The Reign of Christ, Year C

Faith's Illusions

Readings: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Canticle 19; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43

Following a turbulent marriage, Joni Mitchell meditates on life in a song.

“I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down and still somehow,
It's cloud's illusions I recall,
I really don't know clouds at all”

She goes on to say that it is not only clouds, but life that she doesn’t really understand. In her topsy-turvy world up is down, good is bad, more is less.

I resonate with her on many levels. There have been turbulent times in my life when nothing seemed to be the way it should be. I would look up at the sky and see only dark clouds, even when the sun was shining. And yet I knew, even at my lowest times, that God loved me. I knew that God was there even when I was unable to sense God’s presence.

Our faith is based on a topsy-turvy world. That table turning, topsy-turvy way of looking at things is God’s way. Consider what we believe! God took on human form. God is a king born in a manger to lowly parents. God is a friend of outcasts and strangers. God came to serve rather than to be served. God died on the cross as a common criminal to bring life to humankind.

That is, after all, what we are called to reflect on this last Sunday of the Church Year, as we celebrate the reign of Christ. The readings call us to examine what it means that Christ reigns as king. What is the Christian image of kingship? For ours is a king who reigns, not from a throne, but from a cross. And that is such a topsy-turvy way of expressing kingship.

In our humanity, in our hunger for power, we so often get it wrong. How often has the cross become a symbol of might rather than a symbol of peace? Christianity began as a small group of powerless people in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. But by the time of Constantine in the fourth century, the church had become integrated into the social system of the same empire that had persecuted it. The Christians who had been persecuted became the persecutors. Constantine became the righteous king through whom God's reign could be established on earth.

In medieval times, Emperors throughout Europe considered themselves to be kings by divine right, representing the fatherhood of God on earth. How many wars have been fought because of that way of thinking? Fought in the name of God with shouts from both sides that "God is on our side"?

What a different view of kingship we Christians are called to proclaim! In the Old Testament reading for today, the prophet Jeremiah proclaims, “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch.” He is concerned with the quality of those who are in leadership in Israel. In fact, he does not hold a very high opinion of those who are. He makes a pledge to the people of Israel on behalf of God, the ultimate shepherd. God will gather the people back from exile. God will guide them back to Israel where they will enjoy good leadership.

As Christians we discern in the reading a promise of the coming of Jesus who embodies righteousness and offers a vision of justice that stands out in contrast to the reality of the society in which we live. We know that it will come at great price. King Jesus will indeed come, and will sacrifice life itself to give life to the people of God, because in God’s topsy-turvy world death is life.

The Gospel once again proclaims the story of the crucifixion. The sign placed on the cross reminds us that Jesus is a king. And even as he hangs on the cross there are those who hope that King Jesus will come in power. “Save yourself and us!” one of the criminals shouts out. Isn’t Jesus the longed for Messiah, the one who will address Israel’s hope of liberation? That Jesus is, after all, the Jesus of the Gospel. Did he not march into the synagogue and overturn the tables of the moneychangers? Did he not roll up the scroll in the temple as he announced good news to the poor, to the hungry, to those who mourned? Did he not proclaim change?

But then in God’s mysterious way, he died on a cross as a common criminal. In God’s topsy-turvy world is it the end of power, or the beginning? Jesus was enormously powerful, even from the cross. He spread a revolution of love and grace. Christ the King is a counter image of a life poured out in compassion. That is why two thousand years later we still follow him.

A family, father, mother and two small children lived in a small house in a rural village. One night there was a terrible fire. The house went up in flames. There was no fire engine in this remote spot, and so the villagers stood around helplessly, watching the blaze.

Just then a young man arrived on the scene. Taking no thought for himself he darted into the house. He emerged carrying a small child under each arm. The children were unharmed, but he himself was badly burned.

The parents of the two children died in the fire. There was much sympathy for the two children. Several people wanted to adopt them. When the judge arrived to decide who would adopt the children, there were two petitions that came before the court. The first was a wealthy landowner. He had money, position, and a fine house to offer the children. The second was the man who had rescued the children from the flames. When the judge asked him what right he had to ask the court for the children no words were necessary. He merely held up his hands to reveal the scars.

