Meanwhile, In the World

Matthew 2:13-23

Like many families, in our home we want everything to be beautiful and joyful and satisfying on Christmas. We want everyone to feel comfortable and loved and content. And we do a pretty good job of it, it seems. Yet the real truth of Christmas has the power to come through any shiny veneer we might put on it.

In Matthew’s gospel, we hear about the angel who came to Joseph and told him not to be afraid; the one who is responsible for Joseph being there when Mary’s child was born. And we hear about the Magi who followed the star all the way to Bethlehem where they knelt before the child and offered gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Both are beautiful pieces of the story we cherish and retell each year. 

But no sooner have the Magi left when we hear that an angel has once again visited Joseph in a dream and warned him to escape from the wrath of King Herod. The infant’s life is in danger. So Joseph flees with the mother and child, all of them becoming refugees in Egypt.

It is not hard to understand the danger they were in. Herod had been alerted that there was a newborn boy who was destined to be king. And clearly Herod is the kind of ruler who suffers no challenge to his authority. He is brutal, ruthless. 

Herod is so enraged when he learns he was outfoxed by the Magi, he orders a massacre of the infants throughout Bethlehem. An astonishing display of evil. Mary’s child is safe, thankfully. Yet there is communal grief at the loss of so much life. A slaughter of the innocents.

As Matthew tells this story I am sure that he is thinking how everything about Jesus the Messiah is rooted in Israel’s history, and he is surely thinking about the long memory of loss for the people of Israel. Specifically, he is thinking about the exile in Babylon that Israel endured hundreds of years before Jesus was born. It was the end of the kingdom of Israel, as it had been for centuries. The Babylonian army conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the temple, and the people were taken into exile at the mercy of their captors. 

When the people were deported they passed through Ramah, the place where Rachel had been buried, centuries before. Rachel was the beloved wife of Jacob, the grandson of Abraham. Jacob loved Rachel at first sight, and so he asked her father, Laban, for her hand in marriage.

Jacob was sly, but Laban even more so. Laban negotiated seven years of labor from Jacob for the reward of Rachel, which Jacob happily agreed to. But on the day of his wedding, he was tricked by Laban into marrying Rachel’s older sister, Leah, whom Jacob did not love. Jacob then worked another seven years to earn Rachel as his second wife. Jacob the Trickster met his match in Laban.

Even though Leah was the first wife of Jacob, she was always in Rachel’s shadow, because she was not the desired one. This must have been so very hard for Leah, but Rachel suffered deeply as well. Rachel watched her sister, Leah, give birth to one son after another, while she, Rachel, remained childless. 

Finally, after many years, Rachel was blessed with a son – Joseph, who became Jacob’s favorite child. And then she conceived again and bore a second son. But Rachel did not live to enjoy this blessing. She died in childbirth.

As she was dying, the story goes, Rachel named her newborn son, Ben-Oni, which means “Child of my sorrow.” 

This all happened near Ramah, while the family of Jacob was journeying toward Bethlehem. They buried Rachel in the place where she died, then journeyed on. The legend holds that Rachel could always be heard weeping for her children, by those who passed by her grave. And the memory of Rachel weeping stays with Israel through the centuries, through the suffering – from exile to oppression, from pogroms to holocaust – Rachel weeps for all the children.

The story Matthew tells does not let us forget the world. All our efforts to make it sparkle and shine and ring with joy do not erase or cover over the truth. We live in a world where, as one preacher said, “children are killed, and continue to be killed, to protect the power of tyrants.”

Matthew does not let us forget the harsh realities of this world. Nor does he try to pretend that the birth of Christ eradicated them. Even while it mars the holiday gloss, this is not an unwelcome message. Matthew’s honesty is an affirmation of what we know in the deepest corners of our heart. Every one of us knows suffering. Every one of us has experienced having our hearts broken. Every one of us has, at one time or another, felt the acute pain of knowing the inordinate number of ways humans cause harm to one another. We haven’t yet figured out how to escape such realities – although perhaps we should not want to escape.

One of the Christmas traditions in our home is to read Mary’s Magnificat together. After we have opened all the gifts and when we sit down together at a table laden with an abundance of good food. Before we begin to eat, I read Mary’s song from Luke, and every year I am reading it through my tears. 

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

    and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant…

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones

    and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things

    and sent the rich away empty.”

We hear these words Mary sings as an already accomplished but not yet seen truth. Mary proclaims the power of God to restore shalom to the world, and her song affirms her faith that this divine power is on the move, in our midst. 

