Christ the King: A Sermon for the Last Sunday After Pentecost Year A

 

At long last, we've reached the end of this very long season of "After Pentecost." Ready or not, Advent is coming...and that means new projects to run alongside that idea that we're supporsed to be "waiting with anticipation" the coming of Christ. Seems the way of the church is to get as busy as possible before Jesus shows up!! 

I'm taking on a fun, and ambitious, project of doing a staged reading of the Gospel of Mark. The script is almost 90 pages, meaning that this will probably take anywhere from 90-100 minutes to do this reading. I'm hoping we'll get an audience for it. It's slated to go up on Saturday, February 10th. So we'll see what happens.

OK...back to today. I found myself this year bothered by the idea of "Christ the KING." It isn't the Christ part that was troubling; I'm really cool with the idea of Jesus being the head of things. 

It's this "King" business which was troubling. There are a lot of political leaders these days who think that they are the King of the country, or the city, or the state. The Matthew Gospel has the king deciding who are sheep and who are goats...something that...again...our political leaders have engaged in this behavior way too much lately. 

So most of this sermon was really me wrestling with these questions...and taking the congregation on a ride with me. See what you think.

Texts: Ephesians 1: 15-23; Matthew 25: 31-46

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Good morning! And welcome to the Last Sunday After Pentecost…also known as Christ the King Sunday.

It’s odd to call this Christ the King Sunday.

One could argue that in any Christian Church…Christ ought to be King every Sunday.

And it was relatively recent history that this last Sunday following Pentecost became Christ the King Sunday.

This whole idea started in 1925 with Pope Pius XI.

At the end of World War I…there was growing secularism in Europe and fascism was beginning to take root.

The Pope decided the best way to combat these dual pressures on the church was to declare…emphatically…that Christ is King and to mark a particular Sunday…the last one in October right before All Saints’ Day… as Christ the King Sunday.

In 19-69…Pope Paul VI thought the Last Sunday After Pentecost…and right before Advent… was the better placement for the celebration of Jesus as Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

And so that’s where we are today.

This celebration of Christ the King does raise some interesting questions for us in our time...particularly when we think about that whole history of how this day came to be a special day on the church calendar.

Just as in the era of the 1920s…we here in the 2020s are living at a time when more and more people are identifying as “Nones.”

That’s N-O-N-E-S.

They’re not interested in Christianity or any religious group.

In this country and around the world…our politics are skewing in the direction of authoritarianism…a system which centralizes power to a few and demands loyalty to an ethic that runs counter to that of a God of Love and Prince of Peace.

Perhaps we need to make a renewal of our commitment to this idea of Christ as King.

But then that poses another problem.

We live in a pluralistic society…one where we must contend with the idea that not all people who profess a faith in God also understand Jesus as the Son of God…let alone believe in a God who comes to us as the Holy Spirit, too.

We have a very particular understanding of who Jesus is.

And our thoughts on Jesus are not the same as our fellow descendants from our Biblical ancestor Abraham.

And then there are Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans: oh, my! They too live in our society…and they worship in a faith that calls them to a higher good for all creation.

It might then seem a bit arrogant for us to assert Christ as King.

Here’s the good news: we don’t have to diminish Jesus or shy away from our belief in Jesus as Christ the King.

We can have our beliefs about Christ as King and love and accept our siblings of other traditions or no-traditions at all.

Because they’re not excluded from the kingdom of God in Christ…even if they don’t profess Jesus as the Son of God.

One of the early church fathers…Irenaeus… found this hope for inclusion of all in the Letter to the Ephesians that we heard this morning.

For Irenaeus… this passage reiterates the idea that Jesus’ life, ministry, and death was in fact for all of humanity…and not just an exclusive few believers.

Jesus came into the world to be a Second Adam… restoring all people to the right relationship with God that was lost in the Garden of Eden.

The twentieth century theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer also emphasized that point. In his “Letters and Papers from Prison,” Bonhoeffer says that Christ wasn’t just a person; he was the person who represents all of humanity…no divisions between people. He is all people…and came as a savior for all of the world.

Karl Rahner…another twentieth century Jesuit priest and theologian…put forward an even more radical and controversial theory.

Rahner suggested that people who never heard the Gospel are “anonymous Christians”…having benefitted from Christ without even knowing it. His theory was highly influential on the Roman Catholic Church’s Vatican II statement. The Roman Church had to struggle with its antisemitism following World War II and the Holocaust. Rahner’s theory helped them find their way toward issuing an apology.

All this sounds fantastic, right?

It keeps asserting that Christ is King.

But then what about this passage from Matthew’s Gospel?

