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Christ the King Sunday, 2006 When I was a boy, we used to play whiffle ball out in the street. It was great because you really only needed two people to play it. The neighbor and I would spend hours out there in the summer, using our imaginations and playing whiffle ball. It was always funny however, no matter how long we played, it always seemed like every at bat and every pitch was so important. We set up little scenarios for ourselves, and they always began something like this, “There are bases loaded, two out, it’s the bottom of the ninth inning, Kirk Gibson steps up to the plate. Dennis Eckersly is on the mound.” No matter who our favorite players were or who we were pretending to be, it was always bases loaded, two outs in the bottom of the ninth, and often it was the seventh game of the World Series. As little boys, we liked to be the ones in control – we always pretended to be the best hitter and the best pitcher. We never wanted to be the pitching coach or the left fielder. We wanted the ball in our hands and the chance to make a difference. In some ways, I think there is some of that in all of us. We all want to be in control, the one to throw the pitch, to call the shots, and, of course, to get all the glory when its over. At times, we all want to be the center of attention, at least I know I do. Believe it or not, this is also true of churches, and I sometimes wonder who or what is “lord” most of the time. Kelly Fryer tells a great story about this, and before I go any further, I need to mention that several of the stories I’m going to tell this morning come from her book, “Reclaiming the ‘L’ Word.” I didn’t come up with a lot of them, so I need to give credit where it is due. Anyway she tells this story about a church council who voted to move the grand piano in the worship space in order to make room for some handicap seating. They were going to move the piano a total of five inches. Who knows why the church council was voting on something like this or why they were the ones who were going to move it, but they agreed on a set time and date to meet at the church to do this. Word got out that they were going to make this change and when the day came, they all arrived at the church. But before they even had time to think about moving the piano, the choir director burst through the doors of the sanctuary and barreled up the aisle. She didn’t say a word, but communicated her position clearly by hoisting up her generous frame, throwing herself across the top of the piano, and shrieking, “NOOOOO!” She out right refused to come down off of the piano until the council agreed not to touch it. Kelly goes on to ask and important question, “Who-or what-do you think was lord in that place?” Its easy to get confused, putting tradition or culture or “my” ideas at the center of our life together as Christians. I wonder how many of our problems, both at church and in our personal lives, would be solved if we just simply remember that Jesus is Lord and no thing and no one else. Today is Christ the King Sunday and it is today that we remember above all else that Jesus is Lord. Our readings and our hymns today do a good job of reminding us who Jesus is and what he did. They proclaim some of the highlights from his life, things like the prophets who proclaimed and waited for his arrival, his humble birth, the visit from the wise men, his crucifixion, and as I just read – his resurrection. Unfortunately, worship isn’t long enough to recount all of the stories we know about Jesus. Stories like his baptism, the miraculous healings, the calling of the disciples, the wonderful parables he told, the feeding of the 5,000, the calming of the sea, the beatitudes, raising people from the dead, all of the talk about money and helping the poor, the scary words about the end times. Our short readings this morning left out a lot of important stuff about who Jesus is, what he said, and what he did. One of the most important things about Jesus is that he always keeps us off balance, he’s always there with a surprise, and its not always easy to make sense of what he says or does. Whether its talking with the outcast woman at the well, putting the religious leaders (like me) in their place, sharing a meal with the tax collectors, calling Peter to reach out to Cornelius, and especially allowing himself to suffer and to die on the cross, and even rising from the dead, surprising Mary Magdalene at the tomb – Jesus does some pretty unexpected things. Hopefully this morning’s service captures a little of this and leaves you a little off balance because we move so quickly from the joyful songs of Christmas and Epiphany to the somber songs of Lent and “Were you there” back to the glory of the resurrection. To say that Jesus is Lord, is to acknowledge that we will always be a little off in this relationship and we will always need to be prepared to be surprised. A group of Christians decided to use their vacation time in a very special way. They traveled to San Miguel, Mexico and spent their vacation working at a children’s shelter in one of poorest neighborhoods in town. They spent their days cleaning, cooking, and caring for the infants and children who were sheltered there during the day so that their parents could work. Coming back from that trip, one of the team members wrote, “Spend a week living among the poor in Mexico, walking in their streets, shopping in their markets, caring for their children, working hand-in-hand and if your heart does not ache for them, you are living with your eyes closed. I know mine were before I came here.” Because Jesus is Lord, we can expect to be surprised about where and how God meets us. Because Jesus is Lord, we can also expect to be surprised on another front. Because Jesus is Lord and we are not, we can also expect to be wrong sometimes. In fact, to help us remember this, let’s say this little phrase together: Because Jesus is Lord, I am not. Again, “Because Jesus is Lord, I am not.” One more time for good measure: Because Jesus is Lord, I am not. Since we are not Lord, we can expect to be wrong from time to time, which is extremely hard for those of us who like to be in control and have things our way. Yet, as soon as we think we have figured out exactly who we are and who God is and what our worship should look like and what kinds of people are acceptable in God’s house and how our churches should function and where the piano is supposed to sit, we have wandered as far away from God as we can go. When we say that it can only be done my way or that there’s only one way to look at things, then we are making ourselves into lords, and this is the original sin. I watched an interesting movie the other day, actually I just watched about half of it because it wasn’t that great, but it had a great scene in it. The movie was the Hollow Man and it was based on HG Wells’ The Invisible Man. In the movie, a scientist figures out how to make himself invisible. He starts off by playing little practical jokes on people and having fun, even saying, “It’s amazing what you can do when you don’t have to look at yourself in the mirror anymore.” But soon the story moves into violence, rape, and murder, which is when I turned it off. The man who was invisible on the outside also becomes hollow on the inside. If fact, right from the start, the scientist is warned, “You are messing with the laws of nature. You will be punished.” The scientist, smiling, replies, “Frank, how many times have I told you, I am God.” The truth is, we don’t make very good gods. In fact, we make horrible gods and anytime that we set ourselves up to be Lord in place of Jesus, bad things usually happen. This is actually really good news for us however. Because Jesus is Lord, I don’t have to be. Let’s say that together, “Because Jesus is Lord, I don’t have to be.” One more time: Because Jesus is Lord, I don’t have to be. This is good news and for this we should be thankful. We don’t have to do things our own way. We don’t have to have all the answers. We don’t have to do it alone. We don’t have to be the savior of the world and we don’t even have to save ourselves. We have a Lord who surprises us by entering into the messes that we create for ourselves. We have a Lord who surprises by not rejecting us when we fail. We have a Lord who meets us in our shame and our sin. Our lives are often bases loaded in the ninth inning, not because we’re the star reliever, but because we walked the bases loaded. The truth is, is that Jesus came to be our Savior because we needed to be saved. We needed to be set free from our own stupidity, self-centeredness, and our insistence on making it our own way in the world. And that’s exactly what Jesus did for us. Our Lord saved us. So, on this Christ the King Sunday,
while we are faced with the humbling reality that because Jesus is Lord,
we are not, we also get to take a big sigh of relief that because Jesus
is Lord, we don’t have to be. Amen |
