Christ Crucified

This is the sermon I gave at First Congregational Church of Maltby on Good Friday, March 25, 2016. It is a sermon in the tradition of theology of the cross, a soteriology very different from classical atonement theology and for me much more powerful. 

Christ Crucified

A Good Friday Meditation

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

March 25, 2016

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

It’s such an odd thing, although maybe “odd” is too mild a word for it. It’s such a bizarre thing, such a fantastic and improbable thing. We Christians follow a crucified Savior. I suppose we take it for granted. We’ve heard the stories all our lives. We sing the hymns: “Where you there when they crucified my Lord,” and so many others. We wear the cross, we put it up in our homes and in our churches. We take it for granted, but think about it for a minute. The one whom we call Lord and Savior, whom we call God Incarnate, the Word of God made flesh, got himself crucified. The world killed him as a common criminal—or worse, as a political troublemaker who was a threat to the good order of his society. The One whom our tradition says rules in glory at the right hand of God the Father was, from an earthly point of view, an abject failure. His followers saw in him manifestations of the power of God Almighty, but he was so weak that the Roman Empire was able to snuff him out without giving the matter a second thought. Christianity is the only major world religion whose founding figure was executed by the ruling authorities as a criminal and a thread to public welfare.

Tonight we commemorate that execution. Tonight we recall and relive that terrible day nearly two thousand years ago when the Romans—and make no mistake about it, it was the Romans not the Jews who did it—when the Romans executed the Son of God upon a cross. We know, of course, that Jesus’ crucifixion wasn’t the end for him, but for that part of the story we have to wait until Sunday morning. Tonight we enter into Jesus’ death not his rebirth. Tonight is about the tomb, and it is about the cross.

So tonight we consider what it means, this crucifixion of the Son of God. For you see, as much as Christians have clung to the Resurrection as giving meaning to our faith and to our lives, we Christians have also, from the very beginning, sensed that there is some ultimate meaning in Christ’s death too. We have sensed that, out of the thousands upon thousands of crosses the Romans used to eliminate troublemakers, this one has special meaning. We have believed from the very beginning that there is profound meaning for us in the cross of Jesus. It has to have meaning or else our faith is in vain. In the passage from First Corinthians that we just heard Saint Paul calls Christ crucified the power of God and the wisdom of God, and that seems so contradictory. What could the power and wisdom of Christ crucified possibly be? I invite you to bear with me while I try to answer that question in a way that makes sense to me and that I hope makes sense and might be helpful to you.

We begin with a question: Who do we say that Jesus is? We say that he is the Christ, and we generally mean by that that he is, as I have already said, the Son of God, or God the Son Incarnate. The Gospel of Matthew has a really good name for him, but it’s one that we generally hear only at Christmas because it appears only in Matthew’s birth narrative. That name is Emmanuel, and it means “God is with us.” Matthew 1:23 That’s who Jesus is for us Christians, God with Us. He is a real human being like us, but he is a human being in whom God is fully present in a unique way. In him we see God revealed to the fullest extent that we mere mortals can comprehend, and in him God lives and experiences human life in God’s own person. In Jesus we see humanity and divinity in total solidarity. We see Jesus’ total solidarity with God, but we also see God’s total solidarity with us. We see God in the person of Jesus taking on and experiencing human life. God always experiences human life of course, but in Jesus we see God experiencing human life in person, and we see how God experiences human life. We see that God does not experience human life remotely, or from afar, not indifferently or dispassionately. In Jesus Christ we see that God experiences human life personally, intimately, compassionately, in divine solidarity with humanity.

In the life of Jesus Christ we see how God experiences human life in reaching out and saving the least and the lost, accepting sinners and welcoming those whom the world casts out, teaching peace and crying out for justice. More importantly for us tonight, we see how God experiences human life in Jesus’ death. God in Christ could reject human death. Jesus could have avoided the cross, perhaps through a display of divine power and certainly by denying his mission, his ministry, and his identity, but he didn’t. Instead he accepted the cross, he accepted a cruel and unjust death. Why?

