The Church of the Ascension
November 25, 2007
Christ the King

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  AMEN.

Yesterday morning as I attempted to emerge from the fat induced coma, in which I have lived since Thursday, I vigorously shook my head and began to think seriously about how to write a sermon again this year for one of our must complicated feast days, Christ the King.  Understanding how Christ can be understood as king or lord in our lives let alone the whole world is a pretty good sized task for the best of days.  Neither caffeine nor head shaking worked; so I went for a walk in the park.  Before I even got into the park proper, an unleashed dog attacked me, viciously growling though never biting me.  The fact that I weighed 500 pounds and probably still smelled of turkey, stuffing, and corn pudding did not help.  I was an easy and attractive target.  Terrified, I spent the next mile or so imagining a conversation with the dog’s less than adequately apologetic owner in which I harangued her with threats of big lawsuits.  Never mind recruiting all the dog walkers as new members; I decided to sue them!

Somewhat recovered I continued the walk, still pondering Christ as King, only to be run totally off the walkway by the weekend showoffs, aka runners, who strut their stuff before us walkers, who like the earnest tortoises we are just keep on going day after day.  Minding my own business, contemplating big notions like Christ as the Lord of the world for heaven’s sake, I came perilously close to biting the dust as these eager racers, who probably only sniffed at their pumpkin pie, all but shoved me into the lake with barely a whispered, “sorry.”

Christ the King weekend was not off to a good start.  The day began to turn around only when alongside some other Ascensionites, I helped serve lunch to a group of homeless clients at the soup kitchen.  The night before had been cold, and my eyes lingered on the old folks and families with little children.  I still didn’t the like the dog or his nonplussed owner, and the showy runners still seemed arrogant.  But somehow these egregious events seemed a lot less egregious.

I am not sure exactly how these three events, none overly dramatic or life altering in my simple life play into thinking about Christ as King, but they do.  Just take my word for it.  More and more I am convinced that Christ is either the Lord of our little circumstances or not at all. 

Today is the end of the year for us as Christians; all things start over next week as we begin the Advent of the coming of the Christ Child.  But as we end the year we make an annual stop at this feast day, Christ the King.  Almost inevitably we are surprised by it.  The gospel lessons that have preceded this feast over the last few weeks have been rich in apocalyptic imagery of things coming to a big end, triumphant and glorious for the good guys, that would be us, and not so for the bad guys, that would be those who are not us.  And, yet, the story ends today with two gospel options, neither particularly auspicious, one the story you just heard of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem just days before his death on the cross and the other the story of Jesus on the cross being taunted by those admonishing him to save himself since he had been so great at saving others.

The disciples were mortified and surprised by the way everything was turning out.  They should not have been.  Jesus never said one single thing that should have led them to believe that he was about anything other than the loving gift of himself.  In fact, he said over and over that he was giving himself up to what was likely to be a very sad end, and he rejected all efforts on their part to make him a king.  The only nearly violent reaction attributed to him in scripture is the story of his cleansing the temple; and as we all know, he was angry because God’s people were being kept from the worship place, not angry at some assault on him.  And, yet, his followers continued to hope till the end and perhaps beyond that he would rise up with great power in a way that was consistent with their view of power. 

Ironically, the church has continued to hope in vain as well, to hope that Christ-triumphant means something that Jesus never even considered.  That is what makes the Feast of Christ the King so complicated.   Through the years the church has latched on to the idea that Christ is the king, who always assists us in triumphing over evil, allowing us to win every time.  In many ways we – the church, past and present – do the same things the disciples did: we try to make Jesus – Christ – a ruler in the same sense that the disciples wanted him to be.  We want him to take charge, to make sure our side wins, to straighten out our messes.  Again and again Jesus rejected this understanding of who he was and is, saying to the disciples, “You are not hearing me.  I have not come to establish an earthly kingdom that you will help me rule.  I have come to invite you and the whole world to live in a spiritual ‘kingdom’ that is never about ruling or winning.”  That presents a more difficult “marketing” challenge than the claim that “if you follow Jesus, everything is going to be just fine; your side will always win.”             

On Friday evening I watched the best show on television, “Bill Moyers’ Journal.”  (Pay attention to that even though this claim is from a man who also loves “Grey’s Anatomy.”)  This week’s guest on the journal was Dr. James Cone, a theology professor at Union Seminary in the city.  When Dr. Cone begins to speak, the first thing one notices is his irritating, squeaky little voice; and then with little warning, out of his mouth come powerfully insightful, deeply disturbing comments and questions.  In this interview, Dr. Cone spoke about the recent display of nooses at Columbia and in Jena, Louisiana.  He talked about the image of a noose, about what it engenders within us, consciously and otherwise.  But he didn’t stop there; he connected the intensity of the image of the noose to the power of the cross.  Both are ugly, brutal reminders of what powerful people can and often do to people without power. 

He said that talking about lynching is important because it keeps the perpetrators, the lynchers, from having the last word.  Putting it alongside the cross helps interpret the cross because it keeps the cross out of the hands of those who are dominant. Nobody who is lynching someone in any way – literally or through the squeeze of economics, can really understand the cross, Dr. Cone suggested.  He concluded by saying that any time our solidarity is with the little people, we are with the cross; and anytime we identify with the lynchers, that is to say anytime we allow our racism to be unchecked, unacknowledged, and unredeemed, we do not and cannot understand what Christ the King really means.

I have thought a great deal about Dr. Cone’s comments over the last couple of days with more than a little discomfort.   I tried to tell myself that what he said didn’t have much to do with deepening my understanding of Christ the King, but my soul wasn’t buying that denial for a moment.  We are not ever going to get this Christ as the Lord of our lives business if our life in Christ is always about our winning or our side always being right, about our feeling good or satisfied, about our prayers being answered like we want them to be.  Christ the King calls us to side with the underdog; Jesus was unmistakably clear about that.  And not only to side with them but to become one with them, changing whatever we can to bring them into the fullness of the Kingdom of God right now, in this place and at this time.

That is not an easy message; there is nothing light and fluffy about it; and it is a hard sell in a culture that wants religion to be all about making us feel better.  Christ the King calls us to be transformed people, people who love when it is easier and more natural to hate, people who give without assurance that our gifts go to “deserving” recipients, people who forgive when it is so much more satisfying to nourish old and cherished hurts.

In the name of God: AMEN.