I feel that it brings some sense of balance to our celebration, something we must acknowledge. Because if the world had been rid of all evil, if everything were roses and sunshine and happiness all the time, we would have no need for a Savior. And, we know, it is not like that. The world we live in shows us evidence every single day of how much we need this incarnate God.

Because everything we see in Jesus the Christ shows us that it is actually possible to embody peace. To restore shalom to the world God created and called good. Jesus shows us the way of peace.

And so we weep with Rachel for all the suffering and loss in the world. We lament that innocents still are made to suffer at the hands of tyrants, that hungry children still wait to be filled with good things. Troubles did not disappear because Jesus was born. The birth of Christ did not change this in one fell swoop. But the incarnation of God has the power to change the hearts of every one of us. As Jesus embodied God, we may follow him and become the embodiment of peace.

May we know this at Christmas, and always. 

Slow Work, Good Work

I learned something new this week: Christmas Eve marked 70 years that the North American Aerospace Defense Command has been tracking Santa’s sleigh. According to the story I read, it started in 1955 when a child tried to call a Santa hotline, but accidentally called this defense agency and got Colonel Harry Shoup on the line. Initially the Colonel was confused, but he recovered quickly and realized the opportunity here. From that point on they made it their responsibility to track Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve, providing regular updates on the sleigh’s location. Every year, they answer phone calls from children around the world, assuring them that all is well and Santa is on his way.

It’s a truly unique way that our military offers protection and assurance to the citizens of the world. A kinder, gentler face of our fighting forces – but apparently all in line with the image they wish to project, of defending and serving for the sake of peace and well-being.

As much as we rely on the military – for this specific purpose as well as many other ways they serve – we know on Christmas Eve that there are even bigger movements afoot. On this night we remember how God moved into the world to usher in the divine reign of peace – a peace that no human efforts can create or even imagine.

On this night we remember when God moved into a neighborhood that had been longing for peace for thousands of years.

The story of this night, the story of God’s coming, takes us to Bethlehem, a place far away from here, but not all that different. When we think of Bethlehem we tend to think of our creches, with the baby in the manger, the shepherds and magi worshiping the babe, Mary and Joseph reveling in the holy mystery, the angels watching from above, the animals of the fields at peace amongst all these visitors. They sit on our mantelpiece or our table.

But we know that Bethlehem is a real place that has been in existence for thousands of years, in a region of the world that has known almost continual strife, with rival powers seeking to control the land and the people there. A little town that stands in the shadow of an important city, which itself has been subject to much tension and violence. This is the place where God chose to touch earth. Bethlehem, the house of bread.

There is a family in Bethlehem who has farmed in the region for over a hundred years. Their name is Nassar; they are Palestinian Christians. On 100 acres they have grown olives, figs, almonds, apricots, grapes, and even wheat. They have lived and worked here through numerous shifts in governing powers: from the Ottoman Empire, to the British Empire, then Jordan, and now Israel. 

The Nassar family has endured the challenges of these shifts and turns: instability, violence, constant uncertainty. They have been witnesses to all the violence surrounding them, and have, themselves, been subject to many threats and violent acts. But through it all, they remember they are children of the Prince of Peace, living in the place where he was born. Their faith leads them to say they will not be a part of the violence and hate. They refuse to be enemies.

They choose to practice hospitality – to everyone. No matter who comes to their farm, no matter what their intentions, the Nassars respond with invitation. They offer tea and a shady spot to sit and conversation. Every time they welcome someone to their farm, the conversation comes around to some of the things Jesus taught, such as, “blessed are the peacemakers.”

They work for peace with every tree they plant, every grape vine they cultivate, every cup of tea they serve. It is slow work. But truly good work.

This path of peace they have chosen, and recommit to every day, is the path that God began in Jesus, from the time the angel spoke to Mary and Joseph and the shepherds in the fields; from the time Mary lay her newborn on a bed of straw; from the time those Magi in the east saw a new star and knew this was something they had to watch and follow, something that would inaugurate a new era. They knew, also, that if Herod had his chance he would try hard to destroy it, and so they wisely didn’t let him have his chance.

Yes, it is slow work. But truly good work.

This is the good news of Christmas: God loved the world enough to send us his beloved Son and show this world a different way. God took on flesh and bone and blood to give hope to a weary and disillusioned world. God chose all these most unlikely people – lowly shepherds of the field, a carpenter, an unwed teenage girl, and some foreigners who studied the stars – these are the people God chose to bring hope into the world.

