St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, November 22, 2009

Jesus on Trial – Rev. David Mundy

Revelation 1:4b-8 John 18:33-37

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Have any of you been called for jury duty? I don’t mean this week – have you ever through the years been asked to serve on a jury?

I was, probably twenty-five years ago, right around this time of the year. I got the notice in the mail telling me to be at the courthouse on a certain day and a specific time to be part of the “cattle call” of a courtroom full of prospective jurors. It turned out that the defendant didn’t show up when he was supposed to, so the judge advised us to go away for an hour his lawyer scared him up. When we came back, he hadn’t arrived, so the judge apologized to us for wasting our time and sent us on our way. So much for jury duty.

I have been involved with those who were at the receiving end of a conviction by a judge and jury. During a four-month period when I was a student for the ministry I worked as a chaplain intern in the maximum security Kingston Penitentiary.

In our orientation the chaplain warned us that we shouldn’t ask inmates what they had been convicted for – it was bad prison etiquette apparently – but he let us know that some of them would volunteer the information. He also let us know that a fair number of them would insist that they had been wrongfully convicted, that they were in jail for something they hadn’t done.

This turned out to be absolutely correct. Some guys were refreshing in their honesty about their crimes. One told me that he had been convicted for something he hadn’t done, but since he was doing something worse at the time he decided to go with the lesser sentence! Others were obviously in denial. They had committed terrible acts including taking another human life so they had created scenarios in which they were not guilty.

Of course there are people in our country who have been convicted of crimes they haven’t committed and eventually the truth is revealed. Earlier this Fall Nova Scotia’s Donald Marshall died after a lengthy illness. You might remember that Marshall spent years in jail for a murder he didn’t do, but eventually he was exonerated and released and compensated. In a country such as ours we anticipate that despite the flaws in our judicial system it eventually works and one of the arguments against capital punishment is that if a mistake is made, it will come to light.

This morning we listened to a portion of what is often called the trial of a man who was wrongfully convicted. It wasn’t a trial in the way we might imagine. The prisoner in the dock was a Jewish peasant by the name of Jesus, who lived in a remote province of the Roman empire. The judge and jury were the Roman Procurator whose name was Pontius Pilate.

This was actually the second trial Jesus had undergone in the matter of a few hours, both of which are recorded in this same chapter of John’s gospel. The night before Jesus and his disciples had bunked out under some olive trees in an orchard called Gethsemane. Jesus could have shaken his slumbering followers awake and said “Come on boys, let’s get out of town while the going’s good.” Instead he kept a solitary vigil until the temple police arrived to arrest him and take him before a hastily gathered court of religious leaders called the Sanhedrin. This trial is filled with controversy because it portrays these leaders in such a bad light as they accuse and abuse Jesus. It is anything but a fair trial in the way it is written and as a result Christians have persecuted Jews because of their alleged role as Christ killers. It’s been pointed out that no one holds Italians responsible today for the death of Jesus even though it was the Italian Pilate who passed sentence.

Of course, by contrast Pilate comes across as almost fair, or at least indifferent as he passes judgement on Jesus. In the end he appears to allow a gathered crowd to decide Jesus’ fate rather than do so himself. This flies in the face of the historical record about Pilate who was a ruthless and violent man who would stop at nothing to protect his power and that of the Roman Empire. If Jesus was brought to him as a revolutionary or an insurgent, as we like to say today there isn’t much question that he would put him to death and it was on Pilate’s orders that Jesus was humiliated and tortured and hung on a cross to die slowly. Yet he may have been perplexed or bemused by this strange peasant who refused to plead for his life or defend his cause. “Are you a king?” Pilate wants to know. ``What do you think?``Jesus responds.

In the end Jesus was convicted twice, once for blasphemy and once for treason. In a way Jesus was a dangerous guy, but not for the reasons that brought him to trial. Both the religious and secular powers misunderstood his message and his mission and from that perspective he was wrongfully convicted on both counts.

This is a worthwhile passage to hear on this Sunday called the Reign of Christ or Christ the King.

