Invited into the story: A Sermon for Christ the King Sunday

The following sermon was preached at saint benedict’s table on Sunday November 24, 2019. You can also listen to the live recording or subscribe to our podcast. Just click here.  

In this sermon I reference Alana Levandoski’s song “Cosmic Canticle.” Alana is an amazing artist and all around wonderful human being. You can find “Cosmic Canticle” and her other music by clicking here.

 

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable and pleasing in your sight O God for you are our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

In Kingston, Ontario, there is a church called The Church of the Good Thief.  It no longer functions as a worship space, but instead it holds the regional archives of the Roman Catholic Church.  It gets its name from two sources. The first, is from the gospel story we read tonight, where one of the criminals who is crucified along with Jesus believes and is promised that, “today you will be with me in Paradise.” (43)

The second reason it’s called the Church of the Good Thief is that it was built by men who were incarcerated at the nearby Kingston Penitentiary. They quarried, carried, and placed each piece of limestone that makes up the building.

They weren’t allowed out of the prison to worship there though.

Then as now, our theological logic is rarely rock solid.

Tonight is the last Sunday in the liturgical year, next Sunday a new year begins and we enter into Advent.  The church calendar isn’t linear, it doesn’t begin and end with major feasts celebrating Jesus’ birth and resurrection, but it usually has some internal logic to it.

Tonight is the last Sunday of the church year, often referred to as the Reign of Christ Sunday or Christ the King Sunday.  Tonight’s gospel reading is a story that takes place towards the end of Jesus’ time on earth. It’s a story that shows us that Christ is a king with the power to grant entry into paradise, but Christ is also a very unusual king, dying as a criminal on a cross.

Jesus is complicated. And people have a lot of different ways of managing that complexity.  But usually we manage it by focusing on some details and ignoring others. We just can’t see to hold the whole of who Jesus is at any one time. So sometimes we focus on his humanity, and neglect his divinity and sometimes we do the opposite.

We do this with a lot of different things in our lives, which is how it is possible to have criminals build a church, then name that church in memory of a criminal, and then not allow criminals to worship there.

Or to choose to follow Jesus, but then pick and choose which parts of his message you’re actually going to follow.

If this was a film and I was the director, my production notes would look something like this:

Scene One:  We open on three men nailed to three crosses. Starting with a wide shot, we pan in until we have a close up of the three men’s faces. Their humanity is emphasized by the visible pain on their dirty, sweat covered faces. The scene is brief, the emotion high, and it provides context for everything that is going to happen next.

Scene Two:   Crane shot. Make sure the production assistant finds the biggest crane in existence. The one sitting outside at All Saints is way too small.   The shot pans up higher, higher, as high as we can possibly go away from the earth and then, a chorus of disembodied angelic voices sings the ancient hymn found in Colossians.

See if we can get permission to use Alana Levandoski’s version. Better yet, see if she’ll agree to sing it too.

There are more scenes to come, but first, let’s look at this one in a bit more detail.

Our first reading tonight was from a letter to the church in Colossae.  This group of Christ followers were experiencing persecution because of their faith. Our reading acknowledges this abuse and seeks to provide encouragement to carry on and not give up because God will give them the strength to endure these difficult experiences with patience.

The author of the letter writes, ^“May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.”  (11-12)

So here is the good news? Following Christ will lead to persecution, but God will give us the strength to manage it.

Yeah?

Let’s unpack that a little more.

First of all, it is true that the decision to follow Jesus is not a guarantee of a simple, easy, pain-free life. Christians are not exempt from suffering and difficulty and, in fact, we can expect a degree of suffering and difficulty simply for choosing to follow Jesus.

And the letter to the Colossians is speaking about this specific type of suffering, suffering because of the choice to follow Jesus.

Not every kind of suffering fits into that category, and therefore, what the writer says in the rest of the letter does not apply to every single situation.

If you’re in an abusive situation, it’s OK to leave. It’s important to leave actually.  It’s absolutely OK to make changes in your life that eliminate abuse.

And on the flip side, if you feel you are being mistreated, it’s not an automatic sign that you are suffering because you are a Christian.  Sometimes, it’s a sign that you’re behaving like a jerk.

In this, as in so many situations, discernment is key.