This is what draws us together to worship in the darkness of Christmas Eve. And in coming together, aren’t we saying that we are a part of this tradition too? We are among the ones God has chosen to bring hope to the world.

This is a story for all of us. Because the world is harmed by power and greed and hatred, but the world may be healed by us, offering the peace of Christ, bringing Shalom, changing the world for good, one person at a time.

Photo: ChurchArt. Com

Child of God

Isaiah 7:10-16

Matthew 1:18-25

I can still remember some of the things people said to us before our first child, Kira, was born. Everybody had some kind of advice – some good, some not so great. One of the things I remember was you should go out on dates, do adult things, just take advantage of the fact that your time is your own. Because that life is about to end.

This is one of the things you sacrifice when you have children. But it’s only one of the things. Lots of things change when you have children no one ever tells you about. You only find out after the fact. They are definitely more expensive than the tax deduction you got, that’s one thing. The last time I slept through the night was over forty years ago, that’s another. You discover ways to worry and sources of frustration that you never knew before. Maybe it’s a good thing that you don’t know all this in advance.

You make many sacrifices when you have a child – this is what we all find out eventually. And so, to the degree that it is a choice, I find it fascinating that so many people do choose it.

For Mary, who was visited by the angel Gabriel and was told that she would bear a son, it was not clear that she had a choice in the matter. I do wonder about it, though. If Mary had told the angel, “NOPE. I’m not gonna do that”; if Mary had turned and run, screaming in terror; even if Mary had politely said, “Gosh, I’m flattered you would think of me for that, but I’m afraid I have to decline”; I wonder if Gabriel would have gone off in search of another candidate.

It is a possibility that Mary had a choice. But it is a certainty that Joseph did. 

When we are introduced to Joseph, Matthew lets us know that he is a righteous man. He and Mary are betrothed, which was binding. It wasn’t a casual thing to break off an engagement for them. It would have been an arranged marriage, according to the custom of the time, and once the families had consented to the match, it was a legal contract. 

During this period, before the wedding took place, Joseph learned that Mary was pregnant. He knew that he was not the father of the child. This in itself was grounds for legal action.

Joseph had some options. He could bring charges of adultery against Mary. If found guilty, which she certainly would be, Mary could be sentenced to death by stoning – a brutal punishment. But Joseph is a righteous man, Matthew tells us. Joseph has compassion for Mary, and he prefers to be merciful. So Joseph decides to quietly divorce her, which was the obvious merciful option. Mary would still suffer the shame of her condition, but it wouldn’t be so damaging. Of course, Mary’s future options would be closed off. Mary would still pay the price. But Joseph could begin again. For him there is the possibility of finding another bride. 

The law would allow Joseph to just walk away from this unfortunate set of circumstances, unscathed. Because, not only can he renounce the engagement, not only can he bring charges against Mary and see her punished, not only can he begin again with a clean slate, all possibilities still open to him – not only all that, but Joseph can also demand recompense. Financial remuneration. The return of the “bride price,” and whatever resources he had already invested in the marriage. 

This financial consideration was among all the options Joseph had before him. In his decision to make a quiet break with Mary, he had already decided to sacrifice the money. He would not make a big public case of it. But about all the other options he had, Joseph was not willing to make additional sacrifices. He’s done. 

So there he is, settled in his mind. Probably not an easy or happy decision. Joseph is disillusioned. With Mary, with the world and all the lousy things that happen on a regular basis. But Joseph decides he’s done. Checking out. He is decided before he drops off to sleep that night.

But then comes Joseph’s surprise. An angel, maybe the same angel who visited Mary, comes to him. “Do not be afraid, Joseph, to take Mary as your wife.”

“Do not be afraid, Joseph. The child she is carrying is from the Holy Spirit. Mary will bear a son. And you, Joseph, are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 

And presumably also in his dreams, the words of the prophet Isaiah, “Look, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.” 

God’s word to Joseph. Matthew’s word to the church: Emmanuel, God with us. 

The word from the angel gave Joseph the courage he needed that night. Joseph would not divorce Mary, he would not walk away from the shame that was upon her, but he would walk with her and help carry that burden. 

He would take this child as his son. He would make all the sacrifices you make in raising a child – and even more. Joseph showed that he was willing to sacrifice his reputation in the world. Because, in the end, what is a reputation worth if it means abandoning the ones who need you? Abandoning the promise – the hope – of the redemption of the world?

Joseph changed his mind that night. He thought he was ready to check out, just pick up his battered ego and walk away. He thought this was a lost cause. Then the angel of the Lord came to him. 

