John 18:1-19:37
The Reverend Paul DeLain Allick, St. George’s Episcopal Church, April 10, 2009

The first time I heard the most famous quote of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, I was petrified. Nietzsche’s most famous quote is, “God is dead.” Coming from a God-fearing background I thought, “Who would dare say such a thing? God is dead? God can’t die. God will strike you down for saying that. You could go to hell for that.”

But wait, listen to these phrases from collects in our Book of Common Prayer: From the Good Friday Liturgy (pp. 276, 282) “to suffer death upon the cross”, from Palm Sunday (p.168): “death upon the cross”; from Evening Prayer (p.123): “by your death, you took away the sting of death”. And what about the Nicene Creed, “he suffered death and was buried”; and the Apostle’s Creed, “(He) was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead”.

Jesus Christ is God. Jesus Christ died on the cross. God has died and we commemorate it today.

I started with my trusty online source, Wikipedia, and went on to study more to find out exactly what Nietzsche was trying to say. The article I found argued that “God is dead” is one of the most misunderstood phrases of 19th Century literature. Nietzsche wasn’t necessarily making a brash statement of atheism. This was a lament. Nietzsche argued that the idea of “God“ had “ceased to be a reckoning force in people’s lives, even if they don’t recognize it.” Nietzsche was warning Western Civilization that because we were losing our belief in a cosmic order we were heading into a world of nihilism, nothingness.

In the 1960’s a “Death of God” Movement took shape in theological circles. In April of 1966, Time Magazine put the quote on its cover. Good, God-fearing people were horrified. But they were horrified because they weren’t listening. In his 1961 book, The Death of God, theologian Gabriel Vahanian argued that modern secular culture had lost its sense of the sacred; it had lost all sense of sacramental meaning.

I have come to believe that rather than being irreverent or offensive these thinkers were actually prophetic. Look around you. God is dead to many people in our society. Sacredness and sacramental thinking and the rituals these things engender are ignored. The Churches which practice the ancient rituals struggle for adequate attendance.

The sense of sacredness and otherness is being replaced with contextualized morality and a focus on the self through worship that  is little less than entertainment. Our Churches spend more energy trying to entertain people than to stand in awe of our Creator. Our Churches spend more time embroiled in secular politics than in working for the mission of Christ which is the ministry of reconciliation.

Today is no different than that day at Golgotha which we commemorate now. Human culture, its morality and politics, lead to God’s death.

In this passion narrative from John, we witness the escalation of a political battle. Jesus in his persecution travels up the ladder of human bureaucracy: from Annas, to Caiaphas to Pilate. Pilate tries to calm the movement to execute Jesus, but he cannot. In order to satisfy the protesters he  consents to having Jesus crucified. In order to get the power system moving, the people quickly became faithful subjects of the Emperor. As we say today, “politics makes strange bedfellows”. Those entrenched in the “execute the blasphemer” movement were willing to sacrifice their own integrity to get it done.

Jesus was killed by religious hypocrisy. Those wishing to have him sentenced to capital punishment wanted the government to do it, because in their religious laws they couldn’t. They wouldn’t even enter the headquarters as to not be defiled for the upcoming religious ceremonies.

The question for us on this Good Friday 2009 is: are we killing God all over again? Is God really at the center of our lives? Or have we fit God into a neat little box that supports our current notions of morality and political power? Is God really dead to us and we are simply using his name to get our way? Are we willing to submit to God? In that submission are we willing to sacrifice our time and interests? Are we willing to sacrifice our sentimentality to put the worship of God first? Are we using Jesus to make our political points?

Whenever we use God and religion to make our point we must be very careful. Religion is dangerous because it deals in absolutes. But we ourselves, with our fragile hearts and limited minds are not absolute. Only God is absolute. And this is an absolute that we must respect. This is an absolute that we bow down before and ask for forgiveness and for direction.

Of course, many times our morality and our political notions are going to be of God’s will. But unless we are faithful students of Christ we are never really sure. Prayer and devotion in community come before taking action. The product of prayer and devotion is humility not literal absolutist thinking.

What we learn from people like Nietzsche or Kierkegaard, the existentialists, is that no matter how you look at it, our religion, morality and politics are greatly limited by our emotions and intellects. When we put these things in place of submission to God’s will we kill God in our lives. Putting ourselves in God’s place is the heart of sin.

As we gaze upon the cross today, we are reminded to humble our minds, our hearts and our lips. Each of us today stands convicted. And in the knowledge of our own guilt, we find mercy for others.

Again, Nietzsche, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it?” - Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 125