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“The Reign of Christ the King”

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A Sermon for 25 November 2018 – Christ the King Sunday

A reading from the gospel of John 18:33-37.  We break into the portion of the gospel of John when Jesus has been brought before Pilate to be condemned to crucifixion.  Already Pilate has been outside to talk to the religious leaders who have brought Jesus to the local Roman ruler.  And Pilate has wondered if this man isn’t innocent.  He returns to his headquarters to speak to Jesus directly.  Listen for God’s word to us.

“Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”  Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I?  Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me.  What have you done?”  Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world.  If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.  But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”  Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?”  Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king.  For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

This is the word of God for the people of God.  Thanks be to God!

 

Anyone who’s ever spent time with stories from the gospels likely recognizes how odd things seem.  In stories recorded in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; Jesus does things like sit down to eat with those despised as outsiders.  Heal-with-a-touch people considered unclean, untouchable by religious law.  Welcome women, children, and others – even those from other nations – all who were hailed as less than in Jesus’ day.  Not to mention, forgive those violently taking his life, as even in death he remains grounded in the way of non-violence.  If we stop to read the gospels – and know a thing or two about the times in which Jesus lived, then we begin to see behavior in Jesus and in his first followers that may look quite different from what’s too often seen today.  We may look at the stories of Christ and his first followers and think:  “Wow!  It’s behavior, practices, acts – from truly beyond this world!

It’s Christ the King Sunday – the final Sunday of the liturgical year – the culmination of the cyclical story that takes us in Advent through the waiting, waiting, waiting for God to act among us in a new way, to the in-breaking of Christ as a baby in Bethlehem, to his radical way of living among us which led directly to his death but could not be the end for a God who is Life and would start something amazing among us through the Spirit, so that we would grow together in this world to walk that same radical path of love.  Today we remember Christ is King!  He reigns supreme with the strongest power known in the universe.  Not force, in which the powers of this world put all their hope; but love.

This year in the scriptures assigned by the lectionary for Christ the King, we’re taken right to the judgment seat of Pilate.  Here in the gospel of John a seemingly private conversation between Jesus and Pilate is recorded.  It might be helpful to remember that John is the latest written gospel and it begins with that beautiful poetry of “In the beginning” (John 1:1-14).  There was God.  There was Word.  There was Spirit and the outflow of their love created the world.  The continuing outflow of their love caused it to be that Word would take on flesh to dwell among us.  . . .  Jesus attempts to explain this to Nicodemus when Nicodemus comes to him in the shadow of night trying to understand what Jesus might be up to.  As the gospel of John records the story, it’s the first teaching of Jesus and it begins like this:  “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” (John 3:3).  If you’re scratching your head going:  “Huh?”  Don’t be alarmed.  Supposedly Nicodemus was a part of those who devoted their whole lives to understanding God and he’s just as confused as the next.

In her book entitled The Wisdom Jesus:  Transforming Heart and Mind, Cynthia Bourgeault makes the case that Jesus isn’t just the Savior of the world – here to die and be raised to new life for us, as we’ve primarily come to emphasize in the Christian tradition of the West.  Jesus also is a wisdom teacher – one among us to perk our consciousness that we might come to know how to live.  How to follow the path of his Way.  It’s why so much of what Jesus teaches is hard for us to grasp.  People seek to take him at face value like he’s a teacher who rattles off fact after concrete literal fact.  When wisdom teachers speak, according to Bourgeault, “pithy sayings, puzzles, and parables” all for the sake of the transformation of the human being (The Wisdom Jesus, p. 23).  Bourgeault points out that much of Western Christianity has seen the kingdom of God in one of two different ways.  She writes:  “A lot of Christians . . . assume that the Kingdom of Heaven (or of God) means the place where you go when you die – if you’ve been good.”  . . .  Others “equate the Kingdom of Heaven with an earthly utopia . . . a realm of peace and justice, where human beings live together in harmony and fair distribution of economic assets” (Ibid., p. 30).  I’ve heard of both, haven’t you?  In fact, one or the other, or both, seem the concern of Pilate.  He’s Rome’s representative in Jerusalem, after all.  If Jesus is a King, he needs to know if his Caesarea has anything about which to be worried.