What a different King we follow! King Jesus holds out his hands to us. We see the scars and know that Jesus’ suffering and pain was his royal road to us. It was in giving up his life for us that he showed us God’s glory and passionate love. As Christians we are part of God’s topsy-turvy world. It is a world where contradictions bear fruit. Like existence, life does not end in death. Rather, death ends in life.

What are the signs that it is happening in our world? What are the signs of resurrection? Because so often all we can see are dark clouds. All we can understand are the illusions. All we experience is the doubts.

It is our ministry as servants of Christ, our bearing Christ to the world that helps us to see and understand life as it is. It begins with each one of us recognizing that we lead by serving. All of us come every day in contact with people in need. And don't think for a moment that it doesn't matter. And don't think for a moment that you don't know what to do. And don't think that you need special training. Often it is a ministry of compassionate listening which is most needed in a world where no one ever stops or cares. And every one of us can do that. It is in reaching out to others that we accept the servant ministry that reflects our acceptance of Christ as king in our lives.

As our church year comes to a close, we concentrate on the coming of the king. Does that numb us to the suffering about us and to our responsibility in the midst of it all? Or does it inspire us to loving service?

May Christ the King be king of our lives now as he shall be forever. May the truth of Christ's kingship spur us on to living our lives for him and for others!

The Reign of Christ

I Was Hungry

Readings: Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Psalm 100; Ephesians 1:15-23; Matthew 25:31-46

This last Sunday of the Church Year is called the Reign of Christ. On this day we celebrate Christ as king. We celebrate Jesus' reign that began with his ascension and continues as Paul expresses it in the letter to the Corinthians, "until all are made alive in Christ". It is a celebration that calls us to look at the whole concept of leadership within the kingdom of God.

And here, as so often in our life of faith lies a great paradox, for Christ our King is a king so different from any earthly experience we might imagine. To begin with, there is Ezekiel’s image of kingship. It is one that provides both pastoral faithfulness and justice. While he demands repentance on the part of the people, he also offers such hope and consolation. He speaks of God as the shepherd King, the one who searches for his lost sheep. Like a shepherd caring for the sheep, the shepherd King rescues the strays and binds up the ones who have been hurt. It is an image of kingship, which lays out the standard for the whole community. No fat, strong sheep push aside the weak or the sick. In God’s kingdom of shalom all are valued and live together in peace.

The image of the reigning Christ in Matthew’s gospel offers us that same sense of God’s grace. Jesus appears on the clouds at the end of time as a king sitting in judgement on those who stand before him. As we stand there looking up at his grace and majesty he questions us about the way we lived our lives. “I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,” he says, and we wonder when it was that we saw Jesus thirsty. “I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was sick and you took care of me,” Jesus says to us. And we look back in our lives and remember the times we have seen the face of Christ in those we have met along the way.

It is a passage of Scripture, which evokes many memories in me. The first is an incident that happened to me many years ago when a friend and I visited my parents who were living in Jamaica. They did not live in the tourist area along the coast. They lived up in Christiana in the interior of Jamaica. It is a mountainous area where the roads are winding and narrow. On the last day of our holiday we headed off towards the airport in Kingston in our rental car. We did not get very far. Still in the mountains close to a town called Maypen, we were involved in an accident. We found ourselves in serious trouble. My friend was charged with careless driving. I was charged with aiding and abetting. We were taken to jail in Maypen. I finally got permission from the police to make a phone call. My sister answered. My parents were out.

“Get someone to come and get us out of jail,” I pleaded with her. And a couple of hours later, who should come but my parents’ friend, the priest in Maypen, Neville De Souza, who would later become the bishop. His arrival changed everything. The hostility against us abated. We were allowed to leave, although we still faced charges and had to appear in court a couple of weeks later. I love to remind Bishop de Souza that “when I was in prison, you visited me”. I like to remind him that he is the face of Christ for me.

It reminds me for a completely different reason of the weekend I spent living on the streets of Toronto. I was doing a course in Urban Ministry, which involved doing a ‘plunge’, living as a homeless person for two days. It was a life changing experience for me on a number of levels as I came face to face with poverty. I ended up in a hostel for battered women. There I shared a room with a young woman whom I will call Elaine. She had fled an abusive relationship. She was a recovering drug addict, probably a prostitute, but she was truly trying to get her life together and hoped that she would be reunited with her children who had been taken into custody by the CAS.

