A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, TX.
Today is the last day of the church year, and it is the last of our 26-or-thereabouts week walk through the telling of the good news by Matthew.
Today is also the day in the church calendar that we dub “Christ the King Sunday”. As Americans I think we struggle with the true meaning of this phrase. What does it mean to say Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? After all, we threw the monarchy out over 200 years ago and it wasn’t because we were trying to install Jesus on our throne, it was because we didn’t want anyone else having ultimate rule over us, we wanted to rule ourselves.
But even before European colonization came to this land, way, WAY before, from the very beginning of what we know as the history of our faith, God was, and is to be the leader of God’s people. God’s people, however, wanted to be like the other nations, with a human king. When they demanded a king, they were warned that the power of an earthly king almost always corrupts the one who wields it. But the people didn’t care. They were more concerned that they were like the other nations than they were with being God’s people. I don’t think much has changed through the years, we still prefer to rule ourselves, and power, whatever title we give it, tends to corrupt the one who we let wield it.
Matthew is concerned about how the Jewish leaders had been corrupted by power and tells the story of the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry with what we call the sermon on the Mount, the teaching in chapters 5-6 that begins with blessed are the humble, the merciful, the peacemakers and ends with the admonition to both walk the walk and talk the talk as God’s people. Just saying “lord, lord” isn’t enough if we then ignore the needs of others around us. Just giving lip service to God being our King isn’t what our faith is about, it isn’t what following Jesus is about. Following Jesus is about living in the now and not yet of God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
Yes, it is about our eternal life, but eternity has no beginning nor end so our eternal life isn’t something we will enter into someday but already is. Living in God’s Kingdom on earth as in heaven is about taking care of each other, it is about taking what we have and working to ensure that everyone has what they need. It is about welcoming others into the Kingdom, not determining the ways we can exclude.
Determining who’s in and who’s out, sorting the sheep and goats, who’s on the right hand or left hand, is God’s job, not ours. And God’s deepest desire is that all are to be part of the Kingdom, here and now and when the time comes for God’s Kingdom to be fully realized in the new heaven and new earth. In our reading from the prophet Ezekiel God’s says, “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.” This has always been God’s word to God’s people.
If we choose to live outside of God’s love and mercy and grace, we are already in the ‘eternal fire’, living in the struggle of thinking we have to prove ourselves or be the best and strongest or believing that we don’t matter at all. And God seeks us there, to bring us back and heal us so that we can live in the love and justice and mercy of God’s Kingdom, so that we can find our infinite value as God’s beloved people.
Entering into the joy of God’s presence isn’t a reward for what we do well. The blessing and joy of God’s Kingdom is always available to us; we ‘claim’ it by living as Jesus, as Moses, and all the prophets who have come to God’s people teach us – living in God’s definition of justice, being kind and compassionate to all, and walking humbly with God. Living God’s way is the blessing not the reward. The sheep in this story don’t even realize the good they are doing. They are just living as God created them to live.
God created us to be people who are enabled by God’s love to love. And when we lose our way and choose to wander outside of God’s love, we are always welcomed back by God’s forgiveness and mercy.
Jesus isn’t seeking to threaten us when he talks about God’s sorting. We don’t learn to love God by being terrified of doing the wrong thing. We learn to love by receiving love from others as God love us. Jesus is showing us, in flesh and blood, what it looks like to be who and Whose we are – tending to the needs of others as a proclamation of God’s reigning love and mercy; walking through our life’s journey following Jesus; choosing God’s Way over any way that may gain us power or control; letting love be the powerful guiding force of our eternal lives here and now.
Our acts of kindness and compassion, mercy and love are the fruits of God’s kingdom, not the currency with which we purchase our entry.
And, just to be clear, serving in God’s Kingdom isn’t about the false humility of saying we don’t need anyone else’s help so that we can prove how helpful or strong we are. Tending to each other’s needs means you tend to me as I tend to you. If I don’t ever ask for help or pretend I don’t ever need help I stand in the way of you doing what you are called to do; it’s a false pride way of excluding you.
Living in God’s Eternal Kingdom means we accept God as our source of life and way of living here and now: loving God, our neighbor, and ourselves not just with our words but with all that we do, and think, and say for and about others because we have received the gift of God’s love. Knowing Jesus as the King of kings and Lord of lords means we let Jesus be the ultimate authority for how we live – welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for each other not because we want a reward but because we want to be who and Whose we are created to be: beloved children of the loving God.
Next Sunday, the church calendar rolls over to a new year with the season of Advent and over the next few weeks, we will prepare ourselves for the coming of God as a vulnerable, human baby in order to turn our ideas of leadership by domination and superiority upside down. Our lives, including the remaining 48 weeks of the year are about two other advents – the coming of Jesus again, when God determines it is time to set all things in God’s proper order with the coming of the new heaven and new earth, and the coming of Jesus each and every day through our words and actions that reveal God to those we encounter.
Look for God, anticipate the arrival of Jesus every moment of every day and together we will discover what it is for Jesus to be the King of kings and Lord of lords so that we can be free to be God’s people here and now. Amen.
Mother Nancy's Coffee Thoughts 