Good Friday is Cancel Culture
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Stories
Contents
“Good Friday is Cancel Culture” by John Sumwalt
“Believe It or Not” by Frank Ramirez
Good Friday is Cancel Culture
by John Sumwalt
John 18:1--19:42
Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. (vv. 19:16-18)
Cancel culture may have started with Jesus. His startling admonition, "You have heard that it was said...But I say to you...," has ricocheted through the ages challenging cultural norms in every generation. Jesus asserts a counter intuitive and radical new way of being that even those of us who consider ourselves faithful followers are reluctant to accept.
He says, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up
their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it."
This is the Good Friday way.
Good Friday cancels all that came before and Easter seals it forever, but that is another story. This way of life is still considered untenable, especially among those who are most successful in modern culture.
Ted Turner, founder of CNN and TBS, and former owner of the Atlanta Braves, was quoted as saying that "Christianity is a religion for losers." When criticized for his comments, Turner apologized for the wording, but explained, "Christianity is the religion of the down-and-out, because Christianity says give everything to the poor, follow Christ, and wear sackcloth and ashes." Ted did give a billion dollars to the United Nations, but for the most part he still doesn't get it, and he's not alone.
How many people do you know who would view what we Christians do on Good Friday as a loser kind of thing to do? We could just go to Dairy Queen for one of their great turtle sundaes. Instead, we pause to remember one who, while suffering in the hot sun, said, "I thirst." For him there was a sponge soaked in sour wine (vinegar), served up on a stick. This is a long way from a shake and a burger.
We follow one who died on a cross -- the equivalent of the electric chair, the gas chamber, the firing squad, or the hangman's noose. The Apostle Paul says, "For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God."
We follow one who said, "Blessed are the peace makers, for they will be called children of God." This is foolishness to the world. Those who make peace without arms or violence are viewed as losers in popular culture.
A Disney movie tells the unforgettable story of Ruby Bridges, a seven-year-old African American girl who was scheduled to attend a school in New Orleans. It was in the days of legal segregation, and she was escorted to school by federal marshals. She had to walk past lines of
screaming adults whose eyes were filled with hate and ugliness of character. Before going into the building, Ruby turned and prayed for those who were harassing and taunting her. When she later told her story to a reporter, he shook his head and said, "You were praying for the people who were screaming at you?" She said, "Yes, my mama taught me that when people speak mean of you, pray for them just like Jesus prayed for the people who spoke mean of him."
What utter foolishness!
A teacher gives a kidney for one of her students. Everyone marvels that anyone would do such a thing. Foolishness.
Jesus, while hanging on the cross, looked out on those who had hung him there, the many who were responsible for his hanging there, and said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
What a loser! Who would follow a loser like that?
I would.
* * *
Believe It or Not
by Frank Ramirez
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance we should desire him. (vv. 53:1-2)
A couple of years ago — and I have to think real hard about what a couple of years ago means because sometimes everything before the pandemic seems half a decade ago — but I think it really was a couple years ago, in January of 2018, that the temperature, not the wind chill, the temperature was twenty-five degrees below zero on a Wednesday morning so we cancelled all church activities that night — remember church activities? — my wife Jennie got a good fire going in the basement, and I went over to the bookshelves downstairs to pick a book to read.
I grabbed Volume One of Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson, which I had picked up for a quarter at the big library sale the previous October. I’d heard about it, how it was taking decades for Caro to write, and this time I finally opened it, read the first page, turned to the second, and the next thing I knew I was fifty pages in, and I thought to myself, this could take a while. Maybe I’d better sit down.
Within a few months I’d read all four volumes, all five thousand pages worth, and I’m still waiting for volume five, which I hope Caro finishes before he dies. The story of how a kid who grew up dirt poor in the desolate hill country of Texas could not only dream of becoming president, but actually do it, is arresting, to say the least. Johnson was a liar, a manipulative schemer, a ruthless conniver who also had high ideals. When he was stuck teaching elementary school students in a dirt-poor school filled with Mexican kids, he bought them books and athletic equipment, started English classes for their parents, and created athletic teams and a debate team to expand their horizons. All this helps make sense of the fact that after losing a senate race because he cheated too early, allowing his opponent to manufacture more votes than him, and later winning that seat when a couple hundred votes appeared out of nowhere, giving him a 48 vote margin and the nickname “Landslide Lyndon,” he was still the only leader of the senate to force through major Civil Rights bills. Later as president, he used his power to pass more major civil rights and voting rights bills, along with Medicare and other Great Society legislation..