On Saturday evening she said to me, “Come to church with me tomorrow. You look like someone who would like to go to church.” I looked at my grubby jeans and sweatshirt, the only clothing I had. She saw my reluctance. “It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing,” she said to me. “Just come.” And so off to church we went. What’s more, it was a rather highbrow church in a good neighbourhood of Toronto. There was no room at the back of the church, of course, so Elaine led the way up the aisle to the front where she sang the hymns loudly and with obvious enjoyment. People around us tried hard to ignore us. I have to say, they did a really good job. We were not asked to sign the guest book. We were not invited to coffee hour. For “we were strangers and they did not welcome us.” Sadly I did not see the face of Christ in them. It was in Elaine that I saw that beautiful reflection.

Matthew wants us to know that our relationship to God is judged by our treatment of the oppressed. That judgement comes to all of us. Believers, those who have faith in God, are judged. And judgement is very much a question of our relationship to Christ. Do we see Christ in others? Do we reach out to those in need, not in judgement, but in true compassion for their need? Our guilt arises not from doing wrong things, not from being evil, but from failing to do what is right.

Our Christian calling is to be Christ like. Everything we can learn from Scripture leads us to know that Jesus makes himself one with those in need. He allies himself to the poor and the oppressed. As the shepherd of Israel, he is in solidarity with the whole of human misery in all its range and depth. He came to see that everything is as it should be.

He came as an amazing gift of God’s grace to help us to find God. And that happens in the most unexpected places, and in the most unexpected ways. We might think that we will find God in some mountaintop experience that lifts us from the everyday into the sublime. Those mountaintop experiences are important to us. They open our eyes to God’s awesome glory. But when it comes down to it, it is in the midst of the dirty, the grubby, the smelly and the unlovely that we will truly know God. It is in our actions that we will live out our faith.

The word went out. Jesus was coming again. These stories had made the rounds many times before. But somehow this time it was different. Everyone set about preparing for the return of the King. There was much speculation about where and how he would return. But there was no doubt that it would happen on Sunday.

The day dawned, cold and windy. People were up and stirring, filled with anticipation. A stranger wandered through the city streets, his tattered clothing in sharp contrast to his surroundings. He stopped in front of one house, went up and rapped on the door. A woman answered. He stood there for a moment in silence.

"What do you want?" she snapped at him. "Don't you know that this is a busy day? Christ is returning. We're all getting ready for church. He's sure to make an appearance there. I don't have time for you. Besides there are soup kitchens where the likes of you can get a meal."

He turned sadly and walked on down the street. It was the same everywhere he stopped. They were all too busy to look after a poor, hungry man.

At eleven o'clock he arrived at the door of a huge church. He could hear the sound of the magnificent organ and the singing of the choir. But the door was closed. He opened it and started down the aisle toward the only vacant seat, right up at the front of the church. All eyes turned toward him. Noses wrinkled as the smell of someone who has not had a shower in many days reached their senses. They noted with disdain the holes in the knees of his jeans and his filthy jacket. Two men appeared in the aisle.

"Out you go. There isn't a seat for you. We're saving that one for Christ. We are expecting him any minute now. He's sure to come here. This is, after all, the finest church in the city."

His heart heavy, he left the building and began to walk across the park. He walked for some time and finally came to a bridge over a ravine. He could see some people sitting by a fire they had made. As he approached they made room for him and he too began to warm his hands over the flame. A pot of stew was bubbling merrily on the fire. They ladled it out and motioned to him to take a plate.

"We're waiting for Christ to come," they told him. "But I don't suppose he'll find his way down here."

And the man lifted up his eyes to heaven. He blessed the food and began to eat. "I was hungry and you gave me food," he said to them.

Where after all do we find Christ? It is in the least expected places. Our God, you see, is a king who reigns, not from a throne, but from a cross. God's sovereign way is not the way of the world. It is not the way of power, but of powerlessness, a powerlessness that overturns all of our preconceived notions about God. Thanks be to God!