Don’t be afraid, Joseph, to go all in. There will be hard sacrifices, no doubt. But knowing that this child is Emmanuel – that you will have God-with-us living under your roof – doesn’t that make all the difference in the world?

When Joseph said yes, everything in his life changed. And everything in our lives changed. The whole world changed. Emmanuel – God-with-us – brings every one of us together into Joseph’s household, into God’s family. 

Like Joseph, we are occasionally called to change our mind. To make a sacrifice we did not plan on making, to go all in and be a part of the change God is bringing to this world. It will be hard. It just is. But knowing that Emmanuel, God-with-us, lives in our hearts; knowing that there is reason to hold on to hope because of him; doesn’t that make all the difference in the world?

The One We Are Waiting For

Isaiah 35:1-10

Matthew 11:2-11

People often do like a new thing.

Kim and I have recently noticed the presence of a new fast food franchise in our area, which is drawing a lot of attention: Zaxby’s. I’ve never eaten at one, although I have noticed them while traveling. Apparently, they specialize in “chicken fingerz.” I hear they are really good. Every time we have passed the new one in Cambridge we’ve seen a line of cars stretching out on the road. 

That’s just something humans do. When a new place opens up people have to go there and find out what it’s all about. If there is enough buzz, and if it is really good, the energy might sustain itself, and it becomes like the Rise Up drive-through on Riverside Drive.

When we lived in Dayton, Ohio, food trucks were all the rage. A whole culture of food truck connoisseurs loved to talk about their favorites, and one of these was a certain hot dog truck: Zombie Dogz. At food festivals you might see hundreds of people lined up for this one. People would wait two hours in line for a Zombie Dog. And then they would rave about how good it was. It was “amazing” or “to die for.” Best hot dog ever.

Of course, if you have waited in line two hours for a hot dog, what else are you going to say? “It was okay. Not sure it was worth the two hours of my life. But my time isn’t worth a whole lot. So it was okay.”

Who’s going to say that? When we have invested in something, we want to be able to say it was worth it. 

In the big scheme of things, it really isn’t that big a deal if you spend one Saturday afternoon standing in line for a hot dog. If it makes you happy, okay. But what if you became a Zombie Dogz groupie, and you followed the Zombie Dogz truck around to all the food festivals every weekend, and your whole life started to revolve around Zombie Dogz? That would be a big deal. And you might, at some point, have to ask yourself if you have done the right thing, going all-in on Zombie Dogz. 

Sometimes, we have to face the big question about choices we have made: was it really worth it? Was this the right thing to go all in on?

Is this the one we have been waiting for? Or should I keep looking? Keep waiting?

Last week we met John the Baptist at the Jordan River, baptizing and prophesying. He talked about the one who was to come, who would be more powerful than him. He painted an image of a man with a winnowing fork in one hand and an ax in the other, ready to do some damage.

I said then that, although John was right about many things, he seems to have missed the mark about this one. John’s image of a Messiah coming through like a wrecking crew, judging each and every one, as either worthy or unworthy, and clearing out every person who doesn’t make the cut.

This was something John wanted, and perhaps many of the people who came to him for baptism also wanted. To clear away the unwanted ones – the “bad guys” – might mean that Israel could be free again, and peaceful. Clearly, the goal, the strong desire, was for Israel to be freed from their oppression, and John’s hope was for the Messiah to make that happen.

This was the one John was waiting for.

Time passed. John continued his baptizing and prophesying. He continued to get under the wrong people’s skin, looking very much like a threat to the existing order, and eventually King Herod had him arrested and thrown in jail. And as he languished in his prison cell, John had plenty of time to think. 

He began to have some doubts. He wondered if he had made a mistake of some kind. Was Jesus truly the one they had been waiting for, the Messiah? Was he the one who would restore the glory of Israel? 

John had to wonder, because it wasn’t playing out quite like he thought it would. Obviously, because John was sitting in a prison cell, at the mercy of this tyrannical king. 

And Israel still suffered under the iron fist of the empire. 

This was, of course, much bigger, much more consequential, than a choice of hot dog or chicken fingers. This was about life itself.

And for John, there was some urgency in this. How long must Israel wait to be redeemed? How long must he wait in this cell? Is Jesus the one they have been waiting for, or will they need to still watch and wait?

John sends his disciples with a message for Jesus, a simple question: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” But a simple yes or no answer is not forthcoming. Jesus needs them – needs us – to see for ourselves.

