Last Sunday After Pentecost - Year B 2009

Last Sunday afer Pentecost (Christ the King) – Year B (RCL)
Daniel 7: 9 – 10, 13 – 14; Psalm 93; Revelation 1: 4b – 8; John 18: 33 – 37
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, Portland OR
Sunday, November 22, 2009

ALL THE KING’S HORSES, AND ALL THE KING’S MEN (PEOPLE)

Let us pray: All powerful and mighty God we strive to know you in our own human and secular visions. Throughout our history we have ascribed to you the images and metaphors of our own times and ages. Yet you remain timeless and ageless. You reign in our hearts and in our heads as the source of all our being and the servant of all our needs. In these conflicting images of your presence, teach us to grasp you and not to mold you according to our feeble attempts. Keep us ever mindful of your many and varied names and images which we have given you – and mostly those which you have given us, our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer – our Father, Son and Holy Spirit - our newborn infant in a feeding troth and our ruler on the throne of eternity. Amen.
(SUNG) ALL HAIL THE POWER OF JESUS’ NAME! LET ANGEL’S PROSTRATE FALL; BRING FORTH THE ROYAL DIADEM AND CROWN HIM LORD OF ALL! BRING FORTH THE ROYAL DIADEM, AND CROWN HIM LORD OF ALL.

I’m sure that it comes as a surprise to none of you that I find male dominated imagery and language as it references God and God’s presence among us as difficult, to say the least. Part of the reason for this is that imagery and language so powerfully shape our perceptions and realities that I would like those who are growing in faith and knowledge of the love of God to be able to broaden their concepts and images of who and what God can be for them in their lives. Jesus was, I think, aware of this when in the narrative of the synoptic Gospels we hear quoted “How I have longed to gather you as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” The truth of the nature of the Divine is that God is neither male nor female. We who have written and preached about this God since the beginning of our relationship have tended to skew our imagery and language toward the masculine depictions with which we are all familiar. God as Father, and God as King are not easily transposed in our culture to God as Mother and God as Queen. Part of my attempt to address this cultural bias is to be as intentional as I can be to remove any reference to God in gender specific terms and consequently to drop all pronoun references and only use terms which are gender neutral. That can work to some extent; yet still we reach days in the church or liturgical year which have historically been referenced to various aspects of our human understanding of the nature of God. Today is one such day – today is the last Sunday of Pentecost and therefore the feast of Christ the King.

The imagery and metaphors around that imagery in our scripture references this morning also point toward this recognition of God as the ruler (or King) of the universe and Jesus as having come to bring a fulfillment of God’s reign (or Kingdom) among us through the incarnation of God made human in Jesus and living and dying as one of us; yet fulfilling God’s purpose for us by rising from the dead and destroying death forever. In the apocryphal vision of the Hebrew prophet Daniel – we Christians see “the one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven”, as the second coming of our Christ whose “dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away.” Our second reading, from the Christian apocryphal literature of the Revelation of John points toward Jesus as the firstborn of the dead, and ruler of the kings of the earth…whom we see coming with the clouds…the alpha and the omega…who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

(SUNG) YE HEIRS OF ISRAEL’S CHOSEN REACE, YE RANSOMED OF THE FALL, HAIL HIM WHO SAVES YOU BY HIS GRACE, AND CROWN HIM LORD OF ALL! HAIL HIM WHO SAVES YOU BY HIS GRACE, AND CROWN HIM LORD OF ALL!

It is, however, in the Evangelist’s telling from the author of John’s Gospel which we heard this morning wherein Jesus tells the Roman Governor and ruler of the Judean territory what is really true about his nature and about his Kingdom. Pilate concerned mostly, if not entirely for the political ramifications of Jesus’ claim to power; asks, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus, as is typical for those of us familiar with his rhetorical style answers the question with a question. “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Here Jesus is using this rhetorical style for clarification rather than as an opportunity for further education; that is Jesus wants to know, where did you get this title for me? The author of this Gospel narrative has already explained in great detail in previous Chapters that Jesus has been avoiding the status of kingship. For example after the feeding of the five thousand Jesus withdraws from the crowds because they were “about to come and take him by force to make him king.” Jesus will continue to push back from the title of King in this exchange with Pilate. “You say that I am a King.” Also we will gain some insight into the nature of Jesus’ “kingdom” in this exchange. “My kingdom is not from this world.” Jesus does not draw the power of the Kindom of God from any earthly source; and therefore can indeed claim that God’s Kindom is come in his person – and ask that the Kindom come, and God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus’ confrontation with the political power of his day is then, not about power; but rather about truth. Pilate, being a shrewd and savvy member of the power structure of Rome knows only how to view Kings and subjects in as much as they will present a threat to the empire and his own political power. Jesus – who speaks and lives from the position of truth – knows that power and position are fleeting concepts, which provide no interest in the reign of God. Jesus claims the power of God’s dominion; God’s reign and that power is based in truth. “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

