Sermon on June 21, 2020: 3rd Sunday after Pentecost
Someone once said that you have to become an atheist in order to become a Christian. Someone else once said that atheists are actually a blessing to the Church, because they remind Christians of all the false pictures of God that we make, so that we will stop making them.
One way that I’ve heard atheists describe God is the phrase invisible sky wizard. Simply go online and Google that phrase and you can find thread after thread where atheists talk smack about Christianity because no enlightened citizen of the twenty-first century can believe that there is really an invisible sky wizard who grants us wishes when we pray to him. But before we retort to our atheist friend on the internet that this is a picture of God that Christians don’t actually believe in, we might pause for a moment and consider that some Christians actually do think about God in this way. And that, at times, Christian theology has imagined a picture of God in a way that does resemble something like an invisible sky wizard, who lives just above the clouds, out of sight but not far, maybe a little like a leprechaun, ready to grant whatever prayers that we pray, or perhaps a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Our atheist friend on the internet is an atheist of the invisible sky wizard, and he is reminding us that we need to be atheists of this figure, too. Sometimes atheism can serve as a corrective to bad theology. Sometimes, Christians need to become atheists in order to be Christians.
In fact, the first atheists were Christians. St. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was martyred in the year 156 for the crime being a Christian. The Roman Empire wanted its citizens to practice the religion of Rome—to make sacrifices to their gods, and venerate their ancestors. Christians who refused to do so were labeled atheists—unbelievers. Polycarp was led into the Roman stadium and ordered to renounce atheism. Instead, he gestured toward the crowd and renounced the atheism of Roman civil religion, rather than denying Christ. He was subsequently burned at the stake. His story reminds us that we will need to be atheists in order to be Christians.
There is another popular picture of God that should lead us to some wholesome Christian atheism. A picture of Jesus. That is, the picture of Jesus as a really nice guy.
You know this nice-guy Jesus. He is the Jesus who is a really nice and polite guy amidst of a lot of very not-nice people. He is the feel-good Jesus, the no-judgment Jesus, the come-as-you-are Jesus. He’s like a cross between a flower-child of the ’60s and the Jeff Lebowski of the ’90s. He’s the Buddy Christ, always ready with a cheerful wink and a big thumbs-up. Sure, this is a caricature, just like the invisible sky wizard is a caricature. But really nice guy Jesus is also someone lots of Christians really believe in. Jesus was a nice guy—never said a sharp word to anyone. His goal is to make me feel good about myself, and to affirm whatever I already believe, and whatever I happen to do or say. He just wanted to bring people together.
We need to become atheists of this Jesus. He is not the Jesus of the Bible, and if ever there were a passage of Scripture to show that nice-guy Jesus is not the real Jesus, it’s today’s lesson from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 10.
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
If we were under the impression that Jesus was a great unifier, this single verse will serve as a necessary corrective. It turns out that the Prince of Peace is not all that interested in peace—or at least, in what so often passes as such.
I have come not to bring peace, but a sword … I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
Well happy Father’s Day to you too, Jesus! All joking aside, I can’t imagine a less nice thing to do than trying to make members of a household into enemies. But this is plainly what Jesus intends to do.
The Gospels are rife with Jesus going around and not being nice. Like the time he turned to his friend Peter and called him Satan. Like the time he said that the religious authorities were like “whitewashed tombs.” Like the time he went on sacred ground and smashed the money-tables, and messed with the property of the pious worshipers by scattering their animals. These things are not very nice at all. Being nice is evidently not on Jesus’ agenda.
Make no mistake, Jesus was no bully. His way was the way of love. There was nothing petty, or ugly, or mean-spirited about him—we know this. He was simply a person who did not waver in telling the truth, and acting accordingly. Not only that, but he cured the sick, and cast out demons, and raised the dead. He had time for lepers, and outcasts, and sinners. But he didn’t have any time for being nice.
When Jesus forswears peace, and says that he intends to divide family members, we need to listen very closely. In these words, he is striking at the very thing that human culture across space and time reveres: that is, the family. The people we are supposed to pledge our allegiance to above all else. Fathers and sons. Mothers and daughters. The relatives of marriage.
Jesus is playing with fire; he is messing with the institution that we assume to be the foundation of our humanity. Honestly, I’m surprised that this was not the moment that they led him to the cliff, and tried to push him over. If you ever want to get someone riled up, tell them you plan to mess with their family. And that is exactly what Jesus is doing.
I wish I could give the long version of my sermon about what Jesus’ words may have meant for his hearers then and for us now. Instead, I’ll say just a brief word to parents, as we hear Jesus’ words to us. No one has a perfect picture of God, and no one can see Jesus perfectly without projecting onto him in some way. But if we give to our children a sufficiently distorted picture of Jesus, then they are going to become atheists. Whether they continue to attend church or not, whether they understand themselves to be Christian or not, they will become atheists. Because they will recognize the distortion: in our words, in our actions, in our patterns of life. And the distortion will lead to division, because they will know that we have not been truthful, and they will reject the picture that we show them. As a practical example, if white churches in America cannot see that the protests taking place against racial injustice are theological in nature, and if they can’t bring themselves to affirm in the most basic way that black lives matter, then we should be ready for our children to reject our picture of God. We should expect them to become atheists.
If it’s true that we need to become atheists in order to be Christians, and that we must reject false pictures of God to be faithful to God, it’s also true that we are always being invited into that transformative work. We are always being invited to having our minds renewed in accordance with the Gospel. It’s never too late for us to discard our false pictures. We are free to discard the Jesus of niceness, so that we may gain the Jesus who tells the truth. We are free to become atheists to the God of our imagination, who is male, and white, and straight, and wealthy, and well-spoken, and able-bodied—so that we may worship the God whose image is found in every human being. So that we may encounter Christ in every human being. So that we may strive after his peace, which is a peace that the world cannot give—and that is why his peace is also a sword. Because it refuses to make peace with oppression.
This is not a work that we can accomplish through our own effort and will; it is a work that can only be done by God’s grace and with God’s help. It is a work that must take shape through prayer. That’s a hard work; it’s hard work for me too. And even when I don’t have right words to pray, I often end up finding them in The Book of Common Prayer. So let the final words of this sermon be a prayer, which can be found on page 260 of the Prayer Book: a collect for social justice.
Let us pray.
Almighty God, who created us in your image: Grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice in our communities and among the nations, to the glory of your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.