“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” Do you see this? Jesus is making people whole. He is bringing Shalom.

Jesus points to what he has done, what he is doing, and asks John to make the connection. These are the things Isaiah prophesied. These are the things Mary sang about. Look, he says to John’s disciples. You see it all, don’t you? You know this is good news. Redemption is happening now, in this place and time. 

Everything that Jesus is doing, everything he points John to, each of these sights points beyond itself to the one who made this new wholeness possible.

Is this a hard thing for John to see? Possibly. Even though John is a prophet, a man gifted with a vision of God’s plan for Israel, he is struggling to understand how this man Jesus fits the vision. He is not bringing down the powers that are oppressing the people. He is not, as far as John can see, redeeming the nation of Israel.

Even John cannot quite see how Jesus is the one. Yet. Because John, like so many of us, has some preconceptions about what this redemption should look like. 

Perhaps Jesus does not look like a Redeemer, one who beats the bad guys and kicks them out of town. Jesus doesn’t look like Superman. Jesus actually looks quite ordinary. Quite human. A human with an unusual gift for bringing healing and wholeness, one person at a time. Shalom.

The word Shalom, which we usually translate as “peace” really means something bigger than that. The Roman Empire prioritized peace, but by this they meant total compliance with the rule of law. They mean that any disobedience would be dealt with harshly, violently. The peace of Rome required the oppression of many people. But the peace of God is entirely different. 

Shalom is universal wholeness and flourishing, wellbeing, reconciliation. Shalom – the peace of God – stands in contrast to what the world calls peace. 

And so, if John is to get the answer to his question, he will have to get his head around this new idea. We too, will need to understand this idea that, somehow, still feels like a radical concept. That Jesus is not going punch out the powerful to bring them down. But what he is doing is attending to the lowly to lift them up. And he is showing us the way, too.

He is the one we have been waiting for, and he will lead us on that highway in the wilderness, the Holy Way.

The One Who Is Coming

Isaiah 11:1-10

Matthew 3:1-12

I recently read a snippet from an interview with one of our most famous living Bible scholars, John Dominic Crossan. The topic of the Left Behind mania came up – you remember those books that were so popular in the nineties? They promoted the rapture concept, the notion that believers will one day, unexpectedly get scooped up into heaven, leaving behind a world on the verge of chaos. According to the theory, there follows a cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil, ending with the triumphal return of Jesus to earth. This is the kind of stuff that begs to be made into a movie franchise.

We touched on the concept last week, with our first Sunday of Advent texts focusing on the end of the world. 

Crossan had an interesting take on the rapture mania. He said he thought the obsession about Jesus’ second coming was a result of people being disappointed with his first coming. We have always kind of wished that Jesus had eradicated evil the first time.

And that is what many of those in Israel hoped for too, including John the Baptist. Listen to what he says:

“…the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I ... He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Scary words. And John is a scary guy. What kind of person dresses in camel’s hair? Who makes a diet out of locusts and wild honey – wild honey! There is nothing domesticated about this man.

He comes out from the wilderness shouting orders: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near! Prepare the way, make his paths straight! Get ready or get out!

The people swarm to him – they want in on this baptism. They are rightly afraid and will do whatever is necessary to get on the right side. I can imagine angry John standing in the river, waist-deep, as each new candidate for baptism wades into the water toward him, trembling. He grabs ahold of them roughly, pushing them down under the surface as they utter their confessions. 

He was a powerful presence, this John, and he drew a lot of attention. It swelled from the ground up, but eventually the men in positions of power took notice. They start coming down to the river, too, to check this out for themselves.

I can’t say I know what their motivations were. There might have been some authentic desire for this new life John was proclaiming; they might have felt compelled to repent just as the others did. Maybe they were afraid, too. But maybe they just wanted to check out this situation – this guy who rises up out of nowhere, an overnight sensation who might be a threat to their authority in Israel. Maybe they wanted to assess the danger.

Whatever brought them there, John does not assume they have come ready to repent. 

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” He lets loose with a stream of angry warnings. If the people weren’t afraid before, they definitely are now. Then the big warning:

“His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

John the Baptist is on a mission to prepare the people for some serious housecleaning. And you know what? I imagine that many of them were thinking, “Yeah, it’s about time.”

Things were not great. The people lived in fear of the empire. They suffered poverty as a result of the corruption among the powerful. And the image of a Messiah with a winnowing fork in his hand and fire in his eyes was not unwelcome. Some of them probably wanted someone like John to come along and burn it all down.

Eradicate evil for good. This is what it sounds like John is telling them.

