Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?

Text: Matthew 27:46

Theme: “Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani”

Palm/Passion Sunday

April 17, 2011

First Presbyterian Church

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

In the Name of Jesus

And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

In the last few days, I have had email correspondence with a retired minister who is a dear friend. He hosts a book club – or reading group -- in which I’m glad to participate in every couple of months or so. In between gatherings, we’ve sent along internet links with articles and commentary on the state of affairs in American Christianity in general and the Presbyterian Church in particular – you know, it’s all the stuff pastors are supposed to be interested in! With all kinds of problems in the church, both from within and without, my friend, bemoaning the loss of members and influence in mainline churches, suggested: “It certainly appears as though we’re hanging over hell in a hand-basket.” In the midst of such thumb-twiddling pessimism (which, at times, I often feel myself), I wrote back. I said: “If we’re hanging over hell in a hand-basket, if the church is falling apart at the seams, if the world is going to end soon, then I want to know who is going to make the potato salad. More than that, I ask that whoever makes the potato salad for the end of life as we know it to make it with dill instead of pickle relish.” My friend replied, “Well, I like pickle relish.” I said, “Then we’ll have to have two people sign-up for potato salad duty – one to make it with dill and the other with relish!”

As Mary Poppins says, “A spoon full of sugar” does “help the medicine go down.” In this instance, the sugar is humor. But the painful truth can’t be sugar-coated: ours is an age of apathetic faith. Christian faith in America is at present, by every reliable indicator, a mile wide and an inch deep. In America, there are pockets of church growth, but, overall, very little church depth.

One of the books we’re reading in our group is by author Kenda Creasy Dean; she’s the Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary. The book is titled Almost Christian with a sub-title that reads: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is telling the American Church. After surveying the results of a three year study called the “National Study of Youth and Religion”, conducted from 2003 to 2005, Professor Dean uses the book to comment on the results.

In a Publisher’s Weekly review, one writer said that Dean has “thrown down the gauntlet”: “…the faith of America’s teens is not durable enough to survive long after they graduate from high school…and we are responsible.” Dean describes what faith there is as a “moralistic, therapeutic deism.” Try to say that ten times real fast: a moralistic, therapeutic deism. Let me unpack that statement. The faith of our American teenagers is moral, and the kids are okay with that says the study. That is, their faith has a thing or two to say about what’s right and wrong. It’s therapeutic. That is, faith can provide guidance and support as young people experience the ups and downs of life in their formative years. And it is deistic. That is, teenagers are willing to believe that there’s a God out there, but that God – full of loving energy as he, she, or it may be – is not felt to be directly involved in their lives, and that’s okay too.

If this is the faith that we elder Christians have bequeathed to the majority of America’s teens, then I, with all the politeness I can muster, have to ask: who is going to make the potato salad?

Moralistic, therapeutic deism! Stop and think about it: we don’t need Christianity for any of that. We don’t need Christianity for morals. You don’t’ have to be a Christian to live a moral life or to have a conscience. The history of the world is littered with noble heathen who rarely – if at all – darkened the door of the church. They’re the good people; they’re not the mean people, and whether they are Christian or not is irrelevant . What Judaism and Christianity did was to simply codify the morals that are already there. Neither do we need Christianity for therapy. There are all kinds of therapists, physical therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists of all sorts, and various and sundry mentors and hand-holders that can provide therapy for nearly everything that ails us. They help to give us the sense that we’re not alone. Some of them, out of the goodness of their hearts, do it for free. Whether they are Christian or not is thought to be immaterial. And finally, we don’t need Christianity for deism. Take a look at your 52”, super high-definition television set. Broadband technology hooks it up to all kinds of programming of both the basic and premium variety. Did intelligent minds put all that together, or is it all the result of a random explosion in a steel mill? By now, you get the idea! We don’t need Christianity to put forth the kinds of deistic ideas that have floated around since people began thinking of such things. Most folks think that there is a force of some kind out there, and, as the Star Wars series triumphantly declares, “May the force be with you.” That’s deism, folks.

In the 1930s Yale Professor H. Richard Niebuhr offered a vivid description of mainline Protestantism’s message then, and I think much of Christianity’s message now, in his book, The Kingdom of God in America. Niebuhr wrote: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a world without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”

That sounds scrumpdillyishus, does it not? Take out the wrath! Take out the sin! Take out the judgment! Take out the cross! And don’t ever talk about that stuff again. Some people are going to think, “Hey, that sounds like a pretty good idea; people will like that” – as if all Christianity needs is a boost in its likeability!