As Jesus stands before Pilate, he’s asked:  “Are you the King of the Jews?” (John 18:33).  In the vein of a true teacher of wisdom, Jesus turns back the question on the questioner:  “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” (John 18:34).  He might as well have been saying:  “What do you think, Pilate?  You see the leaders out there wanting to do me in.  Am I the King of the Jews?”  Insisting Jesus reveal his crimes, Jesus finally tells Pilate:  “My kingdom is not of this world.  That’s easy enough to see or else my followers would be here storming the gates to free me.  Using the very same force upon which Rome and the powers of this world rely” (John 18:36).

I wish the gospel writer would have used a word other than the same one used in the rest of the gospel of John.  Like when John records:  “The Word was in the world, and the world came into being through him . . .  And for God so loved the world” (John 1 & 3).  I wish the word recorded by John on Jesus’ lips before Pilate would have been the word society.  Culture.  Even way, as in:  “my kingdom is not like your way.”  Anything to keep us from thinking that Jesus wants nothing to do with the physical stuff of this world.  Too long Christian history has abused the physical in this world due to misguided understandings of God.  After all, if spirit is all that is good and matter is all bad, how can we claim God created physical matter?  This beautiful earth with all its creatures including us, who are an interesting elixir of heaven and earth, spirit and matter, in-fleshed people of God.  If the world is all bad and the spirit is all that is good, then certainly God wouldn’t have taken on our physical flesh in Jesus the Christ.  . . .  Because God took on our flesh and blood; in Jesus God could wake up each day in a home with parents around him, and feet to put on the ground, and taste buds to take-in that first sip of whatever it was he’d drink every morning.  And finally had ears to hear the sweet songs of the birds.  And muscles to feel the strain of physical labor – the wood and tools in his hands as he worked alongside his dad.  Jesus could feel the hot sun on his back as they built.  And notice the beautiful colors as it began to set each night.  He had a brain to think and try to keep calm.  And a heart beating in the center of his chest with which he could feel the full range of human emotions.  I do believe that if God didn’t value the physical stuff of this world – including all the stuff of human flesh, then God never would have chosen to be in-fleshed among us in Jesus the Christ.  But, as the gospel of John so beautifully reminds:  God so loved this world; that God, in Christ, came to us in a new and wonderful way! (John 3:16).

While it is true that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world in the sense of the norms, rituals, and values of so much of our society.  Nonetheless, it is right here and now; in this world.  Jesus says it himself when elsewhere the Pharisees ask him when the Kingdom of God will arrive.  Luke 17:20-21 records his answer as:  “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed . . . for in fact, the kingdom of God is within you.”  In Putting on the Mind of Christ, Jim Marion interestingly concludes that the kingdom of God might just be “a metaphor for a state of consciousness . . . a whole new way of looking at the world, a transformed awareness that literally turns this world into a different place” (The Wisdom Jesus, pp. 30-31).  Hear that again:  the kingdom of God might just be “a metaphor for a state of consciousness . . . a whole new way of looking at the world, a transformed awareness that literally turns this world into a different place” (Ibid.).  An awareness that sees no separation between God and humans, and humans and other humans.  It’s a Oneness.  A mutual indwelling, about which Jesus tells his followers a few chapters earlier in the gospel of John when they gather together that fatal night.  He tells them:  “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you  . . .  abide in me” (John 14:20; 15:4).

When we’re aware of that kind of oneness – when we’re living that kind of unified sense, then indeed the kingdom of God is in us.  Then, and maybe only then, can we be about the behaviors of Christ’s way.  Putting into practice things like expanding our table fellowship because God in Christ ate with the despised of the world.  Maybe as we take on the consciousness of Christ our King, we can sit with people in pain to help heal them too just like God in Christ did.  Perhaps we could enact gracious welcome of all – including men and women and children of every race and tribe and ability because God in Christ certainly did.  Perhaps we could put down the weapons of war and for once understand that the most powerful energy in the world isn’t force, but love.  Because in Christ, God showed us this Way.  The Truth which always leads to Life.

It’s Christ the King Sunday.  The day we celebrate the One whose Way is not like the ways of this world.  Whose Truth looks differently than the lies we’re encouraged by this realm to live.  When we finally get that, his reign expands in us for the Kingdom of God to be seen through us!

Blessings for Christ the King Sunday, children of the King!  May he reign in us all forever!