But John, he did have a few things wrong about the one who is coming. 

To be clear, John was right about a lot of things. He was right about the need to repent, which is simply turning toward God. To repent is to turn away from the ways that keep us estranged from God and toward the way that has been prepared for us – out of the wilderness – to reconnect with God. John was right to say that the kingdom of heaven has come near. Jesus was there in their midst, ready to begin his ministry on earth. God came down, love came down, ready to reconnect with all of us. The kingdom was near and is near.

John was right about the urgency. It is always urgent for us to turn away from our crooked, broken ways and find our way back on the path that has been made ready. It is urgent that we all acknowledge that it will not do to rest on the accomplishments of past generations. Just as the Israelites could not simply say, “We have Abraham as our ancestor,” it will not suffice for us to say, “We have this church that some good people before us built.” Complacency will not be enough. 

John was right. And Mary was right. In her song we find in the first chapter of Luke, the Magnificat, she proclaimed how the world was about to turn – filling the hungry with good things, turning the rich away empty. Scattering the proud in their conceit, casting down the mighty from their thrones, lifting up the lowly. 

Just as Isaiah was right. The wolf shall lie down with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion shall feed together, and a little child shall lead them.

I know what you are probably thinking. It is hard to believe that these words are true. We look around us and find them unimaginable. How could it be right?

In the language of the church, we are living in the age of “now” and “not yet.” Jesus came to usher in the realm of God’s love and grace. We live with one foot in this world and one foot in that realm. 

And so, it is right for us to heed John’s call to repent. Even though John, himself did not really know what kind of Messiah Jesus would be; even though his images of unquenchable fire miss the mark; even though John is terrifying, he is serving the important purpose of getting our attention. He is getting us ready for the world to change.

And the change he envisions, the change Mary and Isaiah proclaim, is a change that demands our participation. Not to answer violence with violence, but to be a part of changing the world, for good. 

Repent and see that the kingdom of heaven is so very near.

About Time

Romans 13:11-14

Matthew 24:36-44

It’s a bit quirky that the liturgical calendar which starts today with the first Sunday of Advent, usually begins with some thoughts about the end of things. The end of time, specifically. The end of the world as we know it.

There is a human desire to know in advance when that end will come. I think it must be because of some completely irrational idea that we might avoid it. If you know it’s coming maybe you can duck? But, as Jesus says, no one knows.

Still, people try to figure it out, as if it were nothing more than a tough riddle. And so it seems like there is always somebody somewhere offering up a prediction about exactly when the world will end. In fact, just this fall there was a prediction that caught a lot of traction.

A man from South Africa announced that he had been given a dream that told him the rapture would come September 23 and 24 of 2025. For anyone who is unaware, the idea of the rapture is that suddenly, in an unexpected and unannounced moment, the faithful will be scooped up out of this world. This notion, by the way, is a distortion of biblical beliefs. There is a brief passage in one of Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians that describes how Paul thinks the end times will affect both the living and the dead. And there is this passage from Matthew, although in this case, Jesus might actually be saying that it is the unfaithful ones who could be swept up. 

This South African man explained that the rapture was all about the 2026 Soccer World Cup, the connection being that with all the chaos that results from the rapture, the World Cup would end up being cancelled. I don’t know why that’s important. Perhaps Jesus doesn’t like soccer, but I find that hard to believe.

So, in preparation for this rapture, lots of people offered free advice. Don’t make any plans for the weekend, they said. Leave your phone unlocked, and maybe your house too, just in case someone you actually care about is left behind.

Just recently I saw a list of things to do while waiting for the world to end – compiled by someone who was thinking it might be coming soon. It included things like 1) forget about that plan to refinish your floors; 2) scratch War and Peace off your list of books to read; 3) don’t worry about your Christmas card list; and 4) do you really need to make your insurance payment? Just relax. What’s the point of doing anything?

Not exactly a faith-based perspective, though. I think of the story about Martin Luther being asked the question of what he would do if he knew the world were to end tomorrow. His answer was, “I would plant an apple tree.” 

Back when I was a campus minister there were a couple of these end-of-the-world predictions that people grew obsessed with. There was Harold Camping, the man who used some kind of creative math to calculate when the end would come. And when the end failed to come, he checked his work and realized he had made a mistake. Then there was this notion about the ancient Mayan calendar that caught on like wildfire. It seems that someone suddenly noticed that this calendar which had been around for thousands of years, ended in 2012. And they concluded that the Mayans must have known something. There were college students I worked with who were pretty disturbed by that. Afraid that it might be true. 