The Gospel of John suggests an answer. There Jesus’ last words are: “It is finished.” John 19:30 What is finished? Presumably what Jesus came to accomplish, his mission in the world. The important thing about that for us tonight is that Jesus’ mission wasn’t finished short of the cross and death. It couldn’t have been. It couldn’t have been because without the cross and death God’s demonstration in Christ of how God experiences human life would not have been complete. Those harsh realities of human life, the realities of suffering and of death, would have been left out. We would not see God’s unshakable solidarity with us in our suffering and in our death. The cross is the ultimate demonstration of God’s unshakable solidarity with us in all aspects of our lives, even (or especially) in our suffering and in our death.

And that, my friends, is the best news there ever was or ever could be. What, after all, is the real tragedy of human life? Is it not that we live separated from God, or believe that we do? How often have you, how often have I, called the world or some miserable part of it “God-forsaken”? How often have you, how often have I, felt abandoned and alone? In Mark’s account of the Crucifixion, and in Matthew’s, Jesus cries out from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46 Have you ever been tempted to call out the same thing? Most of us have. Especially in times of great despair, pain, or grief it is so easy to feel that God has forsaken us. When we look at the world around us, at all the evil, the hatred, the violence, the unjust suffering and death, it is so easy for us to ask: Why has God forsaken God’s world? Surely God is not present in all that suffering! Surely that suffering represents the absence of God not the presence of God.

But I say: Look to the cross of Jesus. There is God the Son Incarnate experiencing the same things we suffer, and worse. There is God experiencing human pain, suffering, injustice, and death. There is God experiencing nothing less than God-forsakenness. And what does that mean? It means that God has transformed God-forsakenness into the very presence of God. It means that God has shown us the way into human suffering, and the way out of it. It means that God goes with us every step of the way in complete solidarity with us, in complete solidarity with all who suffer and all who die. It means that we can have the courage to bear our own pain and suffering because God bears them with us. It means that we can bear our own death because God bears it with us. It means that we can enter into the suffering of others and work to alleviate it because God enters it with us.

God is not aloof. God is not remote. God does not sit in heaven and observe from afar. God showed us what God is like on the cross of Jesus. The cross shows us that God stands in complete solidarity with us in our lives, in our suffering, and in our death. God does not reject those things. In Christ Jesus God entered into them, experienced them, and sanctified them. Because Jesus had the courage to go all the way to the cross to show us God’s love, we can bear our own crosses with the assurance that God bears them with us. Because God is with us we can bear whatever we must bear. We can help others bear what they must bear and work to make their bearing easier. Because God is with us though we suffer and die we can risk everything for peace, we can risk everything for justice, we can risk everything for love. That’s what Jesus did; and because he did it, we can do it too.

That’s the wisdom and the power of Christ crucified of which Paul speaks. It is the wisdom and the power of God entering into complete solidarity with us humans in our lives and in our deaths. That horrible cross that we remember tonight completes God’s demonstration of that wisdom and that power. In that cross it is indeed finished. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Maltby, the UCC, and Me

Maltby, the UCC, and Me:

Reflections on Denominational Relationships in the NACCC and the UCC

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson

March, 2016

I am aware that there is some concern in the congregation of the First Congregational Church of Maltby, which I serve as called pastor, that I am too open about my standing in the United Church of Christ and my previous pastoral experience, all of it at Monroe Congregational United Church of Christ. I know of at least one person who holds this concern, for he has expressed it to me quite explicitly. For that I sincerely thank him. I can guess at one or two others who may have the same concern. I don’t know if the matter is more widely held in the congregation or not, but even if it isn’t it is still a serious concern and one that I feel called to address.

