Proper 29A—Christ the King Ezekiel 34:11-17, Psalm 95:1-7, 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, Matthew 25:31-46 November 20, 2005 The Rev. J. Brian Ponder Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi In the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. Today is not only the last Sunday of our liturgical year, but it is also Christ the King Sunday. This is the day more so than any other in our cycle of church remembrances that we look upon and consider Christ in Kingly glory, calling Christ—the King of kings and Lord of lords. We are presented with images of Christ as sovereign, judge, and ruler of the worlds. But we also hear of the continuity of Jesus as servant—juxtaposed in the image of the Shepherd, leading us into paths of righteousness and justice. As a child, I remember visiting the church of a friend and seeing something that I had never before seen. It was something at the time I thought to be quite strange, and it was affixed to the wall behind the altar—strange only because I had never seen anything like it before. I liked it though, because it made an impression upon me and got me to thinking … thinking about Jesus in a different way. It wasn’t a brass cross or even a crucifix. This image was a tremendous Christus Rex—a cross depicting Christ the King. Jesus was robed and crowned in majesty with open, receiving and wide, outstretched arms. This image of the Christ was one of sovereignty. It was one of resurrection, glory and honor … but there was something else I couldn’t exactly put my finger on. Part of what I had missed in my first impressions was the cross upon which Christ was still affixed. Jesus was not superimposed over the cross. He, in his glory, was still fixed to it. I had failed to see the crucified Christ which reigned in conjunction with the victorious Christ—only the Kingly, a vision which should have conjured all of these images for me. We live in a world today that I don’t think can fully comprehend what this image of monarchy gets at. “Christ the King” … The thought of sovereign Kingship or monarchies in the midst of a world chock full of varying democracies, dictatorships, parliamentarian states, you name it, may seem outmoded or irrelevant. It conjures up the stuff of fantasy, or times gone by, or fairytale. In fact some of this country’s earliest history is steeped in the struggle to dislodge itself from the rule of a supreme authority, so that responsibility could be shared, and kept in balance, and be held accountable in various branches of government. … No, I don’t think we can fully understand or appreciate the fuller implications of this image—the image of a reigning Christ, Ruler of the worlds and Lord of lords. So what makes these words and images real? What fleshes them out for us? What gives them life? Today … here … now? Our lessons today give us several glimpses into the nature of the Godhead—not only the greatness of God, but of God’s complete and total omnipresence in everything and every aspect of creation coupled with the reign of the Christ. I am struck by the representation of God in God’s magnitude, yet I am as equally amazed by the idea of God’s physicality. In one sense God seems quite touchable, quite present, while in another, God seems to be too big, unfathomable, yet inescapable and transcendent. One reading tells us that all that is can be held in one of God’s hands; and in another, we who hope to be the chosen at the last, hope to be at God’s right hand—in presence with God. On this day we declare the culmination of our search for God and Christ and their search for us. And I think, this is where we begin to understand more fully the relevance of visions associated with a reigning or sovereign God. This is the day when we uphold the idea of truly seeing God face-to-face, of knowing God, as we have been fully known, when we celebrate the hopefulness of one day coming into the very presence of God, uniting with Christ. It is a day towards reckoning—not an easy topic to proclaim or preach for that matter, but it is the day on which our hopes and beliefs rely. My message before you today is that we are children of a God who wants to be known. It’s just that simple, and we’re called as people of faith to be the eyes and ears and hands and feet and heart of God to and in this world, instruments called to service and justice and peace and truth and wild abandonment when it comes to sharing the love and hospitality of God in Christ. We’ve been hearing a lot about radical hospitality, especially over the last few months. We’re called to make way, to make room in invitation with open, receiving, outstretched arms—Jesus’ arms—those same arms reaching out from the Cross. And in so doing, we realize more and more that God is that which is inescapable in our lives … through touch, and sight and sound … in our encounters with the other. We learn that the Good Shepherd will not let us go if we but hear and heed the call. Ezekiel tells us of God’s commitment in search of God’s sheep: I will search for my sheep… I will rescue them… I will be the shepherd of my sheep… I will seek the lost… I will bring back the strayed … I will bind up the injured … I will strengthen the weak … I will feed them with justice… And our response and responsibility in quest of God in Christ should be nonetheless rigorous. Ours is a God who will stop at no length to shower upon a people love and favor and blessing. Again and again we hear of the abundance of God’s loving actions for God’s beloved. The way we respond implies the very nature of the search that has already been established. … God hopes to find us, and we have either to respond or close our hearts to God’s calling. … How will we respond? I was hungry. You gave me food. I was thirsty. You gave me something to drink. I was a stranger. You