The fall will probably kill you...

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Easter V, Year C
May 15, 2022
 
 
There is this great scene in the classic western, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  They are outlaws, bank robbers, but for a reason I will get to later, we are rooting for them.  Of course, the fact that they are played by Paul Newman and Robert Redford helps win hearts.
 
Butch and Sundance are pinned down with a posse in hot pursuit.  Behind them is a cliff that drops off about a hundred feet into a rushing river.  This is tight spot.  Sundance keeps leaning on the rock they behind for cover, clutching his pistol, saying that they are going to have to fight. Butch keeps looking behind them, seeking escape.  Quickly, he tells Sundance that they are going to have to jump.  The law has more manpower and firepower.  If they fight the law, they will die.  Sundance will have none of it, he is in full panic mode.  Butch says “what’s the matter with you.”  Silence.  Sundance?  Sheepishly, he says “I can’t swim.  I can’t swim.”  Butch erupts in roaring laughter.  You can’t swim?  The fall will probably kill you.  At that, Sundance and Butch turn toward the cliff and jump.  It is leap of faith.  Where they should have died, they live, and they are free again.
 
Prior to the movie, the legend of Butch and Sundance depicts them as ruthless killers, but this take humanizes them and helps us see their misfit, flawed, and quirky human nature.  If we look hard, we can see that they are us:  awkward, broken, but even so, lovable.  Even so, Butch and Sundance remain prominent faces on “Wanted” posters.  So, they go to Bolivia and rob banks there, because they are outlaws.
 
Jesus is no poster child for his people’s brand of the law either.  The story we tell today is an Easter look back.  Jesus is about to be betrayed, tried, and executed for insurrection and blasphemy.  Rather than fight, plan, or scheme, Jesus has supper with his friends and tells them that in fact, this tragedy is really comedy, but that is a leap of faith that is hard for them to make.  Jesus gives his gang what he calls a new command: that they love one another.  It is not the kind of loving others he encourages lots of times in his ministry.  This is a specific call to love “one another,” meaning the people in the room.  Love the ones you know well enough to know how awkward, broken, and irritating thy are.  Love them like Jesus loves them.
 
Notice that Jesus does not say this is a law.  Religious folks are big on laws, and laws come in handy when we want to distinguish who is in and who is out.  That whole lesson about Peter hanging out with Gentiles is a scandal to the law followers because Gentiles (the word for they) are not clean.  Jesus does not give another law to be entered into the rulebook as he goes to the cross, Jesus gives them a commandment.  The other commandments are the big 10 Moses got in the desert, and they are not so much about do’s and don’ts as ways being in right relationship.  A commandment is a way to love God and love others.  Run through the list of thou shalts and thou shalt nots and check me if I am wrong.
 
It is said that the job of a lighthouse is not to run around the island shouting at ships and telling them what to do.  The job is to stand tall and shine.  Jesus commandment is like that.  Be the love God has for us, the love Jesus shows for us, and the law will take care of itself.  We call that living under grace.  It is easier said than done.
 
In case we forget grace, we have young Bo Webel among us today to receive the sacrament of baptism.  Bo has not done anything for us, and yet we are recognizing his all-inclusive and unlimited membership in the household of God, prepaid and guaranteed.  Bo has been born among us, and his parents and godparents have brought him here, where we get to hold him up and tell him that along with the rest of us, he is a child of God.  His family is us.
 
Like I said, Bo has not done anything for us.  He has not followed the law, or paid the fee, or recited a pledge in any way that would earn his place there in the front row.  He does not have to be perfect when he is out there growing up.  Nope.  We are telling him that he has a home.  He is welcome home, along with the rest of humanity, to remember exactly who he is and whose he is.  There is no law he has to follow to earn this.  Grace is not earned.  It is given.  When Jesus says “it is finished” from the cross, that deal is sealed: over, done, account closed.  All we can do is be grateful, but not even that is required.
 
God’s grace is God’s leap of faith for humanity.  All we can do is grab a hand, and jump in the baptismal pool where that water will break our many falls and give all of us outlaws a chance to live again.   Amen