Is He a King?

Luke 23:33-41; Colossians 1:19-20

 

        Today can be a confusing Sunday. We all know it is the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We have celebrated this through our hymn and prayer. But the scripture we heard sounds strangely out of place for a service of Thanksgiving. Wouldn’t such a text be more appropriate on Good Friday? Long after the first Thanksgiving was celebrated at Jamestown in 1607, or Myles Standish and his hearty crew landed at Plymouth Rock, or George Washington suggested a day of Thanksgiving in 1789, or Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a Federal Holiday, Pope Pius Xl in 1925, declared on the Sunday before Advent we celebrate Christ the King. Pope Pius feared that the world was retreating from the reign of Christ and becoming more dependent on the forces of nationalism and secularism.

        The starting point for the celebration surprises me. I always thought Christ the King Sunday had its origins back in some ancient festival created in Medieval Europe. But 1925? In church history that is like yesterday. Historically, this declaration by Pope Pius has legitimacy. 1925 falls squarely between the end of the War to end all Wars and the economic depression that would soon ravage Europe and the United States. Between those two catastrophic events existed the Roaring 20’s. Attendance in churches was at an all time low.  Nationalism was once again on the rise. The Weimar Republic in Germany was collapsing and Fascism was dismantling the political system in Italy. Pius could envision what lay ahead. Nine years later a small group of German pastors wrote the Theological Declaration of Barmen as a warning to Germans who saw no contradiction between Christianity and Hitler’s National Socialism. The declaration rejected the “False doctrines being proposed by the German government and claimed freedom in Jesus Christ who was Lord in every area of life.”

        Well, that’s ancient history. It is not 1925 or 1934. It is four days before Thanksgiving and Christ the King Sunday just seems a bit out of place. Even the idea of Jesus as King feels awkward. We prefer to think of Jesus as the good shepherd, the savior, or our eternal friend. In our songs we claim Jesus as Lord but do we really mean it? I suspect there are a lot of other things such as family, or country, or even our favorite football team that we give equal status. The idea of Jesus as King makes us just a little uncomfortable. After all, we live in the home of the free where no one, except perhaps Elvis, wears a crown.

        We prefer Jesus in a manager. There he is a sweet babe among the shepherds and Wise Men.    The picture is not only endearing it keeps us from examining Christmas as anything deeper than a family celebration.

        We like Jesus in the tomb. There Jesus is fully appreciated as the one who will “Prepare a place for us.”

But between his birth and death lived a man who turned over more than a few tables outside the temple. Sometimes he was a bit esoteric. “Why are you so anxious about tomorrow? Remember the lilies of the fields.” Sometimes he was pastoral. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd will lay down his life for his sheep.” Sometimes he argued with religious leaders. “Woe to you hypocrites. You are filled with greed and self-indulgence.” Sometimes he spoke out against injustice. “I have come to release the prisoner and set the oppressed free.” Sometimes he was weary. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you are the city that stones the prophets. How often have I wanted to gather your children but you are not willing.” Sometimes he was a voice of hope. “I am the resurrection and the life.” We are no better at figuring out who Jesus was then that confused and outraged mob that asked if he was king of the Jews. The truth is any conversation concerning kingship still makes us uncomfortable. But need it be beyond our comprehension? 

The title king is always preceded by an adjective. “He was a benevolent king; he was a wrathful king; he was a deranged king; he was a triumphant king; he was a faithful king; he was a cruel king.” No matter how the picture is painted, there is always an underlying fear that claiming a king undermines our  quest for freedom.

If I claim Jesus as the Good Shepherd, do I become sheep-like? If I believe Jesus is the resurrection and the life do I lose my free will? If I claim Jesus as Lord, can that challenge the autonomy of my nation?

Those are hard questions which only you can answer. When I was younger and great deal more foolish I became enamored with a statement written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer as he awaited his execution in 1945.

If you set out to seek freedom, then learn above all what governs your soul and senses. If not, your passions and longings may lead you away from the path you should follow. Dare to do what is right, not what fancy my tell you, valiantly grasping occasions, not cravenly doubting. Freedom comes only through deeds, not through thoughts taking wing. Faint not nor fear but go out into the storm and the action, trusting God who you faithfully follow. Freedom, exultant, will welcome your spirit with joy.

Christ the King Sunday is awkward. It doesn’t quite fit in our transition from pumpkin pies to candy canes. But it does remind me who is Lord.               Amen.

God's Creative Imagination

Isaiah 65:17-25

 

By my calculations we are inside 40 shopping days left till Christmas.  For you Biblical scholars the number 40 has great theological significance. Noah was on the Ark for 40 days, the children of Israel were in the wilderness for 40 years, and Jesus spent 40 days in the desert before beginning his ministry.  The number forty is not to be taken literally. It is the Biblical way of saying, “a long time”. But for those of us who have children and grandchildren, forty days will be here in no time at all.  There are so many decisions. Do I buy practical gifts? Would the children rather have money? Should I spend the same amount on each grandchild? Most importantly, do I dare make any decision without first checking with Deb?

