Before You Throw that Pinecone

Sermon Text || Year C: Fourth Sunday in Lent

My uncle and I were Jedi Masters. My lightsaber was green and was modeled after Luke’s in Return of the Jedi, a movie I watched dozens of times as I fought Darth Vader around my room. My uncle had the coolest lightsaber of all: the double-sided lightsaber used by Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace.

We would spend all afternoon dueling in the yard next to my grandparents house. The wood pile made the perfect place for aerial attacks. The tall pine trees made perfect cover from blaster fire. And the drainage ditch with the big tunnel modeled the caves of Tatooine.

Occasionally, we would depart from civilized combat and engage in pinecone warfare. They really did make the perfect projectile. It was heavy enough to throw accurately, light enough to not hurt someone with the impact, but prickly enough to make accurate throws count for something.

But those pricks don’t just hurt the person who is struck by a well-placed throw; it also hurts the person who picks it up to throw it.

If you use too light a touch, you lose accuracy and strength, but picking it up barehanded can hurt.

It’s the ultimate dilemma.

Is the pain this will cause me worth the pain it will cause him?

So before you throw that pinecone, you have to count the cost.

Frederick Douglas argued that slavery did not inflict pain in just one direction; it hurt the slaveholders as much, if not more, than it hurt the slaves. The slave was obviously at the disadvantage from a human point of view, but their spirituality could thrive under such awful violence. The slaveholder, on the other hand, not only became lazy, but he did great injury to his own soul by his hatred, violence, and oppression.

How could one who served a Savior who was whipped possibly whip another human being? How could one who served a Savior who “descended into hell” (from the Apostles’ Creed) put another human into a hot box? How could one who serves a Savior who hung on a tree for all possibly hang another human on a tree?

Before you throw that pinecone, you have to count the cost.

Violent actions, violent words, even violent thoughts—these all have deadly consequences for the perpetrator.

As Jesus said,

You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder,’ and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment, and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council, and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the [Gehennah] of fire. Matthew 5:21–22

With this information, let’s return to the question my six-year-old self had to face:

Is the pain this will cause me worth the pain it will cause him?

The answer is “no.” The answer is always “no.”

From a human perspective, the psychological and physical pain the perpetrator feels may be minimal compared to the pain the victim feels, but from a spiritual perspective, violence does more harm to the perpetrator.

Paul spoke of the resilience of the victim when he said,

We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. 2 Corinthians 4:8–10

This is why stopping the cycle of violence with us is so important. This is why we have to say “no.”

We think that violence brings peace because violence kills the enemy, but the peace of God comes through reconciliation, not destruction. It comes through love, not hate. Killing the enemy is not victory; it is loss of a brother, sister, or friend.

Don’t you see that this is why Jesus had to die? Jesus didn’t have to die because God demanded a sacrifice. Jesus died because we demanded a sacrifice. As Brian Zahnd says, we sinned our sins into Jesus.

We rejected the way of peace through reconciliation. We rejected the radical love of enemies, not just neighbors. We rejected the good news as bad news and accepted the bad news of violence and retribution as good news. We killed Love. We killed Goodness. We killed Peace.

And yet, Jesus doesn’t even let us take full responsibility, for he says that he was the one who had power to lay down his life and take it up again. He says that he was willingly giving himself over for us. He says that the greatest love imaginable is to lay down one’s life for one’s friends, and then he says, “You are my friends.”

Jesus made sure the cycle of violence stopped with him.

He knew the violence of violence, which is why he turned the ultimate cheek.

When we adopt this cruciform way of living, we join Jesus in saying that enough is enough. No more violence. No more bloodshed. No more suffering. No more hate. No more lies. No more gossip. No more, no more, no more.

You may afflict us, but we will never be crushed. You may persecute us, but we will never be forsaken. You may strike us down, but we will never be destroyed.

And it is our hope, it is my hope, that just as the sacrificial love of Jesus transformed my life that the sacrificial love of those who emulate Jesus will transform the lives of everyone who has bought into the bad news of retributive justice.

Reconciliation, forgiveness, and new creation are everything.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:16–21

Lectionary Reading: March 30, 2025 - Fourth Sunday of Lent

Old Testament: Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm: Psalm 32
New Testament: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Gospel: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32