Preached · July 10, 2022
Series · A More Beautiful Gospel
Introduction
One of my first memories of church stuff is being in a Catholic preschool where the teacher was talking about color symbolism in the church — a great preschool lesson, I guess — talking about how the color yellow represented things that were divine. So we'd go around to different places of the whole preschool room finding all the things that were yellow: this is God, this is God, this is God. Which is bad theology. But those first introductions — even if you weren't a church person, even if you didn't grow up in church all your life — you still get influenced by all these ways that spiritual, divine things get passed on to us through movies and television shows and books and culture. And maybe you did get taken to some sort of church where they were laying down theology and beliefs, and you carry that with you, even if you make a conscious effort to try to push it away.
What we're going to do over the next eight weeks is spend some time unpacking some of those beliefs, and as a church, trying to explore what it is exactly that we are for. We talked a little about this last week — not only knowing "we're not like those other churches or those other Christians," but rather saying, "this is how we want to talk about God." One theologian says that theology is shared or common language about God. It's not necessarily that we have it right, that we've finally figured out all the right answers, but at least we have some common language for it. And we want to start our new series — it's called A More Beautiful Gospel — with just an explanation of what the good news, the gospel, is.
Now, I've been preaching for almost half my life, about 17 years, and as far as I can remember, I've never done what I'm going to do tonight, which is basically preach someone else's sermon. I've always written my own sermon — sure, I use resources and books and commentaries, but the words are basically my own. But there's this one presentation of the gospel that I am so enamored with that I wish everybody would see it. This is the first time I've been nervous about a sermon in a long time, because I had to do some memorization. I told my wife, Emily, this morning, "I'm going to go downstairs and practice," and she looked at me and said, "You never practice." I said, "Well, today's the day."
This is a presentation by a theologian and pastor named Brad Jersak. It's called "The Gospel in Chairs." Brad Jersak is an Eastern Orthodox priest, and he says he actually learned it from other Eastern Orthodox priests as a way of talking about the good news, the gospel that Christians believe in.
I'm going to tell it in two ways. The first is the legal model, the courtroom model, where sin is law-breaking behavior that must be punished by a righteous judge named God. The gospel, then, is how God figures out the right way to punish sin — that Jesus came to be punished instead of us; and if we don't accept it, then we get punished anyway. The second way is the therapeutic, or hospital, model, where sin is not law-breaking behavior, but rather a corrosive disease that a good physician has to figure out how to heal. You can't punish a disease. You can't spank the flu out of a child. You can't put somebody in jail until their cancer goes away. Disease needs a cure. Disease needs healing. Disease needs a doctor, not a judge.
Now, all that said — these are metaphors. The way the gospel has historically been talked about in the church is that story, that narrative. When churches talk about the gospel, they're talking about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. It was so important to the early church that we get the idea of gospel-as-story right that they didn't choose between four different gospels; they put all four in the New Testament. So what I'm doing tonight is metaphor, condensing it down — but recognize that the metaphor is not the whole thing.
So, this is the Gospel in Chairs. By the way, I had to hunt through this entire building; I could not find a folding chair to save my life, except these tiny little chairs. But for someone who's five foot four, that's perfect for me.
First Version: The Legal Model
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And God created humanity and placed them in a garden to be fruitful, to multiply, to steward creation. But then the unthinkable happens, and humanity sins. They reject God, and they are rejected by God. God sees their sin and has to punish them, because God is a holy, righteous judge who cannot look upon sin, and so has to kick them out of the garden. And no matter what humanity does to try to make things right with God — to create religion and rituals — God is too holy and just and righteous to look on sin. So humanity always stays estranged from God.
