Sermon; Good Friday 2018

Last night was the beginning of the Triduum, the Great Three Days, that runs from Maundy Thursday to the Easter Vigil. Last night we betrayed Jesus for our own selfish desires. Last night we chose ourselves over Jesus and/or God. Last night, because we were so confident we were doing the right thing, we removed everything associated with God from our lives.

Our choice to remove God and Jesus from our lives comes from a place where we believe we have a better understanding of what needs to happen than he does. Because he really has no idea how the world works.

Jesus told us to love our neighbors. When asked to define “neighbor,” he told us a story about some foreigner. He's asking us to love foreigners. But foreigners are ruining this country. Foreigners are taking our jobs and leeching our public assistance dry. What we really need to do is to keep them out. We need to find a way to stop them at the border.

Jesus said for us to give to everyone who begs. He doesn't realize that people are poor because of their own bad decisions. If those people wouldn't spend what little money they do have on drugs or prostitutes or other useless things, they wouldn't be poor and wouldn't need to beg. If we keep giving them handouts, how will they ever learn personal responsibility? Or if they used half as much effort in getting a job as they do in begging, they wouldn't have to beg in the first place.

Jesus said if anyone strikes us we are to turn the other cheek. If that's so, how are we to protect ourselves? By doing that, every criminal will know that we are sitting ducks just begging to be attacked. We need to have the right to not only defend ourselves, but to strike first if we feel the least bit threatened. And we need to have the right to use any means necessary.

Jesus told us to share what we have with others. But again, this doesn't teach self-reliance but teaches the lazy to mooch off honest, hard working individuals. I work hard for what I get, and I earn every bit of it. We can't have lazy people being fed and clothed by those who work for what they get. Once word gets out, then nobody will want to work and everybody will expect a free handout. We need to keep what we earn for ourselves because there just isn't enough to go around.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Jesus is advocating for the disruption of society as we know it. If we actually followed what Jesus teaches . . . well . . . it'd be anarchy. People would expect free handouts. We would be inundated with foreigners and borders would be meaningless. There'd be total chaos because there isn't enough of everything to go around.

That's why we got rid of him. We need to have rules and accountability. We need to protect ourselves and our interests from those who would threaten our very way of life.

He wants us to submit to him like a peasant submits to a king. We have no king. Our king is the market. We have no king. Our king is our right to protect our interests at all costs. We have no king. We are the kings of our domain. We are the kings of our territory. We don't need this troublemaker in our lives. Crucify him.

We want to maintain the status quo. Crucify him. We want to maintain our privilege. Crucify him.

And with that, our betrayal is complete and we are left to our own devices.