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2018  (All rights reserved.)

 

Recognizing the King

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26 November 2017 – Christ the King Sunday

A reading from the gospel of Matthew 25:31-46.  Listen for God’s word to us in this story recorded on the lips of Jesus, the Christ.

“’When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.  32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.  34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’  37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?  38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?  39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’  40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’  41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’  44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’  45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’  46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’”

This is the word of God for the people of God.   Thanks be to God!

 

Remember the opening scene of the show Camelot?  King Arthur is all alone in the woods – hiding out because he’s scared.  Guinevere, is soon to be arriving.  His new wife, which will make her the new queen of Camelot.  Merlin, his mentor, comes looking for him – trying to reassure Arthur that it all will be all right.  Though Merlin has seen some sort of thing ahead with a valiant knight called Lancelot.  King Arthur goes on to sing that song as if he’s his subjects on the eve of their king’s wedding:  “I wonder what the king is doing tonight?  . . .  Arthur answers back, as any wise man might the night before uniting their lives with a powerful woman.  He sings:  “He’s scared!”  No sooner does the audience applause die down, than in rushes Guinevere.  The king hides out as she sings her plea to her patron saint to save her from this terrible turn of events:  being in a land far from home in which she really doesn’t want to be and becoming the wife of a king she really doesn’t want to marry, just because her father worked out the arrangements to strengthen ties between their countries.  When finally Arthur comes down out of the tree, Guinevere continues to tell of her terrible fate and how she has run away to ensure it never will come to pass.  She’s looking right into the face of the man she doesn’t want to marry, but she doesn’t recognize him.  That was the days before the paparazzi plastered photos of celebrities everywhere.  And it’s not like Arthur had a way to do a selfie to Snapchat to her in advance.  She doesn’t know he’s the king – until a soldier of his guard comes looking for Guinevere.  Seeing the king, the man bows to the ground in recognition of his sovereign.  Suddenly Guinevere understands.  This is the face of the king she is to marry.  She finally recognizes the identity of the one standing before her.

It’s ironic, of course, that this king isn’t recognized in his own land – and by the woman who is to be his queen, no less.  But it wasn’t the first time and it certainly won’t be the last that a king goes undetected.  In his final teaching, at least according to the gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells too about a King that often is not recognized.  Ironically, he’s talking about himself and the way in which all the nations will be able to see him.  It’s a parable of sorts about the long-awaited Son of Man finally coming among the people.  The prophet Daniel had foretold such a son.  One who would save the people from the way their lives had come to be.  Everyone will be gathered together, the story goes.  And as was done each night in Israel by the shepherds, sheep and goats will be separated.  Shepherds brought the goats together back then – most often bedding them for the night in a cave where their collective body heat could keep all the goats warm.  Sheep on the other hand, with their woolly coats could sleep scattered out on the hillside if they wanted to.  For the sake of the goats the shepherd had to separate them in order for goats to survive the cold of the night.  The funny thing is:  the separator in Jesus’ story is a king.  One that will treat like his own heirs those who have recognized him.

It’s possible we’ve heard this story from Jesus so many times that it no longer has the impact it most certainly had upon his first hearers.  It had been a really long time – if ever – that the people knew a king that fed the hungry and made sure the thirsty had water to drink.  That outsider strangers were welcomed in and those unable to put a stitch upon their own bodies were given clothing.  The sick often were left to be tended by women who most of the month already were considered unclean.  And the worst thing in the world was to be carted off by the king’s soldiers to be imprisoned for whatever unjust infraction you might have been accused of.  Kings didn’t mess with those kind of people.  The kings Jesus’ listeners knew were the Roman king Julius the Caesar and Herod Antipas who also was referred to as a king.  It wasn’t in the face of one in need you were to recognize those kings.  They were recognized in their great might.  In the massive building projects they undertook.  In Rome’s fierce army and their ability to keep everyone in check through fear.  The kings of Jesus’ day weren’t seeing to the needs of their subjects.  They were seeing to the security of their own interests.  They were crushing common folks into allegiance with crippling taxes and threats of death.  Jesus is speaking of a different kind of kingdom.  Ruled by a drastically different king.

