Sermon for Mid-Week Lenten Vespers Week II 2018 Truly I tell you, today, you will be with me in paradise...

Transcription

1 Sermon for Mid-Week Lenten Vespers Week II 2018 Truly I tell you, today, you will be with me in paradise... Recently I heard the following story about the first time a straight Southern Baptist went to a gay bar. It was Warren Holleman s first time at any bar actually. In his world there were two kinds of people church people and bar people and the two didn t usually come together in his experience. It happened 20 years ago when he was a college student assigned to film a series of family role-plays. Most of the students used other students to film their role-playing, but Warren had a friend who was a former actor and former professor of acting. But his friend was in his later years, in his 70s, and he had fallen on hard times. His health was poor and he was short on funds. So Warren thought he could help his friend Grant by compensating him for his roleplaying. The filming went well and when it came time to pay his friend, Grant paused and said with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, You know what I d really like you to do is to take me out for a couple of beers. So Warren agreed and following Grant s directions, they ended up at the Briar Patch Houston s first gay bar. As they entered, Warren noticed that Grant was thrilled. Though Grant was in poor health, you wouldn t have known it during the next two hours. Now the Briar Patch was a piano bar and eventually the pianist began playing show tune. Unlike Warren, all the men there knew every word to every song. Though he was the only straight man among them, he was taken up by the camaraderie and joy they were sharing. 1

2 Eventually the tone shifted and the tunes shifted, and instead of Broadway show tunes, they began singing Baptist hymns. Now Warren knew all the words of those songs! Yet, the thing was, the words started making sense to him for the first time. Hymns like Just as I am Warren said, Those men knew the theology of that song and what it meant. A verse from the hymn Amazing Grace Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come, but grace has brought me safe thus far and grace will bring me home. For Warren, these songs (which he has sung all his life) were finally beginning to make some sense. And it came to him that his bar/church divide didn t make much sense because this bar was a real church now. The last song of the evening sounded like a hymn to Warren, it had a very reverent tone. But it wasn t a hymn; it was another show tune that Warren couldn t place at first. Eventually he realized it was a song from West Side Story a song about two people who could not be with the one they loved because of prejudice. Suddenly Warren began to weep and he says the last few lines haunt him to this day: There s a place for us, somewhere a place for us... Some day a time for us... some how, some way, somewhere. That was the last time Warren spent any significant time with Grant because shortly after that Grant died. Warren has always been grateful to Grant for that experience because it was the first time he had a glimpse of heaven... 2

3 When I heard this story last week on one of the podcasts I listen to, I immediately thought of this scene of Jesus and the repentant thief. There are a number of reasons for this but one is that I think Warren and the thief glimpsed heaven in a most unlikely place. Because Jesus wasn t crucified between two candlesticks in a cathedral in a sacred place. He was crucified on a roadway alongside the rubbish dump outside the city wall of Jerusalem. The thief and Warren see through the eyes of faith where God can be found, and where and how God can be called upon and by whom, and they are forever changed. Amid the mocking and rebuking and jeering, one of the thieves turns and looks at Jesus. He sees him dying, and somehow he sees the Lord of Lord, and the King of Kings He rebukes the other thief saying, Don t you fear God? This man hasn t done anything. He doesn t deserve to die. But you and I deserve to die. We deserve to be executed for our crimes. And with the eyes of faith, he sees a glimpse of heaven in Jesus, and he prays, Lord, remember me when you come into kingdom. Jesus speaks a word of truth, a word of reconciliation: Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise. It s important for us to know that Jesus is not just speaking to the thief, but to all of us today, this night. The promise that whatever we have done in our lives, however we lived, wherever we ve slept, however we ve treated people, 3

4 God s grace is stronger. God s yes to us is more intense, God s forgiveness and love can embrace us. Here at the cross, in this place of utter abandonment, a place of horror and death, was the promise that is life eternal for each of us: Today you will be with me in paradise. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ for us. Today. This very day millions of hearts were shattered in one way or another. It happened to people who heard words like, It s malignant. or I don t love you anymore. or There s been an accident. or You are not wanted here. And yet, today, is also the day that around the world millions of lives were forever changed. It happened to people who heard words like, She s healthy and beautiful, ten fingers and ten toes. The tests came back clean as a whistle. I love you. Don t worry, you re not alone. I ll stay with you. Today, Jesus said to the thief nailed next to him. Today. We know only two things about this thief first, he was guilty of thievery, and second, that he believed that Jesus would be ruler of a realm completely unlike the one that had nailed both of them up to die in agony. The thief states that plainly: Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. What a moment. A conversation between two men in the very process of dying. 4

5 In the midst of that suffering, they talk about today. They talk about the turning upside down of their universe today. They talk about seeing one another in God s kingdom. As their life drips out of them, they talk to each other. And neither of them will have to die alone. Isn t that just the way of Jesus, who throughout his life welcomed the lowest to be by his side. Jesus enters the kingdom of heaven leading not a saint or a beloved friend, but a criminal. Like that thief still on the cross, some of us know that we are dying. Some of us don t want to think about the fact that we are dying even though we have been ever since we first drew breath. The tragedy isn t that all of us are dying; that s just a fact of being human. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. The tragedy is that some of us aren t living. The thief begins living in his last hour of life. That s when he meets Jesus and realizes that Christ will soon reign over a realm that he could never have dreamed of, and he asks to be remembered by Jesus there. Jesus goes further than just remembrance, he welcomes him and gives him a place in his kingdom. Having just prayed for God to forgive those who are crucifying him, Jesus now offers the final form of love forgiveness a true lifeline to this thief. Just as he is, God s grace will bring him home. 5

6 Pastor Yvonne Hawkins says that when she was a child growing up, she remembered hearing preachers say over and over that you could come to Jesus just as you are. You could be a gambler, a prostitute, an addict, a thief. And Jesus would accept you. But she was always curious why they talked about people like that because she didn t know anyone like that. She knew people like, well, herself church going people. And she often wondered, what about people like me? What about people who mean so well but who still mess up so bad? Could we come too? Could it be that the cross is for church people every bit as much as for bar people? When we trust in the love of God in Christ, the words Jesus speaks from the cross begin to make sense to us: Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise. Through the eyes of faith, we see that the cross bridges the divide between us and the divide between heaven and earth. The cross is the lifeline of forgiveness and reconciliation, a glimpse of heaven, God s kingdom, here on earth for everyone. As we struggle to live out being citizens of Christ s kingdom here on earth, may we hold onto the promise of heaven at the last but let us all the more cling to the first part of his promise: Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me Which is really just another way of saying, I will be with you always, even unto the end of the world. 6