Why Did Jesus Die? (A Short Reflection for Holy Week)

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?”
Mark 8:34-37

The most common (most frequent and crudest) explanation of Jesus' death on the cross is that God sent him to die for our sins. Someone had to pay for the sins of humanity. Jesus suffered so that I didn't have to. He was perfectly sinless and it was a perfect sacrifice.

That is a caricature of what is called the theory of "substitutionary atonement." I have deliberately used the caricature to make a larger point. In spite of the fact that it's the theology I grew up with, and it's still the most common theological understanding of Good Friday, I am convinced it is wrong. It is wrong biblically, historically, morally, and theologically.

On Good Friday, Jesus was tried, and convicted, and tortured, and killed. It was a triumph for the powers of darkness, and there was nothing good about that Friday. Or so it seemed. 

But in his death he exposed the moral bankruptcy of the Empire and the shallow religiosity of the chief priests and elders who collaborated with the oppressors. Good Friday is the story of a collision between the goodness of God in Jesus, and the evil of a violent empire.

Before we go any further, we need to clear up two major misunderstandings:

• The Jews did not kill Jesus; the Romans did.
• He was not executed for blasphemy; he was executed for treason.

The Jews did not kill Jesus. We know this as an absolute fact because they did not have the authority to carry out capital punishment. We also know this because if he had been sentenced to death by a Jewish court, he would have been stoned to death. The Romans were the only ones with the authority to kill him, and they did.

We know that the Romans executed Jesus for sedition because they crucified him. Crucifixion was a death reserved for those who committed treason against the empire. It was a form of state terrorism designed to torture its victims and terrify the populace. The Romans did it often so that the people were kept constantly aware of the consequences of defying the empire.

So why did Jesus die? And what does it mean?

I don’t believe that God sent Jesus to die. I don’t believe that it was God’s plan.

That’s partly because I think that speaking of God’s plan is too anthropomorphic. It imagines God as some sort of supernatural version of a human being. But it’s also morally suspect. It suggests that somehow God was sending Jesus on a suicide mission.

In the passage from Mark’s Gospel, as in Matthew and Luke, Jesus says that those who want to follow him need to “deny themselves and take up their cross.” He is not carrying the cross in their place. He is not inviting them to watch him die. He is inviting them to do what he is doing. And remarkably, they did.

Luckily for us, being a follower of Jesus is not as dangerous for us as it was for those first disciples. We are not living with Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany. We are not living in a part of the world where Christians are persecuted. 

If we take up the cross at all, we do it symbolically. And safely. That is mostly because we live in the United States of America, but it is at least partly because we are not as faithful in proclaiming the Gospel as an alternative vision of how the world should be. 

Jesus died because he was completely faithful to God and his faithfulness collided with the sinfulness of humanity in the form of the Roman Empire. 

He died because he proclaimed the Kingdom of God as a radically different vision of how the world could be. Against the normalcy of violence, he proclaimed nonviolence. Against the normalcy of self-interest, he proclaimed self-sacrifice. 

The commandment to love our enemies is about as subversive of what passes for normal as anything could possibly be. And two thousand years later, even those of us who claim to be his followers have a very hard time even imagining what that path looks like, let alone following it.

When he invited his followers to take up the cross, he invited them to follow the path of self-sacrificial love. And he promised that the way of self-sacrifice is also the way that leads to life.

The Cost of Our Unfaithfulness

Rev. Benjamin Hutchison, former Pastor of Cassopolis United Methodist Church

 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!”
Matthew 23:23-24

In 1937, when he has deeply engaged in leading the Confessing Church in its opposition to Hitler, the great German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book called “Nachfolge,” which means following. After the war, the book was published in English as, “The Cost of Discipleship.” Bonhoeffer declared that, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

By contrast, an analysis of the current experience of Christians in the United States might be called, “The Cost of Unfaithfulness.” And our unfaithfulness is costing us dearly.

Over the several decades that the church has debated the inclusion or exclusion of our LGBTQ sisters and brothers, many have decried the lack of civil discourse. In the midst of heated debate there is always someone who takes the floor to remind everyone in pious tones that there is pain and hurt on both sides of this issue.

It is, of course, a false equivalency. The pain of being excluded is not the same as the pain of feeling that the power to exclude will be taken away. No matter how hard it might be for the traditionalists to feel like they are being demeaned for their beliefs, it is not the same as actually being demeaned for who you are.

The traditionalists are not being victimized. But the whole church is paying for the conflict.

In Jesus’ colorful language, we are straining out gnats and swallowing camels and there is a price to be paid for our unfaithfulness. The cost is borne most directly and painfully by those we have excluded, but it is also borne by the church as a whole.

