The Reign of Christ

I have a rare Sunday off and did not write a sermon for today, The Last Sunday of Pentecost, also known as "Christ the King" Sunday. These days I prefer to call it The Reign of Christ,. But I've left the sermon below, preached on November 22, 2004, at St. Francis Church in Holden, unedited. I think the themes are still relevant, even if there are no doubt some things I'd say differently today than I did fifteen years ago.  

Today we celebrate the feast of “Christ the King.” But what does it mean for us, as Christians, to say that we worship a king, a king who was executed as an enemy of the state? In a nutshell, that is the great paradox of our faith.

Most of the images and language we use in our worship today—including the hymns—point us toward the future. Our focus is on the culmination of human history, a focus that will continue next weekend on the First Sunday of Advent. That is, we look toward Christ’s victorious return, in glory, to set things right: to the time when every knee shall bend and proclaim Jesus as Lord, and he sets the captives free, and subdues the powers of this world once and for all. That is all about the power of God.

Yet even while we look toward that day, the gospel appointed for today is a Good Friday text, from Luke 23:33-43. It calls our attention not to the Second Coming, but the end of the first one. We are at the place of a skull, Calvary or Golgatha, where this “king of the Jews” is executed between two criminals, one to his right and another on his left. Here the cry, “hail, king of the Jews” is not a cry of the faithful, but an abusive taunt from an angry mob. The crown of thorns on his head has been put there to mock him, not worship him. And yet this plea, from one of the criminals: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Remember me.

So what is this “kingdom?” Too often as Christians we don’t pay enough attention to the ways that Jesus is such a different kind of king than we are used to. Too often we tend to hear these words as if we are talking about a completely different reality from this world, some heavenly realm high above us that is separate from this world where we live and move and have our being.

That can lead to two very different responses when we think about how that kingdom connects to the kingdoms of this world. Some (and they can be found both on the left and on the right) think it is their job to bring their version of Christian power to bear on the world. The thing is that has been tried in Christian history, as in the Holy Roman Empire. Unfortunately when Christians had all the power, they misused it as much as any other kings. The crusades and the inquisition bear witness to the fact that power can corrupt Christians as much as it corrupts anyone.

On the other end of the spectrum is an entirely different approach, one that keeps “heaven” and “earth” as far apart as possible. Faith becomes privatized and spiritualized, a matter only for an hour or so each week. A “wall of separation” develops within us that leads to a kind of spiritual schizophrenia. We can be pious in church, and “realists” in the workplace. Some people would call that hypocrisy

Is there a way beyond that impasse? I think the answer is found if we are willing to reflect on the true meaning of this day and in what it means to call Christ our “king” and our “lord,” as loaded as those words are. To make this claim is to put Jesus first in our lives. That begins as a personal faith claim: Jesus is my lord. But it is also about seeing how Christ is working in the world, how he is lord not only of our lives but "king" of all creation.

What I think needs to change is our understanding of power. We need to hear “king” and “lord” without thinking of medieval British monarchs, even legendary ones like King Arthur who use might for right. We need to let go of our modern version of that—the superhero—who always wins. Jesus lived in a time when he had his own version of that same archetype, the Roman Caesars who could control just about everything.

But when Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God, he doesn’t point to Rome or medieval England or to Superman. Instead, he talks about mustard seeds. Remember? How the tiniest of seeds, watered and nurtured and pruned can become something much larger than anyone could possibly imagine. He tells stories about finding something of great value—like a pearl—and knowing that it matters more than anything else in our lives—so you sell all you have to have it. He reveals the Kingdom of God every time he kisses a leper clean, or makes a blind man see, or speaks with a woman at a well and validates her as a human being. He reveals the Kingdom of God in our very midst whenever the hungry are fed.

Notice how all of the stories about the Kingdom of God are taken from the “real” world. They aren’t synagogue or church language. They are taken from people’s daily lives. They are stories about food, and health, and abundant life—stories about what God is doing in people’s lives. About how the world is sometimes turned upside down and the poor are blessed and the hungry are filled and the naked are clothed.

Those things continue to happen, if we only have eyes to see. If you want to see the Kingdom of God breaking in, then go to the Mustard Seed in Worcester or help out with food distribution at the Wachusett Food pantry. Or spend some time around a Habitat for Humanity work site, or explore mission work with our youth, or at Heifer Project International. That is the work of the Kingdom of God—the work where Christ is still alive and is king of kings and lord of lords. 

Jesus points us toward the world and says “bring good news there.” And then be amazed when amazing things begin to happen. Jesus holds a child before him and says, “do you get it yet?...can you see the world through the eyes of this child?...for until you do, you will not understand the Kingdom of God.” 

