Accepting Christ as King

Scripture Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14  (NRSV)

9 As I watched,
thrones were set in place,
    and an Ancient One took his throne,
his clothing was white as snow,
    and the hair of his head like pure wool;
his throne was fiery flames,
    and its wheels were burning fire.

10 A stream of fire issued
    and flowed out from his presence.
A thousand thousands served him,
    and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him.
The court sat in judgment,
    and the books were opened.

13 As I watched in the night visions,

I saw one like a human being
    coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One
    and was presented before him.

14 To him was given dominion
    and glory and kingship,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
    should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
    that shall not pass away,
and his kingship is one

    that shall never be destroyed.

It is still November, still gratitude month, and we are continuing our series on how to show our gratitude to God.   We have looked at obedience to God’s Law, and imitating God’s good works in the world.  Today, we look at how we show our gratitude to God by accepting his son, Jesus the Christ, as King.

In our hymns and prayers we often speak of Jesus as King.  Today is the Sunday celebrated as Christ the King Sunday in many Christian traditions.  It is not listed in my Disciples of Christ calendar of church holidays.  Probably because we are a homegrown American denomination, and Americans don’t really do “kings”.  We don’t really even know what King means, except perhaps in chess or checkers.  The kings and queens that some European nations have seem more ceremonial than anything.  And of course, there was that whole Revolutionary War thing -  intended to liberate us from kings for all time.   We were going to be self determining and self governing!  And that’s been working pretty well for us for the last 240 years.  

So when we talk about Jesus we tend to prefer the word Lord over King.  But that’s us, and that’s now.   But then  . . .

When the people of Israel demanded a king, Samuel tried to talk them out of it, telling them about taxes and involuntary servitude and being drafted into the army - things that a kingless people didn’t have to deal with.   All the other countries had kings, and even though they could see what that meant for their neighbors, still they insisted.  They wanted a king, so they were given one, and everything Samuel warned them about came to pass.  Kings, it was believed, served at the will of God, ordained and anointed by God to be his representative on earth.  And because it was God’s will that whoever was king, that king had total and complete power over his people.  He could tell them what work to do, where to live, what to wear, even.  People married whomever they were told to marry.  They could be sent off to war, forced into the king’s bed, killed or enslaved at the whim of the king.   The king was to be obeyed in every thing, and the consequences for disobedience could be severe.     Yes, there were good kings and bad kings, strong kings and weak kings, but even the most beloved and compassionate of kings still had the power of life and death over all in the land.  To be king was to have all the power.  Refusing an order, or even an invitation, from the king could get you killed!  

“Are you King of the Jews?”  When Pilate asked that question, he was trying to determine whether Jesus was a threat to the Roman Empire.  Because the King of the Jews was Herod, appointed to that position by the Roman Emperor and answerable to him.  Anything or anyone who was a threat to that state of affairs was a problem for which the solution was death.   But Jesus wasn’t claiming Herod’s throne, and Pilate couldn’t find any reason to execute him - except that for some reason this man seemed to have the Temple leadership very upset.  As far as Pilate could tell it was an internal, religious issue, and he really didn’t want to get involved in an internal, religious matter.  But in order to avoid a riot in the city he was responsible for, he ordered Jesus’ execution anyway.  And on the way, his soldiers crowned Jesus with a crown of thorns, to represent his kinghood.  They thought they were mocking him, but in fact, they were proclaiming the truth.  

Daniel said, “I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.”  To him was given dominion and glory and kingship.  And the people were not to “believe in him” or “worship him.”  All peoples are to “serve him.”  As the kings of Daniel’s time were served.  Remember, Daniel was hostage to a king who had no problem tossing disobedient Hebrews into a furnace because they insisted on worshiping their own God instead of him!  When Daniel said king, this is the kind of king he meant.   A king whose word was to be obeyed in all things.  A king whose power was second only to that of God.  

The centurion whose servant Jesus healed in Matthew chapter 8 understood the kind of power that Jesus had and from whence it came.   When Jesus offered to come and heal his servant, the centurion said to him, ““Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.”     

