People of the Passion: The Rich Man March 28, 2021 Dr. Tom Pace Matthew 27:57-61 When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. Matthew 27:57-61 (NRSV) Let’s pray together. Oh God, open us up today to whatever it is that you have for us to receive in this message. Open our eyes that we might see and open our ears that we might hear your word in the midst of these words, and open our hearts, God, that we might have compassion and that your word might fall into our hearts. And then, O Lord, open our hands that we might serve. Amen. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the challenge or opportunity or maybe the privilege to plan a memorial service for someone you love - to make the arrangements, as the saying goes. It can be a really daunting task where you head into the funeral home to meet with the folks there. It seems like it shouldn’t be that hard, but there are so many decisions, and they’re coming at you so fast. It’s shocking how expensive it seems to be, and you’re trying to get through it. But you don’t want to just get through it; you want it to be awesome and to honor the person who’s passed away. Also, you want to give God glory - all of those things that are all tied up in the emotions you’re feeling. It’s can really be a challenging time. Imagine what that would be like if you were making arrangements for Jesus. In the time of Christ, Biblical images of funerals worked this way. As soon as the person passed away, they would take the body and clean it very carefully. It would be washed, and it’s still done that way among Observant Jews today. It’s washed and wrapped in white linen, and at the time of Jesus, the body would have been put into a tomb. Here’s a photo of a Biblical-era tomb. This one is a pretty average size. The stone that’s there is about three feet tall. You can see them in Israel, where they’re placed on the sides of hills just off the road. They would put the body in that tomb and close it, and a year later, they would go back to that family tomb, and they’d gather the bones that were left after the decomposition of the body. Then they would put it in something called an ossuary which is a certain size to fit the longest bone of the body, which is the femur. They would gather those bones together, and they would leave those there in the tomb. But that would leave the shelves in the tomb for the next family member who passed away. The problem was that Jesus didn’t have a tomb, and it was especially a challenge because the Sabbath was coming. They didn’t have a long time to figure out what to do. So thankfully, a man named Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate and asked if he could receive the body of Jesus. So he took the body; it was washed and wrapped in clothing and laid in Joseph’s family tomb that had been newly hewn out of the rock. So what do we know about this Joseph of Arimathea? First, we know that he was rich, and it’s listed a little differently in each one of the Gospels. In Matthew, it says, “As evening approached there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph...” And that’s what we read a few minutes ago. We know that he was a member of the Sanhedrin. Now let me explain that the Sanhedrin was the ruling council, and this translation simply says he was “a member of the council.” It was composed of men from a variety of constituencies and would have included the chief priests, the Sadducees that were there as part of the council. It included Pharisees also. It would have had people who were not just religious leaders but civic leaders. People like Joseph of Arimathea who would be a wealthy member of the Jewish community. The Sanhedrin was the group that would negotiate with the Roman government. So he was a member of the Sanhedrin. But it also says that if you read in Luke, it says that he was a member of the council but had not agreed to their plan and action of sending Jesus to be crucified; to be before Pilate. So we also learn in the Gospel of John that Joseph of Arimathea was also a disciple of Jesus “though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews.” So that’s who Joseph is. But something changes in him. At the moment of the crucifixion, apparently, something changes because now he goes and asks for the body. He goes directly to Pilate and asks for the body of Jesus. He’s then willing to put him in his own family tomb.

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What I’d like for us to talk about today is what changed in Joseph. What were the movements that happened in his life that being a witness to the crucifixion led him to change? Here’s the first one. He goes from being passive to being active. It says that he did agree with their plan of action, but it doesn’t say that he protested it or argued with it. It doesn’t say that he put himself at risk in that moment. It’s like, “I didn’t agree with it, but I didn’t do anything about it.” Whereas afterward, he takes the initiative and decides he’s going to be an active disciple rather than a passive one. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a writer’s workshop. When you attend one of those, one of the things they try to teach you to do as often as possible is to use the active voice rather than the passive voice. So you say something like “Tim played the clarinet” that’s in the active voice. But if I said, “The clarinet was played by Tim,” then that’s in the passive voice. And in one case, Tim is the subject, and in the other, he’s the indirect object. It’s funny, sometimes we see ourselves as objects instead of subjects. We see ourselves as being victims of what the world does to us. We are sort of at the mercy of life altogether. Joseph of Arimathea goes from being this passive one to being an active one to taking charge and stepping out on his own. I want to be really careful. Now what we need more than everything is active disciples, people who aren’t just sitting there watching or who are just along for the ride. But they’re working hard and being subjects and not just objects and just riding along. But we have to be careful because God is not just interested in us being busier. It’s not just that we need to keep acting and doing all the time. What it is is do we see ourselves as using the gifts God has given us for God’s purposes. In 1 Corinthians 12, it has a marvelous statement that goes, “To each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Each one of us - you, me, all of us - have been given this manifestation of the Holy Spirit; these gifts poured into our lives for the purpose of discipleship. For the purpose of living and loving as Jesus taught us to live. And what do you do if you’re not using that and are just sitting there on it? Once my father-in-law gave me a beautiful pen he’d made on a lathe. He’d done that for a number of people. I received it, and I treasured it. I set it on my dresser to look at because it was so beautiful. Then when I’d see him, he’d ask, “Where’s the pen I made for you?” I’d say, “It's