So I ask you, with all these kids around here in church school and youth group…are we paying attention to the good news they have to share with us here? Are we seeing ourselves, and our community, through their eyes?

This is Christ the King Sunday. But our “king” comes among us as one who serves. Our “king” dies on a cross. That reveals a very different way to think about power. It is as one preacher (William Sloan Coffin, Jr.) has put it, not about the “love of power, but the power of love.” It’s about God’s power to heal, God’s power to transform, God’s power to forgive and to redeem. Where those things are happening, there is Christ, our king and our God, making all creation new again. There the kingdom, like yeast is making the bread rise, and like salt is giving food its taste.

Christian communities like this one exist to keep that reality alive in a dog-eat-dog world. We are called to love one another, as Christ has loved us. That can sound too easy, until you actually try to love people who drive you crazy and act in some pretty unloveable ways. It’s only easy until someone hurts you. Then those primitive responses kick in: fight or flight. But Jesus, our king, points to a third way: to forgive. Because only forgiveness unlocks the capacity to love again.

So we gather again at the foot of the cross, where Jesus forgives the soldiers who mocked and killed him. Where Jesus forgives the religious authorities who betrayed him and turned him over to the Romans because he unsettled their doctrinal certitude. Where Jesus forgives criminals. Where Jesus forgives you and me. In so doing he opens up another way to live in this world, revealing a kingdom not of this world, but one that we do get glimpses of here and now. If only we have eyes to see.

Truly this is a different kind of king. Truly this is a king worthy of dominion and honor and praise, of our glad and joyful hearts, of our lives, until the kingdom really does come on earth as in heaven. 

Sermon for the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost

On this 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, I am at St. John's Episcopal Church in Ashfield.

There is a lot going on in today’s gospel reading. It feels like the world that Jesus is describing, a declining Roman empire, is coming apart at the seams. It’s coming unglued.

And maybe we can relate to that. We might use some different metaphors, but our own experience with hyper-partisan politics and a planet that is in crisis makes this gospel reading feel like it could be ripped from the day’s headlines. Impeachment hearings, yet another school shooting...the list is long. And it’s scary stuff. 

There is a line in a Bob Dylan song that goes like this: “it’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.” It’s on an album called Time Out of Mind that was released twenty years ago. For me, that line speaks to our situation and the situation of today’s gospel reading: it’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.

So there are lots of sermons, I suppose, to be preached on today’s gospel reading and perhaps many of them are about trying to articulate how Episcopalians might talk about apocalyptic theology in our own accent, different from southern Baptist ways of doing so. I’ve probably preached a dozen sermons like that myself over three decades of ordained ministry.

But what I noticed this time around as I prepared to come and be with you is that while most of what Jesus offers in today’s gospel reading is descriptive of that reality, hidden in plain sight are four prescriptive lines. To put it another way, Jesus describes what’s going on in a world that is coming apart, but he also offers four specific imperatives about how to respond to that reality. And for me, there is good news in that advice that is worth paying attention to.

What are we supposed to do when we notice that it’s dark out and getting darker still? Curse the darkness? No. We have been here before. By “we” I mean the people called to follow Jesus. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Throughout history, Christians have lit candles to remember that even one small candle can throw enough light, once our eyes adjust, to find our way in the dark.

Somebody around here will drag out the Advent wreath in a couple of weeks, and one at a time, we’ll light those candles, here and in congregations across this Commonwealth, as our ancestors have been doing from generation to generation. Why? Because we know/we trust/we believe/we affirm/we insist/we hope that the light still shines in the darkness, and that the darkness will not overcome it. This is our work – to let our little lights shine in and through us, in the neighborhood.

With all that in mind, I call your attention to those four imperatives in today’s gospel reading. Jesus is addressing his disciples – that includes us – about how to navigate through times like this. He says:

• Beware that you are not led astray;
• Do not be terrified;
• This will give you an opportunity to testify; 
• By your endurance you will gain your souls.

Do not be led astray. It’s so easy to get lost when the world is a mess. It’s so easy to lose sleep, and get distracted, and get sucked in, and forget who we are and where we are and what we are called to be about. In so many other places in Scripture, Jesus says that he is the Way. My favorite of those is when Jesus is telling the disciples about how to be faithful when he’s gone and that they know the way and Thomas says, “no we don’t, Lord, we are just not as smart as you sometimes think we are!” And Jesus says, stick with me, Thomas: I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. Follow me. That is how we avoid being “led astray.” That is how we keep from getting lost. We keep our eyes on the prize. We stay close to Jesus.

