Sunday, November 20, 2016

"What Kind of King?" A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Reign of Christ Sunday.






"What Kind of King?"

Jeremiah 23:1-8; Luke 23:33-43

Reign of Christ Sunday





            We have come to the last Sunday of the Church year:  Christ the King Sunday, which is also known the Reign of Christ Sunday.  The scriptures and the songs this Sunday give testimony to how Jesus is God’s way of ruling in this world and in the world to come. 
            In a presidential election year in the United States, politics take center stage during a long campaign and in the months that follow.  Much of the focus of the campaign has been on leadership, temperament, experience, and fitness to lead the country.  What kind of leader do people want?  In the days following the election, political pundits are speculating on what kind of president Donald Trump will be.  What kind of leaders will he choose for his cabinet and staffing the administration?  How will newly elected leaders at all levels of government conduct themselves?  The possible answers to these questions have energized or emboldened some and terrified others, and our nation remains deeply divided. 
            So I’m grateful that Christ the King Sunday comes when it does.  A short time after we elect a person to be the leader of the free world, the most powerful person on the planet, the feast of Christ the King reminds us that no matter who has been elected, God is still sovereign over all the universe, and that God in Christ is the true model for moral and just leadership.

            The feast of Christ the King was a late addition to the church’s calendar.  It was inaugurated by Pope Pius XI in 1925, in the attempt to resist political demagogues and their messages.   While the church had always celebrated images of Christ as King, the church seemed to need a special day to remind them who was in charge. 
            On the first celebration of Christ the King, Mussolini had been head of Italy for three years and had established himself as dictator.  A rabble-rouser named Hitler had been out of jail for a year, and his Nazi party was growing in popularity.  And the world lay in a Great Depression.
            In such a time, Pope Pius asserted that Christ is “King of the Universe.”   The feast of Christ the King became the church’s great “nevertheless” to tyrants and dictators and their messages and to the growing modern notion that religion was now a “private affair.”  The pope thought the time was right to re-focus on the One who is ultimately the king in our lives, as people of faith.  No matter what—nevertheless-- Jesus Christ is Lord and he shall reign for ever and ever.   
                       
            All of the Scripture readings today speak of a very different kind of king.  In the Hebrew Scripture lesson, the prophet Jeremiah speaks to the intense longing of the people of Israel for a different kind of king.  He  proclaims a word of hope that God will send the leader they need—a king who will deal wisely and execute justice and righteousness in the land, during whose reign the people will live in safety.[1]   
            The disciples who remembered the story of Jesus on the cross remembered a different kind of king, who had compassion for the suffering of the criminal on the cross beside him.  And so, when Luke wrote his Gospel, he pictured Jesus as a king who was very different from the kind of Messiah many people were hoping for, which was a powerful military ruler who would deliver them from their oppressors—the Roman Empire.
            The letter to the Colossians is written to encourage people in a world where the leaders have betrayed the people, a time of persecution for the church.  In the face of pain and suffering, people of faith could say that Jesus Christ is a very different kind of king—the one in whom we see God with our own human eyes…the one through whom we are able to see all things in a new light.
This letter to a persecuted and threatened little church summons the faithful to sing of Jesus, “He is the image of the invisible God…whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him….   In him all things hold together.”   This is language that can help us to imagine what it means to be “transferred into the kingdom of God’s beloved son.”   Christ is the “image of the invisible God”…the icon or window that becomes more and more transparent and helps us to see more and more of the ongoing appearing of God in the world.
                         
