Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Psalm 51:1-13, 17
1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. 5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. 6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
It seems to be an excellent opportunity. One of the most famous movie stars in the world, on national and, I’m sure, international television interview shows, saying, “the fact of the matter is, that it wasn’t the Jews or the Romans who killed Jesus. Jesus died because of ME, Jesus died because I killed him” and to make the point (no pun intended), though he does not appear in the movie, there is one critical place in which PART of him DOES appear: it is Mel Gibson’s hand that holds the nail that pierces Jesus’ hand when he is nailed to the cross.
The message in that statement and subsequently, in that scene, whether you’ve seen the movie or not, is simple to those of us who, like Mr. Gibson, and like King David, in the text we’ve just read as a congregation, find ourselves realizing just how guilty we really and truly are. Guilty of sins as dark and bloody as those of the chief priests and Caiaphas, and Judas, and King Herod, and Pontius Pilate. Our sin is as heartbreaking as that of Peter, and Judas, and Paul, and James and John, and all the other apostles, and as most surely damning as that of Hitler, or Mussolini, or Pol Pot, or Stalin.
Our sin may not be as obvious as theirs, but it is just as effective, in the end.
That is the message Mr. Gibson is trying to convey. At least I hope he is.
While I am generally trusting, and quick to take people at face value, in dealing with anything coming out of Hollywood, I’m beginning to be less inclined to let things go at that. There is always this tiny little whisper in the back of my head saying “yeah, it’s all good, but it is HOLLYWOOD, after all. And when all is said and done, it is just a movie.”
Let me backtrack a little. Not really, but let me explain that statement. What I am trying to say is this: in going to see a movie, there is usually what is considered an unspoken agreement between the movie maker and the audience member. It’s a three-word term: the Suspension of Disbelief. In other words, the filmmaker is saying “give me money, and I’ll entertain/enlighten/challenge/enrage you by what you are going to see onscreen for the next hour and a half to 2 hours.” You, as a member of the audience, tacitly agree that, during that time period, you will ignore the fact that, if it is a staged movie, every single thing you see on the screen is fake.
That doesn’t take away from the effectiveness of the message of the movie, in fact, that is the premise on which a movie’s effectiveness is BASED. That is what makes movies such a powerful medium in our culture. We understand that movies are a depiction of events, and to the degree that the intent of the filmmaker was attempting to be true to life, the reliving of the experience through the viewing of the movie brings about the same reaction that viewing the actual experience would.
Now, back to the issue: Mel Gibson, and, and I hope, each of us here in this sanctuary today is aware of how his or her own sin put Christ on the Cross.
I don’t think I need to emphasize that much beyond the simple statement of the fact. When we as followers of Christ say ‘Christ died for our sins’ we are saying this:
God loves humanity.
Humanity broke that relationship.
God made it possible for that relationship to be reestablished through faith in Christ, and acceptance of him as a sacrifice in our place.
What that last statement means is this: the consequence of sin is death. Death of the self that God intended us to become, death of the relationships that God intended us to have, death of the good that God intended us to have done in this world. What sin does is, it puts itself above all else. Whatever that sin is, IT becomes, maybe not always, but it doesn’t have to be always … in fact, the most dangerous sins are those that only occasionally rear their head … we are fooled into thinking we are less guilty if we’ve only committed a sin once or twice, right? As a matter of fact, it’s not really a sin if we only thought it, but didn’t act on it … or is it? I suggest you take a few minutes to read Matthew 5:21-28, where Jesus talks about murder and anger and adultery. So the wages of sin is death. We’ve heard that, if you’ve been raised in church, all our lives. That death is graphically portrayed in the movie. A physical representation of the spiritual reality that is far more lethal.
The only one who truly KNOWS our hearts is God. As we have read, in the midst of his crying out to God, in what must have been heart-rending sobs, David begs, “10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.” King David was aware that his sin, in this case, the adultery committed with Bathsheba, put him out of fellowship with God, as well as those around him.
His cry to God is for reconciliation, for a renewed relationship. In the text I read from the New Revised Standard version, verse 5 of Psalm 51 highlights just how far from God David felt he was – so far that he couldn’t imagine ever having been sinless “born guilty” – in our responsive reading, it goes further, “I was a sinner when my mother conceived me.” Have you ever felt so low, so distant from God, so unworthy, that you thought that?
