Sermon: A Prayer with Skin November 10, 2019

Jesus’s message, boiled down to one sentence would be: “the Kingdom of God is here, change your mind, and embody the good news.”

Yet, that being said, so much of popular Christianity says the central call is not the Kingdom coming on earth, but you and me getting into heaven and avoiding hell.

Such believers use the gospel reading today to say, “See, Jesus believes in the resurrection of the dead for only certain people, “those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead.” Therefore, that must mean that some will not be considered worthy.

The followers of John Calvin, like the puritans, made a lot of this, saying that Jesus did not die for everyone, but only for those who had been elected, that is, chosen, by God. They created a doctrine they proudly called, Limited Atonement. This also means that those who don’t get chosen by God for heaven will rightfully suffer eternal conscious torment at the hands of God in hell.

This doctrine of Limited Atonement has a number of psychological effects: obviously, it makes people fearful of not being chosen for heaven and ending up in eternal torment. And it makes folks eager to prove to their neighbors that they are part of the chosen few, in case the church starts tormenting them in advance, something the Church is often good at doing.

So, spiritual hypocrisy is elevated to an art form. Religious people learn early in life to appear to be righteous in public, and to keep our real selves hidden. I knew churchgoers in the South who would only do their liquor shopping in stores miles away from the eyes of their judgmental friends.

Or when we lived a few years in Knoxville, my mother would say: “the conservative churches will keep voting this county dry as long as they can stagger to the polls.”

But we progressives also know how to keep our real selves hidden: I know folks who pray before every meal, but wouldn’t dream of doing so in a restaurant.

I have said many times that an image of God as capricious and violent lurks behind the Doctrine of Limited Atonement and this image bears little relationship to the God we see manifested in Jesus.

Karl Barth, one of the towering theologians of the last 500 years, though he came out of the Reformed Tradition that produced the Doctrine of Limited Atonement, solves the problem Biblically. He says God elects only one person: Jesus Christ. And through Christ, the whole human race is elected, for Christ dies for all and lives for all.

So if the Kingdom to Come includes everyone who wants to be there, what will it be like? We have an interesting detail in the gospel this morning.

I want to look at this strange statement that men and women will not marry or have children in the age to come, the age of resurrection, that is, in the embodied resurrected life after life after death.

What are we to make of this?

First, I’m guessing the women in the room are grateful that no woman in the life to come will have to submit to being married to seven brothers!  

Secondly, however, if Jesus is correct, and I know no one better to rely on for such information, it means in the New Creation women are not an appendage to their husbands and subject to male domination. In the New Creation, there is the end of Patriarchy: of male domination and female subjection. Women will be equal and free.

Now, if this is how life will be when the Kingdom  comes in its fullness, then Jesus says we are to pray for this Kingdom to come on earth now. To seek now what we know God wills for then.

Therefore, it makes sense for the church now to be involved in the liberation of women from the oppression of patriarchy.  

When Paul says, “in Christ there is neither Male nor Female”, he doesn’t mean the sexes don’t exist in Christ, for Paul knows that in Genesis full humanity includes female and male. It reads, “God created human being in God’s own image, male and female God created them.”

Rather, Jesus in his ministry moves a patriarchal culture toward the Realm of God where all are equal children of God. Jesus is supported by women, has women sit at his feet like the male disciples to listen to his teaching; and the first apostle sent to bear witness to the resurrection is Mary Magdalene.

To live now as we know life will be in the New Creation is to embody the prayer, “Thy Kingdom of come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

If you want to see an historical example of the power of Christ bringing the Kingdom of God on earth, I encourage you, I urge you, to see the recently released movie, “Harriet”, playing at the Showcase Cinema in Lowell. It is about the early life of Harriet Tubman. In 1849 she is a 27 years old, five-feet tall, illiterate slave who walks by herself a hundred miles from slavery to freedom, that is, from Maryland to Philadelphia. Then, she returns many times and ends up freeing 70 slaves.  

As she says: “I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”

Later, as an armed scout  she leads union soldiers in South Carolina to free 700 more. She dies at the age of 91 in Auburn, NY.

To Hollywood’s credit, the movie doesn’t hide the heart of her motivation and strength: She says: “Twasn’t me, ’twas the Lord! I always told Him, ‘I trust to you. I don’t know where to go or what to do, but I expect You to lead me,’ an’ He always did.”

Harriet falls into mystical trances and receives direction and courage from the Living God.

In slave owners we see the horror of white-privilege-Christianity.

In Harriet we see the glory of Kingdom of God faithfulness. She says: “The Lord who told me to take care of my people meant me to do it just as long as I live, and so I did what he told me.

As I sit in the theatre holding back tears, mortal mind keeps thinking: “this is impossible, this can’t happen”, and yet it does happen through Harriet Tubman.

And it keeps happening, because Christ means to keep rescuing all God’s children from injustice and oppression through those willing to put flesh on their prayer: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.”