We’ve not always been good at recognizing this in the church.  Which is a goodly part of why in the 1920s the Franciscan order of brothers overtured the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church to establish a holy feast day called Christ the King of the Universe.  The world just had witnessed the kings around the earth clashing in a cataclysmic war to end all wars:  World War I.  In fine Christian lands, Christ was not being recognized as the King of compassion.  Instead, folks were acting a whole lot more like the Caesar and Herod of Jesus’ day.  Christian history often has gone astray in such a way.  Which is why the Franciscans wanted Christ the King of the Universe Sunday to become a regular part of our faith traditions.  It really was in the 1960s after Vatican 2 that Christ the King Sunday gained any sort of universal recognition.  So that you and I are like 2nd generation Christ the King Christians – though I realize many of us may not be all that familiar with the high holy day.  One contemporary Franciscan reminds us that Christ has been the King of the Universe from the start.  He’s the Alpha (the first letter of the Greek alphabet).  And will be the King of the Universe at the end.  He’s the Omega too (or that last letter of the Greek alphabet).  In one of the most helpful explanations of Christ the King that I have heard, we’re reminded that Christ, or the eternal Logos, was part of God from the start.  The pattern or blueprint of God that came to be materialized.  In other words, the part of God that came to inhabit matter.  To show us what God is all about.  To show us the way that rules the universe from beginning until the end (Richard Rohr, http://cac.org/images/MP3s/RRHomily-2012_11_25-Christ-VBR.mp3).  That very same way that Jesus, the Christ, was about in his life, death, and resurrection.

And just in case we wouldn’t remain clear about where to recognize this King, Christ; Jesus tells us to look into the face of those around us.  Especially those in the deepest need.  It’s pretty radical to claim that the eternal God, King of the universe, sovereign Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of it all can be found most definitely in one consistent place.  In the face of those who are fed, watered, welcomed, clothed, and healed.  Now who ever would expect a King to reside there?!  . . .  It’s why we are to be about such ministries.  Face to face, not just writing checks for them.  . . .  If we allow ourselves to be, we are changed when we come face to face with feeding someone who is hungry, or giving drink to one who thirsts.  When we welcome someone who was a stranger to us, our lives are opened a little bit wider to the ways God lives and works in this world.  It’s always good to help because another has a need; but according to Jesus, that’s not quite why we’re to jump into action.  Such service changes us.  It allows us to see God living in another – even if we sometimes have to look rather deeply to recognize – maybe peer around parts of a person we’re pretty sure God would never inhabit.  If we dare enough to see – maybe even to have our minds opened a little bit further to who God is – we’ll find ourselves standing before the King.  And if in that moment we’re quiet enough, we might just hear:  “Well done good and faithful servant.  Today, you’ve entered my kingdom!”  May it be so.

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2017  (All rights reserved.)

 

 

 

Christ, the King

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A Sermon for 20 November 2016 – Christ the King Sunday

A reading from the prophet Jeremiah 23:1-6. Listen for God’s word to us.

“’Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!’ says the Lord. 2Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: ‘It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings,’ says the Lord. 3’Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing,’ says the Lord. 5’The days are surely coming,’ says the Lord, ‘when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 6In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”’”

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

 

The next reading is the classic text for this Sunday. A soaring statement about Christ, the King, who reigns. Listen for God’s word to us in a reading from Colossians 1:11-20.

“May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

While most Americas this week are starting to think about turkey, our first reading for today takes us instead to sheep. Scattered flocks. Bumped and bruised and neglected sheep. Lost sheep that have been abandoned by the shepherds who were supposed to lovingly tend them. It never has sat well with God for the sheep of God’s pasture to be mistreated – to be left to wander aimlessly because, for whatever reason, good shepherds stop leading well the sheep. “The days are surely coming,” says the LORD through the prophet Jeremiah, “When it will no longer be so!” (Jer. 23:5 paraphrase). God’s sheep need a loving shepherd. Leaders who will stick with them to take them where God needs for them to go.

