Let’s talk about Jesus and Policing.
A sermon on John 3:14–21
Preached at Swarthmore Presbyterian Church
03.14.2021 — the Crisis of Change
14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”
This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
We continue our Lenten series, “how my mind has changed.” A journey where we enter, I enter, this season with boldness and vulnerability, with courage and humility. How am I repenting in this season — indeed, how Rev. Sarah offered in our first sermon of this series, repentance in the Hebrew shub, means “to return back” & “restore and repair” — I asked how am I restoring and, how am I being restored, in this season. How has my mind changed?
I want to begin today with a piece of my story, a piece of how my mind was changed.
It was 2001, my father, a minister, had just finished leading the Spanish worship service in my hometown, and my mother gathered us in the car to go have “after-church lunch”, arguably the best tasting lunch one can have during the week. We were seated in a restaurant as we awaited our food, when a stranger, who we never knew nor never came to know, came up to my family and asked if he could speak with Alex Evangelista. My father, named Alejandro, said “yes, that’s me”. The stranger said, “no, can I speak with your son.” My father, hesitantly, agreed, as the stranger said hello to seven-year old me.
He asked the question you typically ask of children, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I answered, “a doctor!” as I remember playing with a toy medical kit at home. He then said, “no, I don’t think you’re going to be a doctor. You’re going to be a pastor, proclaiming the kindom come.” What would a child, specifically, a pastor’s child say? Hell, no! There was no way I was going to be a pastor, no way I’ll be that involved in a church. As it’s been said, we make plans, and God laughs.
Of course, my mind was one day changed. For I was a young man, 16 years old sitting in an auditorium at a summer church camp, and I was hearing the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of man being lifted up, who proclaimed, believe in Jesus and you will not perish but have eternal life. Indeed, the good news was proclaimed but the speaker kept going on from the John 3:16 verse.
The good news was proclaimed, Christ came to save the world! Hallelujah.
And then. Verse 19, and “this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” This is the krise, krino, krisis, as the greek defined says, “judgment, justice, answer”, indeed — where we get the english word, crisis — here is the crisis. This justice arrived, this judgment proclaimed, it’s known as a moment that arrives, not invited, but arrives by force, demanding a response, something to be decided. The krisis arrives, and I am pushed to discern, to decide, how will I respond to this crisis, to this justice? For in Christ, I was being preached assurance, salvation, and I had a choice to make! Will I repent? Will I be restored? I witnessed the chasm that separated me and my God, and I cried out with joy, the Christ has restored me. I repented, I changed my mind, I responded to the krisis, to the crisis, that my God and I were separated! Salvation had come and the chasm between my God and I was restored.
For I was being called, invited to say, my Lord my God, restore me, I repent, for I desire to face this crisis, this crosspath, and to be restored. My mind was being changed, for I desired restoration, I wanted to be renewed, to own my faith as my own. And I realized, when I faced the krisis, the judgment, the crisis, I had a choice to make, and I decided to identify with the good news of Christ! No longer will I live for myself, but I will serve You, indeed, restore me, oh Lord, to you, restore in me a spirit of you, a co-heir of Christ, a priesthood of all believers, here I am, use me as you will. I will find my identity in you. I will find my identity in Christ.
This call, this pursuit, led me to undergrad to study biblical studies and theology, which led to my second krisis moment, my second judgment and justice moment, my second crisis moment. That’s the frustration with krisis moments, for as much as I want to see it as an “opportunity”, an “invitation” to make a choice, that’s not how Jesus works, for krisis arrives, judgement and justice arrives, and it demands a response, a change of one’s mind.
I had understood salvation as a chasm bridged between God and I, that my eyes were on the heavenly felicity, yet I found a chasm in the temporal. My love for the heavenly led me to wonder how the heavenly had an in breaking in the temporal. And so, as I was taught to take my Bible seriously, and so I did, I wanted to see the heavenly inbreaking. I sat in my classes, and received a concentration on church history within my double major of biblical studies and theology, and I learned of my Christ. My Christ, my Jesus, the one lifted high as verse 14 says, who doesn’t just bridge the chasm with the heavenly but bridges the gap in the temporal. For Christ is the one who stood in solidarity with those at the margins. In solidarity with the poor, the orphan, the widow. The one who said, “children, come to my feet.” The one who challenged how power could be seen, not from top to bottom, but from side to side, indeed, priesthood of all believers. The one who said, “you know who is welcomed at my table? Even the betrayer, Judas.” This Jesus I encountered was radical.
For then I learned, Jesus, the one who bridges the heavenly and temporal, stood in solidarity with those at the margins, and was deemed a troublemaker! For in the time of Christ, salvation had already been proclaimed, through the peace of Rome. Kurios, Lord, had already been proclaimed, since that title belongs to Caesar, additionally seen as a son of God. Yet, Christ is named Lord, is named Son of God, and Jesus preaches salvation, a saving grace that is in solidarity with those in the margins, and this got him in trouble. For Christ is lifted up, is crucified to be the example to others, Rome does not tolerate troublemakers, and if this is what we do to your leaders, know what awaits you.
Yet we tell the story of God’s action in Egypt, who heard the cries of the oppressed and liberates. We see God’s ongoing action throughout scripture that when creation is not being lived as God intended, God acts and speaks, judgment and justice, a crisis arrives. And in Jesus, the light has come into the world, the inbreaking of salvation that is heavenly and earthly, a movement of love, a movement of justice, a movement of solidarity, in which we find true salvation, true restoration to God and to one another.
