In the early 1980s when I was in seminary my spiritual director told me to write a one page single-spaced summary or review of my faith once a month. This can be a helpful exercise, especially on the Feast of Christ the King with the start of the new church year coming in the season of Advent; to consider how we’d fill out one page with four questions: “What do I believe about God? Who is this Jesus? What is the church about? And how do I take part in this?” If you take some time to think about this between now and Christmas I guarantee that it can change your life, and it can also change the world.
So let’s look through the lens of Scripture, through three thousand years of Judeo-Christian tradition and reflection, using our God-given reason, and breathing God’s spirit as deep as we can, by asking, “What does it mean this morning to say that Jesus is Lord, Ruler, God's Word about life, that Christ is our true King?
Well, if this Jesus is King, then there’s room to rejoice, because what the prophet Ezekiel was looking for, writing about twenty-five hundred years ago, for what we heard in the first lesson, has come to be known: that the creator of heaven and earth, that the one who made it all, has, in Christ, come into the middle of our world as humble presence and human witness and healing gift. And that is exactly what Ezekiel was looking forward to when he spoke God’s word to a people without hope, a band of forced refugees sent to exile far from home, when all their history and heart had been ripped away, and they were trying to sing the Lord’s song in a very foreign land. He still held on to this great hope in God’s actions:
As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep… I will seek out my sheep… from all the places to which they have been scattered… and I will… says the Lord God… seek the lost… bring back the strayed… bind up the injured… strengthen the weak…[and] I will feed them with justice.
That’s good news then and there and here and now for we have some things in common with Ezekiel’s people today, really, quite a lot. The institution of the church is in a kind of exile from where we once were, and many of us who can recall glory days in the last century — with full buildings, consistent growth, large choirs, youth groups, and a sense that we would always endure, survive and thrive, —we can look around at the remnant and wonder what happened, and it can be easy to lose hope and not hear what Ezekiel is saying to all those who are in exile.
But like them we are called to be patient, to not lose heart, but instead to feel encouraged because our hope, if Christ is King of the universe, is that the shepherd who comes from the deep heart of the whole creation, continues to meet the world, the whole world, in the very middle of the journey, rounding any roundabout, crossing any crossroad, meeting and mending, healing and bringing back all sheep lost and found far from home in their wanderings through the various valleys of the shadow of death, each and every one, by paths of righteousness, goodness and mercy all the way back to where they should be. Even in tough times, if Christ is King, our hope in God’s universe can be that large.
But then the question is how we do we hold on to that hope, live into that that embodied belief? And that takes us to the reading from Ephesians, calling each of us to open, to assent to a graceful and continual transformation of our hearts, to the hope and faith that the spirit of Jesus, God’s Messiah, will come to dwell in a particular and unique way with anyone who can prayerfully allow that Jesus is Lord, that Christ is King. So this epistle’s prayer of faith is that:
…God… may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him… [that] with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you… the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints,…the immeasurable greatness of his power for us… in Christ…[and] the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Isn’t it amazing that God goes this far, God comes this close. And by receiving grace and enacting faith, in the hope of the spirit, we can end up breathing something, someone, in the middle, who incorporates and embodies the central point of it all — which is God’s love, which is the mind of Christ, over-flowing with compassion, empathy, a will to connect and a hope to heal, a heart which witnesses wholeness and happiness in the very centre of everyone and everything.
And Matthew's Gospel today speaks to that central meeting point; that if Christ is king, then God’s love, God’s life and our ministry, and our participation in it, particularly longs to be found, be manifest, in the lives of those in need. There’s the surprise — that the deepest economy of the kingdom of heaven is that our response to our neighbour in need is the same as our response to this King Christ — For Jesus says:
“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’…‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ [and, going on, if] you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ “
So if Christ is King, is all of this is true, then we have a rule of life to follow, a ruler who is a shepherd, a sovereign willing to serve, with every effort and each breath, willing to share the kingdom with each and everyone of us, if we willingly share what we are and what we have as well. For it turns out that the face of the shepherd, the love of God and the deep breath shared with the friends and followers of Christ are all created, redeemed, woven out of the most majestic and intimate love.
And then maybe our question for today, for ever, is: if we believe in this God, are we willing to follow this Jesus in the faithful witness, the ministry of this serving community, to take this in, carry it along, breathe it in and live it out in the various rhythms of each and every one of our days as ministers of that Gospel, members of this body, this servant king? It’s a big question and, I think, can only be answered your each of us, all of us, every day, every moment, every breath...
This next Sunday it will be 50 years since I was baptised into the body of Christ at the age of 21 in Grace Church, Fairfield, California. I think on that Sunday I carried the same concerns I share here today, “What do I believe about God? Who is this Jesus? What is the church about? And How do I take part in all this? And it’s good to share this journey and these good questions with you today.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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