Christ the King - B

From Kingdom to…

Introduction

Today is the last Sunday in the Christian calendar. It is the Sunday where we wrap up the old, conclude all of our thoughts, and prepare to move on once more into the season of Christmas. So what do you say to sum up Christianity?

Over the years we have said it slightly differently – but to think of this Sunday historically one has to think of that time when the disciples were arguing about money, and Jesus asked whose head was on the coin… 

“Caesar’s,” they answered, “well then,” said Jesus, “Caesar is the king and give him the money.”

As the disciples thought about this more and more they decided that Jesus should be their king, not Caesar. And maybe it is a political rebellion fermenting, or maybe it is a metaphor and Jesus is king of our hearts, but so was born ‘Christ the King’ Sunday.

Of course, the argument against this comes from Jesus himself, who said such things as “My Kingdom is not of this earth,” and “the Kingdom of God is among you.”

He was the guy who argued that the way the rulers of this world work is often contrary to the way of goodness, of love, of God.

The reason Jesus was killed was political, he was branded a traitor and crucified for political dissidence, the Romans thought he was a troublemaker…. So what was this Kingdom Jesus was talking about, and what does it mean for us today?

That is what we are going to be exploring throughout this service.

Politics of Faith

There have been three phases of this movement Jesus started; and each one changed its followers, and the church. I want to give you a really brief history lesson and then perhaps we can see a little more clearly how we got from Jesus preaching about love to the state of the world today.

First, Jesus came to reform the Jewish church. That was his mission; that was the scope of his influence. It took Paul to see that there was a chance to spread the message a little further – and so Christianity started out as an illegal, underground, missionary movement. For the first 300 years, if you were a Christian and caught, you were executed. This is when most of what we think of as the New Testament was written, during a time of fear, a time of persecution.

In 312 AD Constantine took on his co-emperors in a battle called Milvian Bridge. He decided to paint a Christian symbol on his soldier’s shields, maybe get the help of this new God… and he won, becoming the sole emperor of Rome. Overnight Christianity went from an underground movement to the official church of the government.

Now, believe it or not, this lasted forever, let’s say until the late 1960’s. Church was the civic branch of the government. We ran universities and hospitals, we gave money to the poor and organized the food banks; you went to church simply because you were a good citizen… and everyone went…

Most people thought this was the Kingdom Jesus had talked about – we sent missionaries to the far corners of the world and there were Christians everywhere. Governments consulted with the pope, with the ministers, with Billy Graham even before making decisions. Everything was getting bigger and better all the time.

But… as we all know… something was flawed in this… wars continued to erupt, disease continued to ravage the land, poverty just kept getting worse, and people were not really all that loving; especially to the outcasts that Jesus always said should be the focus of our love….

It took the hippies of the 60’s to point out the chink in the armour; but as soon as they drew attention to how the old institutions, like the church, did not actually live up to their claims – everything began to unravel.

The Kingdom of God is like…

Jesus used a lot of images to try and tell us what this peaceable kingdom he was proclaiming was all about – it was like a mustard seed which grows into a huge plant, it was like a vineyard where everyone was treated equally, it was like a banquet to which everyone was invited.

I think of it this way – heaven on earth.

And what Jesus was trying to get across is that heaven is the state of being where we are all loved and valued the way the God would love and value us… His first sermon quoted a prophesy from Isaiah in which the captives are set free, the poor are fed, the debts repaid… That is his idea of the Kingdom of God.

He had no better word – Kingdom made sense… God is the King. A lot of people argue now that the political language, the idea of a king, of a kingdom – none of it makes sense when we are talking about the world Jesus sought to create. Some people change it to the reign of God.  I have even recently heard it called the “Kin-Dom” and place where we are all kin.

I think that is all semantics. I wish I myself had a better word to suggest to you, maybe some of you could think up a poetic way to describe it… But what is it that we are talking about, really?

Well, Jesus went and called together people from all walks of life. He told them that they should look out for each other, that they should even go further than that and find the most vulnerable people in society and help them. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, bathe the sick.

He was not just talking once or twice; he was saying this should be our way of life, our attitude, to put love first. Jesus in fact treated women more like equals than anyone else, talking to them about their lives and their faith, he sat down and ate with the outcasts of society who no one else would talk to, and he stayed at anyone’s house who would ask him in.

He understood that compassion and dignity, that love and equality, would make the world the type of place it was supposed to be… and that is what he tried to get across to his followers.

“The Kingdom of God is among you…” he would say; it is not the future, it is not life after death, it is right here, right now… the question is, can you see it?

Putting it all Together

So I still think it comes back to that moment with the coin; all of what it means to be a Christian summed up in one sentence… whose face is on the coin.

In other words, who is at the centre of what you do – is it money, politics, ambition, greed, the things of this world; or is it love, compassion, patience and hope, the things of God.

I think the Kingdom is as simple and as easy as that – we are called to put love first, to put God first in our lives; and if we can, when we can manage to do that, the world will change.

We begin another year next Sunday in the church. We begin by thinking about how simple things, like a birth in a manger, can make huge differences. It is something to think about.

Pentecost 23 B

Sacrificial Love

Introduction

“Greater love has no man than this; that he lay down his life for his friends”

That is a quote from the Gospel of John – to put it in a bit of a context for you, Jesus is talking about being the vine and the branches. He is talking about following God’s commandments. He is explaining to the disciples that they are his friends… and he is talking about sacrificial love.

