Scriptures for Sunday, November 20th.
Sermon
Today is the liturgical version of New Years Eve. We have journeyed together through scripture and through the Christian year and have reached the culminating point in the journey- Christ the King Sunday. This is a day in which we celebrate the majesty of our King Jesus, and one in which we recommit our entire lives to his authority. In fact, there is probably no more appropriate day for us to have renewed our baptismal vows and to have given our commitments for the next year. We are testifying in all ways possible that we intend to live in this world as if it is the kingdom of God.
However, I sometimes come to Christ the King Sunday with mixed feelings. I tend to think our culture does not have any problem picturing Christ as this great and powerful King to whom we need to submit. We often sing of God or Jesus with grandiose language and talk about how powerful the name of Jesus is. And though we may struggle with some of the implications, and though I may resist strongly the idea that our loving Christ would cast anyone into eternal punishment, I think our culture also has no problem picturing Jesus sitting in a throne in judgment at the end of the ages. In a way, it is the perfect Sunday to discuss our baptismal vow of service.
We tend to respect and idealize power. Though not all respect the president, most respect the office of the presidency as it has always been the most powerful position in the world. We often respect the titans of industry who have helped shape the world. When the founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, passed away, we as a nation reveled in just how this amazing man reshaped society because of his visionary image. Our American dream often encompasses moving up the economic, corporate and social ladder to reach the optimum level of success.
In a vacuum, there is nothing wrong with the lauding of any of these displays of power. In Christianity, however, we temper this idea of Christ as King, Christ as all powerful, with many other contradictory images. Our great and powerful King enters the story not as a conqueror, but as a helpless babe. Our mighty shepherd is himself protected early in life by those who would cause him arm. Our Lord of life had no physical kingdom, eschewed all armies, and washed the feet of his closest servants. This is a King unlike any we have ever known. Someone whose power comes not from accumulating might, but by rejecting every opportunity to embrace power. Thus, part of me wonders if Jesus would be a little embarrassed by devoting a day each and every year where we celebrate him as a grand king.
Kingly imagery has its place. But when we think of Jesus on the thrown, I think we struggle to understand the implications of today’s scripture. How can Jesus both be on a throne, but also declare “just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Is Jesus in his palace, or in a cardboard box? Is Jesus wearing an Armani suit, or a thread bare t-shirt that provides no warmth? Should we seek an audience with the King, or figure out what time visiting hours are at the prison? Frankly its kind of confusing. How can Jesus be both?
Just because it is so confusing, I want us to supplement our kingly image of God with a different image. One drawn from the very symbol of God’s love that we celebrated today- that of water. The water in baptism makes present God’s love for us in the here and now. It allows us to touch and feel God’s presence when we touch and feel God. But we know there is far more to water than just its use in baptism- water is at the core of all life as we know it. It is water that allows crops to go. Water, whether in the ocean or the lake, teams with life. When scientists search other planets for life, they begin their search by looking for water. Where there is no water, there is no life.
Do you know that we as humans are 60% water? In fact, water is perhaps the largest ingredient in all life forms. But the water does not stay trapped within us. We take it in, we sweat it out. It passes through the skin. It is absolutely necessary, and cannot be contained. I cannot prevent the water that is in me from being absorbed into the air and possibly flowing into one of you.
What if Jesus is like that water? What if it were impossible to have life if God through Jesus was not present. And what if that water that is Jesus flows in and amongst every single living thing?
What would it look like if we really believed God was in and through everything? If God were actually present in each one of us the way water is present in each one of us. How would we live differently?
Once a great order, as a result of waves of anti-monastic persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the rise of secularism in the nineteenth, all its branch houses were lost and it had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others, all over seventy in age. Clearly it was a dying order.
In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a hermitage. As the abbot agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to him to visit the hermitage and ask if by some possible chance the hermit could offer any advice that might save the monastery.
The hermit welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the hermit could only commiserate with him: “I know how it is,” he exclaimed. “The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in all the nearby towns. So the old abbot and the hermit commiserated together. The time came when the abbot had to leave. They embraced each other. “It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years,” the abbot said, “but I have still failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my dying order?” “No, I am sorry,” the hermit responded. “I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.”
When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, “Well what did the hermit say?” “He couldn’t help,” the abbot answered. “We just commiserated and read the scriptures together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving — it was something cryptic — was that the Messiah is one of us. I don’t know what he meant.”
In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered these words and wondered whether there was any possible significance. The Messiah is one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us monks here at the monastery? If that’s the case, which one?
Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant the Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation.
On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light.
Certainly he could not have meant Brother Elred! Elred gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people’s sides, when you look back on it, Elred is virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the hermit did mean Brother Elred.
But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah.
Of course the hermit didn’t mean me. He couldn’t possibly have meant me. I’m just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me. I couldn’t be that much for You, could I?
As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. And on the off, off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.
Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends.
Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the hermit’s gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in the realm.
When the monks began to see the Messiah in one another, new life sprang forth where only death had existed. What would happen if we embraced the hermits vision? What if we really and truly believed that the Messiah is present in our lives and that we will interact with that same Messiah potentially every day of our lives.
Would your treat your neighbor differently? Would you look at the beggar on the street in the same way? Would you think the same about a person put before trial? Would we act in the same way when we serve a community meal.
My friends, this is what our baptismal vow of service calls us to. We are to submit to the kingly authority of Christ by assuming that Christ is in each and every person we meet. When we act that way, and when we love in that fashion, God’s kingdom will be truly present.
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