The facts of the matter are these: The First Congregational Church of Maltby was founded in the Congregationalist tradition well over one hundred years ago. Monroe Congregational UCC was founded in that same tradition two years later. Both churches were formed in and belonged to the denomination called The Congregational Christian Churches until after the year 1957. In 1957 the Congregational Christian Churches at the national level merged with the Evangelical and Reformed Church to form the United Church of Christ. The UCC from the beginning adopted a congregational polity that honors local church autonomy. The churches of the E and R denomination gave up their more Presbyterian polity in order to become part of the UCC. Because of the congregational autonomy that is central to the Congregational tradition, each Congregational church had to make its own decision whether or not to join the UCC. The church then called The First Congregational Church of Monroe decided to join, becoming Monroe Congregational UCC. The First Congregational Church of Maltby decided not to join the UCC, eventually becoming part of the National Association of Congregational Churches, the denomination to which it belongs today that consists primarily of Congregational churches that declined to join the UCC.

When the Maltby church offered me the call as its pastor at the end of January, 2015, and when I accepted that call, both the leadership of the Maltby church and I were well aware of essential facts of our denominational affiliations. I knew that the Maltby church belongs to the NACCC and not to the UCC. The church knew that I hold ordained ministerial standing in the UCC and that I had recently resigned as pastor of a nearby UCC church. The church agreed in our pastoral call agreement to cooperate with me in maintaining my UCC standing while I served that non-UCC church, and it has done so without problems, a fact for which I am grateful.

Thus it can be a surprise neither to me nor to the Maltby church that I refer to the UCC and to my pastoral experience at Monroe Congregational UCC. The UCC is my church. I grew up in it. I have never been a member of any other denomination and have no desire to be a member of any other denomination if that meant I couldn’t be UCC. I have been educated in the UCC’s history and polity. I was ordained in the UCC and hold ordained ministerial standing in it. I served as pastor of one of its local churches for nearly thirteen years, that service being the only experience as a called pastor that I had prior to coming to Maltby. I serve and have served on committees within the local Conference of the UCC. I have health insurance and a retirement annuity through the UCC. The UCC is my church. I would not serve as pastor of the Maltby church if it were not possible for me retain my UCC standing while doing so.

While being so firmly grounded in the UCC myself, I am of course fully aware that over fifty years ago the Maltby church decided not to join the UCC. I don’t know why it made that decision, although I can guess that it was because of fear of losing its congregational autonomy, which, by the way, it wouldn’t have. No one at the church today was at the church fifty years ago, so no one can tell me about the church’s thinking when it made that decision. Still, since the church made that decision it is my duty as its pastor to respect that decision and to live with it and its consequences. I do that as fully as I am able. I would seek dual standing in the NACCC if that denomination had anything like what the UCC calls dual standing, namely a pastor having standing in two different denominations at the same time, but as nearly as I can tell it does not. I do not see my mission with the Maltby church to be bringing that church into the UCC.

There is, however, more I want to say about that issue. I believe that it would be highly advantageous to the First Congregational Church of Maltby to join the UCC, and I want here to explain why I think that is true. I fully recognize of course that any decision about the UCC, even a decision to hear more about it, is the church’s responsibility and the individual responsibility of each member not mine. With that being said and sincerely meant, here are some of my thoughts on how joining the UCC would benefit the Maltby church.

First of all, please understand that the Maltby church would not have to give up its standing in the NACCC if it joined the UCC. Many UCC churches belong to a second (and some even a third) denomination in addition to belonging to the UCC. In Washington state there are UCC churches that also belong to the Church Disciples of Christ, the Church of the Brethren, or the United Methodist Church. I understand that there are churches in other parts of the country that belong both to the UCC and the NACCC. Maltby would not lose its affiliation with the NACCC by joining the UCC.

