"This Ship of Fools is Doomed."

"This Ship of Fools is Doomed"

Click here to listen to sermon

The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John

         I recently recalled a quotation from writer Robert Farrar Capon.  He says, “This ship of fools is doomed.  If the villains don’t wreck it, the heroes will.”    The implication here is that the world or this ship of fools is destined for death no matter who is the captain of the ship.  It could be Captain Hook or Captain Kirk—the ship is going to crash.

            We see the wreckage of this ship of fools clearly in today’s Passion reading.  The main characters on this ship of fools are Judas, Peter, Annas, Caiaphas, the chief priests, the soldiers, Mary, and the beloved disciple.  Jesus is of course here but he is the captain of a different ship.  I’ll get to that ship later.

            Judas is typically defined as the biggest villain of all.  He sold his Lord and Savior out for a small price of 30 coins.  But from a certain perspective Judas might be cast as a hero.  He is tired of waiting.  If Jesus isn’t going to start the political revolution to overthrow Rome’s occupation in Jerusalem, then he will take matters into his own hands.  Have you ever grown impatient with God’s plan and taken matters into your own hands? 

            There in the garden it seems that Peter is set in contrast to Judas.  Peter stands up to evil; he takes a swing at the high priest’s servant.  Peter doesn’t collude with the powers that want Jesus dead.  He fights back.  But Peter hasn’t quite caught on to the fact that Jesus’ weapon is his word and not a sword.

Soon enough, Peter falls from the class of heroes when he denies his Lord and Savior three times.  Would you have done anything different under the circumstances?  Has your desire to do good dissolved in the face of opposition or humiliation or consequences unimaginable? 

Then there is Caiaphas who says, “It is better for one person to die for the people.”  Caiaphas is a good statesman and doesn’t want a messy trial.  He wants to resolve this matter quickly and quietly caring less about justice and more about expediency.  Has your desire to resolve difficult situations quickly and quietly resulted in an even greater tragedy?   

            Pilate tries to be a hero and it appears he does all that he can to save Jesus from death.  But in the end the same part of Pilate that tries to save Jesus is the part that condemns Jesus to die—his desire to be popular.  Has your desire to be popular or simply to be liked clouded your judgment and led to great sin?   

             Then there are the chief priests.  These are the ones who are supposed to be knowledgeable in the law.  But they seem to forget that their allegiance is to God and not the emperor.  They are willing to say just about anything to get rid of Jesus even if that means blackmailing Pilate saying, “you are no friend of the emperor if you release this man.”  Have you ever compromised your beliefs just to get rid of somebody? 

            It is hard to classify the soldiers as either heroes or villains.  They are just doing what they are ordered to do because that is what good soldiers do.  Have you ever blindly followed orders that resulted in you injuring or harming someone?

            And then there is Mary and the beloved disciple.  Clearly these two are begging to jump out of this ship of fools.  But how can they when the captain of the ship they want to be on is going down?  They are stuck riding the stormy waves on the ship of fools.

Mary and the beloved disciple watch their Lord and Savior drown in a pool of blood while they are drowned by their own tears.  I know I don’t have to ask you if your tears have blinded you from seeing that hope is possible.  It is a place of utter despair.

The question for us today isn’t simply which ship do you want to be a passenger on.  I would bet most of us would like to ride on Jesus’ ship.  The question for us today asks, “Are you ready to jump off the ship of fools into the stormy waters and trust that Jesus is going to calm the storm and pick you up?”

Are you tired of riding the storms of life on a ship that is destined to wreck?  Have you had enough of riding on a ship where the heroes and villains are constantly fighting for the wheel?  Are you finished with a world that is tirelessly trying to stay afloat by throwing the villains overboard and by raising up heroes who are, in the end, just as flawed as anybody else? 

            Are you ready to jump yet?  Are you ready to let go of the illusion that the ship of fools will actually take you somewhere important?  Does Jesus’ painful and shameful death on the cross make you see more clearly that the world’s ways are ways that lead to death and destruction?

            Can you see how the impatience of our lives, our dogged determination to be right all the time, our fascination with war and bloodshed, our weakness to stand up for the vulnerable, our inability to experience pain, our desire to be popular, our fickle nature, our blind ignorance.  Can you see how our inability to trust the power of God’s sacrificial love in Christ are all revealed in an ugly way on the cross of Christ?

            Are you ready to breathe your last on this ship and say, “I am finished.”?  The good news is that Jesus is finished with this ship of fools.  Jesus goes ahead of us and does what we are too afraid to do—die to a world whose promises are, in the end, empty.  Jesus goes ahead of us and makes the way of the cross none other than the way of life and peace.  Amen.