3 on my dresser at home." He wasn't interested in it being on my dresser; he wanted me to be using it. We are called to use the gifts God has given us. One of the things I'm proudest about for St. Luke's is that we have a congregation full of active disciples. That doesn't just mean they're active in the life of the church, involved in Sunday School and small groups, worship, and service. It means that in their individual lives they're seeking to make a difference in their community in their world, all around them. But they're not going to be passive - going along for the ride. They're going to step out and be the subject, be the one who God uses to accomplish God's purposes. Joseph goes from at the moment of the crucifixion when he sees Jesus demonstrate his love, then he realizes he has a calling on his life as well. Then he steps out to be active. Here's the second thing. He goes from being tentative, from being secret to being bold. I think it's so interesting that they use exactly those words. They said, "he was a disciple, though a secret one, because of his fear of the Jews." But then the Scripture says, "he went boldly to Pilate" to ask for his body. This movement from being tentative and secret to being bold. It's a change that happens in us. I got so tickled the week before last when I was watching the NCAA March Madness tournament. Loyola of Chicago was playing, and they were an underdog to win. I hesitate to step into this sermon illustration, given the results of the games this weekend. But none the less Loyola is a Catholic school, and there's a nun named Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, and she's the venerable chaplain of the team. She got her COVID 19 vaccination shot so she could go to Indianapolis and she led the team in an opening prayer. This is the kind of prayer I want to be able to pray. She said, "Dear God, as we fight the fighting Illini, we ask for special help to overcome this team and get a great win. We hope to score early and make our opponents nervous. We have a great opportunity to convert rebounds as this team makes about 50% of its layups and 30% of its free points. And our defense will take care of that." I love someone who prays specifically and boldly and says, "Let's go for it!" Now her prayer seemed to win out. Now, obviously, all of our prayers don't win out. But isn't it amazing that somebody can be so bold as to sort of call it, to say, "Here's what I feel God's calling me to do, and I'm going to do it!"

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I heard a Ted Talk not long ago by a guy named Jia Jiang. He's a young man who came as an immigrant as a teenager from China. When he was in China, he had this experience as a small child where he'd been rejected by his classmates. No one could find anything nice to say about him. Then he wrote a letter to his family saying he was going to be the richest man in the world and he was going to buy Microsoft. He said that there were two parts of him; one was so full of fear of rejection and the other that he wanted to accomplish everything that he could possibly accomplish. So what he did was he practiced this rejection therapy. He'd practice getting rejected over and over and over, and he said he was going to do a hundred days of rejection. He was going to ask for things that he knew people would say no to. So on day one, he walked up to the guard in the office where he worked, the guy sitting at the security desk. He said, "Hey, can I borrow $100 from you?" The guy said, "No, you can't borrow $100 from me." Then he said that he just ran away, embarrassed. But the next day he went to Burger King - his ideas crack me up! At Burger King, he went up to the counter and asked, "Can I have a refill on my burger?" The guy asked, "What?" He said, "Can I have a refill on my burger? You give refills on Coke; why won't you give a refill on my burger?" The guy said, "No, we don't give refills on burgers. But let me ask my manager." The manager said, "No, we don't give refills on burgers." Then he said he walked away, but it didn't bother me as much as it had the day before. The third day he went into Krispy Kreme, and I asked, "Can you make me doughnuts in the shape of the Olympic rings? The interlocking rings in different colors.” They said that there was no way that Krispy Kreme was going to make him those. But, sure enough, the lady got out a pen and drew the picture and made him this ring of Olympic doughnuts. He said, "What I learned was that you could ask for things and you can set out and go for it. It may happen, and it may not happen, but you have to be bold. You have to decide that you're going to take that step, and not be afraid, not to live out of that place of fear." That place that keeps us sort of cowering all the time. Sheryl Sandburg, in her book Lean In: Women, Work and the Will To Lead, which is aimed at young women leaders, says that we should ask ourselves this question. "What would you do if you weren't afraid? What would you step out and try to do if you weren't afraid?" I think that's a powerful question. To ask yourself that if you weren't holding back all the time. Now we want to be prudent, it's not like we want to be stupid and step out. But we are people who are called to try things that can only be successful if God's hand is upon it. Look, this isn't saying that nothing