Jesus as king is no mere figurehead, as are so many European royals, with a Parlaiment to make laws and approve his budget.  Nor is he like the king on a chessboard, whose moves are restricted and who must be protected from attack by all the other pieces.   Jesus has the power, given to him by God.  He needs no knights or pawns, bishops or queens to protect him,.   When he moves, he changes lives.   When we accept him as our King, whose words are to be obeyed, our lives can be changed.

I need to point out that there is a very significant difference between Christ as King and all of those other kings - Saul, David, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod.   Their rule is about power, their power over other humans.  They are obeyed out of fear for the consequences.  Their kingdoms are on and of the world.  Jesus’ rule is based about love.  His rule is about compassion and mercy, in justice.  He is obeyed out of love for him, and for God the Creator.    According to John 18:36, when Jesus responds to Pilate, he says “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”  Jesus’ reign is over our hearts and souls.  Which doesn’t mean there is any less obligation to be obedient.  It simply means that obeying Jesus is a very different matter from obeying the laws of our nation.  When we disobey Jesus, the consequence is not a jail term, or a fine, or community service as might be the case for disobedience to the laws of the land.  When we disobey Jesus, the consequence is a soul deep pain, a knowledge that we have done that which saddens our Lord and our Savior.  When we disobey Christ the King, we have fallen short in our love for God, for ourselves, and for our neighbors, the two commandments that Jesus has told us are most important.  When we disobey Christ the King, it is because we have allowed the ways of the world or our own selfishness to come between us and our God.   

If w are to show gratitude to God for all that we have received, we will obey the king he has sent us.  The kings of the world last but a short time, the laws that they put in place can be changed as soon as they are gone.  In some cases, evidence of their very existence can be eradicated, as was attempted with some of the pharaohs of Egypt.  But the reign of our King, Christ the King, “is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.”  We, as Christians, show our gratitude to God for the gift of his love when we accept Jesus, the Christ, as our King.

I know that it’s fairly easy to say “I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior.”  There are people coming forward at altar calls in churches all over the world probably right this minute proclaiming that very thing.   But when we say that, what do we mean?   Do we mean “I believe and now I will go to heaven”?  Or do we mean, “I am ready to change my life entirely and do my best to do what I believe Jesus would have me do in every situation.”?    What does it mean to accept Jesus the Christ as King, the kind of King that Daniel saw in his vision?   

It means that we will put Christ’s law before the laws of the land.  It means that we will seek justice for all persons. It means that we will treat other humans with love and compassion.  It means that we will seek to determine what it is that Jesus would have us do.  It means that we will listen for his voice in the scriptures, in the voices of others, and in the silence.   

The Good News, my brothers and sisters, is that we can choose to accept Christ as King over and over again.  We can fall short, and receive forgiveness.  For the Christ, the King of the world, is a merciful and grace-filled king, whose throne comes from a God whose steadfast love endures forever.   As the people of God, let us rejoice in the reign of Christ.  Let us stand and sing together “Rejoice, the Lord is King!” 

Imitating the Lord

Scripture Psalm 146 NRSV   

1 Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!

2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
    I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

3 Do not put your trust in princes,
    in mortals, in whom there is no help.

4 When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
    on that very day their plans perish.

5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
    whose hope is in the Lord their God,

6 who made heaven and earth,
    the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;

7  who executes justice for the oppressed;
    who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;

8  the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
    the Lord loves the righteous.