There are 40 shopping days left till Christmas.  What sort of dreams and visions do you have for the coming days?

        The writer of 3^rd Isaiah is very much aware of the number 40.  His generation had spent 40 years in exile, roaming the streets of Babylon, waiting for that precious moment when God’s grace would allow them to travel back to Jerusalem.  The writer was familiar with that marvelous song of hope that serves as the eloquent prelude to Second Isaiah.  “Comfort ye, Comfort ye my people.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.  Cry to her that the penalty has been paid for all her sins.  Through the wilderness the Lord has prepared a way.  Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain shall be made low and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.”   This song gave him and his generation optimism for the coming years.  They traveled west with the excitement of building a new city, starting new lives and living in the light of the Lord. The exiles made a perilous trip across the desert, gleefully expecting the transformation of Jerusalem to be the simple task of reassembling a few bricks.

But hope gave way to reality.   The exiles discovered a disaster.  The walls around the city no longer existed. Not a hand had been lifted to restore the temple.  The Jerusalem of their dreams quickly turned out to be a nightmare.  Optimism turned to pessimism. It was hard to imagine anything rising from the ashes of Jerusalem.   Yet the voice of third Isaiah would not be silenced. In a vision, our writer encountered the very imagination of the Almighty.  “God is in the process of doing a new thing.  God is creating a new heaven and earth. The former things shall not be remembered.  God will transform Jerusalem as a joy.”

  The poet spoke of a time when peace would reign, a time when the inhabitants of the city would be righteous and a time when good tidings would lift even the poor and the broken hearted.    The poet declared, “One day everyone will own a home and harvest fruit from their garden.  One day, children will live to be adults and the elderly will be respected.” 

Imagine being born in slavery. Imagine witnessing your children slaughtered by your enemies. Imagine seeing the elderly cast aside. This was reality for the exiles. They had suffered, they had experienced grave disappointments, and they were not about to be swayed by fancy words.

  Hope can be a dangerous mistress.   Let’s face the facts.  We don’t have to pick up a newspaper to know that many folks feel they are slogging their way through complicated and difficult days.  Some find it impossible to see the world as anything other than a survival of the fittest.  Yet this passage from Isaiah serves to remind our weary and suspicious minds that God has always encouraged us to strive to create for beauty, and goodness and holiness, even in the midst of our chaos.

Please note the words I used. “God has always encouraged us.” That is a far cry from saying, “God will do it for us.”  It would be so easy to judge God based on the desires of our hearts. If I were God there would be no wars, no hurricanes, no school shootings, no poverty, no disease, no madness. What about you? If you could be God for a day what would be first on your priority list.  Knowing that you are a compassionate people, I suspect your wishes mirror everything God desires for humankind. So why do we know we will soon wake up to another tragedy?

You know the answer before it leaves my lips. God has placed us in charge and we are driven and derailed by memories. We remember the Alamo, we remember the Maine, se remember Pearl Harbor, we remember 911. Tucked deep in our psyche is the idea there is someone out there trying to get us. It might a terrorist; it might be a politician; it might be a stranger that lives in the neighborhood; it might be our brother-in-law. Regardless who it is I believe our level of trust toward other humans is not great enough to create a society based on God’s desire for justice and compassion. We have memories and those memories are not easily reconciled.

When the exiles from Babylon arrived in Jerusalem the first thing they did was kick out all the current residents. They believed only those who had suffered captivity could be trusted. They believed the ones left behind must have collaborated with the enemy. Those memories fueled distrust, this distrust forced long time residents from their homes, and this expulsion left the city with too few folks to build a wall in a timely manner. Memories derailed the task at hand.

So God announced, “Together we will build a society where children are treasured. The elderly will be honored. Folks will live in the homes they build. Each family will eat from the gardens they cultivate. But in order for this to happen, you are going to have to forget the past and embrace the opportunity of today.”

So how did that workout? Not so well. As long as there is no trust, there can be no peace. Look at our divisions today.  Forget our political impasses. Forget Liberal and Conservative. Forget Palestinian and Jews. Forget North Korea and Iran. Forget Global Warming. Just think of one personal issue you believe cannot be resolved. You know what it is. It boggles your brain and rips out your heart. You can’t let it go because you don’t want to let it go. That memory has become a permanent part of your psyche. You feast on it not realizing you are the one being devoured.

 How can we move toward healthy resolutions if we refuse to place our memories aside? You can quote until you are blue in the face, “Those who forget the past end up repeating the past,” but fixating on the past seldom leads to new and creative ways to mend a broken relationship.