5 bad can happen. Of course, it can. Think about it - Joseph of Arimathea had just watched Jesus die on the cross. But he'd also been inspired and moved by the witness of someone whose love was so great that he was willing to pour it out - that he had seen that in action, and he wanted to be that kind of follower of Jesus. To move from being someone who's afraid and tentative, a secret disciple, to one who is bold and willing to step out. Here's the third thing. He goes from protecting to providing. I had a conversation recently with a financial manager who was talking about how he'd been in many constituencies where he'd managed money. He said, "There's a difference between managing money for a very wealthy and managing money for those who are in the middle class." He said that the middle class often wants to take a big risk, and they want to go for it with the hope that maybe they'll hit it rich. But those who are wealthy are mostly interested in protecting their investments in making sure they don't lose what they already have. That's such a logical thought. If you don't have much to lose, why not just go for it? But here, Joseph had a lot to lose. He was in a position of power and wealth. He was in a position where he was vulnerable to the Romans and to the chief priests. He had a lot to lose by stepping out and acknowledging his discipleship. But instead, he didn’t work to protect what he had. Instead, he stepped out and gave of himself. He gave away his own tomb—what a marvelous image to give away your own life in that way. I heard Pastor John Crosby tell the story about a little boy named Michael and Michael's death. Michael had osteopetrosis. You have osteoporosis, where your bones become brittle; well, osteopetrosis means that your bones harden. And as they harden, they put pressure on blood vessels. It's almost always fatal. He tells that the story that the church he was serving was taking care of the family the best they can, walking with them through the anguish of their child's decline. That in the midst of it, he had reached out to a man named Dale, one of the wealthy members of their congregation, and Dale had asked, "What can I do to help?" The pastor said, "You know this family lives a long way from the hospital, so if we could rent them an apartment right next to the hospital so that for the next few months as they have to go for treatments all the time that they don't have to drive all that distance. To put him in his car seat and all those things, and it would be so much closer.” The man said, "You got it!" Then he put a check for $5000 in the mail and it came the next day. They rented an apartment. Then when Michael lived a little longer than they thought he would, Dale wrote another check for $5000 for another three months' rent. Then one day, ultimately, Michael passed away.

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Then they had a memorial service in the church, and it was full of people. They celebrated Michael's life and the life that God was still giving him, the life with Christ face to face. Then in the midst of it the pastor said, "This church has done so much to support this family. Some of you even helped financially. I'm not using names, but some of you helped financially to support this family." At the end of the service, he looked over, and in the back of the church was Dale, who was sort of a big crusty calloused guy. And tears were flowing down his face. He walked over to him and said, "I didn't use your name, but thanks so much for all you did for the family." And the man said, "I never knew what a privilege it would be to do something like that for someone else. I never knew what an incredible privilege it is to give myself away." What an amazing lesson for us to learn! How can we be in the business of giving ourselves away? It's not about money, but it's about a spirit of the heart. It's about how we choose as Joseph did as a follower of Jesus say, "I'm in the business of giving whatever I do have to be generous of heart." It's time, it's energy, it's your giftedness. It's your resources, it's your relationships, it's your influence. All of those things are what we can choose to give. And most of all it's your love. That you don't hold on to your love, that you are promiscuous with the love that you have just as Jesus was promiscuous with his love for us at the cross. Because that is what Joseph of Arimathea saw. This Christ who gave his love away even when it hurt. My oldest daughter Katie sent my wife and me a gift this last week. A beautiful gift. It was a song - a text message with a link to a song. She just wrote on it, "This makes me think of you." The song is a beautiful song, it's by Brandi Carlile, and it's called "Most of All." Maybe you've heard it. Brandi Carlile is singing about her mother and father and what they had taught. Sort of a chorus of the song goes like this: "Most of all, they taught me to remember what comes back when you give your love away. Give away your love. When you give your love away, you give away your love, give your love away. O give your love away and remember what comes back to you when you give your love away." Friends, this upcoming week we'll have the privilege of walking through Holy Week with Christ. Through the Maundy Thursday experience, as he celebrates the last supper with his disciples. And through the Good Friday crucifixion. And I hope that there is a change in us when we experience that. Maybe just maybe, we'll go from being passive to being active. We'll step up and use the spiritual gifts God has poured into our lives for his kingdom. Maybe we'll go from

7 being secret and tentative to being bold. Maybe we'll go from protecting what we have to choose to give it away to give our love away. Let's pray together. Gracious God, like Joseph of Arimathea we too are disciples, but we confess that too often we are reserved, tentative, half-hearted in our discipleship. God, we pray that in this week to come, there would be a transformation within us. And that as we experience your crucifixion once again, we would be changed. And rather than holding tight on all that we have, operating out of a place of fear, we would operate out of a place of bold faith and give ourselves away. In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.

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