Someone once said that all publicity is good publicity. It isn’t. In the current debate, the “Christians” are almost always identified as those opposing equality. Christianity is identified with discrimination and bigotry.

The latest example comes to us courtesy of my beloved United Methodist Church and the treatment of a congregation and pastor in Michigan.

This past Monday night, Rev. Benjamin Hutchison was forced to resign as the pastor of the Cassopolis United Methodist Church after he admitted to his District Superintendent that he had a same sex partner.

As far as we know, Hutchison was a good pastor. In the three years that he served the Cassopolis church, he dramatically increased the membership. A parishioner said that the membership had quadrupled. And they had become financially stable.

The local church was well aware of Hutchison’s sexual orientation. Bill Loux, a member of the congregation, told a local television reporter that initially he was surprised and upset to find out that his new young pastor was gay. “At first,” said Loux, “it was kind of shocking to us, like, ‘Oh my gosh, we got some gay dude in here.’ But we immediately learned to love this guy, he’s crazy good.”

Loux went on to say, “He's just done a wonderful thing here, and for the Methodist Church to treat him this way is totally unacceptable to our church and everybody in this community.” Loux said that Hutchison’s sexual orientation was not a problem for the congregation. “Even though he's gay, he's part of our family, my family, the church family,” said Loux.

According to the United Methodist Book of Discipline, the District Superintendent and the Bishop did the right thing. They followed the rules. 

Sometime, as Jesus explained to his critics, the rules are wrong. Sometime, love and the Gospel demand something more than following the rules. 

Maybe there is something more to it. Maybe the Bishop and the District Superintendent in Michigan had some compelling and confidential reason for doing what they did. But it doesn’t look that way. 

Looking at this latest case through the lens of public opinion, it looks bad because it is bad. Sometimes faithfulness to rules means unfaithfulness to the Gospel. The traditionalists insist that there must be consequences for not following the rules. 

There are also consequences for not following the Gospel.

Bree Newsome's Act of Faithful Obedience

The LORD is my light and my salvation; 
whom shall I fear? 
The LORD is the stronghold of my life; 
of whom shall I be afraid?
When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh— 
my adversaries and foes—
 they shall stumble and fall.
Though an army encamp against me, 
my heart shall not fear;
though war rise up against me,
 yet I will be confident.
One thing I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after:
 to live in the house of the LORD 
all the days of my life, 
to behold the beauty of the LORD, 
and to inquire in his temple.
For he will hide me in his shelter 
in the day of trouble; 
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; 
he will set me high on a rock.
Psalm 27:1-5

On Saturday morning Bree Newsome, an African American activist and film maker, climbed the flag pole at the South Carolina State Capitol and took down the Confederate flag.

It was a bold act of civil disobedience for which she was promptly and peacefully arrested. She was taken to jail, charged with defacing a monument, and the Confederate flag was raised again. The whole event took just minutes. There were no large crowds, and absent the pictures on social media it would have passed unnoticed.

This morning I saw the video for the first time.

As she takes down the flag you can hear the guards shouting for her to stop and telling her that she will be arrested. She cheerfully assures them that she is prepared to be arrested, and then she shouts to them, “You come against me in hatred and oppression and violence. I come against you in the name of God.”

As she climbs down the pole she recites the 27th Psalm:

The LORD is my light and my salvation; 
whom shall I fear? 
The LORD is the stronghold of my life; 
of whom shall I be afraid?

Finally, as they lead her away in handcuffs you can hear her reciting the 23rd Psalm.

The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me beside still waters;
He restoreth my soul . . .

I have a confession. I am not comfortable with civil disobedience. Even when it is completely non-violent and respectful of people and property, it makes me uneasy.

Intellectually, I love it. I am completely at home with Henry David Thoreau’s essay. I celebrate the civil disobedience of Gandhi and King. But my intellectual affirmation is not matched by my emotions.

Of course, civil disobedience is supposed to make us uncomfortable. That is part of the strategy. But I confess it troubles me that I am uncomfortable. 

When I was at Wesleyan I was part of a small group that briefly occupied an office to protest campus recruitment by Dow Chemical, which was making napalm for the war in Vietnam. But that was then, and this is now. 

I am older now and in some ways I am wiser. But I am also more cautious. More respectful of order and authority. And I am not sure that is a good thing. At some point we need to be more committed to the Gospel than we are to being orderly and polite.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.”

The Abortion Ministry of Dr. Willie Parker

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.
Matthew 23:1-4

There is no moral dilemma which makes me more uncomfortable than the question of abortion. The Arab-Israeli conflict is a close second, but abortion is number one. And it has been number one for a long time.