(SUNG) LET EVERY KINDRED, EVERY TRIBE, ON THIS TERRESTIAL BALL, TO HIM ALL MAJESTY ASCRIBE, AND CROWN HIM LORD OF ALL! TO HIM ALL MAJESTY ASCRIBE, AND CROWN HIM LORD OF ALL!

So, here I find myself preaching on the feast of Christ the King and wondering how do we begin to understand what our language and imagery around God can do to shape the vision of the next generation of Christians? If we are conscious of describing God’s reign as radically inclusive and open to all of God’s children; then how can we open up those images of God and Christ to our children and our children’s children so that they might be able to carry the message of hope and promise to a world which desperately needs them. This is a world which is locked in the grip of fear. Fear of the “other”, fear of the “different” whether that difference is skin color or “orthodox belief”. One way, I think, is to be brave enough as our Presiding Bishop was brave enough in her first remarks after election to push the borders of our comfortable constructs of God and God’s nature. Allow me, once again to quote from a sermon that Bishop Katharine preached to the General Convention:

“When Jesus says that his kingdom is not of this world, he is saying that his rule is not based on the ability to generate fear in his subjects. A willingness to go to the cross implies vulnerability so radical, so fundamental, that fear has no impact or import. The love he invites us to imitate removes any possibility of reactive or violent response. King Jesus’ followers don’t fight back when the world threatens. Jesus calls us friends, not agents of fear…Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation – and you and I are his children. If we’re going to keep on growing into Christ-images for the world around us, we’re going to have to give up fear.

That was risky, in those first remarks which were to be carried to the world to refer to “our mother Jesus”. I think the choice was intentional and powerful and I think it served to open the hearts of those who might otherwise be deaf to the hope of the Gospel message. If we are to live in a Twenty First century understanding of God than that God needs to speak to a Twenty First century Church which is able to incorporate all sorts of images and languages to open the heart of that God for those who seek as well as for those who have already found. In my own way, I use the language of the Kindom of God as my attempt to open others ears and hearts to the good news of God in Christ. I borrowed this image from a mentor in my spiritual development, Deacon Marla McGarry Lawrence at St. Michael and All Angels in Portland. She opened for me a new way to vision the old language, which had carried so much baggage. This was also the case for someone in my former parish community who picked up on that image. I share with you a short poem which Mark Phinny sent to me one day that assured me of God’s on-going influence in my life and ministry: I offer it, not because it speaks of me or my ministry – but rather because it speaks of how our subtle uses of images and language about God can influence those with whom we come in contact, in other words those with whom we minister:


PS – a short poem
Most people know Dennis for his small ‘j’, somebody in the screen actors guild took the big ‘J’ but Dennis took that small ‘j’ and made it his. It gives a unique twist, makes people smile when they say it. I know Dennis for his missing ‘g’. I don’t know if anybody else knows about it, even him, but he taught me about the Christ with that missing ‘g’. It happened one day when he was talking about the kin – dom of God. All the crowns and thrones and carpets and scepters disappeared with that one word. The separation and fear and judgment all disappeared too. They left behind the feeling of family – the warmth and comfort of kin. Kin is like comfortable family; don’t sweat the small stuff kind of love. Run around in your stocking feet and laugh out loud! That missing ‘g’ just opens up the Word, makes it clear that it is for everybody. Kin – dom means come on in, the foods a-cooking and the family is here. I always thought that it must be kinda lonely being king, but being kin – count me in!

Opening up the language and metaphor’s that we use to refer to the Divine helps to bring the message of God to those who have found the message to be dominating and opressive and tell them that God can be a brooding hen who watches over her children; or our Mother Jesus who gives birth to a new creation. It means that we can celebrate the feast of Christ the King with the good news of the Kindom of God come among us. I pray as we end this liturgical year – that we might greet the New Year with all of the possiblities that lie before us to spread the Gospel that all might hear it with new ears and spread it with a new voice and God’s reign may come anew!

Amen