Christ the King, Year C 2016

Last Sunday of Pentecost

November 19, 2016

Christ the King, Year C

    I remember a morning in seminary where I was saying morning prayer at my kitchen table… psalm 46 was the psalm that morning, and when I got to verse 11, “Be still then and know that I am God”, I couldn’t go any further.  I stopped and sat there for several minutes and wasn’t able to continue the prayers that morning.  You know it’s a big deal when I am speechless.  I am pretty sure that God had a very direct message for me that day, and that God was fairly unconcerned about my plans for the morning or the rest of the day.  The message was pretty straightforward… Be STILL then and KNOW that I am GOD…

    I don’t know about you, but speaking for myself, it’s a lesson that I need to hear, probably every day, maybe even several times a day. There is so much that swirls around my head, the busyness of life that gets in the way of everything that keeps me centered… I can get caught in the place where I think I am in control, that I am I am charge of what’s going on; it’s not a good place for me to be.  Anxiety is a very difficult emotion that grows and invades everything else around me so that I can’t see or feel anything else…

    Being still is a good message for us as we move towards Advent… Today, the Sunday we call Christ the King, is a time when we are reminded that we are members of the Kingdom of God; all of the insanity of the empire that tries to knock us off of our kingdom legs just really isn’t as important as we might believe… we are Kingdom people,  we are the “Jesus Movement” as our Presiding Bishop says and that, is where our loyalty and our energies ought to be…

    And just in case we missed it, our gospel lesson is a painful reminder of who our King really is, and what it means to be Kingdom people.   In exactly the opposite of the self centeredness of the rise of the Empire, we are painfully brought back to the place where our true King reigns from… not from a throne or a place of political strength, but a place of death and weakness.  How can God let it end like this?? What kind of King gets nailed to a cross and calls it victory?

    Certainly not a King of the Empire.  Only God would let the story end like that… but we know it doesn’t end there.  The story looks to many to be one of defeat; all the name calling, all the verbal assaults, being put to death… only the true Kind would go to those dark places so that you and I would never have to go to them alone; only God’s Kingdom would have two thieves seated on each side of the King; only Jesus would bring comfort to the two criminals when his own suffering was so intense.   What kind of King would let it end this way?  A King who desired peace and justice; a King who believed that his Kingdom belonged to children, women, the lame and the outcast; only the kind of King who would break down the walls of division and hate could let it end this way.   Can you imagine what his followers thought all this time?  Fear and shock come to mind for sure.  Fear that it had all gone wrong, that all they believed in and fought for, and gave their lives for was somehow misguided…

    Be still then, and know that I am God.  Even in the midst of the confusion and hate of the Empire, even in the darkness of the crucifixion, God is God.  That’s seems like the great joke of the universe, doesn’t it?  But Easter people know that this is no joke.  Easter people know that the horror of the cross is no really the end of the story; the story continues beyond the death of Jesus to the giving of the Holy Spirit to the disciples… and the story is still continuing for us.  As Easter people, as Pentecost people, as Kingdom people, we know the story continues with us; we know that we must sometimes Be Still and know then that God is God; and when we have those moments of clarity, we then must act; sometimes we need to be still in order to know how we must act; we have to have time in prayer to build our relationship to Jesus so that when he tells us to go forth into the world, we will actually hear him… but we must be still.  We have to make room for Him in our day, in our minds and in our hearts.  We have to stop thinking that we know what it means to be disciples and listen to what Jesus is trying to tell us.  The stories we hear in scripture aren’t just stories; the are one of the many ways we come to know who God in Jesus is; we learn the ways that God has broken into the world and broken it open so that the Kingdom might be revealed; we hear those stories so that we might know something about who WE are and how our stories connect to each other's stories. We learn that criminals are welcomed into paradise; that walls are torn down, that the sick are healed, the hungry are fed.  We learn about the love of God that is so incredible and endless that we begin to see that NO ONE is excluded from its embrace… those are the lessons we receive from our King.  We will turn another corner soon; we will enter a time of quiet and of listening.  Are we ready to still our minds and hearts? Are we ready to listen?  Are we ready to be still and know then that God is God?  If we are not, I wonder if we are ready to let go of the values of the empire that stand in our way?  It’s not always comforting to think that God is in charge;  it’s a very human thing to think that we know what’s best for us; as many of my friends in AA would tell you, that’s the kind of thinking that got us all into trouble to begin with; sometimes to become the people God has created us to be, we must learn to let go of what works in the empire and let God be God… Jesus is King of the Kingdom; he is the one who challenged Empire at every opportunity, bringing dignity and God’s love to those who the Empire left on the margins.  As disciples we too must act as Jesus acted.  As we begin to enter the holy quiet of Advent, I pray that we take the time to be still and know that God alone is God, and that we will be quiet enough to listen to what he is asking of us.  Be still then… and get ready to act.  The King has come. I pray we will be ready to follow.