9 The Lord watches over the strangers;
    he upholds the orphan and the widow,
    but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

10 The Lord will reign forever,
    your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the Lord!

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It has been a difficult, extremely emotional week even for someone like me who does not watch TV news, so I have not been bombarded with images of the fires and the aftermath of the shooting.  But I do follow print media, and the various newspapers I read keep sending updates and breaking news headlines.   13 dead in a mass shooting.  At least 25 dead in fires.  Paradise is lost.   So yesterday I was at an anti-racism training and toward the end someone said how hard it was going to be to preach hope today with all the terrible things happening.  Someone else pointed out that today the Gospel reading is the story of the widow’s mite.  Our trainer, Sandhya Jha, said “Not me!  I’m preaching on Psalm 146!  That’s going to be hard.”  And I agreed, because that’s what I had chosen, too.  Many of you know that I select the scripture reading weeks or even months in advance.  Back when I chose to do a series on Gratitude in November, and selected the scriptures to preach on, I had no way of knowing what this month was going to be like.   The scripture reading I’m preaching on says “Praise the Lord!” and I sat at my computer feeling more like, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”

And yet - you know that gratitude list I do every day?  Ok, almost every day?  A friend sent me a text yesterday saying “I found out yesterday that I have termites. I was really frustrated. Then saw the news about Paradise. I'm grateful to have a home to have termites.”   And then she began looking for ways she could help the victims of the fires.   Gratitude tends to make us want to do something to express that gratitude.  And in case you missed the announcements - Donations to Week of Compassion for “fires in California” or gift cards in any amount will be helpful.  Some congregations are making hygiene kits to send.   First Christian Church in Chico is an evacuation center and will be happy for any help they can get. 

If I were to give today’s message its full title, instead of what will fit on the top of my blog page, it would be “Ways we show our gratitude to God Part 2:  Imitating the Lord.”   I was kind of thinking along the lines of imitation as the sincerest form of flattery, and flattery is what we do when we find someone attractive in one way or another.  So if we are really attracted to the work of Father Greg Boyle in LA, we might go out and work with gang members.  Or if we are really attracted to the work of Rev. William Barber we might join the Poor Peoples Campaign.  Some of you all worked on political campaigns over the last weeks because you admired a particular person’s stance on issues that are important to you. People who have overcome addictions often work with addicts to help others the way they were helped - showing   So if we are to imitate God because we are grateful for all that, then this is what we have to do:

execute justice for the oppressed;
give food to the hungry.

set the prisoners free;

open the eyes of the blind.
lift up those who are bowed down;
love the righteous.

watch over the strangers;
uphold the orphan and the widow,
bring to ruin the way of the wicked.

Some of those seem pretty easy.  We do feed the hungry at the SMART Center and at Christian Cafe.   We try to help those who are down.  We donate money to  causes that will help the poor.  We collect tomatoes for Selma Cares - to feed families - and hygiene products for the patients in the Selma Convalescent Hospital, who have very little indeed.  We do what we can.  But there are other things we can do, things that aren’t quite so linear as feeding the hungry or singing money to help widows and orphans.  Opening the eyes of the blind, for example, means more than just fixing someone’s eyes.

Ian David Long was 28 years old.  A Marine Corps veteran who had served in Afghanistan.  On Wednesday night he walked up to a bar in Thousand Oaks, California and shot the security guard at the door, then the woman working the desk inside the bar, then 10 more people including a deputy who responded to the call. Then himself.   And the news told us the police went to his house a couple of months back because he was acting out, but not so badly that he had to be sent for psychiatric evaluation.  Some people said, “I don’t understand.  He was such a nice guy.” while others said, “Yeah, he was trouble in high school.”  Some said, ‘Well, obviously he had PTSD and it made him crazy.”  But Thomas Burke, a pastor who served with Long in the same US Marine Corps regiment, which had experienced heavy fighting during their tours of duty, warned against too quickly blaming Long's actions on trauma experienced during war.  "PTSD doesn't create homicidal ideation," Burke said. "We train a generation to be as violent as possible, then we expect them to come home and be OK. It's not mental illness. It's that we're doing something to a generation, and we're not responding to the needs they have.”    (www.cnn.com/2018/11/08/us/thousand-oaks-gunman/)