What we are confronted with is the mystery of the Gospel: Paul speaks of it in Romans, chapter 5, verse 8:
But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
Christ, in taking our place in death, is making it possible for us to renew a relationship that was once there but has been torn apart. During this season of Lent, and as we approach Holy Week, let us always keep in mind that what Christ suffered in the body, we will suffer in the spirit, unless we accept the life he offers.
It is, after all, life that Christ offers. That was the main problem I had with the movie. The reason Christ came to earth was not ONLY to die in our place, but to teach us, by word and example, what it means to be fully in that relationship with God. To put numbers to it: 289,080 hours in 33 years. Taking the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life – or .00004153 of the full lifespan, is to miss a lot of the rest of his life. That doesn’t mean that those last 12 hours were pivotal, or of utmost importance, but we cannot take just those 12 hours and assume that that was all Christ came for. We can’t lose site of what came before and I feel, what came after. He came that we might have LIFE, and that, more abundantly.
What does all this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
Brian McLaren, Pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Maryland outside of Washington DC, wrote a review, not of the movie, but of the buildup that preceded the opening. Specifically, about that … marketing, for lack of a better term, that was aimed at evangelicals.
“The music,” He starts off by saying, “was appropriately dramatic: bass strings, heavy and resonant, with a mezzo-forte attack and building to fortissimo from there. Then, against a stark black background, a promotional slogan appeared in bold white capitals. It grew, filling the screen's full width: PERHAPS THE BEST OUTREACH OPPORTUNITY IN 2,000 YEARS.”
He goes on to explain that he winced at the slogan, and explains that it defines a frontier between two worlds.
“In one world, modern American Christians can be trusted to bounce and bound like golden retrievers from one silver-bullet "outreach opportunity" to the next—seeking single source shortcuts to complete our mission, which we hope to finish as soon as possible, I guess so we can all get to heaven so the world and its troubles are left behind™. Maybe it's a boxed set of books and videos, mass rallies, radio/TV/satellites, the Internet, PowerPoint, or seeker services. Or else it's adult contemporary praise music, electing Republicans, or a new booklet or tract. Maybe it's candles! Or a new model (take your pick from traditional-modern, contemporary-modern, or postmodern-modern) for "doing church." Or a new film.
In the other world—which many of us are calling the emerging culture (post-Enlightenment, post-Christendom, post-colonial, etc.)—we are watched with amusement, pity, cynicism. There they go again, emerging culture people say about us, unimpressed.
…
Emerging culture people are, no doubt, as sensitive as anyone else to dramatic, multisensory, rational-plus-emotional presentations. Special effects can impress them. But they're also suspicious of the whole business. They're looking for something that can't be "produced" but which can only be created: Authenticity. Reality. Honesty. Fruit.
That last word, of course, has special resonances to the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. Think of the difference between produce (like fruit) and products (like films, radio broadcasts, boxed programs, etc.). Think of something that must be the organic outgrowth of genuine health and vitality versus something that can be produced with money and technical savvy.
Jesus didn't say it was by our clever outlines, memorable mnemonics, snazzy programs, and special effects that we would be known as his disciples, or that he would be known as sent from God. Rather, he said, it was by our love that we and he would be known, and by our fruit: our good works that shine in darkness and inspire all to glorify God.
No doubt, Mel G's film will be powerful and will help many—millions, I hope—for it is a sincere labor of love about the ultimate labor of love. But it's not the greatest outreach opportunity in 2,000 years, at least, not for the emerging culture. I'll tell you what is.
Actually, I won't, because there isn't one thing. Rather, there are uncountable great outreach opportunities. For example, there are millions of people, precious to God, dying of AIDs. And their orphans too. Do you want the emerging culture to sit up and take notice? Don't show them another movie, however great it is. Show them Christians around the world (starting with those who have been given the most: us) who care and give and love and move to serve.
There are millions of poor Muslims who see the West as decadent, strident, arrogant, selfish, careless, and pugilistic, and of course, they are right. Can you see how offering them a fine movie could just make things worse? Instead, why don't we show them some Christians (in the West but not of it) who are honest, upright, peacemakers, compassionate, humble, and generous?
Our world is torn by ethnic, class, and religious hatred. Don't show the emerging culture a movie about Jesus: show them a movement of people living like Jesus—people who like him love the different, even the enemy, whose doors are open and tables are set with welcome.”
Let’s pray.
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