This was the krisis for me, for when I learned of the Jesus movement, I saw how salvation was not just bridging the chasm between God and I, but the bridging of the chasm of me and the other. I was confronted that salvation meant being in solidarity with others, and this challenged me, because for so long. justice was removed from the character of God and was called political. Yet, salvation in Jesus meant that I needed to see how justice is part of God’s character, it’s part of upward restoration, and the sideways restoration. For if my identity is found in Jesus, it is in the Jesus who is in solidarity with those at the margins, who’s judgment is indeed a call to justice, to a kindom that turned upside right. This came as judgment, as a crisis moment, a krisis that demanded my response, my change of mind.
I stepped into the light and decided, my mind was changed, that I will stand in solidarity with the troublemaker Jesus who proclaimed love, justice, and mercy. I will stand with the one who created trouble when he challenged the structures of power, when he stood with those at the margins. I will respond to this crisis of faith, as I stand with the one who is lifted high, for even when troublemakers are made of an example, death couldn’t hold Jesus and now salvation is found in the one who’s kindom has come. My mind was changed, for salvation was not just the bridging of the chasm between my God and I, with the heavenly, but also the earthly, between me and the other.
I became convinced and confident that the realized eschatos is here, the kindom that turns power upside down, that proclaimed freedom, liberation for the oppressed, liberation for the oppressor from their oppressive ways. And I wasn’t alone in my response to the krisis moment. Indeed, I learned about the long history, the stories of people who believed in Jesus who brought the krisis, the judgment and justice. The history of a group of people who got together and took down empires with the power of God, and made sure the marginalized were centered and offered salvation, mercy and grace.
Church, the spirit of God is with us, to preach salvation, the bridging of the heavenly and the temporal. We are to be witnesses to the liberating and freeing message of Christ. And yet, when our world is not as it is intended to be, we remember the krisis Jesus brought, the justice and judgment that the kindom come is being ushered today.
And so, I believe I am at my third krisis moment, that we are experiencing a crisis today. A crisis that comes uninvited, demanding our response, will we change our mind, will we proclaim the gospel of Jesus that ushers in justice and love, restoration with God and one another? Will we build a society in which the inbreaking of the kindom is present?
For here is one of our crises demanding our response. Lenny Duncan, who’s book we read in adult formation, said this past week at the NEXT conference, “as the killings of people of color continue, the heart of God is strained and the eyes of God are upon you in this time… I truly believe this is a critical juncture in salvation history and that what we do now will change the world for good for a very long time to come.” For in this season of lent, this season of reflection and asking the question, when has my mind changed, this past summer was one of those critical moments, a moment of crisis, that is still with me today. My eyes were opened, for policing and white supremacy, continue to create chasms between us and one another, an attack on the salvation and restoration proclaimed. For we all experienced this crisis this past summer, when the police officer stood on George Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds. The world responded to this crisis, the PCUSA responded, declaring “Black Lives Matter!”. Yet, did George Floyd have to die for us to wake up to the injustice that prevails in our society, in our policing system?
Dr. King, in his I Have a Dream speech said, “there are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, ‘when will you be satisfied?’We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the vicitm of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.”
This was 58 years ago. 58 years ago.
George Floyd became a crisis for me, for he did not have to die for me to wake up to the horrors of police brutality. Yet, here this crisis arrives, demanding my response. It is time, church, it is time for us to be in solidarity with Christ, the Christ who’s with those at the margins. It is time for us to witness the kindom come where justice prevails. For one thing is for sure, that our policing system is not serving and protecting those at the margins. And I can’t get out of my mind, how Christ was crucified by the state of his time and that he would have fallen victim to the policing state of today. Indeed, there have been times when I have encountered police where I have feared falling victim to policing. But I am comforted that Christ is shedding light to this injustice, ushering a judgment to the lack of justice, yet we are still drawn to hide that which is evil and violent.
It is time, church, to respond to this crisis, to demand justice, to envision a different way of ordering society, that centers the marginalized and offers salvation, a restoration between us and the other. It is time to respond to this crisis, with an imagination of our Christ, where violence is no more. As Alex S. Vitale, professor at Brooklyn College writes, “the problem is not police training, police diversity, or police methods. The problem is the dramatic and unprecedented expansion and intensity of policing in the last forty years, a fundamental shift in the role of police in society. The problem is policing itself.”
This is the crisis demanding our response. And I am not willing to accept the deaths of our black and brown siblings as a price for progress, as a price for the movement of justice to inbreak in our world today. As Oscar Romero once preached, “The church is calling to sanity, to understanding, to love. It does not believe in violent solutions. The church believes in only one violence, that of Christ, who was nailed to the cross. That is how today’s gospel reading shows him, taking upon himself all the violence of hatred and misunderstanding, so that we humans might forgive one another, love one another, feel ourselves brothers and sisters.”
No more, my siblings! Is this crisis asking us to change our minds, for policing as we know it must be no more? For if we are to be restored to God and to one another, we must find our identity in the Christ crucified, Christ resurrected, the Christ who ushered in the kindom of justice and love. This is a critical juncture in salvation history, and so, we must respond. Let us be witnesses to the love of God, who did not condemn the world, but that all may be saved through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