It’s important to keep in mind that this letter was written to people who were experiencing real persecution because of their faith and we should be careful not to water down what the writer is saying by downplaying their experience.

The writing style changes dramatically in the second half of tonight’s reading. It no longer sounds like a letter, it sounds more like a poem, or a creed.  The author of this letter may have written it or they may be referencing an outside source. It’s unclear.

Some theologians suspect that these verses may have been used as a baptismal hymn so it’s fitting that we’re looking at them on a Sunday when we’re also going to be celebrating a baptism.  As Sally A. Brown explains, “Baptism reveals our true destiny and identity. Whatever our life stories may turn out to be, their inconsistencies will be reconciled and their coherence revealed in the reigning, cosmic, visible God for whom we were made.”

These verses paint a grand picture of who Jesus is – the image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation, the head of the body, the beginning, the one in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,” and so on.

These are big, sweeping statements, each one of which could take an entire sermon or even a sermon series to try and unpack.

So instead of trying to do that, I just want to point out a few things.  But first, let’s listen to this hymn one more time:

^“15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; ¹⁶ for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.

¹⁷ He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

¹⁸ He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. ¹⁹ For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰ and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

The hymn begins, “He is the image of the invisible God….” (15) If you spend too long trying to figure out how an invisible God can also be visible you might give yourself a headache, but the poetry of the line reminds us that God is in fact a paradox. Invisible and yet visible. Human and divine. Knowable and yet unknowable.

We can never see God, and yet, in Jesus, we can see God.

Christ is God, all powerful, all knowing, entirely other from you and me. The King.

But Christ was also human,  lived among us, and died on a cross, as our gospel passage reminds us.

N.T. Wright explains that although it’s not obvious in our English translations, in the original text, the author is playing with the various meanings of the word “head,” which in English we have translated as “ firstborn, supreme, head, and beginning.”

But he also notes that, “Now all of this is fascinating simply as an exercise in clever writing…Part of growing up as a Christian is learning to take delight in the way in which God’s truth, whether in physics or theology or whatever, has a poetic beauty about it. But of course Paul isn’t writing this poem just to show off his clever intellectual fireworks, or to provide a sophisticated literary entertainment.  He’s writing this (or, if the poem was originally written by someone else, quoting it) in order to tell the Colossians something that they badly need to know. What is it?

What they need to know above all, if they are to grow as Christians, increasing in wisdom, power, patience and thanksgiving is the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ. The more they get to know, and know about, Jesus Christ, the more they will understand who the true God is and what [God’s] done; who they are as a result; and what it means to live in and for [God.] Much of the rest of the letter, in fact, is an exploration of the meaning of the poem. Look on to 2:3, for instance, where Paul declares that all the treasures wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ himself.”

Wright continues “…Christianity isn’t simply about a particular way of being religious. It isn’t about a particular system of how to be saved here and hereafter. It isn’t simply a different way of holiness. Christianity is about Jesus Christ; and this poem, one of the earliest Christian poems ever written, is as good a place to start exploring it as any. This is what the Colossians needed to know and we today need to rediscover it.” (150)

Now, back to our movie.  We began with a reminder of Jesus’ humanity followed by a quick cut to a crane shot that hurtled us up into the cosmos where an angelic choir sang a hymn that remind us of Jesus’ divinity.

Fully human, fully divine. It makes no sense.  And yet Christians have claimed it as one of the key truths of their faith since the very beginning of the church.

And now the camera pans slowly back to earth and the films’ pacing slows down dramatically.  There will be no major action sequences or montages set to a rocking soundtrack. Instead, there will be an invitation to slow down, to wait, to not rush to conclusions or an ending to this story.

This particular film will end with a story from Jesus’ life to bookend the opening scene. A story designed to emphasize his humanity and to remind us that this is not an ordinary story or an ordinary child. This is a child who will change everything.

For the final scene, the camera zooms in slowly, slowly on the baby’s face and then the scene fades to black as the words “To be continued” appear on the screen.

And the story does continue. It continues to this very night in this very church where, in a few moments, we will welcome Edmund McKenzie Newsom into this story through baptism.

We’re going to sing shortly, and as we sing, the baptismal party, friends, and members of the family are invited to join us at the back of the church.

Christ is King, and Christ invites each of us into this story. Surely this is good news.

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