Sam Bush, “Jesus is Ridiculous”
The author and former radio show host, Garrison Keillor, once wrote an essay entitled After a Fall in which, one day, Keillor puts on a jacket, walks out the front door of his house and takes a plunge down five steps, landing on the sidewalk flat on his back, legs in the air. He said it took him a few seconds to decide whether it was funny or not. A woman stopped to ask if he was OK and, after Keillor assured her that he was fine, she smiled and trotted away. “Her smile,” he writes, “has followed me into the house, and I see it now as a smirk, which is what it was. She was too polite to whoop and wheeze and slap her thighs and stomp on the ground, but it was all there in the smile.” Keillor later says, “I may have seen it her way, but she ran down the street, and now I can only see my side of the fall. I feel old and achy and ridiculous and cheapened by the whole experience.”
Now, maybe you’ve never had a fall, but I bet you would agree with me when I say that we spend an inordinate amount of time protecting and defending our dignity, trying to avoid being put to shame. It’s for good reason. Shame is deeply embedded into our society. Whether it’s Covid or politics or scandal, it seems America runs on shame.
Which is why shame is one of the main themes Paul is addressing in his letter to Timothy. Timothy was a fledgling pastor and, by that time, Paul was experienced - so this is a letter from a mentor to his understudy. Paul, who was likely writing from prison, says, “Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner.” Later, he says, “I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust.”
Why would he say that? Why would Timothy be ashamed of the testimony of Jesus? Well, we can speculate, but the Christian testimony of Jesus could not have sounded more ridiculous. The Cross, you see, was designed not just to put someone to death, but to mark them in shame, to portray them as subhuman. It wouldn’t only cause shame for the crucified but anyone associated.
We might think we’ve come a long way since then, but have we? Have you ever felt ashamed after being outed as a believer? Of course you are, you’re Episcopalians. Every time I get a haircut and the barber asks me what I do for a living, I’m tempted to say, “Oh, you know, I’m in the service industry.”
Paul’s words speak directly to my embarrassment and to yours as well, whatever you’re embarrassed about. “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.” Note that he is not telling Timothy to dig deep or to dig in or to buck up. He’s saying, “Our Savior Christ Jesus abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” His trust is not in human power but of heavenly power.
Shame and glory are often at opposite ends of the spectrum, but on the Cross, they become one. One of our great hymns describes the cross, saying, “My sinful self, my only shame, my glory, all the cross.”
Paul, writing from jail which is an extremely degrading place to be, feels no shame. Why? Because the power of God is found in places of shame. Martin Luther King, in his 1966 convocation address to Illinois Wesleyan, said of white oppressors, “If he doesn’t put you in jail, wonderful. Nobody with any sense loves to go to jail. But if he puts you in jail, you go in that jail and transform it from a dungeon of shame to a haven of freedom and human dignity. Even if he tries to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that there are some things so dear, some things so eternally true, some things so precious that they are worth dying for.”
This sounds a lot like Paul’s letter to Timothy. And you know who couldn’t agree more? Jesus Christ, who saw you as something so precious that you were worth dying for. He doesn’t put lipstick on your shame or say, “It’s no big deal, just believe in yourself!” Instead, he takes it seriously. Through the Cross, Jesus crushed the serpent that whispers shame into your ear - that you are unlovable, that you are disgraced, that you are alone. In shame, Adam and Eve covered their naked bodies with fig leaves and hid from God but Christ’s love boldly proclaims that it’s safe to come out now. You don’t have to hide.
What does this mean for you? Well, wherever you are embarrassed, wherever you feel the slightest bit of shame about something you’ve done or something that has been done to you, know that it has no power because of the Cross. It means you can come clean, knowing there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus or that you can even laugh at yourself. In that same piece that Garrison Keillor wrote after his shameful plunge down some stairs, he says, “God writes a lot of comedy. The trouble is, He’s stuck with so many bad actors who don’t know how to play funny.”
Above all, it means that Jesus welcomes himself into your shame. How does that affect your own life? The 20th-century playwright, Thornton Wilder, once wrote a three-page play called Now the Servant's Name was Malchus (stay with me!). It’s based on the passage during Jesus’ arrest when Peter rushes to Jesus’ defense and cuts the ear off the servant of the High Priest. The guy’s name was Malchus and Wilder zones in on what it would be like to be Malchus today in heaven. He sets the scene: it’s been 2,000 years since the incident where he lost his ear. Malchus comes to visit Jesus who is holding office hours. After Jesus asks him why he’s come, Malchus sheepishly states his purpose
"It's...it's hardly worth mentioning. Most of the time, Lord, we’re very happy up here and nothing disturbs us at our games. But whenever someone on earth thinks about us we’re aware of it, pleasantly or unpleasantly. And because I'm in your book someone is always reading about me and thinking about me for a moment, and in the middle of my games I feel lit. And what they think is that I'm ridiculous."
Jesus, listening carefully, figures out that Malchus is requesting that his name be erased from the Bible, to which Malchus responds eagerly, "Yes, sir. I thought you could just make the pages become blank at that place." It’s a reasonable request when you think about it. Can you imagine millions of people throughout history pigeonholing you as the ridiculous guy who got his ear cut off? But then Jesus responds in a remarkable way: "But, Malchus,” he says. “I am ridiculous too. My promises were so vast that I am either divine or ridiculous.” He pauses and then says, “Malchus, will you be ridiculous with me?"
The astonished Malchus responds to Jesus' invitation, saying, "Yes, sir, I'll stay. I'm glad to stay. Though in a way I haven't any right to be there." In other words, his shame of being ridiculous has been covered by Christ's own ridiculousness. Here, we see that God's wisdom is often hiding beneath what we are embarrassed by. Whenever we find ourselves to be ridiculous, there is no better company in which to be than Christ himself. "All those who see me laugh at me. They shout at me and make fun of me," he says. The beautiful irony, of course, is that the Cross, the very mark of shame, is where your shame was defeated once and for all. Amen.