Next, the Maltby church would not lose its congregational autonomy by joining the UCC. Article 18 of the Constitution of the UCC states:

The autonomy of the Local Church is inherent and modifiable only by its own action. Nothing in this Constitution and the Bylaws of the United Church of Christ shall destroy or limit the right of each Local Church to continue to operate in the way customary to it; nor shall be construed as giving to the General Synod, or to any Conference or Association now, or at any future time, the power to abridge or impair the autonomy of any Local Church in the management of its own affairs, which affairs include, but are not limited to, the right to retain or adopt its own methods of organization, worship and education; to retain or secure its own charter and name; to adopt its own constitution and bylaws; to formulate its own covenants and confessions of faith; to admit members in its own way and to provide for their discipline or dismissal; to call or dismiss its pastor or pastors by such procedure as it shall determine; to acquire, own, manage and dispose of property and funds; to control its own benevolences; and to withdraw by its own decision from the United Church of Christ at any time.

I sometimes paraphrase this paragraph as saying “local church autonomy is our most sacred of sacred cows, and thou shalt not even think about messing with it upon pain of eternal damnation,” not that most of us UCC folks believe in eternal damnation anymore. The polity of the UCC is deeply grounded in local church autonomy. It gets that polity from the Congregational tradition and shares it with the NACCC, at least in broad outline.

One area of church life in which the Maltby church could greatly benefit from membership in the UCC is around questions of the call and accountability of the pastor. Upon joining the UCC the Maltby church would be part of the UCC’s Pacific Northwest Conference. That Conference consists mostly of Washington state except the southwest corner of the state. It also has one church in northern Idaho and a couple in Anchorage, Alaska. In the UCC, questions of ordination and ministerial discipline are, for our purposes at least, handled by the Conference in cooperation with a local church. In our local Conference the qualifications for ordination include the candidate having earned a Master of Divinity degree from an accredited seminary. It can be any accredited seminary, it doesn’t have to be a UCC seminary, although such seminaries do exist. The UCC has a process for handling both pastoral searches by churches and church searches by pastors. It involves both the church and the person seeking a call to complete what are called profiles. They are essentially identical to the information files churches and pastors complete for the NACCC. Ministerial profiles are distributed through a Conference. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the Conference can stop a profile from being sent to a church, but it does mean that the Conference Minister, the ordained head of the Conference, can review a profile and express opinions about a candidate’s apparent fit for a particular congregation. The Conference Minister, or someone appointed by him or her, works with a local church’s pastoral search committee, giving advice and guidance but having no authority to make decisions for the church. This process doesn’t guarantee that a particular church and a particular pastor will be a good match, but it significantly improves the chances that they will be.

Then there’s the matter of pastoral accountability. In the UCC a local church pastor is accountable first of all to the church she or he serves, as a pastor is in the NACCC. Just as in the NACCC the local church calls its pastor and may dismiss that pastor at will. In the UCC, however, there is another layer of pastoral accountability that does not exist in the NACCC. The ordained ministerial standing of a UCC pastor is held by the local Conference (or Association, a subdivision of a Conference that we don’t have here in the Pacific Northwest) in which he or she serves. The Conference thus has authority not over a local church but over the standing of the ordained ministers who have standing in it.

Holding and maintaining standing requires that the pastor comply with pastoral ethics and boundaries among other obligations. In our local Conference we pastors must take ethics and boundary training for a full day every three years. There is no such requirement in the NACCC, although a local NACCC church could of course require such training of its pastor if it so desired. If a church or any of its members believes that a pastor has committed a violation of pastoral ethics or boundaries the church or a person who feels a violation has occurred may file a complaint with the Conference that holds the pastor’s ordained ministerial standing. In our local Conference, and in most Conferences of the UCC, those complaints are referred to the Conference’s Committee on Ministry. If on its face the complaint states facts that would constitute a violation if true, the Committee on Ministry will begin what is called a fitness review. If the review process establishes that the pastor has indeed committed an ethics or boundary violation the Committee has various options before it. It may reprimand the pastor. It may suspend the pastor’s standing and require the pastor to undertake some specified remedial actions before having her or his standing reinstated. Or, in extreme case, it may revoke the person’s ordained ministerial standing altogether. Many UCC churches have a provision in their bylaws that require their pastor to maintain standing in the UCC, but retaining a pastor whose standing has been suspended or revoked is entirely a decision of the local church. An imposition of suspension or revocation of standing means that the pastor in question no longer has standing in and no longer represents the UCC, but it has no necessary effect on the church the pastor serves.