I have supported a woman’s right to choose since before Roe v. Wade. I don’t believe that abortion is ever a “good” choice. It is always tragic. We need better sex education and we need free access to contraception as part of universal health care, but when that fails, then I believe the decision should belong to the woman involved. I hope she consults with her partner and with a trusted counselor, but in the end it is her body and it should be up to her.

I believe that abortion should be safe and legal and rare. That last part has to be clarified. I believe that we should provide contraception and sex education so that women rarely face the dilemma of an unwanted pregnancy. There are plenty of people trying to make abortion rare by making it unavailable. By instituting burdensome (and medically unnecessary) regulations at the state level, anti-abortion advocates have shut down clinics so that abortion is already virtually illegal in ten states.

One of those states is Mississippi. And if the anti-abortion advocates are successful, they will soon shut down the last remaining clinic in the state. An article in esquire.com by John H. Richardson profiles one of two physicians who continue to provide abortion services in Mississippi. What caught my attention was the title, THE ABORTION MINISTRY OF DR. WILLIE PARKER. For Dr. Parker, this is not a job, it is a Christian ministry.

Richardson describes a varied and divrse small group of women who are listening to Dr. Parker as he goes over the procedure and answers their questions. Most of them only know that he is willing to help them in a time of desperate need. He writes:

They don't know that he grew up a few hours away in Birmingham, the second youngest son of a single mother who raised six children on food stamps and welfare, so poor that he taught himself to read by a kerosene lamp and went to the bathroom in an outhouse; that he was born again in his teenage years and did a stint as a boy preacher in Baptist churches; that he became the first black student-body president of a mostly white high school, went on to Harvard and a distinguished career as a college professor and obstetrician who delivered thousands of babies and refused to do abortions. They certainly don't know about the "come to Jesus" moment, as he pointedly describes it, when he decided to give up his fancy career to become an abortion provider.

Parker spends a lot of time talking to them. He knows that many of them feel shamed and condemned by those who can only see black and white, and cannot see the gray area where they find themselves. “There's more than one way to understand religion and spirituality and God,” he tells them. “I do have belief in God. That's why I do this work. My belief in God tells me that the most important thing you can do for another human being is help them in their time of need."

Richardson describes the process that led Parker to become an abortion provider:

. . . gradually, the steady stream of women with reproductive issues in his practice focused his mind. He thought about his mother and sisters and the grandmother who died in childbirth and began to read widely in the literature of civil rights and feminism. Eventually he came across the concept of "reproductive justice," developed by black feminists who argued that the best way to raise women out of poverty is to give them control of their reproductive decisions. Finally, he had his "come to Jesus" moment and the bell rang. This would be his civil-rights struggle. He would serve women in their darkest moment of need. "The protesters say they're opposed to abortion because they're Christian," Parker says. "It's hard for them to accept that I do abortions because I'm a Christian." He gave up obstetrics to become a full-time abortionist on the day, five years ago, that George Tiller was murdered in church.

Richardson describes how, after meeting with the women in a group, Parker consults with each one separately. One patient is still in High School. Her mother is with her. He asks the mom to leave for a moment so that he can speak with the young woman privately. He wants to make sure that her mother is not the one pushing her to have an abortion. “Is this your idea to have an abortion?” he asks her. “Do you feel comfortable with your decision?”

Parker believes that the birth rate among teenage girls could be dramatically reduced by making contraception more easily available “without shame.” It’s not just the young women who have abortions who are shamed by the people Parker calls “the Antis,” the shaming is also directed at those who use contraception. "So it seems like if they want to reduce abortion,” says Parker, “the best thing to do would be to support contraception—but they're against contraception, too, because contraception and abortion decouple sexuality from procreation. That's why I think religious preoccupation with abortion is largely about controlling the sexuality of women."

Parker’s faith quest led him to study the work of Paul Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as Martin Luther King. He was particularly moved by Bonhoeffer’s insights with regard to how the Gospel calls us to confront evil and injustice. He summarized Bonhoeffer as insisting that “the kind of Christianity that does not radicalize you with regard to human suffering is inauthentic—cheap and easy grace."

Parker’s reflection and study led to what he called his “come to Jesus” moment when he was teaching in Hawaii. Richardson writes:

He was teaching at the university when a fundamentalist administrator began trying to ban abortions in the school clinic, throwing students with an unwanted pregnancy into a panic. One day, he was listening to a sermon by Dr. King on the theme of what made the Good Samaritan good. A member of his own community passed the injured traveler by, King said, because they asked, "What would happen to me if I stopped to help this guy?" The Good Samaritan was good because he reversed the question: "What would happen to this guy if I don't stop to help him?" So Parker looked in his soul and asked himself, "What happens to these women when abortion is not available?"

He knew the answer.