It’s not mental illness.  It is something we are doing to a generation . . . and we have done it to every generation who has gone to war for us.  We take perfectly nice young people, turn them into killing machines, and ask them to forget all that when they get back without any kind of help at all from the people who trained them in the first place.  I mean, when we “rescue” people from cults there are folks who specialize in de-programming them, so we know it can be done.   If we are to imitate God, we will open the eyes of those who are blind to what’s happening.  We will free the prisoners from the programming that they have been subjected to.  There are agencies trying to help, but so much more is needed.   We celebrate our Veterans one day a year, but how much do we really do to return them to the way they were before, before they were taught to forget about loving each other?  If we are to imitate God, we will find a way to change that. We will lift up our voices to bring to ruin the ways of the wicked until these, our veterans, receive the care they need.  Because it is wicked to take all these nice young people, change them, and then turn them loose to try to make their way back to normalcy on their own.  And if we are not part of the solution, then we are responsible for the problem.

Similarly, in the anti-racism training yesterday, we looked at the various ways even our church by-laws are upholding systemic racism or classism, yet most of us were completely blind to that.  I can tell you, it was not a comfortable feeling to  become aware that white supremacy is alive and well even in the founding documents of our churches.   

If we are truly grateful for what we have received from God, we will imitate the ways of our Lord.  Imitating Christ is not easy.  He did, after all, poke the bear.  He challenged the powers that be to see themselves clearly.  Worse, he spoke revolutionary ideas to the masses and challenged them to see the powers that be clearly.  He looked at the way things were, and saw the way things could be.   If we would imitate our Lord, we would do these things too.  I can pretty much promise that will upset some folks.   Trust me, the clergy folks sitting around looking at our congregational by-laws and the founding documents of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) were quite upset at what we were seeing.   We must take off the blinders.  We must speak truth to power - even to ourselves! - because we, ourselves, are the oppressors when we abide by  documents that relegate some to lesser participation in Christ’s family.

If we are grateful, we will imitate our Lord, whose second greatest commandment was to love our neighbors - all our neighbors - as we love ourselves. The victims and the shooters.  The rabble rousers and the oppressors.  The military/industrial complex and the veterans.  Our Lord commanded us to love everyone, just as he, himself, rejected no one.  All are welcome to come to our Lord.  All are welcome to give themselves to him.  All are offered a place at his table.   It is for us to reach out and make sure that offer of unconditional love, is made known to all.  

Obedience to the Law

Deuteronomy 6:1-9 NRSV   

6:1 Now this is the commandment--the statutes and the ordinances--that the LORD your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, 6:2 so that you and your children and your children's children, may fear the LORD your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long.

6:3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.

6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.

6:5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

6:6 Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.  6:7 Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.  6:8 Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead,  6:9 and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

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According to Mark, some Pharisees and Herodians and Sadducees were debating with Jesus and with each other on a wide range of topics, from paying taxes to the resurrection at the end of times, featuring that well-worn trick question that the Sadducees loved to trip up the Pharisees with, “Whose wife will she be after the resurrection?”  These are things on which none of them agreed with one another, and Jesus had answers that astounded them all.  

One of the things that we need to remember is that the Pharisees and Sadducees were both well educated in the Law, but held different understandings of it.  They were kind of like clergy folk who have gone to different seminaries.  Each seminary teaches it own point of view, its own theological understandings, and the graduates tend to espouse those things which they were taught.   And, in case you aren’t aware of this, there is very little that theologically trained people enjoy more than debating their particular understandings of God and scripture.  Some of the great debates of the middle ages included such life changing topics as “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”  So, when we see that Pharisees and Sadducees and Jesus were all debating various points of the Law (Torah), it wasn’t necessarily a “let’s prove this new guy wrong” situation.  It very easily could have been, “Oh cool.  A new point of view to consider!”  Because they had heard each other’s arguments over and over again.  

So one of the scribes, hearing all this debate and seeing that Jesus looked at things a bit differently, asked one more question.  “Which is the first and greatest commandment?”  And Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one;  you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’”  The scribe, of course, agreed. 

Because, indeed, this is the first and greatest commandment. This commandment, known as the Shema, is so important that God instructed the Hebrews to teach these words to their children, to talk about them all the time and everywhere, and even write them on the doorways of their homes and wear them on their bodies.  You can tell when you are at the home of a Jewish person because on their front door is a mezuzah - a case containing these words.  The  artwork today is a mezuzah decorated with a Tree of Life, in honor of the 11 people who were shot and killed last week at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA.  

