King???

November 20, 2016    Christ the King Sunday                        Luke 23:33-43

At the beginning of the service I said that our Bible readings aren’t what we would expect for Christ the King Sunday.  Kings are strong and triumphant people.  We’d then expect Bible texts about Jesus in power and triumph.  Stories about the resurrection would seem to fit.  There we’d see Jesus triumphing over death and we I could create a sermon that says that if you are a faithful person you too will triumph over death.

But our Bible readings are not about the resurrection.  The passage from Luke that we read is about the crucifixion.  This is the opposite of triumph.  This is failure – complete and total failure.  Why this text to celebrate Jesus as king?

Or probably far more important is this question.  Who cares?  When our lives are focused on Thanksgiving and Christmas what does the fact that… a long time ago in a country far far away a Jew named Jesus was killed by being nailed to a stick along the side of a road?  How on earth does that have anything to do with me?  Good question.

If you picked up a Star Wars theme when I said, “a long time ago in a country far far away…,” that was deliberate.  I think that can help us get at the answers we need.

Star Wars is written around the idea that there is a supernatural force that some people can harness to accomplish their will or overcome adversity.  The force can help them overcome almost impossible odds and do things that are nothing short of miraculous.  When harnessed for good evil cannot hope to triumph.  The good guy, with the force as his ally, always wins in the end.  There’s a sacrificial part to it too.  Star Wars fans can certainly point out characters who sacrifice even their lives so as to empower others more effectively.

Many people see their Christian faith in the same way.  They think there are powers of evil at work in the world and that if they do things the right way there are supernatural powers of good that will help them.  They believe that if they harness the correct powers of prayer, and worship, and Bible study that God is sure to help them when their cause is just.  Success may not be easy.  It may require some sacrifice, but it is assured.

They even believe that some people are more skilled at harnessing the powers of good than others are.  I can think of a number of times when I’ve been in the hospital because someone is seriously injured or dying.  Family and friends show relief when I walk into the room.  They ask me to pray to God to save their loved one.  Their sentiments and their fears are understandable.  I don’t want to mock anyone in that terrifying situation, but I also want to say, “If you think that because I arrived more effective prayers will begin rising to heaven you’d better find yourself a better pastor!”  I can’t swing the future or call upon supernatural powers that are going to overcome the present reality.  God’s will will be done and neither I nor anybody else has the power to change that.

If “The Force” from Star Wars was a reflection of Christian theology then we would have Jesus rising from the dead as our Bible readings for Christ the King Sunday.  But we don’t.

Scripture wants us to see Jesus’ kingly and most powerful moment was not in performing miracles or healing people or using divine power, not even in triumphing over death in the resurrection, but in being wrongly crucified; and not making use of divine power whatsoever.  If there was such a thing as the Force, Jesus could certainly have used it.  But he didn’t use that escape route.

Something deeper and more significant is going on here.  Our second reading from Colossians had the verse, “For in [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 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.”  (Colossians 1:19-20)  The word “pleased” is the Greek word .  Indeed it means to be happy with, to be well pleased, or to take delight in something.  In other words, it is God’s delight to come to earth as a limited and mortal human.  And not just delight to come to earth, but delight to reveal the fullness of God’s nature to us – even as that meant crucifixion.

Why do we call Jesus king?  It is not because he was popular, nor because he could do miracles.  It’s not because he would eventually be raised from the dead.  He is king because of his love for us.  And this was not a grudging, almost hateful, demanding love.  It was a delight-filled, a joy-filled love.

Look at the crucifixion scene as our gospel writer Luke lays it out for us.  In the previous verses Jesus has been tried and sentenced to death.  He’s been mocked by soldiers and flogged nearly to death.  He’s forced to shamefully carry a cross – his own means of death – to the execution site.  He fails at it and someone else is compelled to carry it.

With no details in the story at all Luke simply says they crucified him along with other criminals.  He’s taunted and mocked by passers-by, by the religious leaders, and even by one of the criminals with him.  It’s got to be bad when even a bad guy mocks and rejects you with his dying breath.  If ever there would be solidarity you think it’d be then.

What are Jesus’ responses? 

“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

And to a criminal, “You will be with me in paradise.”

            This is the role God takes on with delight!?!  This is how much God loves us?  Humans at their worst, yet God loves us so much that at our worst God still wants to be with us.

Have you ever loved someone or some cause so much that your devotion, even if costly, didn’t seem to hurt much?  Have you ever loved and cared about something and given yourself over to it even if it would never win you praise and no one would notice?

One summer I lived at seminary and picked up a job assisting Guy Kump, one of the maintenance workers.  He was responsible for cleaning and preparing several of the seminary’s buildings for the upcoming fall semester.  There was nothing spectacular or stand-out-ish about him.  He wasn’t particularly smart or great at conversation.  But he did have a passion for cleanliness, especially floors.  Any floor under his care was going to come out spotless.  I remember helping to strip and wax the vast marble floor at the front of the chapel.  After a couple days work and seven coats of wax the floor reflected like a mirror.  It reflected so much light that it almost hurt your eyes.  Overall the chapel is a very beautiful building and visitors often oohed and ahhed when they entered.  A floor that reflected like a mirror was just a part of it all.

If the chapel was magnificent, the seminary compensated with the dorms and apartments on campus.  Old, out of date, and dingy; they were hot in the summer and cold in the winter.  Walk into some of those buildings and you wondered whether the place was coming or going.  But when it came to cleaning and prepping them, Guy Kump saw them as no different than the magnificent chapel.  Floors were scrubbed and cleaned and then waxed with numerous coats.  Students entered and paid no attention to the fact that their floors shone too.  No one noticed how hard Guy worked there.  But to him the darkest most forgotten corner with its worn out old tile was just as important as the marble in the chapel.  I saw him love each and every inch and it was cared for equally.  I think I can safely say that those floors were a part of Guy’s own sense of self.  He found fulfillment and wholeness for himself in the oft overlooked role of being a janitor.

Perhaps that’s a trite example of selfless love, especially compared to the crucifixion, but if you’ve ever felt that way about something you know what I mean.  No matter how much you give and how much it costs, somehow in doing so you find your very own self most complete and fulfilled.

When my colleagues and I met to talk about sermons for today one of them said she wished she could be as loving as Jesus – to be so filled with love that she could genuinely forgive people who were in the process of humiliating her and then killing her.  But she couldn’t.  She knew we were called to mirror the love of Christ, but it would never happen.  She simply couldn’t be that loving.

While we are indeed called to have such selfless love, the good news is that while we are certain to fail, it is not our ability to love that saved us.  The good news is that we are delighted in.  No matter how bad, or shameful or disgusting or unlovable we think we might be, no matter how guilty we may feel that Jesus’ love for us is so superior to our ability to love, we are so loved by God that for God’s own sense of fulfillment God willingly, and in some sense even joyfully, suffered crucifixion to save us.

You are not loved by God reluctantly.  God did not grudgingly die to save you as if you were a burden he was forced to bear against his will.  While horrific and painful, saving you was God’s good pleasure and joy.  His gift.

This gift is what makes Jesus king.  This gift is not seen in resurrection.  It is seen in crucifixion.  Though it happened a long time ago in a country far far away it is God’s resounding Yes! to you, for this day and for every day.  May you always know how much you are loved and how valuable God finds you to be.