As a college student who was an outsider, he stole an election to become leader of a powerless student organization and invested it with great power. As a congressional aide he connived his way into leadership of something called the “Little Congress,” which was a social organization for congressional aides, and turned it into an influential body. As a congressman who might have to wait decades to develop the seniority to become the chair of an influential committee, he reinvented himself as one of the most powerful representatives in only a couple of years by making himself the channel for money from powerful donors in Texas. And not long after he joined the senate, he transformed a useless window dressing of an office into massive senatorial power.
His one miscalculation was when he accepted the offer to become John F. Kennedy’s running mate in the 1960 election. His friends warned him that the vice presidency had no power, but Johnson repeated his favorite saying: “Power is where power goes.” He figured he’d continue to control the senate from the vice presidency. Besides, he’d done the math — a high percentage of vice presidents eventually ascended to the office of the president.
For once, he was wrong. With the exception of Kennedy himself, the rest of the Kennedy clan hated Johnson, mocked him as Rufus Cornpone, did their best to marginalize him, and made it clear that the 1968 candidate was going to be Robert F. Kennedy, not Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Not only that, but the new senate leadership made it clear that the vice presidential duties as president of the senate were purely ceremonial. For Johnson it was clear. His political career was over. He was the most powerless person in Washington D.C.
At least until one sunny day in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Robert Caro helped his readers appreciate just how astounding it was that a powerless, impoverished nobody could become, for a time, the most powerful person on the planet who tried, and was only partially successful, to use that power to elevate the marginalized and forgotten in society.
The prophet Isaiah tells us an even more astounding story about how a nobody, nothing to look at, would take a bruised, bloodied, and battered path to glory to elevate everybody for eternity….
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 17, 2022 issue.
Copyright 2022 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
“Good Friday is Cancel Culture” by John Sumwalt
“Believe It or Not” by Frank Ramirez
Good Friday is Cancel Culture
by John Sumwalt
John 18:1--19:42
Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. (vv. 19:16-18)
Cancel culture may have started with Jesus. His startling admonition, "You have heard that it was said...But I say to you...," has ricocheted through the ages challenging cultural norms in every generation. Jesus asserts a counter intuitive and radical new way of being that even those of us who consider ourselves faithful followers are reluctant to accept.
He says, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up
their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it."
This is the Good Friday way.
Good Friday cancels all that came before and Easter seals it forever, but that is another story. This way of life is still considered untenable, especially among those who are most successful in modern culture.
Ted Turner, founder of CNN and TBS, and former owner of the Atlanta Braves, was quoted as saying that "Christianity is a religion for losers." When criticized for his comments, Turner apologized for the wording, but explained, "Christianity is the religion of the down-and-out, because Christianity says give everything to the poor, follow Christ, and wear sackcloth and ashes." Ted did give a billion dollars to the United Nations, but for the most part he still doesn't get it, and he's not alone.
How many people do you know who would view what we Christians do on Good Friday as a loser kind of thing to do? We could just go to Dairy Queen for one of their great turtle sundaes. Instead, we pause to remember one who, while suffering in the hot sun, said, "I thirst." For him there was a sponge soaked in sour wine (vinegar), served up on a stick. This is a long way from a shake and a burger.
We follow one who died on a cross -- the equivalent of the electric chair, the gas chamber, the firing squad, or the hangman's noose. The Apostle Paul says, "For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God."
We follow one who said, "Blessed are the peace makers, for they will be called children of God." This is foolishness to the world. Those who make peace without arms or violence are viewed as losers in popular culture.
