Living for the King

Sermon delivered on Christ the King Sunday A, November 23, 2014, at First United Methodist Church, Van Wert, OH.

There is no audio podcast of this sermon.

Lectionary texts: Ezekiel  34.11-16, 20-24; Psalm 100.1-4; Ephesians 1.15-23; Matthew 25.31-46.

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I am Fr. Kevin Maney, rector of St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Columbus OH. I grew up in this church and some of you will remember my parents, John and Margaret Maney, who loved this church and were active in it. To say that I am honored and thrilled to be invited to preach here today would be a massive understatement and I want to thank Pastor Gus for the trust he put in me to preach the gospel to you faithfully. But I am also mindful of what happened to Jesus when he returned to his hometown of Nazareth to preach. He angered the folks there so badly that they sought to throw him off a nearby cliff. Not wanting this to happen to me when I returned to my home church, I sought the highest authority in the land on preaching, my wife, and asked her sage advice about preaching this sermon. She mused for a moment and then reminded me that a well-received sermon should have a good beginning, a good ending, and the two should be as close together as possible.

Today we celebrate Christ the King Sunday, a feast relatively new in the Church’s calendar. Pope Pius XI instituted this feast in 1925 as a way to resist the rise of totalitarianism and secularism of his day. It marks the last Sunday of the Church’s calendar year and as its name implies, today is a day when we celebrate Jesus as King, Messiah, and Lord of all God’s creation. So this morning I want us to look briefly at what we can learn about living as faithful subjects under King Jesus’ sovereign rule.

In our gospel lesson this morning we as Jesus’ followers are given both a word of encouragement and a word of warning. The encouragement is not so obvious so we need to have a little background because the judgment scene Jesus describes is part of the overall biblical narrative. The entire story of Scripture is about how God is putting to rights his good creation and creatures corrupted by human sin and the evil that accompanied it. God has chosen to do this by calling Abraham and his descendants, the people of Israel, to bring God’s healing love and blessing to the nations. Those nations who embraced God’s people Israel would be blessed by God while those who did not would be cursed (Genesis 12.1-3). There’s more to the story but this is what we need to help us make sense of our gospel lesson.

With this in mind, then, the first thing we note is the startling fact that instead of the nations being judged based on how they treated Israel, Jesus is declaring that he will judge the world based on how it has treated the least of his brothers and sisters (his followers), the reconstituted Israel. So much for the old canard that Jesus had no self-awareness of who he was or that he was just an extraordinary teacher. Teachers don’t get to judge the world, not even extraordinary ones. Only God gets to do that and here we see Jesus telling us that he will judge the world!

But how do we know that Jesus is talking about his followers and not all people? Elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus had warned that not everyone who called him Lord would enter God’s kingdom, but only those who do the will of his Father. Lip service alone will not cut it. All true love and faith is manifested in action (Matthew 7.21-23). And then in a scene that would have shocked those who witnessed it, in response to his mother and brothers coming to speak to him, Jesus declared that his mother and brothers (and sisters) were those who do the will of his Father (Matthew 12.47-50). So the likely meaning of this judgment scene is that those who have not followed Jesus will be judged based on how they have treated those of us whom Jesus counts as family, his brothers and sisters, you and me, even (or perhaps especially) the least of us. Here we see our Lord who sends us out into his world to be his salt and light reassuring us he understands all too well that he is sending us out on a dangerous mission but that he is taking note of what we suffer and that we will be rewarded for our faithfulness.

Now of course we as Americans are rarely called to suffer and die for the faith the way many Christians around the world are suffering and dying for Jesus’ sake. But our lesson warns us not to neglect their suffering. So, for example, we are called to support our family members in Jesus around the world, both tangibly and through our prayers. And we are to offer encouragement and hope to those we might know personally by reminding them of passages like these (cf. Romans 8.31-39). Charity, of course, starts at home.

And while we may not be suffering as some of our Christian brothers and sisters around the world are, we are under increasing pressure to sit down and shut up. Our culture is becoming more hostile to Christian perspectives and morals and the net effect is that we are increasingly silenced because we don’t want to offend anyone or be found to be politically incorrect or be subject to name calling or job loss or worse. None of this should surprise us because our Lord himself warned that this would happen to us and that many of his followers would fall away as a result (Matthew 10.16-24; 24.9-10).

So if we have lost our voice in proclaiming the gospel to those in our world through word and deed, or if we hide Jesus’ light by failing to tell others in whose Name we do our good deeds because we are afraid of how others might react, then let passages like our gospel lesson be an encouragement to us so that we recover our voice and embody Jesus’ great love for all people as he commanded us to do in this judgment scene and elsewhere. And in doing the hard work of being Jesus’ salt and light to the world, we can take further encouragement by remembering that we are doing something else Jesus commanded us to do. We are taking up our cross, i.e., we are willing to suffer for our Lord, and denying our selfish ways for the sake of others, as we follow our Lord Jesus, who will not only judge the world at the end of time but who is also alive and reigns as king right now, judging it and us, deeply ambiguous as that may be.

