People of the Passion: The Governor March 14, 2021 Dr. Tom Pace Matthew 27:11-26

Now stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, “Are you the King of the ?” Jesus said, “You say so.” But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?” But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed. Now at the festival the governor was accustomed to release a prisoner for the crowd, anyone whom they wanted. 1At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Jesus . So after they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” For he realized that it was out of jealousy that they had handed him over. While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that innocent man, for today I have suffered a great deal because of a dream about him.” Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus killed. The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” Pilate said to them, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” All of them said, “Let him be crucified!” Then he asked, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!” So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” Then the people as a whole answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” So he released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified. Matthew 27:11-26 Let’s pray together. Gracious God open us up. Open our eyes that we might see and open our ears that we might hear your words in the midst of these words today. Open our hearts that we might feel. And then, in response to our open eyes, ears, and hearts, open our hands that we might serve you. In the name of , Amen. My daughter, Coatney, was driving down the road in her mini-van, and it happened. There was a dog - a pit bull actually - wandering on the road. Just wandering on the road, walking out and about, and she had a difficult decision to make. I don’t know how you deal with those things. Now, if you are not dog people, I get that - it’s understandable. But for those of us who are dog people, it’s so hard to decide what to do, “Do I stop and pick up this dog? And if I do, then I’ve got some responsibility for this dog. Or do I drive on past and say, ‘That’s someone else’s dog. I can’t deal with this. I already have enough dogs.’” We go through this situation at our house periodically. My wife always says, “Oh, let’s take the dog!” And I always say, “We already have two dogs - we don’t need any more dogs!” In fact, one time, we picked up a giant yellow Labrador, and it was knocking everything off our table with his giant tail. I named the dog Sed - and that stood for “Someone else’s dog.” This was not our dog. Well, I’ll let you see what Coatney decided to do. She picked up the dog, found a no-kill shelter, and is in the business of marketing the dog until she can find a home for him. So we always face these responsibilities, these difficult decisions about whether to take responsibility for something or to pass that responsibility. So there are so many tensions in Christian life. We can look at all of them. Like the tension between faith and works, between grace and judgment, between individual and corporate, between now and the future. All these things are there. Last week Rev. Katie Montgomery Mears preached an excellent sermon about how at some times, we have to let go. We have to release life - hold it more loosely is the image that she gave. She quoted the Serenity prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr, which Alcoholics Anonymous uses - at least the first stanza. It says, “The serenity to accept the things I cannot change and the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” How do we struggle with those tensions?

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And last week, we heard about , who just wanted to manipulate everything, so it turned out his way. That fear gripped him, and he was going to just punch every button and pull every string to do everything he possibly could so Jesus would end up crucified. And that his fear of losing the things and power that he had gripped him, so he was going to manipulate and hold tight. Today we have , who took the opposite approach. He said, “You know, I want to pass off this responsibility. I’m not going to make this call. Somebody else needs to deal with this.” Let me tell you about Pontius Pilate, so we have the background. If you’re a person who may not want to know about the history, then check your Facebook feed for a little while we go through this. So was appointed by as the King of the Jewish area of Rome. And that Herod is the one we see when Jesus is born. But soon after Jesus is born, Herod the Great dies, and his sons and one daughter divide up the territory - Rome divides up the territory and puts each of his sons in charge of a part of it. There was a man named Herod Archelaus who was in charge of - the southern part where is. was given control of , the northern part where Jesus lives in . Then Herod Philip is in charge of the part to the northeast across the Jordan River. But what happens is Herod Archelaus, who was in charge of Judea, is so cruel, so incredibly cruel, that the people rise up against him. They also take a delegation to Rome to ask that he be removed. So Herod Archelaus was removed from ruling over Judea, and instead of sending another Jewish king to rule, they send a Roman governor- a procurator it was called, or sometimes called a prefect. This governor is going to rule on behalf of Rome as opposed to a kind of a puppet like the Herods were. They said that they were just going to put a Roman in charge. Pilate is really only in power at all because his wife Claudia was the granddaughter of one of the emperors. So he’s been sent there - you could be in Rome or sent to this far away crazy Palestine where it’s desert and dreary. So he’s not happy. He’s known to be exceedingly cruel. Pilate was an exceedingly cruel governor. In fact, in Luke 13, we see this: “Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.” (Luke 13:1 NIV)