Christmas is less than 40 days away.  Maybe this year God desires us to do a new thing. The next 40 days we are probably going to spend a boat load of money on children, grandchildren, spouses, and even ourselves. Why not spend some time on examining our memories? Keep the good ones. But let go of the ones that hurt and destroy your inner peace. Trust in what tomorrow can bring.  If the past controls your future, then your past is probably controlled by your fears. For the next 40 days, imagine a world where the lion and the lamb lie down together. Imagine the possibility of working toward God’s peaceable kingdom in your little neighborhood. Imagine letting go of your hurtful memories in order to create a better future. Imagine restoring just one relationship in the next 40 days. Imagine what kind of Christmas you might celebrate if you forget the past and welcome an old advisory into a new future.                                         

There are less than forty days until Christmas. What kind of dreams and visions will you work toward in the coming days?

To God be the Glory.   Amen.

Whoops

II Thessalonians 2:1-5, Luke 20:27-38

 

        Wednesday I gazed out my window toward the autumn sky. My 4:00 appointment had canceled and there was nothing scheduled for the rest of the day. The golf clubs in the trunk of my car were screaming my name. With no guilt whatsoever I bolted from the office and headed toward Stoney Creek. If you don’t play golf you may not have experienced the glorious view off the tee box on Tuckahoe number one. The leaves shimmer in the golden sunlight and are beautifully reflected in the lake along the right side of the fairway.  In the distance the mountains are incredibly framed by a sky so blue one might believe God did graduate from the University of North Carolina. I was in heaven.  Enjoying the day more than the golf, by the fifth hole I had forgotten about the recent time change and found myself alone in the dark. I begin to ponder about how often the transition from light to darkness confounds our understanding of the unknown.

        All of us have experienced the loss of a loved one. In this transition from light to darkness, life to death, the church has tried its best to offer hope. The uncomfortable reality that clouds our thinking is exposed when we carefully look at texts like the ones before us.

        I and II Thessalonians are the earliest writings in the New Testament. They predate the gospels by as many as 30 years. Paul, in his early ministry, confidently proclaimed that Christ would return in all his glory very soon. The message of first Thessalonians was to daily prepare for the coming of the Lord.  This message gave comfort to folks being ridiculed and persecuted for their faith. 

        But Jesus didn’t come. People began to die. Folks asked Paul if a believer died before Jesus returned would the believer be with God. The circumstances of the day caused a total reversal in the thinking of Paul. He went from the message of don’t worry about today because Jesus is coming, to a strange proclamation that the Lawlessness One must be revealed before Jesus will return. In Paul’s later writings he steps away this belief and eventually proclaimed no one knows the mind or plans of God, therefore live each day with the assurance that nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God.

        Paul was confused and we need to give him a break. When walking in the sunlight we see everything clearly. But when the sun disappears behind the mountain and the shadows of life cross our path, things can get murky. We begin to speculate about what lies beyond the darkness. Some folks tell compelling stories of near death experiences. Some folks have overactive imaginations. While most of us cling to the later promise of Paul that nothing can separate us from God, what does that actually mean?  Speculation concerning the mind of God raises questions for some and gives comfort to others. There is no right or wrong answer. Experience has taught me the transition toward death with people of faith is different than with people who find the notion of God to be old-fashion and outdated. But even that statement comes with a disclaimer. Living with the approaching shadow of death is not easy.

        2,000 years after Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians what do we believe about life and death? I will not make the mistake Paul made and suggest what I believe can be proved. Statements of faith only ring true with those who believe them. Furthermore, often our obsession with defining the indefinable only leads to meaningless declarations that appear strange even to those who do believe.

        In the Luke text Jesus was having a conversation with the Sadducees.  They were a theologically conservative group of teachers perplexed by the concept of resurrection.  Their disdain was reflected in their questions.

        “Jesus, Moses taught us if a man dies and has no children, his brother must marry his brother’s wife and attempt to impregnate her so that the dead man’s legacy might continue to flourish. What if the dead man had seven brothers? Each died before the woman had a child. When she dies, and goes to heaven, who will be her husband?”

        We laugh at the absurdity of this question yet the statements we proclaim about heaven expose a similar lack of depth. Songs are sung about heaven’s gold paved streets. Some cling to the idea of finding a loved one. Some claim a physical transformation where perfect health will be restored.  Is any of this true? Often when I sit with a family after a loved one has died, in order to transition through the pain the survivors often seek reassurances that the family will be together again. I learned a long time ago, death is not the time to grapple with ones dreams. But now, flooded by sunlight, allow me to suggest that our vision of God’s future is too small and too stuck in this world. Jesus said, “God is not the God of the dead but of living.” Then Jesus added this radical thought, “In God’s eyes everyone is alive.”