welcomed me. I was naked. You gave me clothing. I was sick. You took care of me. I was in prison. You visited me. As you did to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. This is Thanksgiving week. Many will be gathered around tables or television sets on Thursday, some with family, some with friends, however it is that they, that we share in the keeping of this time of year. We will be sharing in a day of Thanks-giving, remembering and thanking God for all that we have, all that we are, how richly we have been blessed and how gracious is God’s goodness. But what about the others … the lost, the broken who have not yet been bound up, the weak who struggle to find strength and the will to continue, those for whom justice and its heretofore limitations with which we’re complacent have not liberated? What about these who do not yet know the abundance of this loving God, whether through ignorance, or schism, or angst, or conflict, or all too often humankind’s own doing? What about these? Our Gospel calls us to remembrance. What about the friendless? What about those in need or disparity? What about the loveless, the shamed, the hungry, the poor, the displaced, the dying, the sick, the homeless and houseless, the abused, the working poor, the ghettoed, the forgotten? … And I don’t mean just on Thanksgiving Day. Where is it that we can take the mission and ministries of this church and of our various and several callings into that world out there and make this place and our Christian lives worshipful and worship-filled … all testifying to—“giving worth” to—the great workings of Christ born, crucified and risen not just for some, but for all? Proclaiming God’s outstretched arms for all? We’re in a time of anxiety right now as a nation, world and to some degree as a Church and people of faith. Many of us wonder what lies ahead in the days to come: whether it’s peace in the Middle East, or the continued war on terrorism, or the slaughtering of rival tribes on the African continent, or new or changed policies on the not so distant horizon by legislators and judges, or bonds of affection that seem to have been exposed as perhaps nothing more than loose ties of affiliation. Where are we welcoming God in the midst of terror and confusion and strife and unknowing? Where are we meeting God in the midst of it all? … Will our meeting places be a battlefields or holy ground? Will they be in the halls of temporary righteousness or in places of justice for all? Will they be in the midst of name calling and finger pointing, or through means of peace and reconciliation? … Just where is it that we hope to see God face to face? … It’s at the Cross, my friends—arms open, receiving, outstretched—that place where Christ’s reign began. The Psalmist declares of God “In his hand are the caverns of the earth and the heights of the hills are his also…. We are the sheep of his hands.” In all of God’s magnitude and loftiness and exaltedness, we are reminded that we are not only the sheep found within the restful care of God’s hands and Christ’s loving-embrace, we are “of [God’s] hands,” molded, shaped, formed for God’s purposes … touched. We are called to welcome. We are called to love. We are called to grace and thanksgiving. And we are called to glory in the name of Jesus Christ. On this day, Christ the King Sunday, we are called towards a realization of the enormity of the glory that is Christ’s—to make it real, to make it relevant beyond fairytale and fiction. Our lessons may be full of judgment, and I don’t want to imply that they are not, but what is, perhaps, as important for us to remember in this moment and in this place is the acknowledgment that the messages of Christ the King and Jesus the Good Shepherd are one in the same—the lowly who has been exalted, the wounded Savior, the Shepherd King who is at the same time the Lamb. We are invited to marvel in the glory that is God and Christ’s alone. We are invited, and we are called to respond, to remember both the crucified and the Kingly Christ. We are called to see the Cross, to know it, because the Cross as was no other was that place from which Christ did and continues to reign—not a symbol of defeat but of triumph and glory, even in the midst of brokenness … even from Christ’s darkest hour. So how will we respond? Where do we go with that news … this Good News? Out into the world, my friends, and here is where we begin to get our bearings in both our individual and corporate lives … at this table. It starts with truly penitent, open and giving hearts when we come before God and partake in this banquet here in the hope of sharing in that heavenly banquet which has been prepared not only for us, but for all of God’s people. It happens when we proclaim this table not as ours but as God’s. And, it happens each and every time this table has room for one more guest … and another, and another, and another. That’s the story of God’s abundance. It’s the story of open-armed invitation, and it’s from here that we go forth. At this time of year when we remember all that we have and haven’t, what we are and aren’t, and we shift gears towards that expectation of Christ’s coming from glory, in glory, I remind us of the words of a well-known and often-used Franciscan blessing: May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half truths and superficial relationships so that we may live deep within our hearts. May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation, so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that we may reach out our hands to them and turn their pain into joy. May God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done. In these days of giving thanks may God bless us in our searchings and in our findings. May God be with us. May Christ reign within in our hearts from now until for ever. Amen