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Oh, my goodness! So not only did Pilate’s soldiers murder these Galileans, but then as a way of just desecrating and adding insult to injury, when they made their sacrifices to their idols, they’d use Galilean blood as well to desecrate their bodies. Here’s what happened, and you probably know part of this. Caiaphas, the Jewish High Priest, brings Jesus to Pilate because he says, “We have no law to execute.” And the first thing that Pilate does, and we only see this in the of Luke - Pilate sends him to King Herod Antipas in Galilee because that where Jesus was from. But King Herod says, “All this is happening in Jerusalem,” so he sends Jesus back to Pilate. The Scripture that we read today is the second time that Pilate has an interview with Jesus. As you know, Pilate then presents Jesus and Barabbas. It’s the time of the , and it’s the custom to release a prisoner. He presents Jesus and Barabbas to the crowd and the crowd cry for Jesus to be crucified and Barabbas to be released. Then there’s this dramatic scene where Pilate washes his hands. He says, “I am not responsible for this man’s death! It’s on you!” One of the things that Katie Montgomery Mears said last week that really spoke to me was where she said, “In each of our hearts, there is a little bit of Jesus and a little bit of Caiaphas.” Well, I’ll say to you that in our hearts, there’s a little bit of Jesus and a little bit of Pilate as well. A little bit that wants to shirk our responsibility - that wants to push it off. So what can we learn? Let’s take a look and see what we can learn from Pontius Pilate. Here’s the first thing. Pilate knew what was right and what was wrong, but it was complicated. He had the High Priest barking at him, asking for a crucifixion, he had this crowd that was rumbling, and he was responsible for keeping the crowd quiet. He was responsible for preventing uprisings. The rebellious Jews were always simmering for rebellion. He had all of that going on. He knew what was right. In today’s Scripture, it says in verse 18: “For he realized that it was out of jealousy that they [the High Priest] had handed him over. While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, ‘Have nothing to do with that innocent man, for today I have suffered a great deal because of a dream about him.’” (Matthew 27:18-19). In other words, not only did he know that Jesus was innocent, his wife had had a dream saying that Jesus was innocent. We hear in John 19:4 in that narrative that Pilate actually says, “I find no guilt in him.” (John 19:4) He was saying, “I see no charge that can be brought against him.” Then, in fact, after the crucifixion, Pilate puts a sign up on the cross that says, “The King of the Jews.” The chief priests then said,

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“Can’t you just say that he said he was king of the Jews, and that was why he was crucified?” And Pilate said, “No, it will be what it is. The King of the Jews.” He actually was the king is what Pilate was saying. He knew it was wrong. Yet at the same time, it was so complicated. I think that is kind of how our lives are most of the time. It’s just complicated. Right and wrong, black and white, it isn’t as easy as it seems to know what we’re to do and what we’re not to do. But at the core of it there is a right, and there is a wrong. Jesus gives us the model, the paradigm, the pattern for how our lives are to be. From Matthew 5 to Matthew 7 we get the Sermon on the Mount, which teaches us directly what the values of the Kingdom are. Parables that he taught throughout his life teach us how we’re to respond to the people around us, how we live according to the values of the Kingdom in the here and now, in this moment, in our daily lives. We get to watch the way he gives himself up to serve others over and over again how he reaches out to the marginalized and the oppressed, how he sits down at the table with sinners. This is a particular way of life that we are taught. And while yes, it’s complicated and no, the is not just a book of rules that we can go to and say, “There it is! That is what it says!” While we can’t use the Bible that way, Paul in fact, does interpret the life of Jesus for his particular time and place. And we can learn from that and appropriate that in the way we make decisions. Yes, it’s complicated, but at some point, we have to take that stand. To say, “This is the right thing.” He knew what was right. When we pray and stay connected to the Christ of love, we know what’s right. Now here’s the second thing. Pilate wanted to please the crowd. In the passage in Mark, it says it slightly differently than it does in Matthew. He says, “So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus he handed him over to be crucified.” (Mark 15:15) Boy, do we like to please the crowd! We want to go along with the flow of the people around us. We don’t want to be out there on our own, different from everyone else. We want to fit in. I don’t know if you’ve read the book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson or seen the movie of the same story. It’s really a wonderful story. It’s a true story about Walter McMillian, who was wrongfully convicted in Monroe County, Alabama of murder. Bryan Stevenson as the founder of Equal Justice Initiative, goes in as an attorney to try to get him a new trial and get him exonerated. He sits down at some point with the D.A. of Monroe County, a man named Tom Chapman. The prosecutor at the original trial is now gone,