And this story happens again and again. You have the story of Abraham. God sometimes does go down and try to make things right with humans, but the humans turn their backs on God. Abraham has been promised a nation, that his people will be like the sands of the seashore, greater than the stars in the sky. But Abraham takes things into his own hands, and decides to go and have a child with a slave. So God, being holy and just and righteous, has to reject Abraham's attempt. Moses goes and tries to take things into his own hands; he tries to kill the Egyptians in an attempt to make things right for his people, the Israelites. But God is too holy and just, and so sends Moses away. David has been promised by God a people, a kingdom that will have no end — a kingdom through which the Messiah will come. But David has a problem with hot tubs. And so God is too holy and just and righteous and must not be in relationship with David any longer. We see this again in the prophets. They tell the stories of how Israel is meant to be God's people: "God, won't you listen? God, won't you set your people free? God, won't you get us out of exile? Please, God, won't you pay attention to us?" But God is too holy and just and righteous and must, of course, punish Israel and send them away. And so God and humanity stay estranged.
So here's what God's going to do. God is going to send Jesus into the world to be the new Adam, the second Adam, to be what the first Adam could never be. But then humanity does the unthinkable again, and they try to murder Jesus. They put him up on a cross. And what God does is put all the sin and guilt and shame of all of humanity onto Jesus. And then Jesus says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And so the Father turns his face away and vents all of his wrath, all of his righteous anger, upon Jesus for the sin of the world. And Jesus dies. Now, thank goodness, Jesus didn't actually sin, so the Father raises Jesus from the dead. And if you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, if you put your trust and faith in him, if you believe that Jesus died for you, then you are granted eternal life. You are made right with God. The courtroom is happy. The legal model is fulfilled. Your debt is canceled. All is okay.
But if you don't believe, if you reject this gospel, and if you die that way, then God has no choice but to continue to vent his wrath upon you, because you have died in your sins, and you will suffer for that forever. And there's this urgent plea in typical gospel presentations — this is the gospel I grew up in, even the gospel I preached for a long time and saw results from — this desperate plea: you must believe today, because if you don't, this will be the end. And so people turn to God so they can avoid their fiery end.
And who wouldn't want to believe in a God like that? Well, it turns out, lots of people. When you present a God who is basically dangling people over the fires of hell, a God who has to be placated, who has to vent wrath upon God's own Son — it turns people into atheists. People don't want to believe in a God like that.
Now, in my opinion, there are three reasons why this gospel presentation doesn't work.
Number one: Who saves us? Yes, Jesus comes; he dies on the cross; if we believe in him, we can have eternal life. But whose decision is it, ultimately, to be saved? Well, it's our decision. It's up to us. It's conditional upon our acceptance of this gospel, conditional upon our believing that it's true. If we don't, then we go down into the fiery depths. But I don't think this actually resonates with the God I see in Scripture. Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep. There's a flock of a hundred; one sheep goes astray into the ditch. The good shepherd — God, Jesus — leaves the 99 and goes after the one lost sheep. And these are the very words of the parable: he looks "until he finds it." The God presented in Scripture is not waiting for us to make our way home, but is going out of God's own accord to search and look until he finds it. So in this presentation, the gospel seems very conditional, very much up to me and my response.
Problem number two: it pits God against people. This whole idea that God is too holy and just and righteous and has no choice but to look away from sin and evil people — where did we get this idea? I can tell you. It's half a verse in the book of Habakkuk, chapter 1, verse 13. There's this half of a verse where the prophet is complaining to God and says, "God, you are too pure and righteous to look upon sin, to gaze upon the evildoer." And we took that half of a verse and built an entire theology off of it: that God is too holy and just and righteous to look on sin and has no choice but to punish it — as if there's God, and then some power slightly higher than God that God has to obey. But we have to keep reading the verse. We've got very poor attention spans, it turns out, because the prophet keeps going: "Oh God, your eyes are too pure and too holy to look upon sin, to look upon the evildoer" — and then Habakkuk continues and says, "so why do you?" There's this idea in the prophetic scriptures that, yes, God is holy and righteous and just, but seems to keep getting in the mud with his people, keeps getting in the dirt, keeps leaving the 99 and going hunting after the one, even getting into the weeds with them. That doesn't seem to be a God who is against people.
