: "Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”
THE ESSENES THE DROPOUTS. Another group of people decided that the world was such a mess and so evil that they could best deal with it by getting out. On the side of the Dead Sea at a place called Qumran was a community of Jewish monks called Essenes. We know about the Essenes through the Dead Sca scrolls which were found by a young boy looking for his goat in 1947. Those scrolls tell us about the Essenes who lived during Jesus' time, who withdrew from the world so that they could remain holy and untainted by the human rat race. Jesus didn't fit their standards either. He insisted on being involved in all the muck and mess of the world. He spent time with all the unsavory characters like prostitutes, tax collectors, the diseased, and the outcasts: the very people whose unholiness, the Essenes believed kept the Messiah from coming. Jesus withdrew only long enough for prayer and to get his strength and bearings to come back to feed, hug, and heal.
Certainly, no one could accuse us of wanting to become a monk. Yet isn't there rampant among us today of what I am calling "the monasticism of me", a withdrawal from the world of others into the world of myself. It comes out in our just not wanting to be bothered by other folks' problems. "I know there are hungry and poor people. But it's not my fault. There's nothing I can do. They ought to have worked harder or used birth control." We want to withdraw and take care of ourselves and our families. I've seen it happen in churches. Parents who involve themselves in the education program while their children are in then don't want to be called when their children, their interest, have gone. We forget the promises we made at all of the church's children's baptisms. The misfit who said "Whatever you do to the least of these you do to me interferes with the monasticism of me.
THE PHARISEES - THE LIMITERS. The fourth and final group who in their own way rejected Jesus was the Pharisees. In many ways, the Pharisees don't deserve the bad name they have received in Christian circles. They were serious and responsible people who wanted to live in God's way, understood by them to be contained in the 513 laws of the Old Testament. They knew they couldn't cut out of life like the Essenes. Someone has to work, pay the bills, and make things run. They abhorred the desecration of religion by the Sadducees. And they rejected the violence of Zealots. Simply wanting to do what God required of them in life, they prayed three times a day, they ate only certain foods and avoided the "wrong" kind of people.
Sadly, in Mark Twain's phrase, they became religious in the worst sense of the word. They came to feel that their scrupulous devotion to the law earned them an inside track with God. And half the fun of being on God's inside track was the fact that certain, riff-raff others were on the outside looking in. Sure, they were all for loving their neighbor, as long as that neighbor looked like them, thought like them, and met their standards. They didn't know what to make of all Jesus' Good Samaritan business. It infuriated then when Jesus ate and drank with the riff-raff, the moral failures, of his society in the name of God. Jesus' eating with outcasts was an acted out parable which said: "As you sit at my table on earth, there is a place for you at God's table in heaven.” The Pharisees wanted to limit their and God's love, and Jesus the misfit blew the lid off of their love limits.
Today, there is a lot of Pharisaism among us passing for Christian life. Like the Pharisees, we get a lot bigger charge from keeping tabs on other people's sins and failures than confessing and changing our own. There is a story about two old church sisters in which one says: "I think will go to heaven because I never drank, smoked, used swear words, or ran around on my husband.” To this the other replied: “That's right, you didn't, but you sure kept up with and talked about those who did.”
Like the Pharisees, we often think that anyone who does not have our understanding of God is inferior. Their logic worked this way: we have our neat system of beliefs; Jesus' teachings conflict with ours; therefore, Jesus must be wrong. One of the problems with being a pharisee is that we often miss a lot of love and truth God wants to get to us, even through those we disagree with.
I suppose, our chief link with the Pharisees is the habit of limiting our love and concern to only people who meet our standards. It is a matter of only doing what it takes to clear our conscience, not whatever that other person's hurt or hunger needs from us. The limitless loving Jesus doesn't fit well with us Pharisees. Of course, Pharisees would never crucify Jesus with a cross, we just whittle and water down his love to meet our standards.
JESUS - THE MAN WHO LIVED WITHOUT BRAKES. There is a story about an oil well fire which raged in a small Texas town. A professional Red Adair type firefighting team was called in to subdue the fire and cap the well. Arriving on the scene, they unloaded their expensive equipment and began to put on their sophisticated asbestos suits, while TV cameras whirled, oil company officials and townspeople watched. Suddenly, the ball and siren of the ancient firetruck from the neighboring town's volunteer fire department was heard. Without slowing down the old truck roared through the crowd with several volunteer firemen hanging on for dear life. The truck stopped just short of the fire. The men jumped off and miraculously capped the wall within minutes. Amazed, the oil company president thanked them and awarded the volunteer fire department a check for $50,000. He asked the chief what they would do with the money. He answered: "I don't rightly know. I guess the first thing is to get the brakes fixed on that fire truck."
One way of understanding the Jesus who didn't quite fit in is to describe him as the man who lived without brakes. His God loved all without limit, and so did he. The Sadducees' picky rules did not stop him from feeding hungry people, healing sick people, and loving lonely people. Contrary to the Zealots, he put not other's life on the line, but his life on the line. He would be first to agree with the Essenes that the world is a tough place where people hurt more than they want to hurt, where people die sooner than they want, where unfair demands are made on us every day. Yet he did not withdraw or hold back. He stayed in the mix and mess of things trying to bring God's way of caring to people hell bent on wiping each other out. Without brakes, without limits, Jesus looked not for excuses but for ways to help.
As we approach Easter, it is crucial that we recognize who this Jesus was, who this tough, loving man was who lived between that sweet baby in the manger and that victorious lord of resurrection. The resurrection did not happen to just anybody – any--body – it happened to Jesus' body. It was the brakes-off, limitless, loving life of Jesus that God said YES to with the resurrection. With the resurrection, God said death and evil just can't win over a life that loves and lives this way. The life that misfit the systems of humans fit just right the way of God's coming kingdom on earth.
Jesus has shown us the kind of life that death cannot ultimately take. It is the misfitting, brakes-off caring life that the resurrection shows God wants from us. The God of Jesus calls us to stop worrying about our death so much that we never really live. He calls us to take the limits off of our concern about how our children are fed and begin to see that the children on the other side of the world are fed. His limits-off love causes us to work not only for the security of our children from other nations' bombs but for the security of other nations' children from our bombs. It is not a common sense kind of life. If Jesus had used any common sense, he would have never left the Joseph and Son Carpentry Shop. It is just this brakes-off kind of life given to God and others that brings God's death defying love to you and me.
"Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water;
He spent a long time watching from a lonely wooden tower...
But you want to travel with him, and you want to travel blind.
And you think maybe you'll trust him for he's touched your perfect body with his mind.”
As we begin this Holy Week together, I hope you will decide to travel with Jesus as you never have before. I know in the past you've tried to make a little place for him in your way of doing things. But that never works; he just doesn't fit. It is time that we fit ourselves into his brakes-off caring way. It is time to travel with Jesus to your house, to your school, to your job, to the places of hate, hunger, and war threat in the world. Travel with him where you have to go and let his love blow the limits and brakes off your love. The life you resurrect may be your own.