But if this is the only thing we draw from today’s lesson, we will miss its warning to us as God’s people in Christ. When Scripture offers us encouragement as it regularly does and as we have seen in the judgment of the sheep and goats, our appropriate response is not to sit back, prop up our feet and get all uppity and self-righteous because we are on the winning side. The warning in the judgment scene pertains to us as well. And here it is good for us to remember what we have been given as Christians and why we do what we do in the power of the Spirit.

As we have seen, the biblical narrative is about how God is rescuing his good world from the ravages of evil, sin, and death. God has ultimately accomplished this by becoming human in Jesus of Nazareth to confront and defeat sin and evil by dying on a cross for us (cf. Colossians 2.14-15), shocking and unexpected as that is. As Paul put it, there is now no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus because on the cross God condemned sin in the flesh so that he would not have to condemn us. By Jesus’ blood we are reconciled to God who has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins (Romans 8.1-4; Col 1.13-14, 19-20).

We know this is true because God raised Jesus from the dead in a mighty act of new creation that would be a preview of the day when God would finally put to rights forever all that is wrong with this present world so that resurrection and new bodily life, eternal life, is our destiny. As Paul reminds us in Romans, those of us who are united to Jesus in faith share in a baptism like his so that we share in his death and resurrection (Romans 6.3-5). And until we see the Lord face-to-face, he is alive and available to us in the power of the Holy Spirit. None of us deserve this gracious gift but it is ours through repentance and faith, thanks be to God!

I can hear some of you right now. What’s this got to do with our gospel lesson? Get to the point, dude. Balyeat’s is filling up as you speak! Here’s the point. Contrary to a superficial reading of this story of judgment which seems to advocate a works-righteousness, it is anything but that because we must fit it squarely within the broader story of the gospel, which is the story of how God has rescued us through Jesus the Messiah, the one true and faithful Israelite. We have been given a wondrous gift, a gift that reflects the very heart of God, and we who have embraced this gift through faith are expected to imitate our Lord in doing the will of his Father. As we have seen, real faith must always show itself in what we do because what we do is always a product of what we think and believe. In the story of the sheep and goats, Jesus is holding up for us a pattern of practical, Calvary-like love lived out in faith for us to follow in our own little neck of the woods and warning us that we too will be judged by how we treat the poor, the least, and the lost, just like those not of the faith will be judged for their treatment of us. This is how we are Jesus’ salt and light to the world. This is how we are called to embody his love and presence in our lives, to respond with compassion to human despair. And of course we find one of the best examples of this kind of faithful, sacrificial love in John Wesley, an Anglican priest whose Methodist movement arguably saved 18th-century England from social revolution.

So how is Jesus calling you to respond to his command to bring his healing love to the world, both as individuals and as part of his body, the Church here at FUMC? What we do with this question will be determined in large part by whether we really do believe that we are loved and claimed by Jesus from all eternity and whether we think he is both present to us in the power of the Spirit and is Lord of all creation, both now and in the future. To believe this takes great faith and trust, a faith and trust that can only come from having a lively and intimate relationship with the living Lord through prayer, worship, study of Scripture, and fellowship. This knowledge produces godly wisdom and a deep desire to please this God who has rescued us from the gates of hell itself, and this in turn will produce sheep-like behavior (in the best sense of our gospel lesson) in response to our knowledge that we really do have Good News, now and for all eternity. To him be honor, praise, and glory forever and ever.

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fr. Ron Feister: What Kind of King?

Sermon delivered on Christ the King Sunday A, November 23, 2014, at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Columbus, OH.

There is no audio podcast for this sermon.

Lectionary texts: Ezekiel  34.11-1620-24Psalm 100.1-4Ephesians 1.15-23Matthew 25.31-46.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing to you our Lord and King.

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Feast we celebrate today is fairly new to the Church. It originated in the 1900’s in Roman Catholic Church as a way of remind the people of God that it was Christ who was the ultimate authority not the secular governments. This was a time in which many secular governments were claiming that they were the ultimate authority even over matters of church and faith. That is not to say that the Christian church ever doubted that Christ was King, but the feast brought a new emphasis to counter-balance this secular trend. Over a fairly short time the feast began to be celebrated and Christ royal role reflected upon by many other denominations including our own. America with the exception of its rebellion from the British Crown has no history of a King providing either actual leadership or even a ceremonial role. Yet Americans are as a group entranced by the concept of royalty. Great news coverage occurs over the latest rumors or announcements concerning new heirs to the British thrown. We run mini-series on our televisions concerning actual or fictional Kings and Queens. Many of the computer and console games deal with one form or another of royalty. It should come as no surprise. Kings are seen as people or instruments of great power.

