Christ the King

November 24, 2013

Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 22-23, selected verses

”When the hour came, he took his place at the table, and the apostles with him. [And here Luke offers the words of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, and, in Luke’s account, this holy moment devolves almost immediately into a dispute about rank, privilege and who’s going to occupy the top of the heap. Continuing then …]

“But he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. “You are those who have stood by me in my trials; and I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom.”

[Peter, always impetuous Peter, leaps to insist on his willingness to die for Jesus, who sadly says, “Peter the cock will not crow today before you deny even knowing me – not once, but three times.” The familiar story unfolds: betrayal, arrest, denials, trial, the mocking crowd, Pilate, the conviction and, finally, crucifixion. Continuing the reading, then, to the end Jesus’ life …]

“Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. 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. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And 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, his chosen one!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.””

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

But what kind of word is this? More to the point, on this Sunday marked on the liturgical calendar as Christ the King Sunday, what kind of king is this? Perhaps even more pointedly, if this Christ is, indeed, in some odd way, king, lord of our lives, potentate of time – as one hymn puts it – if this Christ is king, then what does it mean to belong to his kingdom? In other words, if Christ is king, then who are we?

This text seems out of time a few days before Thanksgiving, and just before the beginning of Advent. After all, the holidays are practically upon us and some of us are already getting out the, uh, “fun” apparel, I think Hallmark is calling it these days.

So why drag us through the muck of the passion of this Christ this morning?

Perhaps it’s because there’s no more urgent message that we ever need to hear proclaimed than the ancient and simple: Cristos curios; Christ is Lord; Christ, the King is Lord of all life.

We need to hear this, over and over and over again, because we so seldom grasp it and, more seldom still, are we grasped by it.

Yet it is and always has been the essence of the faith. It’s the declaration that leads us to ask, always, in every moment, every decision, not the simple question – what would Jesus do – but the infinitely more challenging one: what would Jesus have us do?

We’d rather not dwell there. Instead, we’re much more likely to ask: what have you done for me lately? That’s the question that the crowds ask of Jesus while Pilate is trying to wash his hands of the matter. These same crowds that shouted loud “hosannas” a few days earlier now mock Jesus. “What have you done for us lately?” quickly becomes “why don’t you do something now?”

That’s the question asked by the first criminal crucified alongside Jesus. “Why don’t you save yourself and us, if you’re the king?”

We’ve all been there – a moment of desperation, perhaps even life-threatening, when we cry out, “God! If you are really God, then fix this!”

The problem in this one-sided exchange is not the desire to be saved. We all feel that sometimes, and, after all, we all need saving. The problem lies in misunderstanding the nature of salvation and of the one doing the saving. Ultimately, it becomes a question of power. What is the nature of the power of this king?

Perhaps, first, in order to approach that question we have to ask ourselves about power, and, specifically, about our own worship of, even idolatry of power. Because we no longer live under the power of kings and royals, this whole language of Christ the King is challenging to our ears.

Nonetheless, as my colleague Katie Kime insisted in a recent Christian Century piece, “it’s crucial that we remember that the first-century in Galilee was a time of kings and rulers, as well as a time of huge social change and upheaval. The roots of our faith are located here, not in isolated issues of individual piety, but rather in resistance to the idolatry of power – specifically, the Roman Empire and Herodian Jerusalem.”[1]

We still share that idolatry of power, and, along with its handmaidens – prestige and affluence – it shadows so much of our lives, our politics, our vocations, our homes, our finances.

Take our political life – please! But seriously, we imagine and long for political saviors, messiahs from the Left or the Right who will swoop in and fix everything, with special focus on whatever most concerns me!

Or take our vocational life – our jobs and our work. How many times do we find ourselves looking for more power and influence? In my line of work, it’s striving for a bigger church, a bigger pulpit, more influence, more power in the wider church. It is so easy, in this quest, to convince ourselves that we seek such places because we can make a bigger difference, and sometimes that is true, but often we seek the new job because the lure of power is so tempting.

Maybe that’s not your temptation. Perhaps you struggle, like so many Americans, in places closer to home. I’m regularly amazed at the statistics that show that the average size of the American house has doubled in my lifetime while the size of the average American family is half what it was 50 years ago. Someday we’re going to take seriously the social and spiritual ills that have arisen in lockstep with these trends, and, when that day comes we’ll talk about cycles of affluence with the same concern that we talk about cycles of poverty, because so much of our idolatry of power and prestige works its way out in our home economics.

