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Century Christian
Church 1301 Tamarack Road, Owensboro, KY 42301, (270) 684-0286, Pastor: Rev. Jim Westmoreland |
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Do You Recognize The Kingdom Today, we celebrate with Christians all around the world what has come to be called "Christ The King" Sunday. It is celebrated on the last Sunday of the church year, the Sunday before the first Sunday of Advent. "Christ The King" Sunday is actually a pretty new festival in the church year. Its roots go back only to the late 1800's, when the world's great empires-the British, American, Spanish, French, German, Russian and Japanese--were all at war or about to go to war somewhere. It was a time when conflict was more likely than peace. Today, for much of our world, conflict, terrorism and its indiscriminate violence seems to be a reality that we cannot change. In the 1800's the man who was the pope of the Roman Catholic Church at the time wrote a letter in which he dedicated the world to Christ the King. In the letter, he reminded the empires that God is present with the whole human race, even with those who do not know God. After WWII, Pope Pius XI instituted the Solemnity of Christ the King on December 11th in 1925 in his encyclical Quas Primas. At that time he saw the rise of Atheistic Communism and Secularism as a direct result of man's turning away from Christ's sovereignty, and man's denying of the authority of Christ's Church. This result was "disorder" or a move away from the Divine Order. The Feast of Christ the King was set on the last Sunday in October and was later moved to the last Sunday in November as a result of church calendar reforms coming out of the Vatican II council. "Christ the King" Sunday touched the hearts and minds of Christians in many communions, from Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Disciples, UCC, Lutheran and is being discovered by others who are becoming more familiar with the idea of the lectionary and the church calendar. What does it mean to us? Let us remember this journey we have been taking since last year. We began with Advent, a time of anticipating the coming of Jesus into the world and into our own hearts. We celebrated His birth and remembered his early experiences of opening His life to His awareness of His heavenly Father and His purpose in life. We moved through a journey of repentance and confession during Lent. We remembered Jesus death, burial and resurrection. We saw the disciples wrestle with trying to understand what the Kingdom that Jesus talked about meant? Why did He die? What did He mean for them to do after He left them following His resurrection. We listened to the disciples as they waited and wondered what the Holy Spirit and what their mission was all about. During the last seven months in the season following Pentecost, we have listened to Jesus teach the disciples, the religious leaders and the crowds about the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven or simply The Kingdom. It is easier for us to talk "about religion" than it is to understand, to recognize and to embody the principles of the Kingdom that Jesus demonstrated and talked about with those who followed Him. Richard Fairchild suggests that we often name the name of Christ and either do not accept or comprehend or believe what we are saying. For example: a Gallop Poll conducted just a couple of years ago in the United States revealed that more than 86% of all Americans considered themselves Christian, but less than half knew who preached the Sermon on The Mount. The same Poll showed that sixty percent of the country was in Church last Easter, but one out of four did not know what Easter celebrates. So, when we name Jesus as King, when we call him Lord, do we know what we are doing? Do we accept it and believe it? And if we accept it and believe it, do we understand it?(1) Jesus repeatedly said, "The kingdom of God is at hand," and "My Kingdom is not of this world." What did He mean and how do we recognize it? Things start getting turned around as Jesus is questioned by Pilate in the eighteenth chapter of John. Jesus, the defendant, becomes Jesus the prosecutor. Pilate the judge becomes Pilate the defendant, standing sheepishly before Jesus the judge. Tom Long puts the matter eloquently, "Every statement shows Pilate more and more confounded by this mysterious presence. Pilate is no poised diplomat; he is a pin-pong ball slapped back and forth between his public fears and his inner doubts. He pleads, he bullies, he begs, he vacillates, and finally he folds: `Then he handed Jesus over to them to be crucified' (John 19:16). The irony is clear: It is Jesus who is to be crucified, but it is Pilate and all like him who are defeated. It is Jesus who will suffer death, but it is the world that is perishing."