The Reign of Christ, Year B

A Kingdom of Truth

Readings: 2 Sam 23:1-7; Psalm 132:2-23; Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37

Perhaps you feel as I do sometimes when you switch on the morning news or read the newspaper over a cup of coffee. I try to wrap my mind around everything that is going on in our country and around the world. It sometimes seems as if I am trying to awaken from a terrible dream. However, the belief and hope in a Saviour that enters exactly where the forces of chaos seem to be most rampant is what allows me to get up and face the day. Particularly as we come to the end of the Church Year and consider a new beginning, I find myself taking heart in the image of Christ, a king born in the shadow of the Roman Empire, threatened, persecuted and killed by that empire, but risen from the dead and reigning on high. It is a hope in the promise of salvation that carries me through and allows me to open myself up to all the possibilities that I see in Christ.

On this last Sunday of the Church Year, the Reign of Christ, we are challenged to ponder issues of divine and human power and leadership. Do our visions of divine power shape our images of human power and authority? Or, do our visions and practices of human power shape how we view God? Do we use our visions of God as justifications for our own power relationships, our power over others? As I ponder these questions, I suspect our understandings of the relationship of divine and human power are one and the same as they relate to issues of gender, sexuality, class, political policy.

I spent three days this week pondering those same questions in terms of our relationship to our Indigenous peoples. I attended a conference training people to be ambassadors in the Truth and Reconciliation process as we come to terms with the abuse our Indigenous peoples suffered in the residential schools that robbed them of their language, their culture, their relationship with their families, their childhood. I found myself having to deal with my part in that abuse as a teacher in that same system. And over the course of the three days I found a point of healing in which I was given permission to forgive myself and reclaim what a privilege and a blessing it was to have taught in that northern community. It was a time of turning the tables on power that resonates so clearly with this week's gospel and indeed with the whole them of Christ as King.

Jesus is brought before Pilate. The accusation against him is that he is claiming to be a king. He stands there, this peasant figure, hands tied behind his back, bruised and bleeding from the abuse of his captors. "What is all the fuss about?" Pilate says to himself. "Can you, poor creature that you are, really be a king? What kind of a threat could you possibly pose to Imperial Rome?" And then aloud, he demands, "Are you the king of the Jews?"

Jesus answers boldly, "Are you asking, or is it what you have been told about me?"
Pilate is taken aback. Doesn’t this man know his power? "Do I look like a Jew?" Pilate demands. Then back to the task at hand, "It is your own people who have handed you over to me. You must have done something to deserve this treatment. What have you done?"

"My kingdom is not of this world." Jesus continues. And it is true! So true that Pilate cannot even imagine how different. Jesus’ kingdom has no boundaries, no army, no wealth. His authority comes from God alone. His is a kingdom based on justice and mercy. It is impossible for someone like Pilate who cannot help but think in worldly terms to even conceive of what Jesus is saying.

Pilate is a politician. He understands authority. He has wealth. He has power. "So that means that you are a king after all!" He says to Jesus. He wants a yes or no answer. But that is not what he gets.

"I would not choose the title "king" for myself," Jesus explains. "For to be a king as you know it is not my role. My mission is to be a witness, not a king. My subjects are those who believe what I have to say."

Those few words overturn every concept of kingship and power that one can imagine. Do they raise questions in your mind as they do in mine? In what sense is Jesus king? In what sense is he Lord of the events of my life? Who is Jesus for me? Those are the questions that arise for me as we celebrate this feast.

John the Divine gives us a long list of descriptions for who Jesus is for him. ‘The one who is, and who was, and who is to come, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, the ruler of the kings of the earth, the one who loves us, the one who has freed us from our sins, the alpha and the omega’. Can we hear in these descriptive names for Jesus the excitement that John has for the faith? So often our image of Jesus is confined to the comfortable.

For many the image is gentle Jesus with the children hanging on to his knees. That is the picture many of us grew up with in Sunday School. It is a warm and comforting image of Christ. It is a view of Jesus that takes me immediately back to my childhood. I can see myself kneeling at the side of my bed, hands folded, rattling off my prayers, “Now I lay me down to sleep… God bless mommy and daddy… ” A wonderful image, but will it get me up off my knees and out into the real world.