Although we live roughly two thousand years after these events took place, Jesus continues to be on trial in the court of public opinion. We live in a time when we no longer treat Jesus with the “hands off” reverence which might hold us back from asking the challenging questions about his identity. In a generation or two we have learned how to cross-examine Jesus in every aspect of his life and work.

Now, there are people who want to argue that Jesus may never have existed as a living, breathing human being, that he was an invention of the early Christian community. It is a contention that seems downright bizarre given the amount of historical evidence but that doesn’t seem to matter anymore. In fact the more controversial the contention the better these days when we seem to enjoy sensational exposes rather than the weight of tradition. As someone who tries to read the fair and balanced scholarly work on Jesus from a number of different perspectives I find it maddening at times that our culture is so quick to follow every passing trend or fad. It has been pointed out, repeatedly that there is as much or more historical evidence for Jesus as there is for Alexander the Great, yet this nonsense persists.

While in liberal churches such as our United Church we certainly don’t deny Jesus’ existence we demonstrated a certain wariness about him, because we work so hard to be what we think is fair and reasonable, offering every angle and aspect of who Jesus might be until we really don`t come to any conclusions at all. It’s possible to come to church, to be involved in the life of the community in many ways, and somehow skirt around coming to a verdict about who Jesus is for our lives.

Earlier this month the person who will apparently be our king one day came to Canada. What was the public reaction? Was it large and adoring crowds? Well, dignitaries and politicians showed up, along with journalists and some diehard royal-watchers. It appears

Perhaps if Prince Charles and Camilla had showed up at our door and asked for a cup of tea we would have been polite Canadians and invited them in. But for the most part we watched the news for a few days and thought, “Oh, are they still here?” The monarchy in general and specifically Charles, the king-in waiting, just don’t have much traction in our lives.

God help us if we get to the place where we make the right noises at certain times in our worship and community life but are, for all intents and purposes, a Jesus-optional church. I hope and pray that we aren’t there now.

This Sunday, Reign of Christ Sunday, can be a call to jury duty for all of us, to listen carefully and to ask the hard questions which are necessary for the life in faith. If we allow Jesus to stand before us this morning, on trial once again, what are our conclusions or convictions?

As you know, there are several definitions for the word “conviction.” Here are two:

A final judgment of guilty in a criminal case and the punishment that is imposed.

An unshakable belief in something (or someone)

Today we can ask two important questions, The first; does Jesus matter enough in our lives to actually gather all the evidence and come to a verdict that will be life-changing?

I have already intimated to you that neither the religious and secular leaders understood Jesus and his mission, yet they did get it right that Jesus was trouble, that following him was a seditious, life-altering and world-changing act. He never sought attention but he got it because knew that in him and through him the world wouldn’t be the same and for the first believers, God was revealed. We owe it to Jesus to figure out what he means to us and whether he is worth following.

The second; is there enough evidence to convict any of us of being a follower of Jesus? Remember that between the first trial and the second some people noticed that one of the disciples was hanging around in the outer courtyard of the high priest’s home. Peter had already promised to be faithful to Jesus as they ate their last meal together, and when his master was arrested he tried to fight off the soldiers until Jesus stopped him. But in the courtyard he lost his nerve because of a simple question “you are not also one of this man’s disciples are you?” His answer was essentially, “I don’t know him.” Only later did Peter find the courage to live faithfully as a follower of Jesus, the Christ. What would our answer be under pressure?

It may seem odd to suggest to you that it is Good News to be guilty of something, but surely we need to be guilty of being Christ’s followers. Imagine the jury deliberating at our trial and the foreperson standing up to say that on the basis of the evidence that show we have lived a life of humble allegiance to Christ which was demonstrated through our compassion, our commitment to justice, the setting of our priorities – including financial – we are guilty as charged. Or that the same jury decides to acquit us on the grounds of indifference.

What will it be for you? Is Jesus your Alpha and Omega, your Beginning and End? In our other reading today we heard:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood . . .

Amen!