At long last, we have the brilliant message of Colossians. After it all took place, those words were written. A hymn to the most amazing one: the one who has rescued and transferred the sheep to a most blessed place. The one who rules over all things – not just the sheep. The one in whom everything that is God fully dwells so that all the sheep can live secure. Tended. Safely in everlasting peace! . . . Today is Christ the King Sunday and it is a beautiful day to hail Christ the sovereign of all! The one who reigns forever and ever and ever as Lord – first in everything; for through him, heaven and earth come together for peace to remain in all forever. It’s the end of the liturgical year today. We celebrate the cycle all the way through his birth, baptism, ministry, sacrifice, triumphant resurrection, and abiding Spirit at work forevermore. Today we pledge our allegiance to the one at the center of our faith: Christ, crucified, risen, ascended, and alive through all eternity! Today he deserves all the pomp and circumstance – the rousing coronation chords of a hymn like “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name!” and the fervent call for all to gather to praise as in “Come, Christians, join to Sing.” Before this service is over, we’ll sing in “Crown Him with Many Crowns” and recite words of faith that keep our eyes on the kingdom that is God’s. . . . But first, another reading for this day. A gospel text assigned for the day when we gather to give a cheer to Christ our King! Listen.

“When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. 34Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. 35And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, the chosen one!” 36The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, 37and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” 39One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.””  (Luke 23:33-43, NRSV)

It’s a truly odd way to end a year – what with a day called Christ, the King and a reading that leaves him literally, and us figuratively, hanging on a cross. Behold our King: bloodied and dying before our eyes. . . . We Christians are a paradoxical lot – gazing upon a man gasping for his final breath – spitting out words like “forgive” while everyone around scoffs to say: “He saved so many others. If he’s the mighty chosen one, let him save himself!” . . . The King of the Jews – and all Creation. The King we claim even over us? . . . What does it mean for us to celebrate a day when we keep before us a king who is dying on a cross?

Kings aren’t supposed to die. Not like this. They are to be strong. Brave. Protective of all their subjects. How many kings had his people known? The Pharaohs of Egypt – they certainly were impressive kings. Their own King David, after the fiasco of King Saul. While David is remembered as an amazing King for Israel, uniting the lands and ruling from Jerusalem; he made some significant mishaps too. He had another man killed so that he could take his wife as his own without a guilty conscience – a violation of commandment #10 and 6 and 7 and depending on how you look at it number 5 and 8 too. His own family would be a mess from there on and while he one day would come to see the horror of his ways to beg for mercy before God, King David’s actions set in motion the demise of his heirs. O, God’s people knew of kings. The king of Assyria who would take over Israel to the north leaving Judah surrounded on all sides until at last arose the king of Babylon. Then of Persia. Then Alexander of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia. Then the Caesars of the Great Roman Empire. God’s people had had their fill of kings. One after another invading their land, taking them over, plundering their homes and business and highest holy place, the Temple. Those are the kinds of kings left famous in history. Mighty military men who commanded others to do as they said, or else. Who took what they wanted, or else. Who impressed with excess, or else.

One commentator writes of the gospel text assigned for this day when we hail another King: “These last moments of Jesus’ life seem to be in contrast to what is valued as great in our world. The world presented to us in newspapers or on television is not poor, but is a world of glamour. In this world, the ideal is to be rich and beautiful and influential. . . . This passage of the Bible takes us by the hand and gives us the surprising news: Christ is highest, and. . . (he) does not help himself, but he helps others who need his help. Still more: he does not meet evil with evil, but repays evil with good” (Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4, Eberhard Busch, pp. 332, 334). Yes. Here is Christ, our King. Humbly dying before our eyes.

What does it mean for our lives to claim this one King? This one who spent his days doing the very same things it’s recorded that he did on the cross. He went about his land bumping into people who needed help. Be it food or physical healing or the healing of full inclusion in his circle. Whoever he met, he invited into his way. He showed abundance and mercy and peace. He didn’t mysteriously fix every problem of their lives – Rome still ruled. Instead, he transformed their lives by showing them the more excellent way to be. He spoke the truth of God that was in him. He challenged those who cared more about their rules than their people. He welcomed the least and the lost and said God welcomed them too. Christ, the King. Our King – poured out his life that others truly might live too. He showed us how to dwell now in the kingdom belonging to him: God’s kingdom where love is the rule of the day. Compassion and kindness and hope: the most powerful weapons ready for his use. . . . What does it mean for our lives to claim this one King? We know. It means we live likewise. Feeding and healing and welcoming strangers in. We exercise mercy and pursue peace and let ourselves be changed from the inside out by compassion and kindness and hope. We keep as the golden rule the charge to love – even when others scoff and mock and deride. We forgive, as we are forgiven by our mightily merciful King. What does it mean for our lives to claim this one King? It means everything – each day, to live the way of his rule. . . . All hail, our King! Crown him with glorious crowns! Christ, the dying and rising King!

