Sermon for the Last Sunday after Pentecost, November 24, 2024

2 Samuel 23:1-7+Psalm 132:1-13+Revelation 1:4b-8+John 18:33-37

Tony Campolo died this week. That name might not mean anything to many of you, but Campolo was an irrepressible proclaimer of the Good News of Jesus Christ. He was ordained in the American Baptist Church, taught sociology at Eastern University where I finished my undergraduate degree, and founded an organization called Red-Letter Christians along with faith activist Shane Claiborne. Red-Letter Christians are those who look at the words of Jesus - often found in red ink in the bible - and adhere to the themes of justice and caring for the poor.

Campolo was also a compelling and entertaining preacher. In one of his most well-known sermons, he talked about preaching along with several other ministers on a Good Friday. Even though it wasn't a competition...it was a competition. A young man at the time, Campolo was feeling pretty proud of himself with people shouting "Amen" and "Hallelujah,"  as he returned to his seat next to his African-American pastor who said, as Campolo tells it:

“You did all right, boy !” he said. I turned to him and asked, “Pastor, are you going to be able to top that ?”  The old man smiled at me and said, “Son, you just sit back, ’cause this old man is going to do you in !”[1]

For the next hour and a half, this preacher kept repeating the same phrase over and over again, reaching a fever pitch toward the end. It went something like this:

“It was Friday. The cynics were lookin’ at the world and sayin’ “As things have been so shall they be. You can’t change anything in this world; you can’t change anything” But those cynics didn’t know that it was only Friday. Sunday’s comin’!”

“It was Friday! And on Friday, those forces that oppress the poor and make the poor to suffer were in control. But that was Friday! Sunday’s comin’!”

“It was Friday and on Friday Pilate thought he had washed his hands of a lot of trouble. The Pharisees were struttin’ around, laughin’ and pokin’ each other in the ribs. They thought they were back in charge of things but they didn’t know it was only Friday! Sunday’s comin’.”[2]

I can't recommend highly enough that you go find that sermon on YouTube.

On this final Sunday in the liturgical year, we are taken back (or forward, depending on your perspective), to the day of Jesus's arrest and crucifixion and his trial before Pontius Pilate. The way we tend to read this in church makes Pilate sound like some kind of thoughtful philosopher. Part of this is the way it is written. John was much more inclined to lay the blame on the Jewish leadership, but make no mistake, Pilate was in charge of this show.

You? King of the Jews?

Pilate knew what a king looked like, and Jesus was not it. But rather than showing deference and allowing the prosecutor to ask all the questions, Jesus answers with a question of his own. The impertinence.

For Jesus, authority - kingship -  was nothing like anything Pilate would recognize. It wasn't obtained through violence or force or exerting control. Those are just illusions of power, built on maintaining a climate of fear and of living in comfort and wealth while those other people struggle to survive. That is not the truth to which Jesus testifies.

Our reading ends just before Pilate whispers the question, "What is truth?" (John 18:38). Again, I don't think he is asking this as an intellectual exercise. No, this is more along the lines of truth, for him, being whatever you can get people to believe. It's only truth if you can say it enough times that it is widely accepted. Because if you can do that, you can hold onto power.

Pilate didn't know that Sunday was coming.

Sunday was coming with a different kind of power and might and truth.

Sunday was coming in the predawn hours with women as witnesses and disbelieving disciples.

Sunday was coming with God's victory over the ways of sin and death that started with a spark and set the world on fire.

Friends, we may feel trapped in Good Friday when the truth is negotiable, when the least qualified are tapped as leaders, when the poor are blamed for their plight, when those who were finally free of being trapped in a closet are being shoved back in, when death-dealing instruments of war are unleashed on those who have already been bombed into nothingness.

We may look around us and see only crucifixion.

But Sunday's coming.

On this day we call Christ the King, or the Reign of Christ, we are confronted with questions about what kingship really is. What does real power look like? How do we know when we encounter the truth?

We need look no further than the cross, the tomb, the resurrection, and the ascension. None of this happens on terms the world might understand. "Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice," Jesus said to Pilate (John 18:37). That's how we know who and whose we are and what true power looks like.

In his 2008 book "Red-Letter Christians: A Citizen’s Guide to Faith and Politics," Campolo points us in the right direction:

Perhaps because our culture and politics have gone so off course, with values so contrary to those of Jesus, more and more people intuitively recognize that His vision of God's kingdom - a new world of compassion, justice, integrity and peace - is the Good News they've been searching and waiting for.[3]

We know what truth is. We know what kind of reign Jesus proclaimed. We know that he was on the margins with those who had no worldly power, those who were beaten down by worldly power. We know that we have Good News for them and for us.

And we know that when we look around us at this weary old world it may be Good Friday, but have no doubt, Sunday's coming.

[1] https://methodistic.org.uk/its-friday-but-sundays-comin/

[2] Ibid.

[3] Tony Campolo, Red-Letter Christians: A Citizen's Guide to Faith and Politics (Ada, MI: Baker Publishing, 2008)