First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: I Corinthians 1:18-25
Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;
Weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen,
Tell them of Jesus, the mighty to save. - United Methodist Hymnal, #591
I want you to humor me for several minutes by pretending that you are consultants….theological consultants….for a short film that is presently being made. The purpose of the film? To depict what God has done for the world in Jesus Christ. But since this film is being produced for an audience that knows relatively little (if anything) about Jesus Christ, we are going to come at the audience through the back door. Therefore, we are not going to shoot it in Israel (or anyplace that looks even remotely like Israel). We are going to shoot it on a beach….in Southern California. And we are not going to shoot it with an actor who looks like Jesus (or anyone who looks even remotely like Jesus….“Send the fake beard and bathrobe back to the costume shop, Harry”). We are going to shoot this film with a lifeguard as a stand-in for Jesus. That’s right, a lifeguard….late twenties….early thirties….blond….muscled….tan….like on Baywatch….that kind of lifeguard.
But there’s a problem, you see. A script problem. Not because there isn’t one. But because there is one too many. Meaning that there are two. And the director can’t tell which one to use. Which is why a team of theological consultants needs to be called in (at the rate of $500 a day plus expenses….thank you very much). And that’s us, don’t you see? Because we know about such things.
The first script starts with rolling credits, even as the camera pans a crowded beach on a Friday afternoon. Make it a Friday afternoon in April (mid to early April). Sun shining. Music blaring. Volleyballs flying. Acres of young, throbbing life recreating. But, as the credits fade, we see that not everything on that beach is quite so perfect as it seems. Because a change in the surf is forcing the lifeguard to order all of the swimmers out of the water. In fact, we see him descending from his tower and posting “No Swimming” signs all along the water’s edge. About which everybody complains….but with which everybody complies. Out of the water they come in twos, threes, fours-and-mores….heading for their blankets, their boom boxes, their lemonade (or whatever). After all, there are other things you can do on a California beach until the surf subsides. So why tempt fate?
Suddenly, however, the mellow mood subsides. Everybody turns toward the sea….first scanning….then screaming. The object of all this attention being a teenage girl 100 yards off shore….bobbing….weaving….surfacing….disappearing….frantically struggling (for balance…. air….life….whatever). Clearly, the girl is catching the crowd’s attention. And the crowd is catching the lifeguard’s attention (who has just re-ascended his tower, after posting his signs of warning).
So down the ladder he comes. Out to the water he runs. To the side of the girl he swims. Deftly reaching her in the nick of time, he corrals her limp and lifeless body, tows her to shore and administers cardio-pulmonary response. All the while the camera pans the crowd, the better to cinematically record the collective anxiety that can be seen on their faces and read on their lips:
“My God, is it going to work?”
“Did he reach her in time?”
“How did a day that started out so wonderful, go so wrong?”
“Does anybody know who she is?”
But it is going to work. And he does get there in time. The girl revives. A film crew arrives. And there is wonderful footage on the 6:00 news, including interviews with everybody but the lifeguard. The comments, considered collectively, are both perceptive and diverse. Some sing praises to the lifeguard for his heroic behavior. Some cast dispersions on the girl for her less-than-cautious approach to wind, waves and water. Some suggest that her plight should be an object lesson to others who play fast and loose with the rules. While others rededicate themselves, in the spirit of the afternoon’s rescue, to keeping a watchful eye on others who may be similarly sinking….at sea, or anywhere else for that matter. But all agree that they have been privy to something special….something very special, indeed.
That’s one script. But like I said, there are two. So let’s move quickly to the second. Same beach. Same Friday. Same crowd. Same lifeguard. Only this time, for cinematic variety, we start with the lifeguard walking up and down the beach, issuing verbal warnings and waving groups of swimmers out of the water. One girl challenges his authority to do so, telling him what a party pooper he is, given that this is the very last day of her very short vacation. To which he simply says: “Better luck next time. It’s just not safe.”