There's another verse, in Isaiah 59: "Your sin has cut you off from God." So again, it seems pretty clear-cut: there are people, there's God, people sin, God has no choice but to cut the people off. But you have to keep reading. "Your sin has cut you off from God" — and so God responds and says, "So here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to pull up my sleeve, reach out my right arm" — which is symbolism in Isaiah for the Messiah — "and I will rescue them. I'm not going to wait for them to repent and make their way back to me. I'm going to make the first move of rescuing."
In the legal metaphor, God can't look at you because you're too sinful, because God is too just and righteous. One old theologian, long dead and gone, put it like this: "People, you are like snow-covered dung." There's this mental image of, "Hey, don't forget, you're poo — but Jesus, don't worry, tricked God and put some snow over you, so God doesn't have to be so angry at you anymore. But don't forget, you're still poo underneath." A more modern theologian put it like this: "Jesus is the asbestos suit that you put on to protect you from the white-hot wrath of God." So there's an angry God, and there's Jesus who's like, "No, Daddy, don't hurt them." Any of you see The Hurt Locker? Those big bomb outfits — are you sure this is actually going to help? It's like putting on a bomb outfit of Jesus to protect you from the explosive anger of God's righteousness. And this is not a straw man. This is how people still preach the gospel today: an angry God, a sinful people, and Jesus who has to get in between.
Which gets me to the third problem. So, number one, it makes it very conditional — it's up to you whether God's going to save you. Number two, it pits God against God's people. Number three, it pits God against Jesus. Jesus is on the cross and says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And so we have this theology that God had no choice but to turn his face away from Jesus. Again, where did we get this idea? Well, from some of our hymns — "the Father turns his face away" — and from not understanding how Scripture works. We call things like Psalm 22 "Psalm 22," but if you're an Israelite, you would call a psalm by its first line. This is true of how Jews refer to their scriptures today — usually the first word or couple of words was the title of a biblical book or a song of Israel. So Jesus is on the cross and he names a psalm: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" — which we know is Psalm 22. Again, attention span: we look at the first line and build this whole theology about a God and a Jesus who are opposed to each other. But Psalm 22 has more than one line. From a Christian, Jesus perspective, Psalm 22 is actually a story about the crucifixion. It has lines like, "They pierced his hands and his feet." It says, "They cast lots to know who would get the afflicted's garments." All these things happened to Jesus, and prophetically, whoever wrote Psalm 22 is prophesying about these events. And then the psalm continues. This is Psalm 22, verse 22:
I will proclaim your name to my siblings; in the midst of the assembly I will praise you, God. You who fear the Lord, praise him; all you descendants of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of God, all you descendants of Israel.
This is the psalm that begins, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Why would the psalm that begins that way say, "Now praise this God"? Verse 24:
For God has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted, nor has God turned his face away; but when he cried to him for help, he heard.
And so what does Jesus say on the cross to God the Father? "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" — evoking all of Psalm 22, this crucifixion psalm that says, "Now praise him, because the Father has not turned his face away." That him be damned. God has not turned his face away. And then Jesus says, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." Jesus knows God has not abandoned him. Jesus knows he can commit his spirit to the Father because the Father is good.
The way Christians have spoken about the Trinity throughout the centuries — Father, Son, Holy Spirit; Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer — is that they are united in will and purpose and passion. What is true of God is true of the Son, is true of the Spirit. So when we pit Father and Son against each other — that the Father could somehow turn God's face away from God's own Son — we make a mockery of Christian theology, which says, no, they are united. God did not turn his face away because he's too holy and just and righteous to look on sin. No — God was in the flesh in the person of Jesus on the cross.