5 and this is a new D.A. They sit together, and they go through the trial transcript and can see that it’s so obvious all the things that are wrong. They see that he absolutely deserves a new trial, but Chapman says, “Well, you know that everyone around here knows he’s guilty. I’m just sure he’s guilty.” Then Stevenson is just so frustrated that it’s so obvious, but it’s the overwhelming belief of everyone else that has Chapman going. And on his way out of the office, they say, “Here's a flier about the next showing of 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'" That's a story that's so much like the story of Bryan Stevenson. Interestingly, Tom Chapman ultimately comes around and that continues to plague him, that sense of right and wrong eats at him until he's willing to go against the crowd. Here's the thing that's so interesting. It's not like we have a single crowd these days. It's like there are different crowds, and we like to think that we're going against the crowd because we compare ourselves with the crowd that disagrees with us. But there's always a crowd that agrees with us, and we want to go with that crowd. We want to have our own tribe; we want to be part of that tribe. What I think is so amazing about Jesus is that he aligns himself with no tribe. He doesn't align himself with the against Rome. He certainly doesn't align himself with Rome. He doesn't align himself with the or the . He has a different way all the time. And we have so many voices around us shouting for us to come to be a part of their crowd, to join their tribe. No, it's a difficult thing to stand on your own. To be like Martin Luther when he said, "Here I stand, I can do no other." I'm not going to go along with the crowd, but I'm going to stand for what I think is right. Pilate wanted to go along with the crowd. Jesus stood against every one of those social movements so he could go his own way. Here's the third thing. Pilate wanted to shirk his responsibility. This is really the key of it. He tried to pass it off on everyone. He passed it off on Jesus. He interviews Jesus and asks, "What do you have to say for yourself?" And Jesus is silent. In the words of "Jesus Christ Superstar," which I listen to every Lent, Pilate says to Jesus: "Die if you want to, you misguided martyr! It's up to you. You take responsibility." He tries to pass off the responsibility on the High Priests. He says, "It's up to them - they brought him to me!" He certainly puts the responsibility on the crowd and says, "Look, it's up to you. You can choose Barabbas or Jesus." He doesn't want to have to make the decision himself. He wants Herod to make the decision. He passes him off to Herod, saying, "You make this

6 decision, not me!" Then that moment where he washes his hands in front of the crowd. He wants to deflect that responsibility. So often, we're in the business of deflecting the responsibility of saying, "You know what? I can't do anything about it. It's the system. It's just the way it is. I can't do anything to change it." Or here's one of the things we're more likely to do. You might say, "You know, that is not part of my scope. That's not part of my responsibility. This part is my responsibility but not that. So I'm not going to take any responsibility for anyone else at all." What's the saying that’s so funny? It's supposed to be a Polish proverb that says, "Not my circus - not my monkeys!" We say that all the time. Young people say, "That's not my circus, not my monkeys! That's not my business." I must confess that in my conversations with my wife I'm often the one who says "not my monkeys, not my business," and she's the one who says, "Shouldn't we do something?" That ongoing conversation about how we're likely to shirk responsibility. The truth is that you really can't. Pilate could not wash his hands. He couldn't remove responsibility. Every single Sunday, we say it: "Conceived by the Holy Spirit, Suffered under Pontius Pilate..." That's what we recognize. The torture of Jesus was at the hands of Pontius Pilate despite his decision to try and remove his responsibility. Emil Brunner was a Swiss theologian, and there's so much to learn from him. He wrote and taught in the first half of the 20th century during the time of Nazi Germany. He's in Switzerland a place that is staying neutral. But he keeps saying, "You can't stay neutral...You have to take responsibility." His theology is so against determinism. That says that everything is all laid out; everything is already planned. God has this plan, and everything is simply being executed according to the plan. And we're just automatons in the middle of it. He says, "No, absolutely not. We are given the responsibility to make our choices and to live our lives." There are places we can claim that responsibility. So too often, we just resign ourselves. John Thornburg is a United Methodist pastor and a musician. Actually, he's a good friend of our own Sid Davis. He works for the Texas Methodist Foundation. He wrote a poem that TMF sent out to their supporters. Here's what he writes, and this is part of a poem called "Choose the Silence of Awe." Here's how it goes: “Which Silence will we choose? Will it be the silence of awe, or will it be the silence of fear, the drugged silence of submission to what is,

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the dreadful silence when que sera sera is all we know how to say... the silence that signals resignation...” (John Thornburg) Perhaps that's where you've been, "I just can't do anything about it." Friends, there's one last piece that I want you to hear from this Scripture because it's really the culmination. Here's what it finally gets to after the crowd calls for Barabbas: "Pilate said to them, 'What, then, shall I do with this Jesus who is called the Messiah?'" (Matthew 26:22) What then will you do with Jesus? What then shall we do with him? It's like my daughter driving along seeing the dog. What then shall I do with this dog? When we see the homeless or the poor or the oppressed or the hurting or the grieving - what then shall we do with this Jesus? He's standing right here beside us. He's in the face of those who are hurting. When we sit down to write our checks, do we think to ourselves, "What is the right thing for me to do with my money - what then shall I do with this Jesus? Shall I choose to follow the teaching that he taught or go my own way?" When we get in a voting booth to vote, then we could ask, "What shall I do with this Jesus? Shall I look for what's right based on what he's taught or go my own way?" Each and every moment of our lives we make decisions, and we have to claim responsibility for the decisions that we make. And every time we do, we ask ourselves, "Jesus is right here. What then shall I do with this Jesus?" We don't push it aside. Yes, life is complicated. Yes, we have so many voices calling us to be a part of the crowd. And yes, there are some things we can’t change, but there are some things we can. And we shall. Let's pray. Gracious God, It is a hard thing to know when to take responsibility for something we see around us or simply give it to you and trust you with it. God, help us to make these decisions well and to take responsibility for our own lives and our own decisions in a way that gives you honor and glory. In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.

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