Another swimmer pauses to ask why he and his friends can’t just stay in the shallow part (so that the whole afternoon won’t be ruined). But all the lifeguard says is: “You can’t, because I said you can’t. So move it.” And when a third swimmer complains that she thought it was a free country, the word comes back from the lifeguard: “Not on my beach, it’s not.”
But all of this bickering is interrupted by the aforementioned shouting and screaming. The object being the teenage girl who is struggling and sinking. Up she comes. Under she goes. Head bobbing. Arms flailing.
Cut to the lifeguard. See him run. See him dive. See him swim. Harder and harder. Faster and faster. At last, he reaches her. Grabs for her. Has her. Loses her. Suddenly, it appears as if they are both in trouble. The same undertow that is sucking her under is sucking him under. In fact, we actually lose sight of him on our screen before we lose sight of her. Then she, too, disappears from our sight, never to return.
Now the music turns somber. The cinematographer shadows out the sun. And we see nothing on the screen but surging swales and circling seagulls. Then we cut back to the crowd on the beach, pausing, again, to look at the faces and listen to the voices.
“What’s happening?” cries one.
“I can’t see them,” cries another.
“Do you think they’ve both drowned?” cries a third.
“It’s terrible,” cries a fourth, even while adding: “How can God just stand by and let people die like that?”
But while the crowd is still murmuring (as crowds at such moments are wont to do), the camera pans back to the now-empty tower of the lifeguard, slowly moving from sand to seat. Up the ladder goes the lens, one rung at a time. And when it zooms in on the place where the lifeguard had been sitting (not all that many minutes ago), there is a close-up of a clipboard (on which is written):
“It’s o.k. Trust me. She is safe in my death.”
* * * * *
As theological consultants, it is our job to choose one script over another. But the sole criterion for choosing is not which script we like better, but which script more fittingly resonates with the New Testament, as it attempts to answer the critical question: “What, precisely, is it that God has done for the world in Jesus Christ?”
Now I am not going to break you into groups and have you discuss this among yourselves. And I am not going to embarrass you by asking for a public showing of hands. Besides, most of you already know the right answer (to whatever degree there might be a “right answer”). That’s because you have been preached to by good preachers. And that’s because you have studied under good teachers. So you know that the best answer is the second script, even though your heart is not with your head on this one. Because if you went to see this movie….about this lifeguard….on this beach….you’d want to see the first version and not the second. And then you’d want to stop for a Sanders hot fudge sundae on the way home (assuming you could still find anyplace that sold Sanders hot fudge sundaes anymore)….proving (once again) just how far away from home some of us have already come.
And it’s all right if you prefer the first ending. Because I prefer it too. I mean, it’s got a lot to like. It’s heroic. And it’s happy. Mission impossible becomes mission accomplished. What’s more, it’s more than mildly miraculous. And which of us does not want to believe in miracles? Truth be told, was a more honest word ever spoken about religious skepticism than the word, “Nobody believes in miracles until he….or she….desperately needs one.”
I mean, this first script will preach. And has. Over and over again. For it says wonderful things about Jesus (who is all things….and who can do all things). A storm-stilling Jesus. A tide-turning Jesus. A search-and-rescue Jesus. A miracle-working Jesus. In short, a sight-restoring, demon-exorcising, crowd-feeding, water-converting, dead-raising Jesus….who will go to no end on behalf of those who have sinned, slummed or swum too far…. even beyond the limits that the lifeguard said were safe, sane and secure. That’ll preach. Because I have preached it. And will preach it again.
And you can build a marvelous ecclesiology around it (“ecclesiology” meaning “a theology of the church”). You can preach that first script and close each sermon with the admonition:
Go thou and do likewise. Seek out everybody….but especially those who are going down for the count. Bring ‘em in. And if you can’t bring ‘em in, keep ‘em afloat. Feed ‘em. Clothe ‘em. Hold ‘em. House ‘em. Enroll ‘em in swim classes. Set up floating medical units, wherever the undertow is the greatest and the shore is farthest away. And have the ushers take up collections on the beach, gathering anything that might be useful….including dollars. That way, you will never have to say to the King: “When did we see you flailing in the water and not come to your aid?”
