New rules...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for this Sunday, Christ the King Sunday, November 20th.  (There is limited art that makes sense to me for Christ the King Sunday. Like most "religious" art, the visuals for this day are either too schlocky or too imperial. So I found myself searching far and wide for some "upside down" images.)  Join us if you are in town at 10:30 am - it would be sweet.

What are we to do – as modern and post-modern people of faith – with all the ancient judgment language our tradition asks us to consider in preparation for this day? It is, after all, Christ the King Sunday – the last Lord’s Day of the church calendar – the culmination of all our celebrations before the arrival of Advent like a thief in the night and we’re asked once again to consider Jesus as our King. 

• What’s up with that? Americans don’t know anything about kings – hell we barely know our OWN history let along the realm of monarchs.

• And how in the world are we supposed to get our hearts, minds and souls around the idea that Jesus is a King? Suffering servant – ok! Prince of Peace – I’m down with that! 

• But King of kings and Lord of Lords? That is just all too much ancient imperial Roman projection for this all too 21st century Christian to swallow. 

You see, all year long – especially throughout Ordinary Time – we’ve been wrestling with key stories and psalms in the scriptures that help us catch a glimpse of God’s upside-down kingdom. A kingdom NOT of this world but rather an encounter with grace within and among us: it is a realm where the first shall become last, where women and children live as honored guests just as much as men, where little and broken ones serve as rabbis to the wise and powerful, where prodigal sons and daughters are welcomed home with feasting and where the least of these my brothers and sisters show us something of Christ’s true face, right?

• So why bring the story to an end like this?

• Christ the King? Jesus the judge?

This should be a special day – unique and clarifying – for to my way of thinking the conclusion of the story should pack some punch for us, ok? Like any good work of literature, drama, film, art or music, the final act should bring the totality of the story into focus with resolution and maybe even challenge our hearts and souls, too.

Do you know Ralph Ellison’s life work, Invisible Man? It is a brilliant depiction of American racism as told through the eyes of a black man who moves from the rural South into the cultured and political world of NYC - and never once is he seen as a full and complete person. He is always invisible and degraded to those with power and influence. It is a brilliant and bitter encounter with part of the American experience. And if you let the story grab you by the throat and shake you into consciousness – as it should – you will never be the same afterwards. 

That is what great literature can do – same with other art forms:

• Have you seen Picasso’s “Guernica” or let the abstract walls of color painted by Mark Rothko lure you into the realm of contemplation? Have you read Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov? Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward? D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love or Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse? 

• Do you know the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Anna Ahkmatova or Billy Collins? Have you experienced Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List?” Or Pakula’s, “Sophie’s Choice?” Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot?” or even Stephen Schwartz’s “Godspell?”

Each and all of these great works of art not only bring their stories to a close with resolution, but they also conclude in ways that compel a decision from each of us: how will we be different because of what we have experienced? And when it comes to the greatest story ever told - the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – the celebration of Christ the King Sunday is supposed to help us do likewise: 

• It is supposed to empower us with a clear sense that God’s kingdom is within and among us.

• It is suppose to invite us to go deeper into that kingdom as well through lives nourished by faith, hope, trust, grace and love. 

But here’s the rub: this only happens if we are open to being shocked and humbled by a radically upside-down king. If we read the end of Christ’s story as a traditional morality tale – all about who is good and who is bad – I think Christ the King Sunday becomes irrelevant. I mean who cares, right? I can watch “Law and Order” or “Prime Suspect” on TV if I just want to reinforce the status quo and feel good about myself as a one who keeps the rules. But if I want to move closer to the kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of self…. well, then I need a really different type of king.

And it is my hunch that while the Church has often treated Christ the King in a manner all too elevated – fashioning art and hymnody, symbols and sounds that befit an earthly monarch rather than a Messiah born in the mud of a stable – amidst the confusing what is really at stake is the way our upside-down king Jesus has already elevated grace to become the new standard for judgment. To paraphrase HBO’s Bill Maher: there is a new rule among us wherein our encounters with God’s grace now serve as both judgment and entrée into the kingdom of God for us.

Here is what I mean: when Jesus calls us to repentance – to a life of fidelity to our covenant with the Lord in community and a life of integrity and purpose with our neighbors and self – he evokes a new rule: forgiveness. Not shame, fear or guilt – not power and control as we know it – but grace and forgiveness. 

• Do you recall the story of Jesus meeting a woman caught in adultery as recorded in the gospel of John? (review the story of John 8) How does the story close? Jesus shows how ALL of us have stumbled and fallen short of the glory of God – all of us have sinned – so he says: Who condemns? No one – and neither do I – so go and sin no more.

• How about when the angel Gabriel visits the Virgin Mary in Luke’s gospel? He appears and says, “Behold, favored one, the Lord is with you,” right? And when Mary reacts with concern, what does the angel tell her? “Be not afraid.”