Aren’t some people sheep and others goats?

Doesn’t this sound like a more exclusive…only Christians get eternal life…talk?

I suppose one could read it that way…. if we believe that only Christians do the clothing of people, feeding them, offering them water when they’re thirsty, being kind to strangers, visiting the sick and those in prison.

But we know that’s not true.

In fact, we know plenty of people who call themselves “Christian” who not only don’t do these things; they have invested more time and energy in attacking fellow followers of Christ.

We can see that playing out right now with our siblings in the Methodist church.

And even the Southern Baptist Convention has turned on some of its own.  

The English hymnwriter and minister Samuel John Stone captured this well with these words in the old standard “The Church’s One Foundation”:

“Though with a scornful wonder men see her sore oppressed

By schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed.”

Thank goodness Stone completes that stanza with “soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song!”

When we sit in judgment of each other…deciding who is a sheep and who is a goat…we’re putting ourselves in that seat at the right hand of God…and making ourselves King or Queen of the universe.

I think if we are honest with ourselves…we’re all bouncing back and forth between being a sheep and being a goat.

There are days when we get it all right… and others where we fall short of this expectation that we will care for the least and lowest among us…either out of ignorance or exhaustion or both.

What I think is so telling about this vision of the kingdom is that those who Jesus declares as “righteous” and even those who are “unrighteous” are totally taken off-guard.

Both groups are like, “Huh? When did I do all that?” or “We never saw you in need? When did we miss that?”

The message seems to be that we can’t know which group we’re in.

Nor should we be so quick to assume which camp we belong to.

What we can do is take in the lessons Jesus teaches through the Gospels…trust in the power of God’s love…and then do our best to emulate Christ…both in our giving and receiving.

By making that our priority…and our ethic of living…we establish Christ as the King of our hearts and minds.

In that way we can only hope for a world where God’s kingdom will not only come on earth as it is in heaven…but will be seen and experienced through us.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.

 

Your One Wild and Precious Life: A Sermon for 25A Pentecost

 

As I contemplated the parable of the talents in Matthew, I couldn't help thinking about a poem that I have often retrned to because of its question at the end. Mary Oliver presses us to think about how we're using this time that we've been given on the planet. Do we exist or do we live? Do we spend all day inside in an office or do we take a walk, get together with friends, see how we can be of service to someone in need? Do we even pay attention to the grasshoppers?

See what you think.

Text: Matthew 25:14-30

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“Who made the world?

Who made the swan and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?”

These are the opening lines to a Mary Oliver poem called, “The Summer Day.”

Oliver becomes fascinated by a grasshopper that has landed on her hand.

She observes and gets delight from watching this insect eat some grains of sugar.

“Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.”

For Oliver…this is a moment to take in creation and while she says she doesn’t know what prayer is…she has an inkling of something special has gone on in this connection with a grasshopper as she strolled through the fields.

The poem finishes on a question:
“Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”

What do we plan to do with our one wild and precious life?

Oliver poses a real challenge to us in her poem.

It’s similar to the challenge laid before us in this Gospel lesson from Matthew.

What is that we are to do with the abundant grace gifted to us?

Do we live into it and share these gifts we’ve been given?

Or do we hoard them, bury them, keep them under lock and key?

Our Gospel lesson is all about us recognizing and accepting the love and light of Christ within us and then bringing that out into our communities.

It’s through that sharing that others begin to see themselves as part of that web of love and light.

Connections start to build…attitudes shift…and we begin the process of moving in a more Godward direction.

This passage from Matthew…just like last week’s…was especially written and spoken to a people who needed hope and encouragement to keep going in the face of daunting times.

Things hadn’t gone as they thought they would.

The Roman Empire destroyed their temple for a second time.

Jesus had not returned in the way that they thought he would.

So this parable was again a reminder to not lose hope in God amidst the rubble of their lives.  Rather…keep living and growing their talents in the faith that God will be with them.

Interestingly…when we talk about “talents” today…we often think of some sort of skill that we have that is uniquely ours.

And scholars believe this understanding of the word “talent” comes from this reading out of Matthew.

But the “talents” we’re talking about here in this Gospel lesson were very large units of money…almost like gold bricks.

Just one talent would equal 15 years’ worth of a laborer’s day wages. 

So the guy who got just the one talent was given a whole bunch of money…even if it wasn’t as much as the other two.

In the parable…the “master” gives out the money…and then departs…and returns “after a long time.”

That “long time” is that sense for Matthew’s community of having to rethink this idea of Christ returning.

The three people with their different talents are then left with that Mary Oliver question: What are you going to do with this one wild and precious life?

