Have you made your New Year's resolutions?

 

A sermon for Pentecost 24, or Christ the King Sunday

Texts: Jeremiah 23:1-6, Colossians 1:11-20, Luke 23:33-43

This is the 26th week after Pentecost, and the last Sunday of the liturgical year. We’re at the equivalent of New Year's Eve, and resolutions for the next year are not inappropriate. This Sunday is also known as Christ the King Sunday, and we have heard about kings and kingdoms in all three readings this morning. The reading that sticks out, that seems out of place, is Christ’s crucifixion in Luke’s Gospel, definitely not a kingley event. We would expect to only read that passage during Holy Week, so it is puzzling why we read it now, just before Advent when we prepare for Christ’s birth into the world and our lives. But that gospel reading also is about his kingship, and his kingdom.

Jeremiah starts off describing the kings in his time as shepherds, and for him, those kings have failed the people whom they rule. Rather than keeping the people safe and cared for, the shepherd kings have scattered them, driving them away from their home. Jeremiah is blaming the kings of Israel for having been conquered by Babylon through their corruption and poor decisions, and the kings will have to answer to God. Then we move to Jesus, hung on a cross on Golgotha along with two other criminals. This was the worst possible thing to happen to the Messiah, the king-like person who many in Israel hoped would drive out the Romans and liberate the country. The despair and grief that Jesus’ followers felt as they watched him die was made worse by the sign the Romans put over his head: Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeoru, or Jesus of Nazarus, king of the Jews. Kingdoms may be conquered, but they are conquered by other kings, not cut short like this. Between these two readings, we get a pretty dismal picture of kings and kingdoms. If Jesus couldn’t, or wouldn’t save himself, what hope do we have for the world that would be part of his kingdom?

That lack of hope, that despair for rulers and for ourselves is unavoidable for us today, as we have become less trusting, more antagonistic, and more defensive about our political, religious, and social positions. We spend so much more energy dealing with strife than we used to, and it is tiring. We feel, like Jeremiah, that our leaders have led us astray, and as with Jesus on the cross we see no hope, no last-minute rescue that will suddenly make everything right, like it used to be. The leaders who said that they would save us have scattered us, rather than bringing us together. Where do we go from here? Is there somewhere we can go where we can escape all of this mess?

To say that Jesus’ death on the cross was to save us from our sins is a bitter, very unhelpful response to the feeling of being overwhelmed by conflict and crisis, or being too tired to care anymore. Yet where the Romans saw a failed king dying on a cross, that is where Jesus’ reign of his kingdom began. His followers were pushed beyond his death by the momentum of their faith, and saw in his resurrection the beginning of God’s kingdom. Everything Jesus had said about the kingdom being like a mustard seed, or where the last are first and the poor are the richest of all, or where a short chief tax collector gave away his wealth, all of that now made sense. The letter to the Colossians spells out Jesus’ kingship as “He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 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.” Jeremiah describes the coming of the king with the words, “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” These passages describe the Messiah as the king, but they are also describing our role as the hands and feet of Jesus. It is up to us to execute justice and righteousness in the land, it is up to us to hold all things together.

The Anglican tradition that the Episcopal Church has been built on does not focus only on Jesus’ death on the cross. It does not focus on being saved, or on altar calls, or on our helplessness as imperfect human beings. The Anglican tradition is about Jesus’ resurrection and what came after for the apostles: building up the church, spreading the good news, and laying the foundation for the kingdom of God. By doing so, the kingdom of God comes near as Jesus said several times, and it comes near to us when we love our neighbor as ourselves, when we respect the dignity of every human being, when we give to the poor, when we comfort the distraught, and when we welcome strangers in our door. The kingdom comes near to us when we confess our sins, apologize for having hurt someone, or when we admit our selfishness and self-centeredness. It comes near when we bring to life Jesus’ call to us to love, to be humble, and to lift up.

It takes a lot of work, determination, and commitment to build the foundation of the kingdom and keep Jesus as the king of it. That work isn’t done alone, and it isn’t done as proof of our righteousness. The problems in our community or the world aren’t all going to be solved, and  that doesn’t mean we can ignore a seemingly impossible call from God to act. We have to be willing to devote time beyond our daily lives to make a difference in someone else’s life and in the life of this parish. We have to be willing to share our gifts and talents to help someone in need, to build up the body of Christ in this congregation, and continue to address the needs of the community we are in. We have to be willing to give of our treasure to create opportunities, to provide goods, and to address needs that we can’t accomplish individually. This is where our new year’s resolutions come in on this last Sunday of the church year. This giving that we are committing to today is a resolution for the next year in the church, not to do better, or be better, but to build. We each give some of what we have and that knits us together to build up the body of Christ. And then together as one body, we build up the kingdom of God as our response to our salvation, given to us long ago. What can you, and I, give of ourselves to build up the body, the parish, the community?