Sermon for November 22, 2020 - The Reign of Christ - The Third Sunday of Advent - Year A - The Rev Jeffrey W. Mello

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24;  Psalm 95:1-7a; Ephesians 1:15-23; Matthew 25:31-46

I wonder how all this talk of King and Kingdom, power and rule is ringing in your ears this morning.  I know this language makes many uncomfortable.  It is why the feast that many of us grew up with as Christ the King is now called the Reign of Christ.  It is why many refer now to the Kingdom of God as the Kin-dom of God.  The King imagery can be an obstacle.

I wonder what you imagine when you think of a King, when you contemplate bowing your knee in service to a ruler.  What does a kingdom look like to you?

I wonder what it was like during, and immediately following the American Revolution.  What was it like to call God “King,” when blood had just been shed to free them from the rule of one called King.

And I wonder what it was like when our scriptures were written.  How did the people, the contemporaries to our readings from scripture, how did they hear “King” as a name for God?

This is one of those times when we might ask ourselves if the trouble we are having with God is that we might be creating God in our own image, rather than the other way around.

God as King is, indeed, a problem, when King means tyrant, when King means oppressor, when Kingdom means imperialism or colonialism, when King means male, when King means power over.

As a modern people without any real experience of having an earthly King exert power and control over our lives, it might be hard to imagine that having God claim to be King was an act of subversion, a call to justice, a reign not of terror, but of love.

We hear King, and we ascribe all the worst attributes of our history of earthly Kings onto a God who, frankly, doesn’t deserve it.

Listen to the image of God as King we are given this morning.  In Ezekiel, God-as-King is a shepherd who strengthens the weak, binds up the broken and feeds the fat and the strong with justice.

In Ephesians, God is not working through the oppressive regime of the Roman rule, but is “above all rule and authority and power and dominion.”  Rome may claim greatness, Nero may call himself Emperor, but God’s rule is above that, greater than that, stronger than that.

And finally, in Matthew, we are given the image of a King that judges between subjects based not on how they have served the one seated on the throne, but how they have treated the very least among them.  It is a King that identifies completely with the least, the lost, the one in prison, the hungry.

It is not that the King feels badly for the least among them, it is that the King IS the least among them.

I imagine for those who heard these readings first, the image of God as a King above their earthly Kings was a liberating one.  It allowed them to endure under the oppressions of their day knowing that their ultimate allegiance was to a King who ruled with love and justice.

But what about us? What does it mean for us to call God King or Sovereign, to pray that God will Rule our hearts?  How does our fiercely independent spirit and strong wills even begin to try on such language?

It might start by admitting that we are not without modern day Kings and Queens of our own.  We might, first, own up to the fact that there are earthly powers that seek to rule our hearts and minds, and direct our wills to their great glory and increased power.  

If we think we do not currently serve other monarchs in our lives, I think we might be deceiving ourselves.  I know I would be.

Someone recently wrote to me that they wished they could do a few things in their lives over so they could “be a better person in the moment instead of later.”

What stops us from being that better person in the moment?  Usually, it turns out we have served someone or something in our lives that holds rule over us other than the God who calls us sheep to be cared for, who directs us to love.

It is no small thing that the first three steps in the 12 step tradition are:

Step 1: We admitted we were powerless and that our lives had become unmanageable. Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

Few among us likes to admit that we are powerless over anything.

Few of us are sure about God’s role in our lives or God’s ability to restore us to wholeness.

Fewer still are willing to turn our will, never mind our lives to the care of God.

But the vision of what would happen if we could is nothing short of the entirety of the dream of God come true.

God is not a puppeteer, nor can God make me do anything in my life anymore than God can stop me from doing what I choose.  That is how God chooses to make us.

To imagine God as King, or Queen, Divine Soverien or Ruler of the Nations is to imagine that God could control my will and direct my actions, that God is ruling my heart and then to act as if God is.

To ask God to take over my operating system is a prayer.  It is a prayer that asks God to let me know what it feels like to be so inline with God’s desires that I can’t tell where my will ends and God’s will begins.  

My mom used to say, “do the motions, and the emotions will follow.”

Maybe if we each admitted that there are forces in our lives that keep us from acting as God might have us, that would free us to ask God to take its place as sovereign over us.  

Then, we could ask God to be the force in our lives that rules our hearts, aligns our wills, that guides our hands, our feet and our lips.

And then, when we live as though God were in charge, 

God just might be.

AMEN.

1 While all direct and indirect quotes are always cited, there are sources I read regularly in preparation for sermon writing.  Chances are thoughts have been spurred by these sources and so I list the usual suspects here:  David Lose, In the Meantime, The New Interpreters Bible, Sacra Pagina

© 2020 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello