The King of Irony

Sermon-Christ the King Sunday-Proper 29- -Nov. 21, 2010
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of that Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”
General Motors began selling stock last week after coming out of bankruptcy. President Obama introduced the START nuclear reduction treaty to the senate and went to Lisbon, Portugal to talk to NATO countries about Afghanistan. Unemployment fell in Michigan to a 2 year low. Ireland is on the verge of bankruptcy. There’s a new experimental drug out that may do wonders with cholesterol. And do you know what was the most dominant story in the news last week? Katie and William got engaged.
Friday night my wife MADE me watch an NBC special, “The Man Who Will Be King” about Prince Charles. The Prince, of ENGLAND. He’s not even Our prince. He’s England’s prince. So why do people care? Who cares who is the prince, or the king, of another country? We thought so little of royalty that we fought a war to get rid of them in our lives 235 years ago. And yet, here we are watching programs and spending time wondering when William and Katie will get married.
Today is Christ the King Sunday. It is the last Sunday of the church year. Every year you hear me preach about Jesus as a king. It is a fairly recent celebration as far as the church goes. In 1925 Pope Pius XI in response to the rise of dictatorships in Europe leading to World War I, saw people being manipulated and misled by these earthly leaders. He instituted this festival, Christ as our king, to try to get people to follow someone other than human kings and despots. Pius hoped the institution of the feast would have various effects. His goals were:
1. That nations would see that the Church has the right to freedom, and immunity from the state (Quas Primas, 32).
2. That leaders and nations would see that they are bound to give respect to Christ (Quas Primas, 31).
3. That the faithful would gain strength and courage from the celebration of the feast, as we are reminded that Christ must reign in our hearts, minds, wills, and bodies (Quas Primas, 33).
It wasn’t 100% effective. 14 years after the Pope called for this special day to acknowledge Jesus as ruler of all, the world was plunged into a second and even more terrible world war-led by new dictators and even worse despots. So much for papal encyclicals. So much for the power of the church to redirect peoples’ hearts.
Every year for the last umpteen years, on Christ the King Sunday, we here at Trinity do something “different”. Actually we do this on the Sunday closest to Thanksgiving but for this sermon’s sake I’ll make a stretch and say it’s on Christ the King Sunday (which it usually is)-we gather clothes for children who are cold and can’t afford to be warm. We’ve been doing this at Trinity for-how many years Teresa? _____. It is an odd way to honor a king. To clothe children who are cold but can’t afford new clothes. If you watched the news at the end of the week, William and Kate were trying to find just the right church for their wedding-it had to be huge, ostentatious, impressive-able to hold several thousand guests. That’s what we do for kings-and princes. And yet we have decided to gather clothes for children. Think about it-it’s a little strange, isn’t it? One of the big issues when Queen Elizabeth came to America a few years ago was whether our first couple (George and Laura) would bow and curtsey when they met her. Kings (and queens)are about money and power and authority. Roaylty are about manners and protocol.
And we celebrate Christ our king by helping the least in our world. It is supposed to strike us as odd. It is supposed to get us to open our eyes, and get our attention.
The gospel reading chosen today for Christ the King Sunday is Jesus on the cross. He is about to die and another person who is dying beside him, begins mocking him. Not very kinglike is it? Everything about Christ the King Sunday is supposed to make us squirm with irony. There is no power in this story, no wealth, no authority. It’s all about sacrifice, humility, and love. Three qualities we never ever associate with royalty.
The pope deciding to call the last Sunday of the church year, Christ the King Sunday, did not stop the worst thing the world has ever seen. It did not change nation’s actions, nor did it make the church more just and caring. It was interesting and curious calling the last Sunday of the church year Christ as our King, but not very effective.
So we do something else to show our allegiance to a king who suffers and dies-we give clothes to children.
Next week I am going to propose that we do something else, too. Beginning next week, the first Sunday of the season of Advent, I’m going to ask everyone to be more aware of the kindness in the world. The story of Jesus that we hear today is a man dying in a humiliating way on a cross. Next week we begin the story of a babe who couldn’t even find a house to be born in. So I am going to ask you to prepare your heart this Advent for kindness. In the parish hall starting next Sunday we will have newsprint everywhere. I want to see if we can fill them up with 1000 acts of kindness this Advent. Whether it’s a kindness that is done to you, or an act of kindness done by you, I’d like to see if you would write them on these papers. I want us to walk in each of the 4 Sundays in Advent-and feel surrounded by kindness. My hope is that we will record at least 1000 acts of kindness, that we will read each other’s stories and feel moved and inspired; that we will see these short snippets up on the walls and think- “maybe there is room in this world for the birth of kindness.” I would like to encircle all who enter this building with acts of compassion. Oh, And one more thing, we won’t be putting our names or initials on them. They will be anonymous. It will be as if all of these actions that surround us in the hall could have been done by us-or to us. We start doing this next Sunday, starting the new church year.
But this is a carryover from this week. This week we see a dying king on a cross extend his kingdom to anyone who calls to him. Even a thief who is dying, also. Next week we’ll see if we can make room in the inn of our hearts , so that God’s child can be born in us. It is all very ironic, very odd. It makes little sense. Kings are honored with gold and beauty and servants. Today we tell the story about a king who is honored by the clothing of children. Begin watching for kindness this week. Today we do something very odd, we turn kingship upside down, we take a man on a cross and ask if we can be in his kingdom.

This Will Give You An Opportunity…

Sermon-25 Pentecost-Proper 28- -Nov. 14, 2010
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of that Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Have you ever been in a time in your life where you start thinking, “My world is falling apart” and you begin to wonder “My God, what will happen to me now?” If you haven’t been, you will be at some point. You lose someone who is so important to you; or your job; your home; your marriage is in trouble; a child is sick; the bills are overwhelming. Lots of things in life can cause this feeling. It is overwhelming and you don’t see a way out. You feel desperate, alone, trapped- you see no solutions, no options, and you have little hope that things will get better.
Jesus is talking to his disciples in today’s gospel in Jerusalem. And he is telling them that that day will come for them. And he wants them to know how to react when it comes. They are looking at the grandest most beautiful, holiest building that they will ever see, the temple, and Jesus says, “and soon it will come down, there will be natural disasters and people will be in a panic, and you will be threatened and hated and blamed for all that is happening.” This is “end time” talk and followers of prophets were used to it. There were lots of messiahs and their students and disciples expected their master, their teacher to talk this way. But all of the messiahs would then tell them what the sign would be that they should look for-the time when they would rise up, the time when they should rebel, the “signal” as it were, when the end was coming. Only Jesus told them not to be afraid, and not to give in to all the fear and the anxiety and the terror of that time. Just the opposite. He said, “they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify.” This will give you an opportunity to be a sign of hope-this will give you an opening to be a symbol of hope. Odd words, strange teaching-it struck his followers as bizarre, and it still sounds peculiar to us today.
Did you all see the story about the Burmese woman, Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released yesterday? She has been under house arrest for 7 ½ years because she has been fighting for freedom for her people. She believes that democracy is better than being controlled by the generals who have run Burma/Myanmar since 1962. Did you see that story yesterday? It is a powerful story. She was from Burma but married an British professor, moved to England, had kids and lived a nice quiet, housewife nd academic life. But her mother back in Burma had a stroke, and she went home to take care of her in 1988. While there she took up the struggle of the Burmese people. Since 1989 she has been under arrest 15 out of the last 21 years. When her husband was dying of cancer he asked if he could visit his wife. He was refused. When she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway in 1991, her teen age sons accepted the prize for her. The government has said that she can leave the country whenever she wants, but she would never be allowed back in to Burma. So she has stayed a prisoner there. Two years ago Hoda Botke from NBC snuck into Burma and interviewed her. Hoda asked her, “You’ve had to sacrifice a lot of things, has it been worth the fight? Oh yes, … I don’t look upon it as a sacrifice, it’s a choice. If you choose to do something, you shouldn’t say it’s a sacrifice. Because no one forced you to do it.” It’s not a sacrifice-it’s a choice. Yesterday Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest and thousands of people stood outside her home, waiting for her.
“…they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify.”
M. Scott Peck, a psychologist and writer, who wrote The Road Less Traveled a long time ago, once said “The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”
When we are feeling trapped, lost, overwhelmed-those can be our finest moments. They have never been my finest moments. Just the opposite. It’s usually when I look and act my worst. When I feel my world is falling apart I start running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Which is why I need to hear this gospel. It’s why I need to hear stories like Aung San Suu Kyi. I need to hear and know that panic and fear and desperation aren’t my only options. I need to hear and see a vision of the future even when things are very bad.
Verna Dozier, that great Episcopal teacher of the Bible once wrote: “The important question to ask is not, "What do you believe?" but "What difference does it make that you believe?" Does the world come nearer to the dream of God because of what you believe?” Does what we believe, matter?
Jesus has been journeying south since last summer when we heard that he set his face towards Jerusalem. And now he is there. And his disciples, many of whom are country bumpkins and simple fisher folk, are feeling small and insignificant because of this great and wonderful city of Oz that they have arrived it. And Jesus tells them that the city will not last. And he is right. It will be destroyed in a few years. And the country will be in a panic, and Rome will kill or exile many of them. And Jesus says, This will give you an opportunity to be a witness for your faith. When I am feeling swamped and overwhelmed by life I’m not looking for an opportunity to witness-I am just looking for a way out, a shaft of light, some opening for hope.
Safiyah Fosua, United Methodist Church General Board of Discipleship, once wrote:
Part of the frightening character of these descriptions is that instead of calling widespread "wars and insurrections" clear signs of the end of the age (as would have been commonly done in his day, and many days since!), Jesus says that kind of turmoil is simply situation normal for world history. Even the portents and signs in the heavens aren't the things Jesus wants his disciples to focus on. Those things will simply happen; they will happen regularly, and we will have to deal with them. But they do not mark the end. Instead, he instructs his disciples, and those of us who seek to live as his disciples today, that what really matters is how they will perform under the pressure of persecution that will come to them (as it has to many in the ages since) regardless of anything else going on in the heavens or on the earth.
And it's not about eloquent preparation or even "grace under pressure." It's all about trusting him at all times. "I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand,"
I need to hear this. I need to believe this. I need to follow this. It's all about trusting him at all times.
When I hear Jesus’ words, when I remember where he was, what he was facing and what was to come, I realize that he was speaking to me about my fear my hopelessness. I realize that he knew what would come for his disciples-in the first century-and in the 21st century. It would feel like the end of the world.