For many Jesus is the good shepherd. Even in our urban society where shepherds are no where to be found we take comfort in that beautiful image. We see ourselves out in the fields following after Jesus, not a care in the world. He is there to comfort, to guide, to lead, to heal our wounds, to protect us from danger.

Perhaps for us Jesus is our personal therapist. We bring all of our problems to Jesus. We come in our neediness with our long list of woes. We expect that Jesus will make our lives easy and comfortable. It is important to pray for our needs and the needs of others. But it is important because it should inspire and motivate us to action. We need to get up off our knees and do something about ourselves and about the state of the world.

Then perhaps the right image for Jesus would be that of radical reformer. If we want to change the world, to make it a better place, to put and end to violence and war, then Jesus the reformer is the one we need to follow. We want an end to violence and war. And we’ll fight to make it happen. That may seem a 60’s kind of role for Jesus, yet in many ways it is fairly traditional. At least some of the disciples seem often to be viewing Jesus in the traditional role of Messiah. They followed Jesus because in their messianic fervour they were convinced that Jesus would overthrow the Roman rulers and become the political liberator. They believed that God had sent Jesus to save the Jewish nation. They looked for a messiah who would restore the kingdom of Israel. He would conquer the enemies of Israel and become the ruler of an earthly kingdom. That was certainly the kind of kingship that Pilate’s questions to Jesus reflect.

The problem is that Jesus is all of those things and so much more. When we limit who Jesus is we lose the capacity to see God as other than a resource for personal need. We lose our vision that will propel us in the breaking in of God’s kingdom. We lose sight of the kingship of Jesus. We have a vocation. We have a Lord to serve. We have a kingdom to build.

I know that my part in that kingdom building will include something about the work that the Church needs to do in righting the wrongs done to our indigenous peoples, in walking with them on the road to healing and truth telling. At this point I am unsure just what that will entail. But I know it will bring me full circle in my life.

All of us are on that journey. How do people come to know that we are Christians? How do they know that we serve King Jesus? To know who Jesus is in our lives should inspire and motivate us to action. I am not advocating that you go out two by two into the community collaring unsuspecting victims and dragging them back to church. But if our faith does not motivate us to action, then we are lacking something. If the suffering around us numbs us then we will be unable to take responsibility for it. Being Christian, following Jesus, being forgiven and having eternal life are not so much about what affects us, but how we live as servants of God and how we affect the lives of others. May God grant that the sin that divides us from one another may be overcome, and that we may be united under the gentle and glorious rule of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We are called to loving service in the world on behalf of our king. May we proclaim that Christ is king in our lives! May it spur us on to living our lives for Christ and for those around us!

The Reign of Christ, Year A

Finding God

Readings: Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Psalm 100; Ephesians 1:15-23; Matthew 25:31-46

This last Sunday of the Church Year is called the Reign of Christ. On this day we celebrate Christ as king. We celebrate Jesus' reign that began with his ascension and continues as Paul expresses it in the letter to the Corinthians, "until all are made alive in Christ". It is a celebration that calls us to look at the whole concept of leadership within the kingdom of God.

And here, as so often in our life of faith lies a great paradox, for Christ our King is a king so different from any earthly experience we might imagine. To begin with, there is Ezekiel’s image of kingship. It is one that provides both pastoral faithfulness and justice. While he demands repentance on the part of the people, he also offers such hope and consolation. He speaks of God as the shepherd King, the one who searches for his lost sheep. Like a shepherd caring for the sheep, the shepherd King rescues the strays and binds up the ones who have been hurt. It is an image of kingship which lays out the standard for the whole community. No fat, strong sheep push aside the weak or the sick. In God’s kingdom of shalom all are valued and live together in peace.

The image of the reigning Christ in Matthew’s gospel offers us that same sense of God’s grace. Jesus appears on the clouds at the end of time as a king sitting in judgement on those who stand before him. As we stand there looking up at his grace and majesty he questions us about the way we lived our lives. “I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,” he says, and we wonder when it was that we saw Jesus thirsty. “I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was sick and you took care of me,” Jesus says to us. And we look back in our lives and remember the times we have seen the face of Christ in those we have met along the way.