        Standing on the tee box of the sixth hole I was cloaked in darkness. I swung hoping my drive would find the middle of the fairway. I never found the ball, but I believe when the light returned someone did.

        Beyond what we perceive to be our final sunset awaits God. I dare not imagine anything beyond simply being found.                     For me, that is more than enough.                Amen.

A Clenched Fist

Luke 19:1-10

 

        (sing)      Zacchaeus was a wee little man,

                        And a wee little man was he.

                        He climbed up in a sycamore tree,

                        The Lord he wanted to see.  (stop)

 

        How many of you have heard that song? Do you remember where you learned it? I first heard it the basement of Memorial Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1955. 64 years and I still can’t get it out of my head. Bill Haley was singing Rock around the Clock. Tennessee Ernie Ford was crooning Sixteen Tons.  Oklahoma was selling out on Broadway and I am still singing, Zacchaues was a wee little man and a wee little man was he.  WHY? Because before there was Randy Newman, before there was Napoleon and his complex, there was short little guy who liked to climb trees. In 1955 I was tall for my age but I was only five. Do you remember what it was like being five? You rode in the back of the family car and watched the top of telephone poles. You wanted to play baseball with the neighborhood kids but you are only tall enough to be second base. I don’t mean the position, I mean the actual base. And then along comes Zacchaeus . Like me, he was short. Like me, he wanted to see what was going on. Unlike me he lived in a land of low hanging branches.

According to the story word got around that a parade was coming. I hated it when the Christmas parade came to town. When I was three, dad put me on his shoulders and I could see everything. But when I was five my little sister took my place.  It was four more years before I was tall enough to see Santa and by then I didn’t believe he was real. 

Zacchaeus didn’t believe in Santa either. He didn’t believe in much of anything except himself. Yet when word got around that the miracle man was stopping off before heading to the capital, Zacchaeus made plans to see him. Was he curious? Did he think Jesus would make him tall? The story doesn’t tell us the reason. All we know is Zacchaeus would not be denied in his quest to see Jesus.

 You know the story as well as I. He discovered the parade route, picked the perfect tree, climbed up and waited. Jesus appeared, saw the wee little man, and called up to him. “Zacchaeus, I am going to your house for dinner.”

When you are five years old ……. and a member of the kindergarten Sunday School class …….. most teachers aren’t going to tell you that Zacchaeus was not a very nice man. Mrs. Cartledge was not the exception to the rule. She taught us Zacchaeus was small and so were we. But take heart. Jesus sees you, Jesus loves you, and Jesus will walk with  you when you enter the first grade.

A lot of folks were taught the Zacchaeus story by their own Mrs. Cartledge. A lot of folks remember the cute little song. But too few folks go to Sunday School long enough to hear the real story.  Zacchaeus was short on morals, short on integrity, and short on principles. In other words, Zacchaeus was a scoundrel. He is the used car salesman who sells you a beauty of a deal that two weeks before was hauled in with a blown engine. He is the guy who sells you a reversed mortgage and tells you not to worry about the fine print. He is the guy who always has his mind, and his heart, and his fist, clenched.

Zacchaeus was a tax collector. In other words he was a collaborator with an oppressive foreign government whose sole objective was to suck the very life out of the common citizen. This is the way the game was played.  Rome had an army to feed. Rome had roads it wanted to build back home. So Rome took thirty cents on the dollar and gave nothing back. As long as Rome got its thirty cents it did not care what the tax collector charged. A person like Zacchaeus often charged as much as forty cents on the dollar and kept the ten cents difference. Rome protected its collectors to ensure the flow of money was continuous.

The people of Jericho hated Zacchaeus. They hated the way he cheated them. They hated the protection he received from Rome. Most of all they hated his clenched fist which seemed to be both a threat and a symbol of what was being stolen from them.

Jesus walked through Jericho. He looked up and saw a pathetic little man way up in the branches. He hollered up at him, “Zacchaeus”. Everyone fell quiet knowing what was going to happen next. At the very least Jesus was going to expose him as a crooked little man. At the very worst Jesus was going to zap the branch of the tree causing the scoundrel to fall to his well deserved death. But that is not what happened. Jesus said, “Come out of the tree. I need for you to feed me dinner.”

I am not sure who was more surprised, Zacchaeus or the good folks of Jericho who hated his guts. Everyone looked up, except Zacchaeus, who stared down at the man who had invited himself to dinner. Zacchaeus had a choice. He could stay in the tree or he could have dinner with a stranger. Choice number two presented a problem. How could he get down out of the tree with his fist clinched?

Ever so slowly, Zacchaeus pried open his fingers. Ever so slowly, God pried open his mind. Ever so slowly, Jesus pried open his heart,  and miraculously, Zacchaeus was no longer a “wee little man.”

To God be the glory. Amen.