Ah yes, there are bits and pieces of the gospel in the first script. There are a ton of sermons in the first script. And there is enough work in the first script to keep the church busy every-which-way from Sunday….in addition to Sunday.
But the heart of the gospel is in the second ending. Which nobody preaches much at all. Because it’s less than happy. And less than heroic. What’s more, it doesn’t offer much of an action plan for the church. I mean, all it does is answer the question: “What has God done for the world in Christ (that the world, by the sum total of its own efforts, cannot do for itself)?”
Go back to the first script….the lifeguard-saves-her-in-the-nick-of-time script. Which is a good thing. And a happy thing. But not necessarily a lasting thing. Concerning it, we can’t say “all’s well that ends well”….because we have no guarantee that anything will really “end well.” I mean, the next day things go back to normal. The crowd goes home, forgetting its earlier resolve to swim safer….drive safer….live safer….or love safer, for that matter. And the lifeguard goes back to chatting up girls while trying to properly apply his sunscreen. And the girl doesn’t automatically live happily ever after, either. Sure, she is saved from death by drowning on a sunny Friday afternoon. But she is not necessarily saved from the future possibility of a failed romance….a dead-end marriage….men in bars, who say one thing, yet do another thing….not to mention migraines, muscle spasms, cramps, cancer, bad hair days….or, to clinch my point, from the absolute certainty of her own death on the Friday afternoon following her 81st birthday.
Even the miracles of Jesus don’t “fix things” finally. Not even a bevy of blind folks seeing, lame folks walking and crazy folks thinking, along with three dead bodies raised, two group feedings, and one spectacular production of 180 gallons of wine for wedding guests who are already three sheets gone to the wind….no, none of these things constitutes a program for fixing up history. Most of the blind of Jesus’ day remained blind. Whatever fixed 10 lepers had no positive effect on the other 10,000. Lazarus rose, only to die again. And 180 gallons later, one presumes that any wedding guests still standing were forced to turn to apple juice, coffee or skim milk.
But if you read the gospels carefully (especially the gospel of John), such miracles were never meant to be Jesus’ program for fixing up history….but merely “signs” of his program for fixing up history….which program (when it was finally revealed) turned out to be nothing less than Jesus dying in history and rising beyond it. Meaning that the same Jesus who cannot fix everything can, at least, fix the one thing that matters ultimately.
Which, too, will preach. Except nobody preaches it much….except on Good Friday….when nobody comes to listen. Which is also when (in the spirit of Christian neighborliness) we rotate the service from sanctuary to sanctuary, so that even if some of us have something to say, it’s only one year out of four that we get a chance to say it….and maybe, then, in the 2:30 time slot when everybody’s gone home.
So what is the Good Friday message? Well, what did the clipboard say?
“It’s o.k. Trust me. She is safe in my death.”
And what did Paul say?
For Jews demand signs and Greeks demand wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Last Wednesday morning (along about 7:00) I read to my study group these words from Peter Gomes:
The reason that the dying sometimes ask to see the cross before they die is to be reminded that Jesus has been where they are now and that, by his grace, they are about to go where he is. They know that death was as real to Jesus as it is to them. They know that he was not rescued in the nick of time. And they know that they will not be rescued in the nick of time, either. They know that when his hour came, he had to meet it….that there was no way out….and that what was true for him will soon be true for them. But they know that while there is no way out, there is a way through.
Hold thou the cross before my closing eyes,
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies,
Heaven’s morning breaks and earth’s vain shadows flee,
In life, in death, O Lord abide with me.
The other night….on the patio….along about 10:30….fountain splashing….candles flickering…. stars shining….plates and glasses empty….bellies full….hearts as one….Kris said: “It really doesn’t get much better than this.” And she was right, of course. For the time being.
Note: This sermon owes a tremendous debt to the creative suggestion of Robert Farrar Capon and his new book, The Foolishness of Preaching: Proclaiming the Gospel Against the Wisdom of the World. The quote from Peter Gomes is taken from his chapter on “The Bible and Suffering” which can be found in The Good Book.