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2016  (All rights reserved.)

 

Not of this World?

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A Sermon for 22 November 2015 – Christ the King Sunday

A reading from the gospel of John 18:33-37. We break into the portion of the gospel when Jesus has been brought before Pilate to be condemned to crucifixion. Already Pilate has been outside to talk to the religious leaders who have brought Jesus to the local Roman ruler. And Pilate’s wondered if this man isn’t innocent. He returns to his headquarters to speak to Jesus directly. Listen for God’s word to us.

“Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

 

There’s a couple in my new neighborhood who have been really welcoming to me. The first day when I was moving in some boxes, they walked by and made a point to introduce themselves. Then a few weeks ago they stopped in to tell me of an upcoming neighborhood potluck. I didn’t know for sure where they lived until one morning when I passed by a house and the man was outside doing something to his car. He’s always so chipper – no matter the early hour. It’s impressive to me as I barely am awake most mornings when I’m out there walking my dog. One day I noticed a sticker on the back window of their car. It reads: “Not of this world.” . . . I’ve been a little confused as to what exactly they intend with their sticker. Especially because it’s on the back window of their sleek, silver Infiniti, which leaves me wondering if they bought the car to keep themselves focused on infinity, as in eternity; or if they really are focused on a luxury vehicle and the sticker is just an after-thought.

I’m not so sure I like the sticker – what with a long Christian history of abuse of physical matter in this world due to misguided understandings of God. After all, if spirit was all good and matter was all bad, God never would have created physical matter. This beautiful earth with all its creatures including us, who are an interesting elixir of spirit and matter. The breath of God breathed into the soil of the earth, according to the Genesis 2 telling of it (Genesis 2:7). If the world was all bad and the spirit was all that was good, then certainly God wouldn’t have taken on our physical flesh in Jesus the Christ. I know we focus a lot on his death and resurrection, but he really was a living human being – like each one of us. It must have been so cool to be him – excited each day to wake up in a home with parents around him, and feet to put on the ground, and taste buds to take in that first sip of whatever it was he’d drink each morning. He finally had ears to hear the sweet songs of the birds and muscles to feel the strain of physical labor – the wood in his hands as he worked alongside his dad. He could feel the hot sun on his back as they built and notice the beautiful colors as it began to set each night. He had a brain to think and try to keep calm. And a heart beating in the center of his chest with which he could feel the full range of human emotions. I do believe that if God didn’t value the physical stuff of this world – including all the stuff of human flesh, then God never would have chosen to be in-fleshed among us in Jesus the Christ. . . . I don’t like stickers that lead people to believe that the matter of this world somehow needs to be escaped. Because we wouldn’t need to waste any time on Advent and Christmas if that was the case. . . . For God so loved this world, God in Christ came to us in a new and wonderful way!

It’s Christ the King Sunday – the final Sunday of the liturgical year. It’s the culmination of the cyclical story that takes us in Advent through the waiting, waiting, waiting for God to act among us in a new way, to the in-breaking of Christ as a baby in Bethlehem, to his radical way of living among us which led directly to his death but could not be the end for a God who is Life and would start something amazing among us through the Spirit so that we would grow together in this world to walk that same radical path of love. Today we remember Christ is King! He reigns supreme with the strongest power known in the universe. Not force, in which the powers of this world put all their hope; but love.

This year in the Christ the King lectionary, we’re taken right to the judgment seat of Pilate. Here in the gospel of John a seemingly private conversation between Jesus and Pilate is recorded. . . . It might be helpful to remember that John is the latest written gospel and it begins with that beautiful poetry of “In the beginning” (John 1:1-14). There was God. There was Word. There was Spirit and the outflow of their love created the world. The continuing outflow of their love caused it to be that Word would take on flesh to dwell among us. . . . Jesus attempts to explain this to Nicodemus when Nicodemus comes to him in the shadow of night trying to understand what Jesus might be up to. As the gospel of John records the story, it’s the first teaching of Jesus and it begins like this: “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” (John 3:3). If you’re scratching your head going: “Huh?” Don’t be alarmed. Supposedly Nicodemus was a part of those who devoted their whole lives to understanding God and he’s just as confused as the next.