(2) I think John is saying something here about power, about the fragility and the illegitimacy of our kingdoms. An assault is being made upon our definitions of power and glory. Do we recognize the kingdom? I think that John is depicting the way in which, by the end of the trial, the glory of God breaks through and we are let in on the real truth of things. Jesus' kingdom is not of this world, but Pilate has heard the rumors about Jesus, and he can only think in one way. We are like that sometimes. We have our impressions of Christianity, and we never outgrow them! We should! But we don't! And Pilate has his impressions, and he asks, Are you a king? What have you done? What is truth? Where are you from? His blathering questions are really our answers. Jesus is king. He is truth. He is not from our kingdoms but rather is the sign of God's inbreaking kingdom. Do we recognize the kingdom? In this trial, as Jesus goes head-to-head with the powers-that-be, we see those powers crumble before his power. We see that we are not left as hapless victims of the powers of this world. Jesus is King. Living in His kingdom means that we see things differently, that we stand alongside the poor, the oppressed, the powerless and that we help make a stand for justice, fairness and the well-being of those that the majority wants to overlook. Tom Long, in his book, Whispering The Lyrics, tells us that, "During the prime days of the struggle for racial integration in the South, black civil rights workers - `freedom riders' they were called - would travel on buses from city to city, challenging segregationist laws. Sometimes they were greeted with violence; often they were arrested. In one town, a bus was halted by the police and the passengers were booked and jailed. While they were there, the jailers did everything possible to make them miserable and to break their spirits. They tried to deprive them of sleep with noise and light during the nights. They intentionally over-salted their food to make it distasteful. They gradually took away their mattresses, one by one, hoping to create conflict over the remaining ones. "Eventually the strategies seemed to be taking hold. Morale in the jail cells was beginning to sag. One of the jailed leaders, looking around one day at his dispirited fellow prisoners, began softly to sing a spiritual. Slowly, others joined in until the whole group was singing at the top of their voices and the puzzled jailers felt the entire cellblock vibrating with the sounds of a joyful gospel song. When they went to see what was happening, the prisoners triumphantly pushed the remaining mattresses through the cell bars, saying, `You can take our mattresses, but you can't take our souls.' It was the hymn singers who were in jail, but it was the jailers who were guilty. It was the prisoners who were suffering, but the jailers who were defeated. It was the prisoners who were in a position of weakness, but it was the broken and bigoted world of the jailers and of all the Pontius Pilates of history that was perishing."(3) On Christ the King Sunday, we proclaim that Jesus reigns, that His kingdom is not only future but also present, and we are called to be active and obedient disciples of our King. Because we can glimpse God's intention in creation and His fulfillment for us in heaven, we affirm that there is a kingdom that is beyond any powers, regimes, movements or alliances that may exist on earth. William Willimon describes a carving in the Duke University Chapel. Pilate is on the throne, with the symbols of Roman power and authority behind him. But the woodcarver has made Pilate appear small, weak, limp-wristed. Jesus stands in the middle of the court, serene, sure, staring out at us as one who dominates the scene. It's enough to make you ask, "Who is on the throne? Who's in charge here? Who rules?" I want you to remember this scene in Pilate's court whenever
you are made to stand before the powers-that-be and testify to
the hope that is within you. Jesus reigns. The Kingdom of
Heaven is at hand. When you walk out of here and go back,
tomorrow morning, to the schoolroom, or the boardroom, or the
assembly line, or the pots and pans at the sink; you will be
questioned, accused, challenged. Do not fear. Jesus has been
there. He has faced this world and all of the world's accusations
and he has triumphed. The trial is over. The verdict is in. Jesus
reigns.(4)
To recognize the ethical and spiritual implications of living
in the Kingdom of God is to know, worship and celebrate that
Jesus is Christ the King. We bow down before the Lord of the
Universe and we worship Him as we serve and show His love to
others as we live our lives each day. Amen. Century Christian Church, November 26, 2006 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland 1. Richard J. Fairchild, "A Kingdom Not Of This World." 2. Thomas G. Long, Whispering the Lyrics, Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Co., 1995, p. 77. 3. Ibid, p. 53. 4. William Willimon, "Thy Kingdom Come," 11/23/1997. |
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