Marian Wright Edelman, the leader for so many years of the Children’s Defense Fund once said, “Whoever said anybody has a right to give up?”.
It is when our world is falling apart that we most need to hear this gospel, “they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to bear witness to the good news.
David Livingstone, the legendary missionary to Africa, prayed, "Lord, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me." Amen

We Need Saints

Sermon-All Saints’ Sunday-Nov. 7, 2010
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of that Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Every 4 weeks I meet with other clergy to talk about the readings, and worship. They asked what we were doing for All Saints Sunday. So I told them about the blue clouds of saints that we put up on the walls, the reading of the names, the baptisms, the pilgrimage to the memorial Garden. And they just stared at me. Finally one of them said, “why do you do so much?” A fair question. I told them that for me, I wanted people to be on the watch for saints. Once a year we say the names of those who are saints in our lives, and we remember , just for one day-“So many people have gone into making me who I am”. We are not alone. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses-people both living and dead who have touched us and shaped up, and guided us into who we are.
Frederich Buechner, in his book called Wishful Thinking, defines saints this way: "In his holy flirtation with the world, God sometimes drops a handkerchief. Those handkerchiefs are called saints."
We do a lot of things today to call to mind that there are saints among us, people who are instruments, tools of God who are “handkerchiefs” trying to get our attention. And for one brief moment, one Sunday each year, we call to mind those saints in our lives who showed us what it is to be blessed.
David Tiede, Professor Augsburg College in Minneapolis once wrote:
Make sure your observance of All Saints Day celebrates the times when ordinary sinners conveyed God's holy love to you and to the world, probably in unexpected times and places. The first miracle of All Saints Day is about God whose holy reign is still at work in the lives of the likes of us.
And the second miracle of All Saints Day is about us- and how our lives are transformed. We, forgiven sinners, are called and sent to be ordinary saints in God's world, enacting God's love and justice.!" "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God" (Luke 6:20). The saints, "the holy ones" who are "beloved of God" are, by God's grace, mere mortals like us. The old Anglican children's hymn has it right: "I sing a song of the saints of God ... and I want to be one too." Indeed, by the Spirit of the living Christ, we get to be saints too!
Today we take a moment to say, there have been saints in my life-people who showed me God’s grace and love, showed me what it was to be blessed. And to realize that each of us is called to be a saint, too. Perhaps we won’t always be holy, but we are asked to be tools and instruments in the lives of others-showing them grace, and love-just like someone did for us.
John Maynard once wrote in a sermon, “Fifty-seven times in the New Testament the word "Saints" is used. But NEVER is it used in the Bible to designate any particular person. Always the term is used to describe those who belong to Christ - saved sinners. And always it is used in the plural. No specific person is ever called a "saint" in the New Testament Greek, the reference is always to the many: to the holy ones of God. “
I’ll tell you one short saint story. When we moved to the Upper Peninsula, one of the members of my congregation was Dorothy McQuown. Dorothy was famous as the last public school teacher on Isle Royale-a small island in Lake Superior. She was there in 1932-3 for one year to teach the 4 remaining kids on the island.$65 a month and $35 of that went to pay her room and board. She was a 29 year old widow with a small child in the middle of the depression. She struggled through that year. When she finished that year the state closed the school, and all her salary for that year, which had been deposited in a bank in Houghton, was lost when the bank failed. Dorothy and her 6 year old son moved back to the mainland where she continued to teach. When I met Dorothy she was 81, she had lost her legs and sight to diabetes. She was hard of hearing, but she still tutored children in math after school. She had kept a diary while she had been on Isle Royale, and her son and I worked hard to get it published while she was still alive. She was reluctant to let us get it in print, because on one page she had implied that one of her students wasn’t very bright. She made us promise that if her diary was published after she died, that that passage would be taken out. We explained to her that her student was now in his late 60s and wouldn’t care, but she was adamant. No book of her life was worth printing, if it might make someone-even 50 years earlier- feel smaller, or worse about themselves.
Another promise Dorothy made us give was that when she died there would be no service for her-she was an incredibly modest, and shy woman. And that promise, thankfully, we did not keep.
We have been made who we are by the saints in our lives. They influenced us in ways that we never saw coming. There are others waiting for us to be saints for them. Today we remember those who touched and shaped and guided us. And we learn this morning, again, that we are being called and blessed and sent to be saints for those who are also waiting for saints in their lives.. Amen.