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Matthew 27:11-26 · Jesus Before Pilate
Crossing the Great Divide
Matthew 27:11-26
Sermon
by Michael J. Anton
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"It’s his fault. It’s her fault. It’s their fault." "It’s not my fault. The devil made me do it." Since the first bad trip in the Eden garden, humans have made it a regular practice to pass the buck. From the man who pointed to his questionable helpmate and said, "The woman you gave me, she made me eat that fruit," to the woman who could literally say, "the devil made me do it," to Herod who could make no decision but send Jesus back to Pilate, to Pilate who thought he could absolve himself by a little handwashing, to you and to me, we have become quite accustomed to passing the buck and shifting the burden of our responsibility to someone else.

Our society has not helped us here. While our social scientists have opened doors of understanding how our environment and background shape our behavior, somewhere in the muddle of circumstances we have decided that individuals are no longer responsible for their actions. We can lay our burdens at the establishment’s door or my cranky old man or the whole educational system. Finding a scapegoat for our responsibilities is easy.

We watch professional politicians at every level escaping and avoiding their responsibilities, in favor of currying the good graces of their constituents. And then blaming someone at another level if the county or the country goes haywire.

In the Church, a challenge constantly goads us, the challenge to become more responsible as citizens, parents and church members. We are daily fighting the image of the Christian Church as just a place to go, rather than a group of baptism-bonded, prayer-powered people who indeed come to worship, to pray and praise, and then reenter the day’s routines, refueled, reenergized to be the Church in God’s world.

We have all heard about the great gaps in our world. There are probably more names for these cleavages between people than there are gaps. The generation gap, the communication gap. These are real and should never be ignored. But there is a division, a gap, a great divide that goes deeper than any of these.

The great divide between people is not that imaginary, arbitrary line some have drawn between the establishment and the cop-outs, or between the over-30s and those under, or between the long hairs and the ex-Marines, or between Benny Goodman and the Jackson Five.

The great divide is the valley between irresponsibility and responsibility, between childishness and child-likeness, between passing the buck and accepting the burdens and the challenges of life.

Parents moan and groan, "My children confuse me. I don’t understand them." Children gasp a long sigh of concession to their previous thoughts that parents are out of it and will never be with it. Citizens never cease complaining about taxes and crazy spending, but their armchairs manage to stay warm and cozy. Church members don’t like what’s going on, but the pastor can’t hear them. The pastor gripes under his breath, and the church can’t hear him. Meanwhile, the great divide gets bigger and the wide valley gets harder to cross.

We can observe several characters from our Lord’s Passion who failed to make it across the big valley.

For Simon Peter, being a disciple of Jesus was a good deal as long as Jesus was around to protect him, but on his own, it was more expedient to be a nobody who knew "nuttin’."

King Herod could settle only for a vacuum in his conscience, unable to make the only responsible decision he could make.

Judas, of course, just couldn’t stand in Jesus’ way of being a martyr even though Judas knew legally Jesus had nothing to die for.

And Pontius Pilate is our prime model for the man who looked long and hard into the valley but decided against getting his hands dirty - or rather bloody. But Pilate took a further step. He thought he could just skip over the valley altogether with one small leap of washing his hands before the roaring crowd.

But crossing the great divide is not a matter of physical skill or mechanical tricks, nor can we dream our conscience across. There is only one route - to go through the valley.

The valley is the harder way, the darker way. At times it is the valley of the shadow of death. It is also the way of the cross. It is the way for the followers of Jesus because it is the way of Jesus.

What is it about Jesus that makes him the Savior to be trusted and adored and followed, but the fact that he above all men was the obedient son of his Father? The son of sons who kept his face turned toward his destiny in Jerusalem.

The son who would not cater to the disciples’ whim for vengeance on the Samaritan village that would not give Jesus the time of day. The son who quickly restored the ear of the soldier attacked foolishly by Simon Peter. The son who came to another garden where the devil did not win this time. The son who wrestled with his destiny to the point of sweating blood, but who went faithfully up that hill on Friday. The son who stumbled under the load of the cross but bore up under the nails and spear. The son who cried out in deep agony of bitter thirst but asked his Father to forgive those misguided minds who had hung him there.

The man who fulfilled his mission to its bittersweet conclusion.

Out of this wish-washy, belly-aching 20th century, Jesus is calling you and me to follow him through the valley. To pick up the cross and carry it faithfully and obediently.

If we are parents and children in conflict, to declare a cease-fire on charges and countercharges about the root cause of every crime in society, and to begin honestly examining ourselves and shouldering our own share of the blame for misunderstanding. To stop passing the buck and start facing up to the need for our own maturity, our own responsibility.

If we are citizens worn-out and weary by our long laments over the warts and sores on our country’s skin, to recognize the need for action, responsible action.

As members of the Christian Church, baptized into the discipleship of Jesus, to recall these words and keep them in mind: "If it is easy for you to follow Jesus, you should stop and examine your faith and see if your actions are reflections of Jesus’ call to you."

Jesus is calling us to move behind him through the valley, walking in his tracks. To become childlike instead of childish, to become responsible instead of irresponsible. And what Jesus asks of us, he provides the strength and power to fulfil. What Jesus demands of us, he gives us the resources to achieve.

He has given us another washing in our Baptism to cleanse us of all our Pilate tricks. He continues to share with us the body and blood that refresh and pick us up to keep moving through the valley. He calls us to pray freely and often, promising his presence, his power and his peace. In this case foresight is so much better than hindsight. For on the other side of the valley is the fulfilling life, the joyful life. In fact, that life begins in the valley. And Jesus is the bridge across the great divide. Amen.

CSS Publishing Co., Inc., Snoring Through Sermons, by Michael J. Anton