We hear that at least two of the people go off and find ways to increase the talents or gifts.

They had no idea if what they were doing was the right thing.

They didn’t know if they were going to have any kind of return whatsoever.

But still…they trusted… and took a risk to go do something with their talents.

And then there’s the one with the single talent.

And I was curious that this one created a whole narrative about the master.

Some of you may recall a baseball movie from the 1970s…”The Bad News Bears” starring Tatum O’Neal and Walter Matthau.

In one scene…Matthau…who is this gruff alcoholic coach…holds a team meeting with his bumbling rag tag little leaguers.

He puts the word “Assume” on a chalkboard. 

And then he broke apart the word to explain the meaning of what happens when we “assume” something?

Yeah: so here’s the One Talent guy making an assumption about the master and the master’s motives and personality.

“I knew you were a harsh man.  You reap where you did not sow…you gather where you did not scatter seed.”

Really?

Sadly, this sort of thinking seems hardwired in some of us, doesn’t it?

Disappointment and hurt happens. It’s part of living.

But sometimes those bruises…those emotional hurts… don’t heal as they should.

And then the scar tissue of whatever trauma happened in someone’s life…locks them into a stuck place…and instills such deep wounds that fear becomes their worldview.

They can’t trust that others aren’t going to hurt them.

If suspicion and fear is our baseline outlook on everyone and everything…it only makes sense that we transfer those same feelings onto God.

There was a period in my life when I was convinced that God hated me.

I had lost a lot of important people to death in a very short time frame.

One died in a car accident.

One was shot to death in a robbery at the end of my street.

And my favorite aunt had died of cancer.

Nothing felt right in my world.

Even though I went to church…I believed that the only prayer that applied to me was the Confession of Sin.

Those were some of the loneliest and most terrible days of my life.

I felt cut off from everything and everybody…including and especially myself.

In retrospect…I can now see that where I was living then was in that place where there was wailing and gnashing of teeth because that was my worldview.

Thankfully a chaplain helped me emerge from that space and at least see that God didn’t hate me.

Truthfully…it took a lot longer for me to reach an understanding of God’s endless well of love for me.

But having had that intervention from a chaplain determined to get me to see that God loves and doesn’t hate made the shift in me that I could say more prayers than the Confession of Sin.

It also meant there was still a pathway for God to reach me when I was more ready to listen…truly and deeply listen…to God’s voice and not the narrative that I created about God full of assumptions based on how human beings acted and spoke about God.

Through that process of coming to experience God in a true…real…and complete way…I came to a place of seeing God’s crazy and exuberant love for me and for everyone.

No exceptions.

No hidden clauses.

The craziest part about it is that all God asks is that we trust in this Love…believe in it…and then share that love with others.

Because that’s our talent.

Our one wild and precious life…full of abilities…skills…messy as it can be at times…is the talent that we can grow…given a spark through Word and Sacrament into the Body of Christ…so that we can  make a difference in the life of others and in our community.

Everyone in here has agency to be that person who sits with another who finds herself in that place of wailing and gnashing of teeth and invites them to unbury their talent and put it into play for their own good…and the good of another.

Let what we take from here…the prayers… the hymns… the bread and the wine…inspire us to live into this one wild and precious life that we’ve been given.

Because the world needs us.

All of us.

Keep going.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.

 

Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning

Our diocesan convention took place in Augusta, which for those who don't know the geography of this region is basically on the other end of the earth from Tallahassee. OK, not really...but it is...no matter how you slice it...a long five to six hour drive. 

I could not get myself to write my sermon before convention. During convention, I was staying with our delegates in an Airbnb; hence I really didn't have a moment to myself to do my usual "write. pause. wander. write. snack. wander. write." 

So Saturday night, when I finally got home and spent the demanded time with Ernest the cat, petting him and talking to him, and explaining why I had to be away and apologizing for the absence of "the other one," I sat my butt down in front of my laptop and began writing. 

Thanks be to God for the Gospel...my time in choir...and a very long drive through some rain to help me formulate my thoughts!

Text: Matthew 25:1-13

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Y’know that feeling of when you hear a song and then it gets stuck in your head? It just plays on and on like somebody hit the repeat button on the stereo in your brain.

Well this week…I’ve had one of those endless loops playing…thanks to this morning’s Gospel reading about the ten bridesmaids and their lamps in need of oil and fire.