So, take my financial life – puhlease! But, seriously, I don’t think I’m that unusual in swinging back and forth between the dream of someone giving me the winning lottery ticket and the equally dreamy notion that money would solve every challenge in my life.

In most every aspect of our lives it’s not difficult at all to see where so many of us idolize power, prestige, affluence, and it’s often extremely difficult to discern how Christ is, in any way, lord of life in those places.

And yet, that is precisely what we say we believe when we proclaim Christ is lord.

The good news in all of this comes precisely in that proclamation: Christ is lord. The good news comes as an invitation – to gather close round places of extreme vulnerability – a manger, a cross, a simple table, a font – and open your life to a different kind of power.

The invitation comes – and this is no accident – with our own season of stewardship when we are invited to consider the gifts of our time, talents, and treasure to the mission and ministry of this particular congregation. As I’ve often said, such giving is not about changing the world, it’s about changing my own life.

That’s why, when I think of power in terms of Jesus, I think of small places. This will sound, at first, contradictory because I’m going to name a couple of incredibly famous people, but when I think of the power of God at work in the world I think of Martin Luther King and of Mother Theresa. Theresa is a Saint, with a capital S. King has a monument on the National Mall. But they both did much of their work, gave much of themselves, from places and positions of extreme vulnerability with nothing that the world would define as power.

Theresa, a woman who struggled with deep and almost paralyzing religious doubt, ministered among the most vulnerable people in the entire world, and, in that work, showed the entire world about the power of compassion. King, a man bedeviled by doubt, despair and his own demons, began his ministry in a church no larger than this one, and from a fellowship hall smaller than our own launched a movement that changed the world simply by exercising the power of love.

There are so many others who have followed the call of the one in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Now that call echoes in our ears. Called in love, to love, for the sake of the world, we are sent out in joy to follow Christ the king into the least likely places imaginable to be instruments in the endless work of reconciling ourselves and our world to God.

It doesn’t take a huge platform or a huge budget to change the world; it takes love and the willingness to risk all for the sake of the prince of peace, the lord of life. Stewardship is about changing the world, one life at a time – beginning with each of us, as we sort out what it is that Jesus would have us do with the time, talents and treasure we have been given.

---

[1] Katie Givens Kime, “Reflections on the Lectionary” Christian Century, November 13, 2013, 21.

272 Words

November 17, 2013

(A homily offered in honor of the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address)

Isaiah 65:17-25

Four score and ten years ago our forebears brought forth on this property a new congregation conceived in hope and dedicated to the glory of God. Now we stand in the fading dawn of a new millennia facing a fragile future with faith in a new heaven and new earth as our still sure foundation.

We gather in this house of memory – space they imagined and built, which we received and steward. But so much more than this house, we are stewards, with them, of the mysteries of God.

As we celebrate with gratitude the new things that God is doing in our midst, let us not forget the former things but renew them. Moreover, let us pass this inheritance to a new generation by word and deed such that they, too, know in their hearts that God is always already at work in their lives and the life of this broken world. By our witness, in word and work, may they know that they are beloved. By our witness, may the world note and remember what God is doing even in the broken places.

Though this brokenness shadows our every step, God is, has been, and will always be doing this new thing – creating a new heaven and a new earth. Be glad and rejoice in it for a light shines that shall overcome the darkness!

In our rejoicing, we work with God such that what was conceived and dedicated here 90 years ago continues to have new life, and to be a source of light and life for all. We shall not labor in vain; our eyes shall see glory.

Salvation Has Come to This House

Luke 19:1-10

Nov. 3, 2013

How many of you, listening to this morning’s reading from the gospels, were thinking to yourself, “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree to see what he could see”?

Yeah, that’s a pretty unavoidable connection for anyone who grew up in Sunday school in a particular era. Or, perhaps, in this case, I should say “error,” because it’s really a shame that this story has been reduced to a little rhymey song. There is way more going on here than meets the eye at first reading.

It’s a liturgically full Sunday morning, so I’m not going to come close to doing justice to the story, but let me simply underscore a couple of issues at stake in this rich, brief text, and suggest one possible direction I discern in the reading.