When I talked with these young adults about the end, I could see they were afraid. And it was not because they lacked faith. It was more about a kind of disorientation of their lives. They said to me that everything they were doing was focused on the future. Whether it was the term papers they were scrambling to get finished or the career they were hoping to find at the end of their college years. The student debt they would begin paying off when they got that good job. It was all somewhere out there.

But when I asked them what they would do if they knew the end was near, they struggled to reorient themselves to this present-moment focus. 

What would you do if the end of the world was coming tomorrow? Eat more pie? Binge-watch all the TV shows on your list? Sleep late? What would you do?

There are lots of things we do that are unimportant – maybe because we have too much time or too little focus. Looking at the end, however, does have the effect of helping us to see what is most important. It gives us a sense of urgency. And it is not a bad idea to give it some thought: what would you do differently if you approached life this way? What would you change if you had that kind of focus?

If you suddenly realize that this moment counts, that every moment you are living counts, this might be the best thing that could happen to you – what would change?

It seems like when you are facing the possibility of the end, there are two roads you can take: despair or hope. Despair if you feel that there are too many things you haven’t yet done and too little knowledge about whatever comes next. Despair if you feel unprepared, like you forgot to study for the test. Despair if you believe that your life has been a failure and only judgment awaits you. Despair is deadly.

But the way of faith is different: it is about hope, and this hope is available to anybody.

Because Christian hope is not based on the foundation of whatever our life circumstances are. Our hope is based on the possibilities of God even in the worst imaginable life circumstances. And, while these are not the worst of times, there are some things that give me pause.

It is apparent to me that, even though most of our lives are pleasant enough, we are living in very anxious times. It is in the news and media we consume every day. It is in a certain uneasy feeling we have about the economy we are living in. It is seemingly in the water we drink and the air we breathe. We are living in anxious times, and it is hard for us to navigate through the murk of anxiety to locate hope. 

Yet there is a way. And it is urgent that we find our way to hope.

The German theologian Jurgen Moltmann, who died last year, wrote frequently about Christian hope throughout his career. But in the last few years, he wrote of his concern about nurturing “a culture of life that is stronger than the terror of death, a love for life that overcomes the destructive forces in our world today, and a confidence in the future that overcomes doubt and fatalism.”  

The way to nurture that culture of life is the way of hope. And the way to hope is through community.

Community is something we make, of course. We find our clusters of like-minded people, kindred spirits, we might say, with whom we enjoy conversation and meals and other things. But community is also bigger than these circles we select. Community is where God places us and includes all the other people God places there.

In our community, like all communities, there are many people who lack some of the basic essentials for life. We are aware of this. This congregation is pretty conscious of the needs surrounding us, and responsive to them. We understand and embrace the ancient Christian values of mercy and compassion that Jesus taught us. 

But something that is a little harder, a bit more of a stretch, is to embrace the value of community. The belief that whatever our circumstances we are all in it together. 

The notion that the rich and the poor live in the same world. 

When we lose sight of that, there is a deathly loss of connection, of community, and no matter how much money you have, a poverty of community will bring despair. I think this is the deep cause of our prevailing anxiety. 

Quite simply, every human being needs to feel that someone cares. This goes deeper than material needs. It is beyond providing food, paying utility bills, or having a bed to sleep in. The human connection is the most essential of basic needs.

If you knew that the world would end tomorrow, I think the thing to do would be to make human connection – with anyone. Everyone. To look at a stranger and see another human being. To speak to someone with kindness, even if that person is wasting your time. Even to see someone who has committed a dreadful crime, like the man who shot two National Guard members last week, but still know that this person is not an animal, or whatever word you might say in anger, but a person made in the image of God – just like us.

This is something that would be worth doing if you knew that the world would end tomorrow. And, since we don’t know when the world will end, but it could end at any time, then this is something worth doing every day.

A Different Kind of King

 

Luke 23:33-43

There are moments when you look around and see some very clear signs that all is not right with the world. Actually, at these moments, that might be an appalling understatement. One might rather say that all is messed up with the world. At times.

In our Bible study we saw it this past week as we journeyed through the book of Judges, watching how Israel fell further and further into madness and darkness – maybe hurtling back toward that condition where Genesis begins, when God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep –

Before the time when God began creating order out of chaos.

We see it again in this story from Luke’s gospel.

