The Crucified God: Luke 23:33-44
Jesus was one of thousands of executed men and women in Palestine in the decades before Titus’ war against Jerusalem. It is said that the roads from Jerusalem to Galilee were sometimes lined with crosses. We remember Jesus now and the work that he did as unique, but his execution was not. Thousands of unnamed people died like this, in that time and place.
Jesus died as one of his people, with them, victim to a greedy empire, dying publicly as a criminal, a person with no value, a person whose bones were meant to be left in the trash heap outside the city.
Perhaps this is the most powerful message of the Christian faith. That God, in Jesus, joined in solidarity with human suffering— joined with every human who had died at the hands of injustice, joined with every human being who was suffering, joined with the human beings that empires declare non-people and human trash.
We say today is Christ the King Sunday. In the text, that is a title given in scorn. It is a mockery of a dying man. Theologically, I would submit to you that it the Sunday where we see a Christ who is King of the suffering, King of the dying, King of the trash people that empires have always cast aside. Or, as theologian Jurgen Moltmann calls him, The Crucified God.
The Crucified God is Remembered with his People
A Jesus who marches victorious with armies like the crusades is of little use to me. But, in my work among people who are poor and homeless in Grays Harbor County, we need the solidarity of the Crucified God. We need a God who joins us in our suffering. A God who takes our side.
In Aberdeen, the largest town in Grays Harbor, 1 out of 16 people are homeless. About half the population is on federal assistance programs. We are poor. We are struggling. We just had an All Saints service remembering all the people who had died in our community over the past few years. We put up over 45 pictures. Only a few were elderly; most were between 18 and 50 and most had died of lack of medical care, exposure, overdose or suicide. While we were having the service, two more deaths were announced.
For us, Jesus’ crucifixion was not a stand alone event. Today, 2000 years later, it points us to the people who continued to be crucified among us.
When I first began street ministry in Grays Harbor over six years ago, I was immediately aware of how many people were dying and how rarely their deaths were commemorated. John Sobrino, a theologian from El Salvador, said;
“…the crucified people are also denied a chance to speak and even to be called by name, which means they are denied their own existence.”
Sobrino believed that it was a theological act to NAME suffering people. So often, all over the world, thousands of people die unjustly, die as people not considered worthy of naming, and their names are forgotten, and their bones are left in the trash heaps of history. We don’t know the names of the thousands of people who died at the time of Jesus. A funeral home closed in Aberdeen a few years back and there were hundreds of human remains found unclaimed and unnamed.
Part of our ministry has been naming and remembering our lost ones, our crucified ones. We hold funerals and memorials as often as we can. We print out people’s pictures and put them up in our church space. We hold an annual service on All Saints where we put up names and pictures and share stories of our dead. Perhaps the most intimate way that I remember people’s names is that I tattoo the initials of every person I bury on my arm, under an image of the virgin Mary.
And the act of remembering and naming is a theological act. It is affirming the life of suffering people. It is saying that the crucified God died alongside these people, these names, these holy ones.
The Crucified God is Mocked with His People
From that naming, from that love, from that solidarity, we learn to stand with people and work for justice. We do it in Jesus name but we also do it in the name of all those we have loved and lost.
Jesus was surrounded by mockery at the cross. The intention was that his name and his legacy be cast into the trash heap of history. The leaders of his day, the soldiers of his day, even some of the people suffering with him mocked him as a false king. As a king of the trash people.
Today, in Aberdeen, in the face of so much death and suffering, people sometimes openly call for the death of homeless people. Or me, honestly. Sometimes, business owners, believing that homeless people are the cause for their economic decline, want to ship people out of town or jail— or even kill— them. It is not unheard of for people to gather baseball bats and show up to people’s campsites and drive them off.
Small towns are historically known for their ability to take care of each other and look after each other. But we have entered a time when people are too poor to actually be able to do that. Instead, people who are homeless or drug addicted become the enemy. And that it is what is happening in Grays Harbor— and, if I would guess, maybe happening in your own towns up here too.
I am from Grays Harbor, and when I returned to do ministry there, I was surprised by how many young people and people my age were on the streets. And even more heartbroken by the number of people stuck in a cycle of addiction, homelessness, and prison. When I read the story of the crucifixion, I recall all the young bodies I have seen so scarred, so thin, carrying the marks of police brutality, the prison system, hunger, cold, and despair.
I remember the young Native kid I know who ran from Safeway after allegedly stealing food and was caught in front of his aunt’s tent in an encampment by the river. When I saw him in court, he was unrecognizable, his face a bloody mass, almost comatose, unable to respond to the judge’s questions. He’s now in prison on other charges, but I think of how his community has treated him as trash. Like Jesus. A young man who is considered just another criminal, just another junkie. And I think about how Jesus is king of the criminals and junkies. The Crucified God mocked with his people.
The Crucified God Risen with his People
We call this Christ the King Sunday because we remember that this was not the end of the story. Jesus dying, Jesus suffering the mockery of all the people around him, God crucified.
There is more to the story. The crucified God rises again, despite the empire, despite all the odds, despite the mockery and hatred and cruelty. He ushers the people who die with him into paradise and he rises again in power.
And the crucified God rises with crucified people today. In the six years I have done ministry in Grays Harbor, I have buried so many. But I have also supported amazing leaders who have, against all the odds, fought for their rights and stood tall as children of God. I have supported dozens of leaders who have left the streets, left jail, left addiction and found ways to heal.
In six year, we have an eleven person staff and most of us have experienced homelessness. Now each of us serve as chaplains to people still struggling. We started a farm almost two years ago, to provide work for young people getting off the street and to bring fresh produce back into the community. We have big, audacious dreams of resurrection in our community.
The Crucified God still stands with crucified people in our communities. And gives us audacious hope.
