Non-optimization
Thumbnail image: Rubén Hernández Herrera, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
November 24, 2019—Christ the King
Jer 23:1-6; Col 1:11-20; Luke 19:29-38
That might have seemed like a strange choice for the sequence hymn. Surely something about the cross would have made more sense. Surely “My song is love unknown” would have been perfect! Why would you choose a song about the calling of the disciples, when the gospel is about the crucifixion?
Then again, why did they choose a gospel about the crucifixion on the Feast of Christ the King? It seems that we are meant to be brought up short by it. Meant to be struck to the core by the kind of king we have in Jesus. Meant to know, somewhere deep inside, that if we reach out our hand to Jesus when he calls us on the lakeshore of our lives, that what we’re really doing is reaching out our hand to the one who hangs on the cross. This is the reality we are called to enter. This is the absurdity, the scandal, the brutal honesty of the gospel. Kingship is embodied in the cross.
The bible, it must be noted, has always had a skeptical view of earthly kingship. From the very first, when Israel asked for a king, God refused. Even when God relented, he warned of the dangers of earthly kingship. Because an earthly king will take on the authority of God but will not be able to match the righteousness. And indeed, over and over we see earthly rulers in the Bible get so swept up by their own wealth, power and self-interest, that they no longer tend to the needs of the people. In particular, they ignore the most vulnerable: the poor, the widowed, the wanderers … the losers.
Jesus on the cross, Jesus as king, shows us another way.
It’s hard to see it, because we are so used to the ways of our earthly rulers (to our kings and our judges), that we have projected their qualities back onto God. So we can hardly recognize kingship in Jesus, because we are so distracted by its powerlessness, by such obvious, abject failure.
How is this any kind of leadership, let alone kingship? How can a crucified king save us? And what can the cross teach us about true liberation?
It’s a fair question. There’s a reason that the cross is considered a scandal, a stumbling block to belief. But to begin to understand it, I think we need look no further than the concept of “optimization.”
You’ve heard it. You’ve almost undoubtedly thought it! If only I were thinner (I would find love and never lose it). If only I exercised regularly (I would never die). If only I got that MBA (I would land the perfect job). Maybe I should buy a really good planner, or some of those closet organizers; then I could Marie Kondo the heck out of my life and have nothing but joy! That’s the promise, right? If I do it right, if I follow all the hacks, if I choose the right parenting method and follow it to the letter, everything will be good and perfect and I will stand before my fellow humans (and my God) completely blameless.
Because I did it all right. Because I optimized.
And really, there’s no excuse not to. After all, the instructions are everywhere, all around you. Honestly, I’m a little disappointed that all y’all aren’t a bit more optimized!
I kid. Not because the ways that our culture or even the Bible implore us to optimize ourselves are bad. They aren’t bad. It’s just that we can never actually perfect them, and that can lead us into very dangerous places, spiritually.
It’s the warning Paul was giving about the Law. None of what the Law requires is bad. What’s bad, is when you think can fulfill it all. What’s bad, is when you think you NEED to fulfill it all.
Go ahead and do some optimization. Organize your closets. Go to the gym. Work on your anger issues. Just remember two things: (1) no-one actually masters all of these things, no matter what their Instagram feed looks like, and (2) any improvements you might make are great, but they are NOT pre-requisites for salvation. The salvation comes free and with no such strings attached.
Which is ridiculous. Which is scandalous. Surely I need to do something to make myself worthy! No. No, in the realm of God, with a crucified Christ as your king: you do not! And that gift, that gracious acceptance, that promise that you do not need to be optimized to be loved by God, THAT gift is what will truly transform you. In your love of yourself. In your love of your neighbor. In your broken heart that recognizes God in the broken and suffering soul that you see next to you.
Which is another thing, another deep truth that we learn on Christ the King Sunday, when we contemplate Jesus dying on the cross, when we hear that criminal nailed to a cross beside him, who looks at Jesus naked and bleeding and dying and nonetheless SEES who he is: our Optimized selves are never going to be the ones who recognize Jesus when they look over. It was the criminal’s brokenness, his failure, his realization of his own helplessness that allowed him to see it. To see Christ as clearly as the writer of Colossians: the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation!
We see the suffering and the pain, willingly taken on, and we recognize God. A God who encompasses all things and knows that this beautiful and fragile creation includes suffering and pain and dying. We see the cross, and we recognize a fuller reflection of life that is so often scrubbed out of the perfect family photograph. The cross helps save us by forcing us to acknowledge that we all suffer, we are all betrayed, we all fail. Which means that none of those things, awful as they are, signifies that we have not been redeemed. On the contrary: the only threat to our salvation is denying our failures, is madly attempting to fix ourselves, optimize ourselves, SAVE ourselves.
We can’t save ourselves. And that’s good news. The part of us that knows that is the part of us that reaches out to Jesus when he beckons us on the beach, calling us to come with him in a new kind of life. We go, and he leads us places and shows us things: things that break us open, things that fill us with wonder, things that feed our hungers and heal our damaged places. But we humans have an infinite capacity for self-doubt, and we still can’t stop worrying and competing and trying to prove our worth … until we reach the foot of the cross, and hold out our hand to the dying Christ. And we know, finally, that our usual scorecards are completely irrelevant.
His love for us. God’s love for us. This much. Willing to undergo this, to be with us. Willing to walk into the very depths of our alienation, betrayal and suffering, in order to embrace us all. Even those who drove in the nails.
What do you do, in response to a love like that? What would it make of you, to swear allegiance to a king like that, a king who has absolutely no interest in his own wealth and influence? And how might it change your life, to truly believe that you do not need to keep trying to save yourself? Because you’re already safe. He has taken your hand on the beach. He has swept you into his embrace on the cross. You see it most clearly when you too are crucified by the pains and betrayals of the world. In the depths of those aching moments, you know the full depths of God’s love. Love that could not possibly be earned, no matter how long your To Do list.
So throw it away. Take his hand, and behold your king! Amen.