The tune in my head is a spiritual that we sang when I was in the choir at St. Thomas in Thomasville. The song is called “Keep Your Lamps!” with a musical arrangement by Dr. Andre Thomas. Dr. Thomas was the director of the choral music program at Florida State University for many years…and he gifted Tallahassee with some great concerts during his tenure. This particular arrangement uses a djembe as the only accompanying instrument to the choir…as they sing, “Keep your lamps trimmed and burning…keep your lamps trimmed and burning. Keep your lamps trimmed and burning….the time is drawing nigh.”

It goes on to warn the children not to grow weary ‘til their work is done and that the Christian journey soon be over.

Like so many spirituals…these words were not only ones of encouragement and hope; they were likely a secret message spread from one slave to another on the plantations to be ready for their escape from the sin of bondage.

It’s a really beautiful and haunting tune…which I posted to our St. Barnabas Facebook page if you’re interested in hearing it.

So this song has been in my head all week.

Even at our diocesan convention as I sang other songs with our delegation and a large gymnasium of devout…dedicated Episcopalians…my own private soundtrack was still playing in the background.

Keep your lamps trimmed and burning.

When that happens…when a song gets that much air time in my brain…I figure that might be telling me what I should be paying attention to as I consider this Scripture about the 10 bridesmaids at a wedding.

I couldn’t help but think about what’s going on with the five who brought extra oil. Did they really lug along an extra canister with them to a wedding? And what about the five who brought just enough to sustain them for the processional…the vows…and up until the reception?

Of course…this is a parable. And a parable’s purpose is to give us an image to make a bigger point.

For the original hearers of this Gospel in Matthew’s community… that point was an important one about not losing hope.

The people who heard this Gospel originally are all post-Pentecost people.

Jesus has ascended.

The Holy Spirit has made that flaming dramatic wind-swept entrance into the Upper Room.

The apostles have been sent out.

Matthew’s Gospel is for that community of people who thought for sure Jesus was going to return any minute now.

When he doesn’t…their faith begins to falter. 

That spirit that was warming their hearts…putting the fire in their bellies…was starting to die down…just like the lamps of the five bridesmaids that started to dim before the bridegroom arrives.

This parable…in the same way that slaves used spirituals to communicate a message of hopeful encouragement…was meant to remind that Matthean community to not lose hope in the face of disappointment and despair. They had to feed that fire within. Keep going. They needed to do some rearranging of their mental furniture to live into a new reality of believing that God was present still…even if God had not yet come.

This is classic moment of “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Because we still can struggle with that feeling of “Where is God?”

In those times when feel a disconnect between us and God…we might feel our fires starting to die down to just glowing embers.

The diocesan convention theme was “Kindle our hearts and awaken hope.” It’s a line found in the Collect for the Presence of Christ found from the Evening Prayer service.

As part of the work of the convention, our keynote speaker…Dr. Lisa Kimball…professor-extraordinaire and head of the Lifelong Learning Center at Virginia Theological Seminary…asked us to choose a word or phrase about something troubling us. As we logged onto our phones to enter the information… a huge word cloud appeared on the screen…displaying what was foremost on everyone’s minds. Not surprisingly…war and violence were the biggies.  We acknowledged our fears…and the things which loom large in our collective minds…the thick cloud of despair that was hanging over us.

But then she led us in another exercise where we were to examine photographs…mostly of nature and scenes from around Georgia…taken by Bishop Logue and other members of the diocesan staff. We took some time to silently study what was in front of us…sharing at our tables about what we saw in the images.

There were scenes from country roads…sunrises…flowers.

And there was a mood shift.

Seeing beauty…finding words to describe the photos we held in our hands…was the reminder that even as things seem as if they are spinning out of control in the world…God shows up to point us back to life…love…and light. And the words we used to talk about these photos became our prayer and answer to the world’s troubles.

There are plants…flowers… that sensation of casting a fishing line…all sorts of things in our every day experience that remind us that God is present with us…even when everything feels like it’s draped in a dark cloth of heaviness.

These are the reminders of the hope of God’s promise to not leave us comfortless in times of trouble.

What those five so-called foolish bridesmaids got wrong was that they left for the local Wal-Mart to get more oil rather than wait for the bridesgroom to come and see what he might do to get their fires roaring again…more vibrant.

Perhaps another rush of wind from the Holy Spirit might’ve got those fires going stronger again.

It’s not the size of the flame in our lamps that matters: it’s that there is a flame burning at all that is the most important thing. That flame is the light of Christ that we bring out into those places where people are struggling to keep hope for the future alive.

Hear the Words of the prayers and scripture and let them light a spark in you.

Come to this table and become re-membered into the Body of Christ.

Dip your fingers into the baptismal font and remind yourself that you are one of God’s beloved children…meant to bring Love back out into the world.

Keep your lamps trimmed and burning!

In the name of God…F/S/HS.