Do not be terrified. Terror is paralyzing. When we are scared we often just spin our wheels. So repeat after me: do not be afraid. I am told on good authority that those words appear in scripture 365 times, once for every day of the year. Usually they are on the lips of some angel or another, but today they are spoken by Jesus himself. Those with ears to hear, need to hear. Because we do no good toward the glory of God when the terror moves from the world to take residence in our heads. Or in our guts. It will corrode from the inside out. We do no good toward the glory of God or toward mending the brokenness of this world if we are so terrorized that we unwittingly participate in the mess. So, do not be terrified. Jesus is Lord. We belong first, and foremost, to God. And She’s got the whole world in Her hands. God is not anxious. Brokenhearted? No doubt. Angry? Good Biblical evidence to say, highly likely. But not anxious. God knows how the story ends: with peace on earth and good will toward all. 

When the world is coming unglued, and we stop being afraid, this gives us an opportunity to testify. Now that’s a word that needs to be unpacked, but it’s a very Biblical idea in both old and new testaments. Walter Brueggemann’s big tome on the theology of the Old Testament is called: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. I don’t want to go down a rabbit hole too far on that – I’ll have to come back here again for that! But very briefly, Brueggemann compares testimony to sitting in a courtroom and trying to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing about the truth. We don’t need to stand on a street corner with a tract in our hands!

But what we do need to do is to rescue that word because the world needs us to tell the truth in a world of lies. We testify to what we have seen and heard and know of the love of Jesus, for all the little children of the world. That testimony means that we will not be silent when children are locked in cages. We testify to the truth that we are a people who respect the dignity of every human being, no matter what. Our testimony demands that we will not be divided by race or creed or sexual orientation – or stand by when others do that. That we will work for justice and peace until we take our very last breath. Testimony is like that sign I saw on your church, facing Main Street, that tells the world that you follow the way of love. 

Testimony is about not only words, but actions. When we stop being afraid, and anxious, it allows us to access our brains so we aren’t responding like reptiles to every crisis. And to soften our hearts so that we can be witnesses who testify to the truth. That truth still sets us free, and also offers hope for the world. When we fearlessly persist, with God’s help, the light shines in the darkness.

And then, that’s it, right? Add water and stir and we get peace on earth and good will to all! Only five weeks to the dear Savior’s birth, and Dylan can write the next verse: it’s getting lighter out! Gosh those Christians are good!

We know how the story ends. But it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Actually it’s like one of those super-marathons which I can barely even fathom. It’s forty years in the Sinai Desert. It’s longer than that in Babylon after the exile. It may feel like Narnia for a while, where it’s always winter and never Christmas. And so the fourth word from Jesus: endurance. By your endurance, you will gain your souls.

I suspect that this may be the hardest word of all in a society that not only loves technical fixes but loves quick instant technical fixes. And we are they. When I have to stand in a line for more than a minute and a half, I start looking ahead to see what could be fixed – who is not doing their job – or what customer is gumming up the works. Whether I’m in a bank or a restaurant or a grocery store or a big church where it’s taking too long to administer the sacrament, I know for sure how I could make it more efficient if given the chance.

The existential and cosmic challenges we are facing at this moment in history are not like that, however. They require deep, adaptive, fundamental changes that are not going to happen fast. And they require communities to change, not just charismatic leaders to fix things. As that (other) theologian from New Jersey puts it, it’s gonna be a long walk home.

So we have to figure out how to live in the meantime. How to endure. How to be resilient. How to support each other along the way. How to be courageous ourselves and to en-courage one another. How to make that long journey by putting one foot in front of the other. By endurance we discover and rediscover who we are, and whose we are.

I don’t need to have the last word here today. We get texts like this in the weeks ahead. Christ the King and the first week of Advent are about asking these same kinds of questions: what do we do in a world where it feels very dark right now? The truth is that we have to learn how to find our way in the dark. We can also light one candle. And then another. And then another. And then yet another.

We walk by faith and as we get our bearings, we commit to sticking with Jesus. We hold hands, so as not to be so terrified. We testify to the Light of the world and seek that light in our own lives. And then, slowly but with purpose and conviction and hope, we begin to move. One step at a time. Together. We know, and we believe, and we trust that these ordeals and sufferings produce endurance. And endurance produces character. And character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint us. Hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. (See Romans 5:3-4)

These days are an opportunity, and an invitation, to remember who we are and whose we are, and what we are called to be about. Do not lose heart!

For All The Saints!

This weekend as we celebrate The Feast of All Saints, I am at St. Stephen's in Pittsfield, one of our parishes at the beginning of a clergy transition.