So, three problems with this model: it makes it very conditional, very much about us; it pits God versus humanity; and it pits God versus Jesus, making nonsense of the Trinity, of this united person — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Second Version: The Healing Model
So, with those three things in mind, let's go into our second model of the gospel in chairs: the hospital model, the healing model. It begins very much the same. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and he created humanity, and placed them in a garden, and said, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, care for it." But humanity does the unthinkable. They sin, and they experience death. So what does God do? God goes looking for them. Adam and Eve go and hide, but God says, "Adam, Eve, where are you? What are you wearing on your genitals there?" And Adam and Eve experience this shame thing: "Well, he did it. She did it. It did it." And so God, in God's mercy, sends them out of the garden — because they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but there's a risk that if they eat of the tree of life, they'll be stuck permanently in this cursed state. So God, in his mercy, sends them away from that tree so they're not stuck. And God goes with them, sews for them clothes to cover them, to deal with their shame.
Adam and Eve have children — two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain is out working and begins to get an idea in his head that he's going to kill his brother. So what does God do? God goes looking for Cain. "Cain, what are you thinking about?" "Nothing." God says, "Sin is crouching at your door, ready to strike. Be cautious. Don't do it." So what does Cain do? Oh, Cain does it — kills his brother. What does God do? God goes looking for Cain. "Cain, what have you done? Where is your brother?" "I don't know. None of my business, is it?" God says, "Well, actually, it is." And so Cain goes east of Eden and begins civilization built on a foundation of murder, and God just goes finding Cain, places a mark on him to protect him so no one would take vengeance against him.
The story repeats and repeats. God goes to Abraham and says, "Abraham, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to make you a nation of peoples greater than the sands of the seashore, greater than the stars in the heaven." But Abraham tries to take things into his own hands and has a child with the slave. What does God do? God blesses Abraham anyway, and meets the slave and her child out in the desert. The slave is the first person in Scripture to name the divine God, and God promises the slave and her son that they, too, will be a people of nations. God goes to David and says, "David, upon your throne I will build an everlasting kingdom, from whom a branch, a Messiah, will come." But David goes running to the hot tub. So God goes and finds David, goes and finds Bathsheba — and from Bathsheba comes Solomon, upon whom that everlasting kingdom will be built, and reconciles with David. Hosea the prophet says, "O God, our people are wicked and evil. They oppress the foreigner, they harm the orphan, they hurt the poor, they refuse to take care of their widows. God, you must destroy them. You must punish them." And God says, "Mmm, can't do it. I was just looking at their baby photos. They're so cute. Don't you remember the first time they were walking? I will not have my heart turn away from my children. So here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to send my prophets to preach a more beautiful gospel. Before they repent, before they turn back, I will send my prophets to preach this more beautiful gospel. I will pursue my people out of love."
Which, as a reminder, is why you don't need to be afraid of the God of the Old Testament, the God of the Hebrew Bible. Yes, there are stories of the prophets who tell of this wrathful, angry God, but then God keeps showing up in this surprising way of, "No, I will relent. I will forgive. I will not destroy."
Go to the New Testament, and you start hearing stories of Jesus. There's a man who's short of stature — probably needs a chair like this — and so he starts compensating. He makes a deal with the Roman Empire, starts collecting taxes on their behalf, starts collaborating with the enemy, and in doing so he loses his faith community, his people, his family. And to top it all off, he starts taking some money on the side, lining his own pockets — not just some money, but a lot, a lot, a lot of money. One day, God comes walking by, walks under a tree, and says, "Hey, Zacchaeus, I'll be your friend," and they go home together. And Jesus, the Rabbi, by entering into the house of this supposedly evil, wicked man — actually evil, wicked man — declares his house and this person clean. Zacchaeus is so moved by the preemptive love of God that he says, "I'm going to give it all back with interest, and I'll give the rest of what I own off to the poor."