A Disney movie tells the unforgettable story of Ruby Bridges, a seven-year-old African American girl who was scheduled to attend a school in New Orleans. It was in the days of legal segregation, and she was escorted to school by federal marshals. She had to walk past lines of
screaming adults whose eyes were filled with hate and ugliness of character. Before going into the building, Ruby turned and prayed for those who were harassing and taunting her. When she later told her story to a reporter, he shook his head and said, "You were praying for the people who were screaming at you?" She said, "Yes, my mama taught me that when people speak mean of you, pray for them just like Jesus prayed for the people who spoke mean of him."
What utter foolishness!
A teacher gives a kidney for one of her students. Everyone marvels that anyone would do such a thing. Foolishness.
Jesus, while hanging on the cross, looked out on those who had hung him there, the many who were responsible for his hanging there, and said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
What a loser! Who would follow a loser like that?
I would.
* * *
Believe It or Not
by Frank Ramirez
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance we should desire him. (vv. 53:1-2)
A couple of years ago — and I have to think real hard about what a couple of years ago means because sometimes everything before the pandemic seems half a decade ago — but I think it really was a couple years ago, in January of 2018, that the temperature, not the wind chill, the temperature was twenty-five degrees below zero on a Wednesday morning so we cancelled all church activities that night — remember church activities? — my wife Jennie got a good fire going in the basement, and I went over to the bookshelves downstairs to pick a book to read.
I grabbed Volume One of Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson, which I had picked up for a quarter at the big library sale the previous October. I’d heard about it, how it was taking decades for Caro to write, and this time I finally opened it, read the first page, turned to the second, and the next thing I knew I was fifty pages in, and I thought to myself, this could take a while. Maybe I’d better sit down.
Within a few months I’d read all four volumes, all five thousand pages worth, and I’m still waiting for volume five, which I hope Caro finishes before he dies. The story of how a kid who grew up dirt poor in the desolate hill country of Texas could not only dream of becoming president, but actually do it, is arresting, to say the least. Johnson was a liar, a manipulative schemer, a ruthless conniver who also had high ideals. When he was stuck teaching elementary school students in a dirt-poor school filled with Mexican kids, he bought them books and athletic equipment, started English classes for their parents, and created athletic teams and a debate team to expand their horizons. All this helps make sense of the fact that after losing a senate race because he cheated too early, allowing his opponent to manufacture more votes than him, and later winning that seat when a couple hundred votes appeared out of nowhere, giving him a 48 vote margin and the nickname “Landslide Lyndon,” he was still the only leader of the senate to force through major Civil Rights bills. Later as president, he used his power to pass more major civil rights and voting rights bills, along with Medicare and other Great Society legislation..
As a college student who was an outsider, he stole an election to become leader of a powerless student organization and invested it with great power. As a congressional aide he connived his way into leadership of something called the “Little Congress,” which was a social organization for congressional aides, and turned it into an influential body. As a congressman who might have to wait decades to develop the seniority to become the chair of an influential committee, he reinvented himself as one of the most powerful representatives in only a couple of years by making himself the channel for money from powerful donors in Texas. And not long after he joined the senate, he transformed a useless window dressing of an office into massive senatorial power.
His one miscalculation was when he accepted the offer to become John F. Kennedy’s running mate in the 1960 election. His friends warned him that the vice presidency had no power, but Johnson repeated his favorite saying: “Power is where power goes.” He figured he’d continue to control the senate from the vice presidency. Besides, he’d done the math — a high percentage of vice presidents eventually ascended to the office of the president.
For once, he was wrong. With the exception of Kennedy himself, the rest of the Kennedy clan hated Johnson, mocked him as Rufus Cornpone, did their best to marginalize him, and made it clear that the 1968 candidate was going to be Robert F. Kennedy, not Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Not only that, but the new senate leadership made it clear that the vice presidential duties as president of the senate were purely ceremonial. For Johnson it was clear. His political career was over. He was the most powerless person in Washington D.C.
At least until one sunny day in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Robert Caro helped his readers appreciate just how astounding it was that a powerless, impoverished nobody could become, for a time, the most powerful person on the planet who tried, and was only partially successful, to use that power to elevate the marginalized and forgotten in society.
The prophet Isaiah tells us an even more astounding story about how a nobody, nothing to look at, would take a bruised, bloodied, and battered path to glory to elevate everybody for eternity….
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 17, 2022 issue.
Copyright 2022 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