In her book entitled The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind, Cynthia Bourgeault makes the case that Jesus isn’t just the Savior of the world – here to die and be raised to new life for us, as we’ve primarily come to emphasize in the Christian tradition of the West. Jesus also is a wisdom teacher – one among us to perk our consciousness that we might come to know how to live. How to follow the path of his Way. It’s why so much of what Jesus teaches is hard for us to grasp. People seek to take him at face value like he’s a teacher who rattles off fact after concrete literal fact. When wisdom teachers speak, according to Bourgeault, “pithy sayings, puzzles, and parables” all for the sake of the transformation of the human being (The Wisdom Jesus, p. 23). Bougeault points out that much of Western Christianity has seen the kingdom of God in one of two different ways. She writes: “A lot of Christians . . . assume that the Kingdom of Heaven (or of God) means the place where you go when you die – if you’ve been good.” . . . Others “equate the Kingdom of Heaven with an earthly utopia . . . a realm of peace and justice, where human beings live together in harmony and fair distribution of economic assets” (Ibid., p. 30). I’ve heard of both, haven’t you? In fact, one or the other, or both, seem the concern of Pilate. He’s Rome’s representative in Jerusalem, after all. If Jesus is a King, he needs to know if the Caesarea has anything to be worried about.

As Jesus stands before Pilate, he’s asked: “Are you the King of the Jews?” (John 18:33). In the vein of a true teacher of wisdom, Jesus turns back the question on the questioner: “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” (John 18:34). He might as well have been saying: “What do you think, Pilate? You see the leaders out there wanting to do me in. Am I the King of the Jews?” Insisting Jesus reveal his crimes, Jesus finally tells Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world. That’s easy enough to see or else my followers would be here storming the gates to free me. Using the very same force Rome and the powers of this world rely upon” (John 18:36). . . . I wish the gospel writer would have used a word other than the same one used in the rest of the gospel of John. Like instead of saying: “The Word was in the world, and the world came into being through him . . . And for God so loved the world” (John 1 & 3); I wish the word on Jesus’ lips before Pilate would have been translated society. Culture. Even way, as in: “my kingdom is not like your way.” Anything to keep us from thinking that Jesus wants nothing to do with the physical stuff of this world. His kingdom is not of this world in the sense of the norms, rituals, and values of so much of our society. But it is right here and now; in this world. . . . He says it himself when elsewhere the Pharisees ask him when the Kingdom of God will arrive. Luke 17:20-21 records his answer as: “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed . . . for in fact, the kingdom of God is within you.” . . . In Putting on the Mind of Christ, Jim Marion suggests a third way to think about it. He concludes that the kingdom of God might just be “a metaphor for a state of consciousness . . . a whole new way of looking at the world, a transformed awareness that literally turns this world into a different place” . . . an awareness that sees no separation between God and humans, and humans and other humans. (The Wisdom Jesus, pp. 30-31). It’s a Oneness. A mutual indwelling, which Jesus tells his followers about a few chapters earlier in the gospel of John when they gather together that fatal night. He tells them: “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you . . . abide in me” (John 14:20; 15:4). When we’re aware of that kind of oneness – when we’re living that kind of unified sense, then the kingdom of God indeed is in us.

I want to believe that’s how my new neighbors mean it as they dash around the neighborhood in their Infiniti. It could be the source of the man’s cheeriness every morning. For maybe when he greets me, he realizes I’m no stranger. Not some other who moved into the house one of his dear friends had to move out of in order to sell it. Maybe he sees us as one. Knows we’re not of this world because we’re in Christ and Christ in us; which makes us foreigners really to the ways propped up as heroic in the society in which we live. Maybe we’re both celebrating today that Christ is King – the One reigning in the kingdom that is present in us each and every day because we are citizens first of that Way. I want to believe we’ve both heard that truth from the lips of the One who deeply loves the physical, living matter of this world – you and me and all this precious earth. The One who shows us how to live in this world as ones not of this world. That’s Christ our King.

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2015  (All rights reserved.)