There's a woman. She's been married, used by a man, and then divorced. And then married and used by a man, and then divorced. And then married and used by a man, and divorced — again and again. And now she's living with a man who, because of her socially suspect status, is unwilling to marry her, but still wants to use her body. Because in that time and culture, women were seen as maybe a little bit more than property, but not much more. So she goes off to the well during the noon hour, the hottest part of the day, because she knows no one else will be there. And what does God do? Meets her there. He says, "I know what your problem is. You're thirsty. And I can give you a drink that will cause springs of water to burst forth from your very soul, so that you will never be thirsty again." And she becomes — a little church-tradition history lesson here — she becomes Saint Photina, the luminous one, equal to the apostles, one of the first evangelists to go spread this more beautiful gospel to her people and beyond. And church tradition says that she and her sons were martyred for their faith by being thrown down a well — because I can imagine she wouldn't shut up about this God who shows up and offers her mercy.
There's a story of a man who can't walk. In those days, you understood that God did everything, so if you can't walk, it's because God did that, because you did something to tick off God — your inability to walk is because of your sin. So what does God do? After he brushes the plaster out of his hair, he looks up and sees the roof being torn off the place by four faithful friends who lower their friend down. The first thing Jesus says is, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Jesus detaches disability from disobedience; he detaches this man's inability to walk from anything he did. But anybody can say, "Sure, your sins are forgiven." So Jesus says, "Yes, but can anybody say, 'Son, pick up your mat and walk'?" And the man gets up and walks.
There's a woman caught in the act of adultery. A group of murderous men cast her down in front of Jesus. To which we ask the question — where the leap is the man? It's a setup. She's been set up to set Jesus up, to catch him in a rhetorical trap. So what does Jesus do? What does God do? Does he, who's so holy and righteous and just, pick up the stone so he can start the execution process? That's what it says he should do — he's God, he's righteous and just, right? No. God kneels down and starts scribbling in the dust. One by one, from oldest to youngest, her accusers walk away. Jesus looks her in the eye and says, "Where are your accusers?" She says, "Sir, they're gone." So God says, "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more." Now, if you're anything like me and you grew up in churches like mine, you heard that story kind of like, "Go and sin no more!" — as if Jesus does this great act of compassion and mercy, but, "Don't forget the rules." But what I think is happening is that Jesus is telling this woman, "You don't have to go back to the man who's going to leave you for dead. You don't have to go back to that story. It's like today never happened. Neither do I condemn you."
There's a man so demonized that he's locked up by the tombs. He's naked; he can't keep clothes on himself; he's bruised and broken; he's lost his dignity and his humanity. And what does God do? God gets on a boat, crosses the Sea of Galilee, steps foot on the shores of the Decapolis, meets this foreign man in his own territory, and the demons shake, because God has stepped into the scene. God leans in, casts the demons out, and gives this man his dignity and his humanity again. Hilariously, the man says, "Let me follow you." And Jesus is like, "Don't. Don't waste your time with that. Go back to your people. Tell them the rumors of this more beautiful gospel."
There are stories here at The Table that I could spend the rest of our night telling you — of people who have been hurt and rejected. A person who had given up on faith, on religion, on God, and actually heard one of our preaching team, Heidi, preach a sermon and reference disability in this non-judgmental, kind way. It was the first time this person ever heard a sermon like that. A person who came to confront an addiction issue and got word of people who could care for them, help them through the journey — heard rumors of a more beautiful gospel, of a God who was not going to turn his face away, but rather lean in and embrace. Another person who had given up on God, on faith, on Jesus, and then came to encounter Jesus and the people of this church, who said, "I never thought I could feel hope again," and so heard and experienced the love of God through these people. Another couple who wanted to get married, but they seemed to love the wrong gender, and so went to church, to church, to church, and experienced rejection again and again, until they heard rumors of a more beautiful gospel where God's love is not conditional — where God is not pitted against you, but leans in in love and affection.