To begin with, what’s the first thing that we notice about Zacchaeus? Well, duh, he’s short. I could point to Randy Newman here and tell you that “short people got no reason to live,” but, instead, I’ll quote the purity codes from Leviticus 21:

For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, one who is blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, or one who has a broken foot or a broken hand, or a hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man with a blemish in his eyes or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles. No descendant of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the Lord’s offerings by fire; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the food of his God. He may eat the food […] but he shall not come near the curtain or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries; for I am the Lord; I sanctify them.

By going to the house of a man short enough to be named that way in the text – likely a dwarf – Jesus is here – again – undermining the purity codes. Next time someone uses the Levitical codes in reference to the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender persons, sing ‘em a bar of “Short People.” If nothing else, it will confuse them!

But seriously, this is a story about grace, and, more to the point, about unexpected grace in the least expected place. For the second thing we know about the main character is that he is chief tax collector for the empire. Therefore, he is no doubt hated and likely feared. He’s probably also cheated his neighbors, and he is certainly up to his neck in complicity with and profit from an incredibly unjust and abusive system. He’s made himself rich at the expense of his neighbors, and, by climbing a tree, he’s also made himself a spectacle.

I mean, really, would Michael Bloomberg climb a tree in Central Park to get a better look at an itinerant preacher, even a famous one? No. He’d have arranged a front-row seat.

It’s really no wonder that bystanders raise questions about Jesus’ decision to dine with this man.

This is where the story gets way more curious and complex than a Sunday school lesson. First Jesus calls the purity codes into question. Next, in inviting himself to dine with Zacchaeus, he casts serious doubt on his own judgment – not to mention the possible affront to hospitality customs of inviting himself to dinner.

But the real complexity comes in what happens next, and, unfortunately, it revolves around a seriously questionable translation.  

The NRSV text that we just heard reads, “Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’”

In this instance, Eugene Peterson’s The Message offers a more accurate rendition: “Master, I give away half my income to the poor – and if I’m caught cheating, I pay four times the damages.”

Catch the difference? The verb tense in the Greek is present, not future. Zacchaeus is not promising to change his behavior in response to the grace extended to him by Jesus, he’s merely telling Jesus about the good works he already does. Sadly, for the preacher, this undermines the simple and seemingly obvious reading of this story as a lesson in transformation.

In other words, Zacchaeus is not so much transformed as his is, instead, just like most of us: an imperfect person who tries to do good where he can, who finds himself part of an economic system that is profoundly unjust and a political one that is broken at best, and who is doing the best that he can. Indeed, he’s doing way more than most of us.

Contrast him with the rich young man that Luke tells us about just a bit earlier in his gospel: when Jesus says to him, “sell your stuff and give the money to the poor,” the man walks away from Jesus altogether. Zacchaeus, who is also rich, is already giving away half of his earnings, and holding himself accountable to an ethical standard more rigorous than the law requires. And, one might add in passing, much more rigorous than our current financial bigwigs are held to, as well.

He’s far from perfect, but salvation, this story insists, is not about perfection. Salvation is not solely about the destination, but is also always about the journey itself – about healing and wholeness, about reconciliation and restoration of right relationships.

To a great extent, this story is not as much about Zacchaeus as it is about the crowds who have judged and continue to judge him, who talk about him behind his back, who laugh at his stature and likely mock him when he climbs a tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus. These same people shift from enthusiasm for Jesus to deep suspicion of him seemingly in a heartbeat, and often according to whom it is that Jesus decides to hang out with at any given moment.

Truly, that sounds more like most of us than Zacchaeus does. Anybody giving away half of your income to the poor? No? Yeah, me neither.

Indeed, I find myself often feeling uncomfortable or challenged in places and situations where I know that Jesus would go: responding to human need that doesn’t come wrapped in politeness; making decisions about money, about need and desire, about justice, compassion and charity; speaking up and speaking out as a follower of Jesus when I’d just as soon rest in comfortable silence.

But salvation has come to the house of Zacchaeus, and if I want to participate in salvation, if I want to join that journey of healing, wholeness, reconciliation, shalom, then I better find myself a seat at the table in that house of the outcast, the sinner, the broken, the despised because that is where I’ll find the table of the Lord.

So: here we are – sinners all, some cast out of homes and families, sometimes despised, all broken. Here we are, at this table. And today salvation has come to this house! Let us break bread together. Amen.