All Saints is one of my very favorite days of the year. There are two main themes as I see it. First, it is a reiteration of our Easter faith: death never gets the last word. We are a people who make our song, even at the grave. Allelulia. Alleluia. Alleluia. And second, our alleluia song is sung by a great choir that includes those who have gone before us: saints like Francis of Assisi and Julian of Norwich. Stephen, of course, the first martyr. And countless others. But also those saints remembered by us today who left their mark on us – the ones you can meet at shops or at tea or over a cup of coffee. Those who taught us the faith and introduced us to Jesus. Take a moment to invite them in today, to join us as we gather in this thin place...

...my paternal grandmother, Esther Simpson, is one of the saints in my life. In addition to being my father’s mother, she is one of those people who helped to raise me into the full stature of Christ. She belonged to an independent Baptist congregation. She showed me how to love the Bible as a way to better know and follow Jesus. She read her Bible every day, using a resource called “Our Daily Bread” along with her King James Bible. When the message for the day struck her in a particular way she would clip it and send it to me with a note at college. She taught me to use the Bible and not to be afraid of it; the pages of hers were tattered and worn from use. She never heard (as far as I know) of a “lectionary” as a plan for reading the Bible in her congregation and her church didn’t use scripture inserts. I think she would have been suspicious. Everyone was expected to bring their Bible along to worship. Over the course of her life she must have read the Bible cover-to-cover many times over. The stories were real to her and through her they became real to me.

As far as I can trust my memory, I have to say that I don’t remember ever studying anything from the Book of Daniel in my Methodist Sunday School or for that matter even (sadly) in my Old Testament classes in seminary. Daniel was too often treated among mainline Protestants as an embarrassment—the Old Testament equivalent of the Book of Revelation—and the two of them together were viewed as something like inviting John the Baptist to a wine and cheese reception. But my grandmother loved Daniel: for her they were stories of resistance and hope.

So she would tell me about Daniel in the lion’s den. Do you know the story? About how all the king’s men established an ordinance and issued a decree about prayer and that anyone who didn’t pray to the king would be thrown into the lion’s den. But Daniel refused to follow such an unjust edict. He showed courage and defied the decree, trusting in the Lord. When he was thrown into the lion’s den as a punishment, the lions miraculously lost their appetites.

She would tell me that great story about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (also in Daniel) who also refused to worship false gods and for their obedience to the true God they were thrown into a fiery furnace to be burned alive. The king was so filled with rage that he ordered the furnace turned up seven times more than was customary and they were thrown into the blazing fire. But guess what? They were protected!

As a kid I wanted to know whether or not these stories were true, by which I meant simply did it really happen like that? That question was, I think, disconcerting to my grandmother, who would assure me that they had happened just like that, something I found hard to believe then and now. But as a 56-year old adult who has been at this work of ordained ministry for more than three decades, I am way less concerned today about whether or not these stories are literally true anymore. It doesn’t matter to me if they “happened” because I am profoundly aware that stories like this are “true” in ways that go way beyond reporting current events.

The world of Daniel is a world of imperial power: a world of decrees and secret police and authorizations and having your “papers in order.” That language permeates the text. And the big question being raised in that context is this one: what does it mean to be a person of faith in such a world? How can you hold onto your faith in a hostile world that is not your true home? How does one resist the government when the government is wrong? Where does our true allegiance lie? 

All Saints Day is as good a time as any to remember that we are Christians together with people all around the world. When I was in Holden we developed a strong relationship with the Church in El Salvador through a group called Cristosal. This began when we did a capital campaign and raised some money - I think in the neighborhood of $350,000 or so. The vestry was committed to mission and said if we were going to spend that kind of money on ourselves we needed to give at least 10% of it away. It turns out that there are a lot of groups interested in receiving gifts of $35,000 or so. We settled on Cristosal but with a catch. They told us they didn't just want our money. They wanted us to walk with them, to accompany them, to get to know them as fellow pilgrims on this journey. To break down some walls. And so we began sending groups down there...

Among those who went were Tom and Dianne Wilson. Flash forward to the day that Tom and Dianne are sitting in my office, telling me they are going to quit their jobs and become missionaries to El Salvador. They are going to move down there, and take this whole "accompanying" thing quite seriously and literally. I was blown away and had so much respect for that faithful decision.  

I tell you this story because yesterday, Dianne was ordained a deacon in our diocese at Christ Church, Rochdale. I tell you this because the lives of the saints are woven together and through Dianne, and Tom, and through Noah Bullock who is the son of the priest in charge in Easthampton, we are barely one degree apart from people who have lived in a world where Daniel's context is the reality of their lives, as it is in so many parts of this world. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ. And the mess in their country is very much a product of decades of US foreign policy that has led to chaos and to people seeking a better life in this country even as we keep trying to build walls to keep them out.