So at last, humanity does the unthinkable and murders Jesus. They put him up on a cross; they crucify him. And what does God do? God welcomes their affliction onto him with open arms and says, "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing." In other words, "I forgive you." Jesus' death, then, is not about Jesus standing in front of an angry, abusive Father saying, "No, stay out of the way." It's rather about the triune God — Father, Son, and Spirit; Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer — together confronting head-on the corrosive powers of sin and death and evil. The cross is not about punishment; it's about rescue. It's why it's called salvation — salvation not from the wrath of God, salvation not from God himself, because that would just make God into the pagan deities of old. It's what N.T. Wright calls the paganization of God: that we make it out as though God has to be placated, that we have to have a sacrifice in order to make God not so angry at us. No, God is not like that. Rather — this is the book of Romans — God in Christ is reconciling the world to himself, not counting sins against us. 1 John chapter 3 says the reason the Son of God appeared was to undo the devil's work. Hebrews chapter 2 says Jesus did all of this to break the one who holds the power over death — the devil. Colossians chapter 2 says Jesus disarmed on the cross the powers and authorities, spiritual and physical, and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. God, then, is not a judge who must punish sin, but rather a great physician, a great rescuer, rescuing God's people out of evil's clutches.
Keep this in mind: in the New Testament you have the word sozo. Sozo is a word that can mean "save"; it can also be translated "heal." So whenever you come across the word "salvation," whenever we need to be saved, you can exchange in your mind "healing" — that God is working in the world to bring our healing.
There are some who run from God today, and God runs after them. There are some of us who run really far from God, and God — from everything we've seen in Scripture — runs really far to come and get us. The story of Scripture, the story of the cross, is that God, who took on humanity, is now inviting humanity to take on divinity. This is how the ancient church put it: God became human so that humans can become God. There ain't no self-help book, New Age, Oprah-magazine gospel that's as good as that. God became human so that humans can become God.
Now, I don't know if you've been told this, but I was told that if you run away from God, if you turn away from God, then it gets really, really hard to hear God. But not in my experience. In my experience, I turn from God, and God's like, "Hey, what you doing?" "My God, can't you just give me 20 minutes?" Nope. Nope. So what does God do? You can run straight into the grave, if you want; God gives us that freedom. But this is what the creeds, this is what Scripture — Ephesians, 1 and 2 Peter — this is what has been declared through the centuries: that God does not abandon us in the grave. God in Christ descended into hell, descended into Hades, and — this is 1 Peter — preached the gospel to the spirits in prison; and then — this is Ephesians — the spirits in prison came up out of the grave with Jesus. When Jesus ascended, so did those who were stuck in the chains of Hades, of hell, of death.
Jesus rose from the dead. God rose from the dead and says, "I was dead, but now I'm alive." The book of Revelation chapter 1 says, "Behold, I hold the keys to death and Hades." If Jesus holds the keys to death and Hades, what do you think he's going to do with them? John chapter 5 says all those who are in the grave will hear the voice of the Son of God and will rise on the last day. Now, it does say, "some to everlasting life and some to judgment," but this is how I think it works. You can continue to run away — God gives you the ability to say no. But does God's character suddenly change upon death? The Hebrew Bible is very clear about this. There's this national chorus, this national refrain of the book of Psalms that says, "His mercy endures" — I bet you know this part — "his mercy endures" for how long? Forever. And his loving-kindness is ever-lasting. So you can run away from God, but God is just going to keep on running after you. And I bet you could run for a really, really long time. Maybe, possibly, you could run for all eternity. But what we do know for sure is that you can never outlast the everlasting, forever love of God. His loving-kindness has no time limit. There's no clock dangling above you.
If you love love, then it'll feel like heaven. If you love the kind of God who is merciful and kind, who always meets you where you're at, who is forgiving, then that will feel like heaven. If you hate love, if you're the kind of person who hates mercy and kindness and grace, then it may feel like hell. But what I know is that you will always be face to face with a loving, kind God.
This is a transcript of the sermon as preached, lightly edited for readability.