Now, as it is November, a month often designated as Gratitude Month, I have planned a sermon series called “How do we show our gratitude to God?”  This week the form of gratitude we will look at is Obedience to the Law.  And the first and most important law is this, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”  

We often tend to immediately leap from this statement to the rest of what Jesus said to the scribe that day, “The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'”  And while this is indeed important, it is second.  First in importance is “Love the Lord your God”.  First is the requirement to teach this to our children, of talking about it everywhere and always.  Even maybe writing the words on our front doors, so that everyone will know what is most important to us.  

Now this is more than just teaching your children the Bible and bringing them to church, although these are very good and important things to do.  Some of my best memories of childhood are sitting on the couch with the family Bible, reading the stories in it, and talking about them.  What God says, however, is simply “Teach your children to love God.”  They can learn some of that through reading the Bible, but mostly they will learn it through watching us - you - me - other Christians. We all know that, right?  Our actions speak louder than our words.  Our children - and other people around us - will learn more about Christianity through watching us and listening to us than by reading the entire Bible.   It is not enough to just say “I love the Lord!”  We must show it by our obedience to the Law.  This first and greatest law, and the second one.  Which, as we all know is, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'   Jesus went on to say, There is no other commandment greater than these.”   And the scribe said to him, "You are right, Teacher. . .'to love God with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,' and 'to love one's neighbor as oneself,' --this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”  

But I know for certain that loving God is not demonstrated by shooting 11 Jews in a synagogue on Shabbat, or 2 African Americans in Kroger’s, or sending pipe bombs to people whose political views you don’t like, or being part of any organization whose stated purpose is to kill or otherwise eliminate any group people.  Or by speaking badly about any individual or group of people.  And I don’t know about you, but I am so ready for the elections to be over so that at least some of the hateful words that invade our space through television and radio and the internet and the Postal Service will stop!    Not loving!  None of it!   Loving God means wanting to please God, and pleasing God means doing things that exhibit love for all of God’s creatures.  We don’t demonstrate our love for a friend by killing their child, or talking trash about their family members, so why would anyone think that killing or hating on another human would please God, who loves all his children, and who grieves when these things happen, just as we grieve. 

I got an email yesterday from a friend who is completing the classroom part of her PhD program and wants input on the question, “What is transformational learning?”   My immediate reaction was, ‘It’s what I wish I could do. I wish I could preach and teach in such a way as to truly change lives and hearts.” Teaching love is a challenge, at best.  Especially if we have to teach it through our actions.  And then there is the whole “What is love?” thing.  We know it is more than a feeling.  Although I say that I love my tiny car and chocolate, that’s not really love.  I love my cats.  I care for them and about them.  I give them good food and keep bad things away from them (like chocolate), and I discipline them (sort of, ’cause, cats.)  I can teach someone how to take care of cats, but I cannot teach anyone how to love cats.   I can preach and give people books to teach them about God, and about how to worship God, but those things will not teach anyone to love God.  That is something I must teach through the way I live my life, and I could do much better.  It is hard to always behave lovingly.   It is hard to always be grateful.

Mere words will not transform lives.  Transformation comes through action, and through gratitude, and through a great desire for a different way of living and being.    My life was transformed when I started spending my time with people who consistently demonstrated God’s love, who tried to practice unconditional love for others, and spoke often of God’s loving care and forgiveness.   They rarely talked about religious practices, but they talked about loving God all the time.  And that is what God says we are to do.   “Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. . . . talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.”

The scribe said to Jesus, “"You are right, Teacher . . .’to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,' and 'to love one's neighbor as oneself,' --this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”   When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God.”  

May we go from this place today with an attitude of gratitude that leads us to obey God’s Law.   May we speak always of our love for a loving God, and act with love toward our neighbors.   And may we teach love for God through our words and our actions, in everything we do, all the days of our lives.