November 24, 2013 | 4:00 p.m.

The First Christians?

Edwin Estevez
Pastoral Resident, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Luke 23:33–43

A young pastor, serving as a chaplain at a Basel prison in Switzerland, was tasked with counseling prisoners and preaching every Sunday. This young pastor, named Karl Barth, then preached a wonderful sermon, to prisoners, on the scripture read this evening. I read it, and it has long stayed with me. So I’d like to reflect tonight, on the two most striking things about the sermon he preached. Hear his words:

“The Criminals with him. Do you know what that means? Please be not too surprised when I tell you: this was the first Christian community—the first safe, undissolvable, indestructible Christian community. Christian community is everywhere where there is a gathering of people who are close to, who are with Jesus—in such a way that his promise, his affirmation, concerns them directly and immediately—in such a way that they can hear it: that everything that he is, he is for them, that everything that he does, he does for them, in such a way that they can live by and from this promise. This is the first Christian community, and the first safe Christian community consisted of these two criminals.

Do you see what he’s doing here? He’s playing with the image of a Christian community as one that is close to Jesus. This was controversial then and is sure to be controversial now. Karl Barth wants us to see something in this scripture. Like us, he says, the criminals are trapped in this situation by their sins; like us, he says, they are reluctant companions of Jesus rather than fiery followers we sometimes imagine ourselves to be, for even the disciples have abandoned Jesus at this point; like us, there’s a request for help and even some mockery when we lose the faith. But there they are, the criminals, suffering with Jesus. They too are crucified. They will listen to the Word of God from the Word made Flesh. Jesus is present to both the criminal who honors Jesus and the one who mocks them. Barth says they are the first Christian community because they are both hearers of the Word and receivers of Christ’s promise.

Barth wants us to recognize ourselves in these criminals, and so it is in one way helpful that we have no names for them other than a description. We can easily insert the names. If we can think of all the ways we have hurt people, hurt ourselves, failed to do good, hell-bent on committing wrongs; the ways we’ve bullied, lied, and deeply wounded others, you can enter your name in the blank. Edwin, was crucified alongside him. John. Jane. Carlos. Jamal. Veronica. Jessica. Sue. Tom. Luis. Maria.

Karl Barth wants us to remember that while we are created good, we are capable of so much evil. Until we’ve done that, we won’t be able to identify with the rejected and criminalized in our world. Until we’ve recognized the grace we’ve received, we will be unable to offer it.

When we begin to identify ourselves in this story, we see something else that I’d like to explore. Again, we receive no names, other than a description—criminals. We are told there were two of them. With some quick research, we learn that these sorts of public executions happened commonly, frequently, so visible so as to remind rebels not to defy Roman authority. I don’t know about you, but I can’t help to wonder about the criminal who seems to mock Jesus. At his death, he seems full of fear and complaint—I wonder about his story. What was his name and how did he come to this?

One takeaway: let us be reminded to not imitate what the author does here. When we criminalize people, we label them so they become a “thing” or a description, an adjective, rather than a story, a human being. They become “the criminals.” We can’t afford to make this mistake in a country like ours, in a city like ours, when young children, often male and African American, statistically, are early on singled out in our system.

It is important to make clear, here and now, that this isn’t a sermon against police officers or judges lawyers and all those that participate in our flawed system of justice. You and I can name friends and family, good people that do their best in these situations. I am speaking of an ethos—the way our culture becomes so numb and so familiar with the images of cops arresting young black men that we begin to associate criminal with being black. Unbeknownst to us, we begin to appropriate these notions, some of us early on.

Take for example, The “kids for cash” scandal from 2008 over kickbacks at the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Two judges, President Judge Mark Ciavarella and Senior Judge Michael Conahan, are now serving long sentences for accepting money from Robert Mericle, builder of two private, for-profit juvenile facilities, in return for facility contracts and the imposition of harsh sentences on juveniles brought before their courts to increase the inmate numbers at the detention centers. This is outrageous, but it was so hard to catch because we’ve become so used to seeing these young black men treated as criminals.

Those whom we criminalize and label will always be “they” and “them” and statistics until we’ve identified ourselves with their story. This doesn’t mean we rule out whatever responsibility and agency they might have in the situation but that we see the other as human beings with a story. And when we read their story, we might discover that had there been early childhood education, early intervention during the at-risk years, had there been a supportive network such as a healthy family system, mentors and teachers who went above and beyond, had there been alternative models of resolving issues beyond violence, had there been access to a diversity of jobs and experiences, and the list goes on, those whom we call “criminals” might have had very different lives. I don’t want to resolve all of the issues with our criminal justice system tonight. I just want to highlight that what started as a thoroughly American innovation, with a Puritan belief of rehabilitation and redemption and was even admired by Alexis de Tocqueville as an improvement over dungeons, has gone awry. Something has gone wrong when recidivism, the term that describes the return of inmates to prison, is at 70 percent in our country, The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world, followed by Russia and then Rwanda. The prison population is primarily male and African American. At year-end 2007, the United States had less than 5 percent of the world’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau but nearly 25 percent of the world’s prison and jail population (for adult inmates). Something has gone wrong.

This is heavy, but the power of this story is that whether we are the criminals with Jesus, having committed crimes, or the ones who have been criminalized and labeled by others, or the ones who have been doing the labeling and criminalizing, this motley crew and ragtag bunch, all of us, are called to follow Christ, to follow these first Christians—called Criminals—and learn that our identity isn’t in what we’ve been called or described, but in the one we find beside us.

But there’s something else that’s very powerful. The one criminal who asks to be remembered gets more than he bargained for. He wants to be remembered, he asks for perhaps a little mercy; he doesn’t ask for much because he’s learned not to expect too much; he realizes this is his last moment on earth, and like the Prodigal Son who just wants to be a servant in his father’s house, or like the woman with the issue of blood who just wants to touch a piece of Jesus’ tunic, or like Paul who wants the thorn in the flesh to go away, he expects very little, but God offers more. We learn God’s grace is always enough, more than enough, because each of these people gets more than they bargained for. The criminal isn’t just remembered but promised a place in paradise on that very day, with Jesus; he will be the first to die with Christ and the first to enter paradise as his follower. The Prodigal Son gets more than a servant’s job; he’s welcomed home as a son and given a festive banquet. The woman with the issue isn’t just healed but instead she encounters the Healer head on. And Paul becomes the founder of so many Christian communities, and you and you and you, and I, we too get more than we bargained for.

We have made our mistakes and have our past; we’ve messed up, fallen, faltered, and strayed; we’ve lost friends and made enemies; plenty of gossip has pierced our hearts, and we’ve been abandoned and we have betrayed; our reputations have been run to the ground, and we’ve disappointed, even ourselves. But just when we ask for a little mercy, God sends us God’s very self. Just when we ask for a little grace, God shows us God’s Son, the image of God made flesh. We just ask God to remember us, but God does more than that; God promises us paradise, even when no one thinks we deserve it. Tonight, we are all called to God’s Table, as we are at each Sunday’s Jazz Service. At this Table, we remember that God does more than just remember us—we are prepared a feast where we can deeply know our forgiveness.

So, as you travel to wherever home is for you, this Thursday, to offer thanks with your family, whether at church, a shelter, at your birth home, at a friend’s, or at a college, remember our story tonight: Jesus is exactly with those who’ve been labeled, whom even the author hasn’t named. But something tells me that Jesus knows their names. Their names, and also our names, Jesus knows them all and offers us grace beyond our wildest imagination—the courage to press on, the faith to endure, the hope to persist, and the love to speak truth to power and embrace all God’s people. And that’s something to be thankful for. Amen!