It is a passage of Scripture which evokes many memories in me. The first is an incident that happened to me many years ago when a friend and I visited my parents who were living in Christiana in Jamaica. On the last day of our holiday we headed off towards the airport in Kingston in our rental car. We did not get very far. Still in the mountains close to Maypen, we were involved in an accident. We found ourselves in serious trouble. My friend was charged with careless driving. I was charged with aiding and abetting. We were taken to jail in Maypen. I finally got permission from the police to make a phone call. My sister answered. My parents were out.

“Get someone to come and get us out of jail,” I pleaded with her. And a couple of hours later, who should come but my parents’ friend, the priest in Maypen, Neville De Souza, who would later become the bishop. His arrival changed everything. The hostility against us abated. We were allowed to leave, although we still faced charges and had to appear in court a couple of weeks later. I love to remind Bishop de Souza that “when I was in prison, you visited me”. I like to remind him that he is the face of Christ for me.

It reminds me for a completely different reason of the weekend I spent living on the streets of Toronto. I was doing a course in Urban Ministry which involved doing a ‘plunge’, living as a homeless person for two days. It was a life changing experience for me on a number of levels as I came face to face with poverty. I ended up in a hostel for battered women. There I shared a room with a young woman whom I will call Elaine. She had fled an abusive relationship. She was a recovering drug addict, probably a prostitute, but she was truly trying to get her life together and hoped that she would be reunited with her children who had been taken into custody by the CAS.

On Saturday evening she said to me, “Come to church with me tomorrow. You look like someone who would like to go to church.” I looked at my grubby jeans and sweatshirt, the only clothing I had. She saw my reluctance. “It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing,” she said to me. “Just come.” And so off to church we went. What’s more, it was a rather highbrow church in a good neighbourhood of Toronto. There was no room at the back of the church, of course, so Elaine led the way up the aisle to the front where she sang the hymns loudly and with obvious enjoyment. People around us tried hard to ignore us. I have to say, they did a really good job. We were not asked to sign the guest book. We were not invited to coffee hour. For “we were strangers and they did not welcome us.” Sadly I did not see the face of Christ in them. It was in Elaine that I saw that beautiful reflection.

Matthew wants us to know that our relationship to God is judged by our treatment of the oppressed. That judgement comes to all of us. Believers, those who have faith in God, are judged. And judgement is very much a question of our relationship to Christ. Do we see Christ in others? Do we reach out to those in need, not in judgement, but in true compassion for their need? Our guilt arises not from doing wrong things, not from being evil, but from failing to do what is right.

Our Christian calling is to be Christ like. Everything we can learn from Scripture leads us to know that Jesus makes himself one with those in need. He allies himself to the poor and the oppressed. As the shepherd of Israel, he is in solidarity with the whole of human misery in all its range and depth. He came to see that everything is as it should be.

He came as an amazing gift of God’s grace to help us to find God. And that happens in the most unexpected places, and in the most unexpected ways. We might think that we will find God in some mountaintop experience that lifts us from the everyday into the sublime. Those mountaintop experiences are important to us. They open our eyes to God’s awesome glory. But when it comes down to it, it is in the midst of the dirty, the grubby, the smelly and the unlovely that we will truly know God. It is in our actions that we will live out our faith.

One of our young people was relating an argument that a classmate had proffered about world poverty. He argued that with the number of people in the world who die every day because of poverty related issues, buying a television set is an act of killing. The money could save hundreds of lives. While I think his argument is flawed, in the light of the gospel there is a ring of truth to it. For we all have a part to play in ending the cycle of poverty. I hope you all saw the article from our Diocese in the Toronto Star. If you didn’t I have posted it on the bulletin board. It is a call to action on the part of Anglicans and other like minded people to call on the government even in the midst of recession to live up to its commitment to end poverty.

We are in the midst of our Stewardship campaign for this year. We have put the needs of our parish forward. We know the needs in our community. It is up to us to let our actions speak. Because that is how we will truly find God. We will find God in the hungry and thirsty. We will find God in the smelly and unlovely. We will find God in the sick and the dying. We will find God in those to whom we reach out. We will even find God in those who take advantage of our generosity. There is no other place that we can expect to find the body of Christ.