The history of Central America is a world not so different from Daniel’s, a world that has known too often of corrupt and powerful governments intent on destroying the creatures of God. In the face of decrees and secret police and “authorizations,” and disappearances and torture, the faith of people like Oscar Romero and the Jesuit martyrs stands as a witness not very different from that of Daniel or of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego: of a faith that was willing, day after day, to stand up for what is right. To be courageous even in the face of violence and degradation. To choose hope over fear. And they are a part of us, and we are a part of them, among a great cloud of witnesses that worships the Lamb on this day and forever and forever and forever. 

Daniel is, as one scholar puts it, “about resisting the dominant imperial power structures.” It is a subversive text about non-violent resistance. It’s about being able to keep your identity by defining who you are as a child of God, over and against the ways that the empire tries to define you. Living your faith in such a world can literally make you feel crazy sometimes. I think that is what is going on in the seventh chapter of Daniel, in the reading we heard today. Daniel (like Joseph before him and Martin after him) is a dreamer. He lies down in bed and has these dreams about how one day righteousness will flow like an ever-flowing stream. He has this dream of a world where every human being is treated with dignity and respect and where people strive for justice. He has this dream of a world that I imagine is quite similar to what Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the poor, and the hungry, and those who weep…

And yet Daniel also has this recurring nightmare. Imperial power can literally make you crazy. Threatening the dream of God are these visions in his head that terrify Daniel, and trouble his spirit, and keep him tossing and turning in his bed. The beasts (that is to say, kings who misuse their power and wreak havoc on God’s people) are an ever-present reality for Daniel; a part of his everyday life. So ultimately this text before us today is no different than the story of the lion’s den or the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. It asks the question of where your allegiance really lies. It dares to insist that we live by our dreams rather than our nightmares, because we belong to God. While acknowledging that the world can be a dangerous and even terrifying place, the encouragement in Daniel is that God’s people are called to stand tall and to not be afraid and to model an alternative way of life that is truly life giving. Ultimately the good news in this text is that the “holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever—for ever and ever!” (Daniel 7:18)

So I think that makes Daniel a great text for this holy day. We remember those who have gone before us, including our own dear ones who told us the “old, old stories” along the way. We remember Sunday school teachers and pastors who gave us the gift of faith, sometimes in ways they may not even been aware of. We have received all of that as a gift, or as St. Paul says in today’s epistle, as an inheritance. The saints in our lives (or at least in my life) were not perfect. But in the end we give thanks for the gifts given and shared with us that call us to join this great cloud of witnesses.

Saints like Archbishop Romero, assassinated while at the altar celebrating the Eucharist and resisting the forces of evil, are here with us, along with all those whose names are known to us alone. And all whose names have maybe been forgotten by us (but never forgotten by God)—that great cloud of white-robed martyrs who have gone the way of a great ordeal; they are here, too. They, too, are a part of us, part of the communion of saints. Part of this cloud of witnesses. We sing today for all of them and with all of them.

And that one holy, catholic and apostolic Church is about to include a new generation of saints as people are baptized this weekend across this diocese, since this is one of the days that the BCP prefers for baptisms to happen. They represent the next generation of Christian witnesses whose job it will be to let Christ show forth in their lives as the Church continues its work. We promise to uphold them in their faith, and to teach them the stories that we have been taught, and to show them how to love even those with whom they disagree; how even to love their enemies. In just a moment we will renew our own baptismal promises so that we can be clear on how it is we do that, which always begins by remembering who we are, and whose we are. 

Some days it is hard to know exactly where we are called to resist and how. We live in a world where there really are powers and principalities that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. And those powers make it hard to be courageous and brave. Sometimes it’s hard for us let our better angels guide us, to let our dreams (rather than our night terrors) guide our decisions and our actions in the world. One thing I know for sure, though: we cannot do that alone. Every time we celebrate Holy Baptism, but especially in the context of All Saints, we remember that we are in this together by the grace of God. And that we have been claimed, and marked, and sealed. We are sent out with that in mind. 

The work we share is to keep articulating the dream of God and to hold up that vision as true and holy. Our work is to become those “holy ones” of God in this time and place who know that Jesus is truly lord of the universe. Not perfect, but holy in the sense of knowing where our allegiance lies. Our job is to become a people who live by faith rather than fear, so that the world might believe, until the kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven. Forever and forever and forever.