We have heard this story so many times, haven’t we? Every year during the season of Lent we travel down this road with Jesus, descending with Israel into such unspeakable harm, such unreasonable actions. In fact, we have heard it so many times we might have become numb to it. We might have one eye on the journey up to Golgotha and the other eye on the day of resurrection we know is coming soon – with colorful dyed eggs, chocolate in baskets, a good ham dinner and pleasant company.

It's an odd story, really, for this time of the year. I listened to a colleague object to it being in the lectionary right now. He said, “We covered that ground already this year, didn’t we? I see no reason to go back and revisit it.”

Is there any good reason to revisit it?

It’s a story of a world gone mad. An innocent man is arrested, beaten, tried, and convicted to death. He is about to be executed in a wildly cruel manner – for what? And while this innocent man bears the suffering in his body, he is relentlessly mocked, ridiculed – even by the people he loved, it would seem. I suppose they took some pleasure in having power over someone – these people who had very little power over anything in their lives. But to abuse this man? Someone who did no harm? For what reason?

This is a world in disarray, a people in deep pain who really, truly, do not understand what they are doing.

And Jesus recognizes this.

“Father, forgive them,” he says from the cross, “For they do not know what they are doing.” And here we see, shining bright as the sun, a different kind of king. Here we see a kind of power that is rare on earth.

What we know about kings, although not much, is nothing like this. When we think of kings, or queens, we think of someone who covers themselves with gold and precious gems. Someone always accompanied by an entourage of helpers, scrapers, fawners, sycophantic flatterers because they know what they need to do to stay in the king’s good graces. We think of pomp and circumstance, red carpets, and thrones, because kings and queens must be pampered. Coddled. They need to be treated like royalty.

When we think of kings, we don’t think of a crown made of thorns. We don’t think of a man stripped and whipped and nailed up on a high cross for all to jeer and mock.

We don’t think of a person who speaks words of forgiveness from a place of persecution. We don’t imagine a human being who chooses to use his divinely appointed power in this way.

This last Sunday in the church year is known as Christ the King, or Reign of Christ, Sunday. It is a celebration that was established only one hundred years ago, in 1925, at a time when fascism was rising in Europe and the world was growing increasingly secular in our values and habits. It was an attempt to set a yearly reminder to the church that our allegiance is to our spiritual ruler in heaven – not to any earthly supremacy. God is our king. Christ is our king.

As a pastor, I have often approached this day with ambivalence. I have had a hard time finding meaning in it, understanding why it matters – to us.

We, in the United States, fought a revolution to be rid of kings, and the idea of kings makes us instinctively bristle – so there’s that. But also, I often think, how is this different from any other Sunday in the church year? As Christians we worship and serve Christ. We confess our belief that it is only through Christ that we are forgiven and redeemed. We pray the words, “Thy kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven.”

I couldn’t quite figure out how I was supposed to feel on this day, what I was supposed to do on this day, that wouldn’t be like any other day. Does it matter that we have a day called Christ the King?

But I am thinking this year, on the 100^th anniversary of Christ the King’s inception, that it matters.

It matters to us because whoever we give our allegiance to is setting the tone by which we will live. Whoever we regard as our authority – in heaven or on earth – is determining what is valued, who is valued, and how we will live with one another.

And I am thinking that in a world where we can look around us and see how power and authority are exercised in ways that would make Jesus weep; where men and women in seats of power may choose to openly flaunt their corruption because their experience tells them there will not be any adverse consequences for it; where powerful people perform cruelty simply because they can, and they really don’t need to make the effort to be kind – I am thinking that a world like this is infected by darkness and chaos.

And if the ones in authority bear this kind of darkness, it becomes contagious. It affects us all.

The celebration of Christ the King – perhaps this works as a gentle reminder that the reign of God invites us all to live in a different kind of kingdom, where the questions of who is valued, what is valued, are answered quite differently.

And if we choose to live in this kingdom, where Christ is King, we will not jeer and mock immigrants who are in desperate situations. We will not feel righteous about pulling humanitarian aid to struggling nations or feel satisfied when food benefits are taken away from poor children in our own nation. Because if we live in the kingdom where Christ is King, we know that these little ones, the vulnerable ones, matter.

In this world there is always a danger that we will fall into that deep darkness, where we might even grow deliriously giddy about someone else’s pain, their “comeuppance,” we might have it. And we might not even understand what we are doing.

But then, may we remember that Christ is our King, and we live in a kingdom where there is a different kind of rule, a different way of being. We live under a ruler who will turn to the least ones, even the worst ones, and say, “Come and be with me – in paradise – today.”

Photo: Churchart.com