For Jesus, love is a very simple concept – you are willing to do anything to help the other person. You are willing to risk yourself for the other person.

Last week was All Souls… the day after Halloween is officially the day we remember the dead and their contribution to our lives. Next week is Remembrance Day… the day when we officially remember the men and women who have put their lives on the line for freedom because of their sense of love.

It is a concept that is at the heart and soul of what we believe as Christians – we believe that risking out of love, that helping others with everything we have and do; is the centre of what Jesus taught us. To love, and to love extravagantly, is our mission.

Setting Out in Love

We live in a world where we can understand the lives of Naomi and Ruth. Where people are forced to move in order to find jobs and where economic security is hard to come by… and in this opening passage we are told in a nutshell the life story of Naomi – she fell in love, she followed her husband back to the land of his people. They lived happily, their sons got married… but then, tragedy, her husband and sons die and Ruth has no relatives anywhere near by – so she decides to head home.

In the midst of this her concern is for the well-being of her son’s wives… she begs them to go back to their own homes and find new husbands. It is her love for them that begs them to turn back… and it is Ruth’s great love for Naomi, for her mother in law of all people, which makes her stay.

It is an unexpected moment of love.

I would argue that this is not an exceptional moment in time. I have seen similar things happen a lot. I have seen people stay with strangers by the side of the road at car accidents. I have seen others open their houses to people who are passing by just because they are in need.

I am pretty sure that love really is at the centre of who we are and how we are. The thing is, we do not make a big enough deal about it. We do not celebrate those moments where people reach out and make a difference. We find it hard to accept thanks when we do nice things for other people.

So what do we have to do to put love more at the centre of our lives? How do we recognize that acts of love are happening all the time around us?

I mean, we know some of them – we honour some of them on Remembrance Day – but I want it to be more of an everyday realization; and how do we do that?

Of Sacrifice and Love

Throughout history there have been different ways that we think we get God’s attention. And I mean hundreds of ways… from casting lots to sacrificing animals… prayers and dances, chanting and magic… But the thing is – in almost each and every one of these things there are two things that never change: We need something. We believe God can make a difference.

One of the reasons that Jesus went down in history, was that he internalized this – it became his life ambition: People need something – I can make a difference.

If you believe that, he once told the disciples, you can move mountains!

Do you believe it? Do you believe you can make a difference? It seems to me that as the years go by we get further and further away from belief and get more and more discouraged.

If you think about World War One, or World War Two… I think most of the people volunteered and went believing, completely, that they could make a difference! They wanted to do something to change the outcome of the war. They wanted to make sure their loved ones were safe. They put their love into action; maybe in a dangerous and terrible way - but–that was generally the motivation – to make a difference for those they loved.

This is all circling around what I am calling Sacrificial Love. It is the type of love I think Jesus came to teach us about – the type of love that is willing to put your life on the line.

And although we don’t talk about it, and actually do not get many opportunities to practice it; I am willing to bet that we are all capable of it.

We do hear stories: from Fire fighters rushing into burning buildings to the average person diving into the pool when a toddler slips and falls in. There are people every day who take big risks to make a difference.

This is what Jesus came to teach us. As a “priest” as a religious leader, this was his goal. And I am thinking that he actually did a really good job.

And the Greatest of These is….

What is the most important thing you can do….

Simple question; simple answer: Love… love God, love neighbour, love yourself.

My girlfriend Ali’s grandmother’s house was recently demolished. Annie had lived there in Cape Breton her entire life, a lot of that time spent with four brothers. When they were moving the mementoes out they found a slew of letters written by those brothers, Alexander, Clarence, Peter and Angus… Ali, Clarie, Petey and Angy to those who loved them. Those four brothers had spent all of World War Two as part of the Cape Breton Highlanders. One of them even lied about his age to enlist.

But what was incredible, was that whether they were in Italy, France, Germany or the Netherlands… and if you look it up, the Cape Breton Highlanders have been involved in all of the worst battles in every world war; they wrote home to Annie every week.

They took the time to write, to say who they had heard from and who they had not, and to ask for cigarettes… Apparently nothing beat a Canadian smoke.

It may seem like a little thing, to write home… but at the same time; it shows a level of compassion and caring for each other that echoes Jesus greatest commandment.

Now, a lot of people have had issue with what Jesus said – a lot of people feel that love is a hard thing to find in your heart for some people.

But I really think he was onto something. And I also think that we forget how simple that love can be. It is just about putting other people first and remembering to take the time.

If we love God, we are already living from a place of moral conviction that makes it easier to do the right thing – we are following a way of life that has been laid out over thousands of years to put love and compassion first.

If we love ourselves we are not getting hung up on all the things that make it hard to reach out for others… there is none of this – feeling too scared, or too full of ourselves… we do things from a place of understanding and a place of strength.

And if we love others… it does not mean that we have to accept everything about them, it simply means we have to see them as having value, as being important in their own right.

All My Heart

But it is more than that isn’t it… Jesus said we had to love with all our heart, all of our understanding, all of our strength….

We are not talking about a half-hearted effort here. We are not talking about “trying” to be like Jesus, or trying to love like God. We are talking about commitment. We are talking about throwing everything you have into the arena of loving. We are talking about being willing to risk.

As we go into a week in which we are called upon to remember the sacrifices of others. May this calling echo in our ears and may God’s spirit grant us the courage to follow in those very heavy footsteps. Amen.