But wait! As unsavory as all those things sound to our polite Sunday morning sensibilities – things like wrath and sin and judgment and the cross and all that, if you take them out what’s left of Christianity? I think I know. It is an Americanized form of religion. It is moralistic, therapeutic deism which essentially consists of being nice, taking care of yourself and others, and entertaining the possibility that there just might be a god out there. This is the kind of thinking that has turned Easter – the chief holy day of the Christian year, the feast of the resurrection of the Son of God from the grave – into only a little more than a Hallmark holiday replete with milk chocolate bunnies and Easter egg hunts and Sunday brunches. It’s a celebration that celebrates what, the arrival of spring? I don’t want to spoil anyone’s Easter holiday, but moralistic, therapeutic deism produces a faith that, if Kenda Creasy Dean is right, won’t last for very long past high school. It is just not going to happen, folks. So we’re back to the question: who is going to make the potato salad?

Actually, a better question is this: what’s it going to take to sustain Christian faith past high school? More generally, what’s it going to take to sustain a lively and dedicated faith for the long haul, for the duration? Do we need more central planning? Some would say that the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan – and we’ve had lots of planning, or “visioning” as it is called nowadays. Do we need to find a way to make Christianity more palatable – more exciting and entertaining and dynamic and relevant and “cutting edge” and fun? The fact is, well-meaning Christians have tried all that. I’m not pointing fingers at them. In fact, I commend them. They understand the bind that the church is in, and they’re doing some things.

But I am persuaded that the most important thing of all is the easiest one to overlook. Allow me to state that differently: I am persuaded that the most important person of all is the easiest one to overlook. I speak of Jesus Christ. The question on a million and one yellow bracelets of yesteryear was captured in three letters: W.W.J.D. It stand for “What would Jesus do?” That’s a moral question. The answer is: He would do whatever the “right thing” is, and that’s a moral answer. I would rather we would have had ten million and one red bracelets with three different letters: W.D.J.D. That stands for “What DID Jesus do?” That’s a faith question, and the answer is – drum roll, please – Holy Week!

If there ever was one week in the year to be introduced and/or re-introduced to Jesus Christ, this is the week: Holy Week! The gist of the Christian message – which alone can create and nourish that genuine faith that goes the distance – is what this week is all about. On this Sunday, on Maundy Thursday, on Good Friday, and, yes, on Easter Sunday, you can hear again – or maybe for the first time – that Jesus Christ is more than long hair, beard, sandals, and white robe. He is far more than the mental images that our minds or any artist have ever assigned to Him.

Here was a man – here is a man! – that has a passion for you and me that is breathtaking in its scope and defies description. All of our sweet testimonials about Jesus are well and good, all of our stories about what we’re sure He’s done for us are fine and dandy, but during this week let’s let Jesus have His day in the sun. Let’s not be saying “I am second.” That still makes us the main point of reference – even though we claim to be at point number two. Instead, let’s say “Jesus is first”, leave it at that, and see what unfolds this week.

Allow me to close with a quick, step-by-step preview and snapshot glance at today and the days that lie ahead by asking some questions. Have you ever done some things that made your part of the world a better place? I have no doubt. Were you humbled and gratified to hear words of thanks and praise for what you did? Again, I have no doubt. On that first Palm Sunday, Jesus welcomed the thanks and praise for what He had done during three years of public ministry and work.

Have you enjoyed the company of close friends? Jesus did. On at least one evening in the first holy week, He headed out of Jerusalem to Bethany and hung out with what we might call his “BFF’s” (His “best friends forever”): Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Have you ever had a sense of longing and anticipation for a dinner out with your friends? Jesus did. “How I have longed to eat this Passover with you,” He said to His disciples.

Has someone ever betrayed you? Have you ever felt that particular kind of sting? Jesus did. One of His own disciples sold Him out for thirty shekels of silver. Have you ever had moments or periods of melancholy, or depression, or anguish? Have you thrown up your hands, said “What’s the use?”, and considered throwing in the towel? Jesus did. “If it’s possible, take all this away from me,” Jesus said in the Garden of Gethsemane. His turmoil, His tears, His sweat, and His blood all ran together in that hilly garden on the night before He died.

Think back. Have you ever been laughed at, or mocked, or derided, or bullied? Jesus was. Have you ever felt as though you’re going to crumble because it seems that the weight of the world is on your shoulders? Jesus did have the weight of the world’s sin on His shoulders. Have you ever experienced that genuine justice denied to you and a fake and phony justice put in its place? Jesus did.

Have you ever felt totally alone and utterly forsaken? Jesus not only felt it; He endured it. Have you felt as though life is a living hell? Jesus didn’t feel it. He actually endured it – so none of us would ever have to. Nailed to a Roman cross, an implement of execution, He cries out: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” (“My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?”)

As we have observed, there are some things, in the last week of Christ’s life, we can relate to. There are other things, though, that we can’t relate to. For example, if Christ is God in flesh, how is it that God could forsake God? My mind can’t understand that, but I can be in awe of it. I can be in awe of the love and faith of Jesus, which, at the worst moment of all, was able to say: “My God! My God!”

It is time to politely ask moralistic, therapeutic deism to depart the premises. Christianity has had quite enough. This is Holy Week. Jesus Christ has center stage.

Amen.