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November 21, 2004: At this time every four years, the American public gets ringside seats to a power redistribution which has been going on in Washington for two weeks now. The talking heads reassure us that a Cabinet shake-up is normal. When a President is re-elected, they tell us, power isn't so much transitioned as it is consolidated. Power consolidation is apparently how second-term presidents get things done. Not "lame duck" politics, this is all about agenda and accomplishing a vision. Familiar as we are with this kind of power play, Americans have a hard time grasping "Christ the King" Sunday. Even when we make the title gender-neutral and call it "Reign of Christ" Sunday, it's hard to get our heads around this upside down kingdom. Our system of government, based on the need to be re-elected periodically, sees the exercise of power as a courtship between the governed and the governing. Through concessions and consensus, those who do the governing obtain the cooperation and consent of the governed to bring about their vision for society. God is not like that. God has no need to be re-elected, nor does God have a bottomless need for fawning subjects. Indeed, God has no need of us. Hebrew prophets and psalmists remind us that God doesn't need our sacrifices or gifts. That we bring sacrifices and gifts isn't for God's sake, but rather for ours. We bring these gifts because they commit us to the kingdom and its way of life, and because it's the best way to say thanks for all God has given. We learn from our faith history that God has turned things over to humans. From the stewardship of the earth to salvation itself, God has allowed the kingdom of God to be vulnerable to the whims and screw-ups of humanity. Starting with Eden (when God put Adam and Eve in charge of tending the garden), and then Abram and Sarai (just told to "go," the direction left up to them) God has turned over to humans the coming-to-be of the kingdom. First Israel was constituted as a people "to be a light to the nations." And now this-God vulnerable, in human flesh, killed for political purposes. God, trying to get our attention since the beginning of human time, attempting to give us everything, God nailed to a cross and subjected to humiliation, ridicule and torture. This dying guy is supposed to be king. What sort of king? Clearly, things are upside down! It would be as if someone ran for office, spending a personal fortune, for the privilege of clearing tables at the Inaugural Ball and cleaning ashtrays on Air Force One. Or as if Bill Gates gave up his houses and wife and kids and Microsoft to spoon soup into the mouths of AIDS patients and then finally to become a living organ donor for drug addicts who promise not to go straight. Or as if the student council president found the smelliest, weirdest kids and ate lunch with them and shared a locker with them. The man hanging on the cross is not the sort of ruler we expect. He doesn't use power, he doesn't consolidate it, he just gives away authority. Making a place in history in not his goal, it is salvation for others, reconciling us to God, showing us how to be as fully human as he is. His earliest followers had a hard time with that. "If Jesus was God," they reasoned, "he only pretended to be human." How could God die? There is a crucifix in Chicago that shows Jesus, not nailed to the cross, but with his hands grasping the cross. The writer of the Colossian letter talks "cross" to the Christians there in order to nail Jesus-as-God to creation. God didn't pretend to be human, nor did the human Jesus pretend to die; God was human in Jesus who died. For Francis of Assisi, because Jesus was human, the goodness of God permeates all of creation. I don't think our danger with this notion is theological. Many of us are willing to say that God made the material world holy by entering it in the person of Jesus. The more pressing danger for us Calvinists is in thinking sin permeates creation and not the goodness of God. To think sin permeates takes us off the hook, gives us an easy out, allows us cling to our addictions and bad habits. If sin is the substance of things, we can believe we have no choice, that the devil made me do it, that we're just hard-wired that way, that we're genetically pre-disposed to do it. We don't have to accept responsibility, because we're sinful and our entire nature has been corrupted by sin. But what if God's goodness permeates everything? Then today is about the kingdom of which Christ is king. Those of us whose impulse is "yes but" can quickly think, "an exception has been made in my case." But if all of creation is permeated by God's goodness, that means an exception was not made in our case. Which means, we might have to start pledging allegiance to the ruler of the kingdom of God. Since God is permeating everything. Everything? Creation. Sure, it's not too hard to believe the goodness of God permeates mountains and trees and oceans and wild animals and solar systems. But what about the things that are really important to us, like relationships and families? Does "everything" include time? It is so much harder to believe that "everything" includes those kinds of things. If "everything" includes those, we would have to acknowledge God as giver of these things, and then we might have to tithe them. But if we really believed that the goodness of God permeated time and children and in-laws and co-workers who annoy us and people who steal our parking spot, would we have to live differently? Would we have to relinquish control of these things? Would we have to take control of ourselves? Throughout his whole ministry, Jesus insisted that there was only one way to be part of the kingdom of God. That way was to pledge total, single-minded devotion to God and God alone. We do that by following Jesus. It is so much more convenient to pledge allegiance to our calendars, but we end up living under the tyranny of busyness. It is so much simpler to buy respectability and lovable-ness, but then we live as if our checkbook and MasterCard have more influence than God. But if God's goodness permeates all of creation, and we personally are not the exception, then we no longer need to pledge allegiance to those old, uncomfortable-but-at-least-familiar habits. We get to defect from the kingdom of self-importance, with its addiction to busy-ness and our bottomless need for more, more, more-of whatever it is that dulls the pain of what ails us. These things are not part of God's kingdom. When they distract us from following Jesus as the most important thing in the world, we are trying to live as if we can maintain dual citizenship. In the kingdom Christ rules, reconciliation is possible, and pardon is our ruler's way, not pay back. In the kingdom Christ rules, we get to live in such a way that we take on the characteristics of our ruler. Generosity, because this is not a place where there's "only so much" and we've got to get ours before others get theirs-or ours. Compassion, because our ruler used his power to fill us, to empower us, to heal us and bring righteousness. Our ruler's crown isn't gold; it was made of thorns. His kingdom has no boundaries; it is more than time and place. There is no standing army, our citizenship comes in the water we pour. Our oath of allegiance is in that water, and we seal our promises with each other as we break bread and share the cup. There is no such thing as dual citizenship in this realm. You must choose one. Return to Sermons |