Nov 25 2024
2 Samuel 23:1-7
Psalm 132:1-13 (14-19)
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37
Today on the church calendar is the feast day of Christ the King – the last Sunday of the old year before we begin the cycle afresh with the first Sunday of Advent. We’re preparing ourselves for Advent, preparing for the season of preparation: as we look to the coming of Christ, we’re reminded of what he is coming for: not just the baby in the manger but Christ who comes into the world to redeem us all. And boy, do we need it. We’re preparing for our king. But the lessons we read every year for this feast take pains to remind us that this king is not made in our image of a king. This king is something different.
And this feast always falls right around Thanksgiving, our secular harvest festival. It’s the time of year when America talks about being thankful, remembering what we’re thankful for – which is actually a spiritual practice, the practice of gratitude. So we also make this Sunday our ingathering Sunday, the day we bring forward our pledges of support to the mission and ministry of this church for the coming year. Out of our gratitude for all St Michael’s does, we offer the fruits of our harvest, and bless them together on the table.
On first glance, these two things – Christ the King and Thanksgiving – don’t seem to share much in common. And yet I think they do: one celebrates the actions and behavior…that make manifest our belief in the other. Who is this king exactly? And what does it look like to be part of this kingdom?
The easiest way into the idea of what kind of king Christ is is to say what he is not. Everything Jesus shows in his life is exactly the opposite of a worldly king – the opposite of authoritarian, top-down, power-centric behavior. In a time and culture when despots ruled and the Roman Empire had absolute control, Jesus teaches and models the way of the servant, the lover who lays his life down for his beloved, the compassionate friend, the ally of the poor and marginalized. As Mo. Michelle eloquently pointed out in her sermon last week, that servant-king wasn’t entirely what people wanted, or could understand. Then, as now, was a time of fear, division, and deep inequality – what people thought they needed to get free of it was a strong military leader who would wield power and authority. Just like today. That’s certainly whom Pilate thinks he’s dealing with in the gospel scenario, yet another rebel Messiah hauled up in front of him, attacking the authority of Rome. When Jesus tries to explain that his kingship is not a worldly power, that his followers are not a rebel army, that instead he is come to show truth, and to gather people around the truth, it is obvious that Pilate doesn’t understand at all where he’s coming from. The next line in the story, omitted by the lectionary today, is Pilate asking Jesus, What is truth? It’s a question laced with cynicism and misunderstanding.
And it’s a topic that today also seems mired in cynicism and misunderstanding. What is truth, when we consume only partisan media, move to places where people think like us, embrace ‘alternative facts’? What is truth, when ‘my truth’ and ‘your truth’ are expressed as individual possessions – as if there’s no possibility of common truth, common ground, where we can meet.
NPR – there’s my partisan media – did a story I happened to catch yesterday about a community that’s trying to hold together despite divisions. Apparently NPR is doing a series of stories about people who speak civilly to one another – because speaking civilly has become newsworthy. (Sigh.) This was about, ironically, a medieval sword-fighting club, whose founder decreed that there would be simply no mention of politics at the club. That was a basic rule – if you wanted to come, you couldn’t mention politics – and people seemed mostly to be abiding by it. And so the club had members from all walks of life, and presumably, the whole spectrum of political opinion – differences that are dividing us elsewhere. But at the club, someone said, everyone here is ready to help everyone else, no matter what. Because they set aside those political differences, they saw each other as human beings, and built relationships of mutual respect and care. Imagine.
I tell this not to preach a sermon about how we all have to get along. We know that, and we know how hard it is to live out in our own lives. Not every environment allows us to exist with an agreed-upon rule about talking politics. And as a way forward from division, ‘just don’t talk about it’ doesn’t seem like the making of true beloved community. But it did make me think about what we claim as truth, and how we express that truth. We tend to think that what we say, the words we use, are the most important expression of what we believe. If we don’t say what we think, how can we get to know each other? Words have a lot of weight in our society these days – maybe a result of people sitting inactively at home typing out words on social media and calling that ‘conversation’ and ‘activism.’ (Oops, I’m leaking my opinion there.) Of course the flip side is that the wrong words can brand someone as a ‘wrong person’; inflammatory words can whip up violence. Words can do real harm.
But even more than that, I wonder if words are the best way to the truth. Such emphasis on words can mask a lack of integrity in our actions. If I say all the right things about climate change, it’s ok if I order new products daily on Amazon Prime. If I say the right things about illegal immigration, it’s ok if I build my company’s profits off undocumented labor. If I say the right things about inequality, it’s ok if I pay someone pennies to clean my house. And so on.
It makes me think of that other gospel reading we sometimes read on Christ the King Sunday, the parable Jesus tells about the last judgment, with the sheep and the goats. The sheep and goats are divided not based on their beliefs or their confessions of faith or the words they use – they’re based on how they lived, specifically on how they treated the poor and needy. It’s as if Jesus is saying, talk is cheap. How are you changing your behavior? How does the way you live reflect your repentance – your changing of heart and mind? That’s the truth Jesus seems to be after most of all. Or as he says elsewhere, you shall know them by their fruits.
Today on ingathering Sunday, it’s a chance for our actions to show what we believe – what our truth is. Putting our pledges on the altar is a tangible way of saying that we believe in what this church is doing, that we are part of its mission. Giving is a tangible way of trusting, supporting, taking part in the community. This ritual we do, physically walking forward to the altar together, witnesses to our care for this church. Just as what we do in the Eucharist here every week witnesses to the kind of king we think Jesus is – self-giving, nourishing, gathering everyone in – and to what it looks like to be part of this kingdom.
And like all rituals, it’s meant to point to something larger, to reflect something about the rest of our lives. When we leave this place, we’re charged with living out in the world what we have done here. To offer what we have in trust and mutuality; to listen for the Spirit in how we make decisions; to care for the vulnerable in our voting, our consumer choices, our daily interactions. And yes, to speak the truth in love – but to act out that love part most of all. That is the kingdom Jesus is king of – that is the truth he wants us to listen to, and to gather around.
So as we begin to focus anew on the coming of Christ – and as we bring around it all the rituals of family, food, gifts, and light – making an act of trust, acting out our gratitude, is a good place to start. Here we are, listening to Jesus’ truth of love. Here we are, taking steps to live that love out in our lives. And from here we will go, to bring the truth of that love to the world.
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