Kings command people. Kings wield armies. Kings make laws on their own. Kings have the power to preserve life or to destroy it. Kings have the power to pardon. Kings wear expensive jewelry and crowns. Kings take care of their friends. The children of the King can look forward to one day exercising that royal role. It is no wonder that the idea of a King to lead the people is so attractive and it was so to the people of Israel.

Originally God’s chosen people were lead by individuals who were more prophets than rulers. They spoke for God providing the leadership that would take them from Egypt into the promised land. Once settled there, the people did not originally feel the need for an individual leader. There were individuals who were called Judges. These were individuals of faith and learning who would provide guidance to both individuals and to the whole community. There were not, however, political leaders in any true sense. The last of these Judges was Samuel. It was during his life, that he people began to notice that the countries around them were lead by Kings and they started to pester the Lord to have one of their own. The Lord God resisted this call and through his prophets let them know that this would not be good move. Finally God gave in. If they wanted a King, then a King they shall have. He instructed Samuel to anoint Saul to be the first King of Israel. Saul was an obvious choice. A member of the tribe of Benjamin, he was tall, handsome, and humble. He seemed like the perfect person for the job. (Probably would have done very well in today’s TV based politics.) While he started off well, the power and role of King soon went to his head and his humility was replaced by excessive pride. He soon deliberately failed to follow God’s direction. Eventually his life came to an end by his own hand. Saul was followed as King by David. David was anointed for his royal role while still a young boy. He was first and foremost a shepherd. He was short of stature and ruddy in appearance, but still had many of the physical characteristics that made him attractive as a leader. He was skilled at war, he was handsome, strong, and brave. He was a musician and poet. Though he suffered some human frailties, he was said to be a person after God’s own heart and provided faithful leadership for Israel. It was because of this that he was promised that David’s family should rule forever. This now leads us to consider the Firs Reading from Ezekiel. The Leadership of people has broken down under Saul and many of the people have been scattered physically and even more importantly have been separate from God by false teaching of those leaders described as false shepherds or even more dramatically as the fat sheep. Leaders who have become fat by denying the people of God from what truly belongs to them. God makes it clear, that He God will rescue the people.

God will see that they are fed and nurtured. God will shepherd his flock. God will be the judge who rewards and who punishes those who have been faithful and those who have not been faithful. God will do this though David the Shepherd King. In this role, David is not only God’s chosen Instrument but King David becomes the symbol and foreshadowing of the Messianic King – Jesus the Christ. In the Gospel from Matthew, we are given a picture of Christ the King coming in great glory accompanied by the royal court of angels to bring final judgment on the peoples of the nations. Again the symbolism is that of the shepherd who separates the people as a shepherd who separate the sheep from the goats. The faithful are invited to enter into the kingdom prepared for them.

Jesus continues for I has hungry and you feed me, thirsty and you gave me drink. stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you gave me clothes, in prison and you visited me. Perhaps surprisingly the faithful respond when did we do these things for you. Jesus responds when you did it for he least. Why one may ask would they be surprised. Is this not what Jesus asked them to do? I think the answer may be that the faithful want so much to serve their King that they can hardly believe that their simple acts of love and service would be worthy return for the love He has already shown them. They have committed themselves to be faithful subjects of the King and every thing else that flows from that relationship seems insignificant to them – but not to God. Caring for the least is just a normal result of the love that they are experiencing from their Lord and King. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he captures this thought in the first sentence when he says ” I have heard of your faith and your love toward the saints.” Faith in Jesus Christ naturally leads to Love, we can translate in this situation into care, for the saints, that is our brothers and sisters in the Lord, who are in need.

But how do we see Jesus as King? Let us look again as those aspects that we attribute to a King. Kings are persons with great power. There is no doubt that Jesus had great power. He healed the sick, He raised the dead, He turned water into wine. He lead a revolution in religious thought. Kings wield armies. Jesus wields a Church militant committed to conquering the world not with force but with love (not to mention a couple of legions of angels when needed). Kings make laws. Jesus gave us as law to Love our neighbor, those who need us most, as we do ourselves. Kings have the power to preserve life or destroy it. Jesus has given us the means to obtain to obtain eternal life. Kings have the power to pardon. Jesus has pardon us of our sins. Kings wears crowns. Jesus will one day come in great glory but as the servant King, he was willing to wear a crown of thorns. The children and friends of the King can look forward to one day sharing in the royal rule. Though Christ we are called to be co-heirs with Christ, and children of the Father to abide in his Kingdom forever. It is thus that we can acknowledge as we did in the opening Prayer that Jesus Christ, the only and well-beloved Son of the Father, is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords through whom the peoples of the earth, now divided and enslaved by sin, will one day be freed and brought together under His most gracious rule.

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.