In recent years the Maltby church has had at least one pastor who, as I understand it, committed ethical violations that would result in suspension or revocation of his standing had he had standing in the UCC and had someone filed a complaint. Because the church’s denominational affiliation is only with the NACCC, any complaint or request for assistance around issues of a pastor’s behavior had to go to the NACCC national offices in Wisconsin. I understand that the Maltby church made such a request and that someone came to the church from the national offices seeking to help. That help was, however, very brief; and there was no one in our region to whom the church could turn. That would not have been the case had the Maltby church had standing in the UCC. The church could have called the Conference office in Seattle. Either the Conference Minister or some other representatives of the Conference would have been available to provide ongoing assistance to the church. If the Maltby church had had UCC standing when it called the pastor of whom I am thinking, it is highly unlikely (although not impossible) that that person would have become the church’s pastor in the first place. These considerations around pastoral search and call and pastoral accountability are, I believe, major reasons why the Maltby church should consider affiliating with the UCC.

There are other reasons as well. As a member of the NACCC in this part of the country the Maltby church is essentially isolated. Yes, it belongs to the NA’s regional body; but that body stretches from Alaska to Oregon to Montana and includes only six churches. There is no regional staff. There is no local office. There is an annual meeting of the regional body, but it offers nothing like the programs that are offered at the Annual Meeting of a UCC Conference. Those meetings include presentations by representatives of the UCC’s national staff and workshops on a wide range of topics that are of interest to the local churches and their members. Having people participate in these Annual Meetings can be of significant benefit to a local church.

There are other activities of the Conference in which members of the member churches can participate. There are several Conference committees made up of people from the local churches. They include the Committee on Ministry on which I serve as well as committees dealing with global ministry, youth and outdoor ministry, church development, and Conference finances. The Pacific Northwest Conference of the UCC owns and operates two wonderful camps where retreats are offered for people of all ages. One of them, called Pilgrim Firs, is not far from Maltby, being located just outside Port Orchard. The other, called N-Sid-Sen, is on the shore of Lake Pend ‘Oreille in northern Idaho, a particularly beautiful setting for camp activities. Our Conference Minister Mike Denton has told me that the people of the Maltby church are welcome to participate in camp activities with us, but UCC membership would remove any doubt about their opportunity to participate and would mean that that opportunity would continue after I am no longer the church’s pastor.

Of course, on the whole, the UCC is far more liberal/progressive than is the NACCC. For the UCC’s strong voice on issues of social justice I say thanks be to God, but that voice may be an obstacle to some of the people of the Maltby church embracing the UCC. I think I get that, although I don’t agree with it. Here’s something about the UCC that may mitigate some of that concern. When the national or regional bodies of the UCC take a position on most anything all, it is said that those bodies speak to the local churches not for the local churches. Neither any UCC church nor any member of a UCC church is required to agree with any position taken by some other UCC entity. The UCC is thoroughly congregational in its structure, highly valuing both local church autonomy and individual freedom of conscience. There would be a small cost to the Maltby church from joining the UCC. The member churches owe membership dues to the Conference, but in a church as small as the Maltby church those fees are negligible.

So there it is. I am deeply and strongly UCC. The church I serve is not. I will not conceal my allegiance to the UCC. I will neither forget nor ignore my pastoral experience in the UCC. That allegiance and that experience are big parts of what makes me the pastor that I am. I will not expect the Maltby church to join the UCC nor will I push it to do so. I will merely be happy to be a resource on the UCC if anyone is interested in learning more about it. Local church autonomy and individual freedom of conscience are bedrock values for both the NACCC and the UCC. They are bedrock values for me and I intend to conduct my ministry in accordance with them.