Whitegate, Trinity 6, Proper 9, 7/7/2013
Christ’s disciples walk in a world of acceptance or rejection. Every day they experience being either embraced or expelled. Jesus sent out seventy-two of them to the Gentile towns of Judea as he had previously sent out twelve to the towns of Galilee in Israel, to heal the sick and proclaim the coming of the Kingdom of God. He led them to expect welcome in some places, and opposition in others, but promised them peace whatever they found; he told them to accept whatever came their way and to leave him to deal with the consequences; he pronounced woe on the Galilean towns who sent his disciples packing, even greater woe than on the Gentile towns who had previously done the same.
Christ’s disciples walk in a world of acceptance or rejection. Every day they experience being either embraced or expelled. They offer peace to every home they visit; they speak in Jesus’ name, and they understand that if they’re not listened to, then it is Jesus, not them, who is rejected. They come back home to him rejoicing, and he embraces them.
And what of Christ’s disciples today, you and me, baptised into a lifetime’s journey with our Lord? Christ calls us as he called the twelve and the seventy-two, to walk with him in the world, to be the human beat of his heavenly heart every place we go. We may not share the urgency that marked their mission - Luke’s account describes his disciples taking what what seems a breathless dash around the lands through which they moved. We who are more rooted people may travel more slowly through our neighbourhood, our contact with others will be more regular and our relationships with them will deepen over time. But our Lord still calls us as he called those first disciples - to bring peace, healing and the message of the Kingdom of Heaven to others. In a world where all people experience acceptance or rejection, where everyone knows what it is to be embraced or expelled.
Now if the prospect of bearing the message of the Kingdom of Heaven daunts you, it is probably because we live in an age of uncertainty, where previously fixed-points are wobbling, where nothing can be taken for granted in our land any more, and where consequently many Christians are nervous about explaining, proclaiming and expressing our faith.
Many of us long to regain our confidence in the Christian story, we yearn to be able to grasp fully the meaning of the cross so as to be able to helpfully explain it to others, we desire to comprehend the significance of being citizens and heralds of the Kingdom of Heaven in the here and now. If that is you, then you might find today’s gospel passage a helpful starting point.
For Luke chapter 10 offers us a unique expression of the meaning of the cross. There, in verse 18, as nowhere else in scripture, Jesus describes his crucifixion experience. In just one brief, astonishing, line he projects himself forwards in time to tell us what he sees at the moment of his death:
‘I see Satan fall from heaven like lightning,’ he said. [1]
If you want a definitive description of the most powerful moment in history, then this is it. ‘I see Satan fall from heaven like lightning.’ In this one vivid phrase, Jesus describes what his eyes see from the cross, at that pivotal moment of his death. It is so intense an image, like a scene from a motion picture, that it is likely to become fixed forever in our own mind’s eye once we’ve visualised it for the first time.
Jesus, crucified by brutal enemies, whilst hanging there utterly engaged in a cosmic battle between the powers, at the very moment of his death ‘sees Satan fall from heaven like lightning’, and in a flash the world is changed substantially, for ever.
But how is the world changed, substantially, for ever, by this fall?
Before this moment our world was a world based entirely on acceptance or rejection, on embrace or expulsion. It was a world in which people longed to belong and strove to be chosen, a world where belonging to a group was everything, and every group’s identity depended on their not being like the group next door, not being tainted by the presence of others unlike them. In this world group identity was upheld by a process in which those who upset the balance of things were accused of wrongdoing, and expelled.
Religion was key to this process, the practice of sacrifice was central to humanity’s sense of well-being. And so the high priest Caiaphas said, ‘It is better that one man should die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed.’ (John 11.50) and so the innocent victim Jesus was accused, condemned and crucified.
And in this world, in ancient folklore, Satan is the Accuser. He is the one who brings accusations against people. He is the High Court Judge, if you like, charged to bring a conviction against the bad people of the world. Satan divides the world between the chosen people and the accused people - those who are accused of evil-doing and therefore rejected. Satan makes those who think they are the chosen to gang up against those who they accuse. [2] This a world of unjust victims, of scapegoating, and as I’m sure you’ll have realised by now, is not just the ancient world, it is today’s world too.
But the good news of the meaning of the cross speaks to people who walk in a world of acceptance or rejection, whose everyday experiences are of being embraced or expelled. It is this - that Satan, the Accuser who is at the heart of each rejection and every expulsion, has been overcome by Christ, who embraces us in unconditional love, and enables us to step away from the cycle of violence which is the way of the world.
The moment of Jesus’ death was also the moment of Jesus’ triumph. It was a moment of illumination in which the watching world plainly saw an innocent victim, the unjustly accused, punished, and for the first time the world had its eyes opened to every innocent victim, every unjustly accused person, punished throughout history. In that moment of revelation Satan the Accuser lost his power, his grip on human society slipped, and he fell.
‘I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning,’ Jesus said. I put it to you that the energy charge which clashed with Satan to create that particular flash of lightning was the Holy Spirit of God. The gospel of John refers to the Holy Spirit as the paraclete - a legal term, meaning the defender of the accused, and it was his vital energy which forced Satan the accuser to go spiralling to the ground, which drained the former ruler and judge of the world of his power to convict.
The gospels uniquely address the problem of human violence. They reject the idea of violence as divine (contrary to what myths do). They refuse to say that it is human nature (like biology does). They will not agree that violence is restricted to certain people or types of persons only (who then make excellent scapegoats), because these are ideologies. They won’t say that violence is too accidental and exceptional for human knowledge to consider - this is what the philosophy of Enlightenment says. [3]
Instead the gospel insists that true enlightenment comes from the moment when the world was illuminated by that once-and-for-all-time lightning strike.
Now Christ sees Satan fall to earth, which means that the end of Satan has not yet come, and that our world of acceptance or rejection, embrace or expulsion, continues. But it has been drained of its power. Because the whole world has been illuminated by that flash of lightning,
In the light of the cross we stand before Joseph, before Job, before Jesus, before John the Baptist and still other victims, and [are able to begin to see] why so many mobs expel and massacre so many innocent persons, why so many communities are caught up in madness. [3]
This understanding means the beginning of ‘the end of Satan’s false transcendence, his power to restore order through his false accusations, [the beginning of] the end of scapegoating.’ [4]
These verses in Luke help ease us towards a fuller meaning of the cross, of what it is to be citizens and heralds of the Kingdom of Heaven in the here and now. They help us towards seeing that while Christ’s disciples walk in a world of acceptance or rejection, of embrace or expulsion, we no longer need to be driven by the power of that world, for we have seen the way that world works and know that its ruler, Satan the Accuser, has been overcome.
The Christ of the cross promises us peace whatever others offer us; he helps us to accept whatever comes our way and rather than seeking our own justice, to leave him to deal with the consequences. Freed by him to live this way, we can come home to him rejoicing that our names are written in heaven.
Notes
[1] This sermon owes a great deal to the concluding chapter of Rene Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, p.182-193, and to Paul Neuchterlein’s notes on Luke 10.1-11, 16-20 in his Girardian Lectionary, Proper 9C.
[2] See my sermon Mark 8 - Satan the Accuser and God the Chooser from 2006, and the source sermon of the same title by Paul Nuechterlein.
[3] Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, p.184 (my alterations)
[4] Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, p.185
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