            In each of the scripture passages the lectionary has given us today,
and each of the hymns—a claim is being made about power…and about ultimate rule, about who’s in charge.  We can find comfort and assurance, knowing that the kingdoms of this world may totter and sway, but the kingdom of God endures. 
            The passage we heard from Jeremiah begins with a woe oracle: “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!”[2]  Blame clearly rests here on the “shepherds,” a well-known metaphor for kings in both the ancient Near Eastern world and in the biblical texts.  Since the leaders had failed to take care of the people as shepherds are meant to take care of their flocks, God promises to attend to them for their “evil doings.”  The leaders wouldn’t have wanted to hear this word from God:  “You have not attended to them.  So I will attend to you.”[3]
            This was a common theme during this time.  The prophet Ezekiel used a similar image and spelled out in more detail the failure of the leaders.  Rather than feeding the sheep, they have fed themselves, gathering the fat and the wool for their own use, literally living off the “fat of the land.”
            They have not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bound up the injured, bought back the strayed, or sought the lost.[4]  The list is significant because it tells us quite clearly what government is for in God's eyes, and it "promises" judgment to those leaders who fail.  Bad leaders, the prophets say, bring judgment not only on themselves, but wreak havoc on their entire nation, including those caught up in disaster through no particular fault of their own.[5]
           
            Who is the Christ?  What does Christ reveal to us about the character of God…and about the kingdom of heaven?
            This is a different kind of king we hear about in the gospel story.  The people had been hoping for a king like King David—for a powerful military and political leader who would help them overthrow the Roman oppressors.  But Jesus turned out to be a different kind of king.
            Jesus was proclaiming the kingdom of God—but what a paradoxical kingdom he revealed!  It reversed the ways of the world!  If you want to be part of God’s kingdom, you have to stop trying to be big and important and independent, and be like a little child.    The last are going to be first, and the first will be last. 
            Jesus preached good news to the poor and release to the captives.  He taught by word and deed and blessed little children.  He offered healing to those who were sick and encouragement to those who were brokenhearted.  He scandalized those who were in power in the religious establishment by eating with outcasts and forgiving sinners.
            What was happening to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords on that Good Friday?  Unjustly condemned for blasphemy and sedition, Jesus was crucified, suffering the depths of human pain and giving his life for the sins of the world.
            Jesus refused to come in power, but instead in vulnerability.  The king was hung on the throne of a wooden cross—reviled and forsaken and mocked.  He doesn’t vow revenge or retribution even on those who crucify him, but instead offers forgiveness.  He doesn’t save himself by coming down off his cross to prove his kingly status—but remains on that instrument of torture and humiliation, the representative of all who suffer unjustly.  He doesn’t promise a better tomorrow, in the sweet bye and bye, but offers us redemption today.
            When we find ourselves not complete and in charge—but shattered, hanging on the crosses of our own failures and brokenness, we can look to Jesus to save us…to make us whole.  When we are most vulnerable, we are more open to see God with us in our pain and need. 
            This King—the King of Love-- doesn’t control us by might or judge us, but meets us in our brokenness and offers us healing and new life and invites us to be partners in God’s redeeming work.
The scriptures teach us that the measure of faithful leadership and faithful living is how we treat those who are most vulnerable—widows… orphans… and foreigners… and the sick…the outcast… the possessed, the poor...the marginalized…the “other.”
            In his teaching and ministry, Jesus shows us that every act of love is an act of resistance to the forces of darkness, division, and hate.
            As Leonard Cohen wrote, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
            And so, let us look for the cracks-- as small as they might be--the cracks in systems of injustice…the cracks in the fears some people have of those who are different or of a life that’s different than the old life.
We are called to be the light of Christ in this broken world--  to let the light of Christ shine in and through us, to shed light on whatever justifies and validates hatred and violence and to expose it for what it is.  May we shine the light of love on those who have been excluded, marginalized, and silenced.  May Christ’s light shine through us as rays  of hope for our hurting world.
May it be so!  Amen.



Rev. Fran Hayes Pastor
Littlefield Presbyterian Church
Dearborn, Michigan
Nov. 20, 2016





[1] Jeremiah 23:5-6
[2] Jeremiah 23:1
[3] Jeremiah 23:2
[4] Ezekiel 34:1-10

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