• And what are the words Jesus gives us from the Cross as recorded in the third gospel? “When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals… and he said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Are you with me? Jesus did NOT construct a moral life, an ethical path or spiritual intimacy with God on anything like shame, fear or guilt. But sometimes our institutions stumble, yes?

True story: last week I was watching PCTV on my couch after Sunday worship when one of the preachers said, “The Blessed Virgin told us last year that she saw sinners falling into the fires of hell like snowflakes in a furnace – so get ready, people, get ready to either perish and suffer or live with God in eternal peace.” No kidding – that’s a direct quote.

So let’s be honest: Shame-based Roman Catholics do it, fear-based Fundamentalists do it and guilt-based Liberal Protestants do it along with a lot of others, too. In fact, I wouldn’t be going out on a limb if I also said that Jews and Muslims do it, Buddhists and Atheists do it, Republicans and Democrats, Gays and Straights, Women and Men and Children do it, too. 

• But here’s the thing: Jesus doesn’t care what everybody else is doing – especially when it comes to shame, fear and guilt.

• His new rule is grace trumps karma – forgiveness is judgment enough if you are fully open to it – for only three things abide – faith, hope and love – and the greatest of these is…? Love.

One of the finest minds of the 20th century, Karl Barth, captured the new rule of grace when he wrote:

The person who says that the Bible leads us to where finally we hear only a great No or see a great void, proves only that he or she has not yet been led thither. This No is really Yes. This judgment is grace. This condemnation is forgiveness. This death is life. This hell is heaven. This fearful God is a loving father who takes the prodigal into his arms. This crucified is the one raised from the dead. And this explanation of the cross as such is eternal life. No other additional thing needs to be joined to the question…

Because, you see, we’re not dealing with a traditional king – we’re dealing with Jesus – the upside-down king. And in this kingdom, you have to turn almost everything on its head to grasp what is going on.

Jesus makes it clear that in his society – the kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of self – there is a whole new way of living. You show wisdom by trusting people; you handle leadership by serving; you handle offenders by forgiving; you handle money by sharing; you handle enemies by loving; and you handle violence by suffering. You see, you have a new attitude towards everything in the Jesus society… because here you repent not by feeling bad but by thinking different.  Rudy Wiebe, Blue Mountains of China, p. 215

So what would this new thinking look like – what would this new rule mean – in our context? I think Carl Jung was on to something when he told us that the Lord’s words of judgment by grace spoken in today’s gospel lesson have three layers and each is essential for holiness and healing:

• The first layer is social: social justice is what grace looks like in public – not charity – but justice. Not pity or hand outs but equality and right relationship. For on a social level we are speaking of covenantal justice where the least of our sisters and brother are afforded the respect and dignity endowed upon them by the Creator. Not Wall Street or the market place – not birth order or luck of origin – justice born of being created in the image of God.

• The second layer is communal – particularly the community we call church: here we are to be the body of Christ to one another. I can’t know all your pain or problems – neither can you – and in a body it isn’t up to the pastor or the moderator to fix things. No, what we can do – and must do – is our part. We can feed one another, we can visit one another, we can listen and cherish one another. And if one of us is having a lousy day, that isn’t the end of the story, right? There are others to carry the load or listen with affection.

• The third layer of this story is personal: in addition to feeding others and caring for their wounds, we must make certain we bring our own emptiness and loneliness, our own hungers and hurts to the Lord for healing lest we starve and wither on the vine. 

Did you hear that? An old gospel hymn put it like this: “It’s not my brother or my sister but it’s ME, o Lord, standing in the need of prayer.” So often we are afraid to bring our fears or hurts or sins to the Lord because we are terrified of judgment. But listen to how one way smarter than either you or me put it: “Oh what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear: all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer!” Everything – the hurt that was done to us, the wounds we have brought upon ourselves and the ugly things we have done to others – take it ALL to the Lord and prayer.

• And that will be judgment, beloved. It is agonizing to stand in God’s light and fully own our sins. Terrifying and humbling…

• And ultimately liberating and cleansing, too

Because we’re not talking about taking our sins and fears and wounds to the Supreme Court – or Queen Elizabeth of England – or any other traditional judge or monarch. We’re talking about King Jesus – the upside-down judge – who brings to us forgiveness and grace as a new rule: a new covenant.

• Do this at any of the layers - healing the world, healing the body and healing the heart – and the promise is clear: God will embrace you saying: 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom for it's been ready for you since the world's foundation.”

• Do you hear what I’m saying? Since the world’s foundation – grace prepared and ready for you – whenever you embrace grace as Christ’s true judgment.

Beloved, this IS the good news for today because it doesn’t get any better than this: so let those who have ears to hear, hear!

credits:
+ William Humes @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/willhumes/
+ Robert Lentz @ http://amoshouse.wordpress.com/
+ Robert Lentz @ info.sdiworld.org