Sermon
Text – Luke 23: 33-43
I love Thanksgiving. I
struggle, of course, with the revisionist history myth of the “First
Thanksgiving” so I choose not to tell that version of the story at our table.
But there is almost no place I’d rather be than in the kitchen with a giant
pile of veggies that need to be chopped and my favorite santoku knife. Cooking
is my favorite hobby, so an entire day devoted to pretty much nothing but
cooking and then eating the fruits of my labor is right up my alley.
And what could be better than
a holiday devoted to giving thanks? Anyone who’s ever read any pop psychology
knows that cultivating an attitude of gratitude is one of the keys to
cultivating a happier life. And I’m all for happiness.
For many of us in the U.S.
Thanksgiving also marks the turn towards Christmas. And that season between
Thanksgiving and Christmas is a joy-full, too-full, nostalgic, messy, chaotic,
peaceful, stress-filled, hedonistic kind of time. Office parties, sleigh bells,
Black Friday sales, crowded airports, snuggled up to read by the fireplace,
hustling to the post office to mail the Christmas cards…and on and on.
We are in influenced by the
culture we live in. We may play along nicely with the culture or we may decide
to make distinctly counter-cultural decisions, but one way or another we are
constantly shaped by the world around us.
Of course, as Christians, we
claim another culture, as well. Despite their Christian origins, Thanksgiving
and Christmas have both evolved into holidays that encompass secular and
religious traditions. I tend to celebrate aspects of both the secular and
Christian versions of these holidays and I think that’s pretty common.
So as we sit here on the precipice
of that long fall into the Thanskgiving-Christmas Sprint, I want to call us
more deeply into the other rhythms that govern us: the rhythms of the Church
Year. We have a long history as a people who straddle two calendars. Jesus,
like Jews before him, followed the Jewish calendar in addition to the Julian
calendar observed by the rest of the Roman Empire. As those early followers of
Christ moved further away from their Jewish roots, they developed new ways of
marking time and the Liturgical Year developed.
In the Church Liturgical
Year, today is actually the end of the year. The season of Advent marks the
beginning of the Church year. A period of new birth, anticipation, and the
dawning of a new year. This Sunday, then, the last one before Advent begins, is
the final Sunday of the year. It is celebrated in many churches as Christ the
King Sunday. Other churches have updated the language and call it Reign of
Christ Sunday. Whatever you call it, the idea is to take time to reflect on the
concept of Christ as Ruler, Sovereign, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
I know that language makes
some of us uncomfortable. Many of us are more into the concept of Jesus as
Teacher, Prophet, Way-Shower, Truth-Teller. Most of us have probably spent our
lives in societies that are governed democratically – at least in name – by
presidents, not monarchs. There is a lot of baggage that goes with Reign of
Christ Sunday.
And when you take a look at
the Scripture passages in the lectionary cycle for Reign of Christ Sunday things
get even more complicated. The texts selected for us on this last Sunday of the
Church year are about end times, judgment, the wrath of God, promises of
comfort, and Jesus’s crucifixion.
It always feels odd – having
to come face to face with Christ’s crucifixion right when we’re getting ready
to wait for his birth. Pondering a grown man languishing on a cross when I’d
rather be thinking about a delicious-smelling baby wrapped up in swaddling
clothes. There’s no way around it – Reign of Christ Sunday makes me squirm.
That’s probably not a bad
thing. I’ve found over time that when I feel squirmy about something in church
it probably means I have some work to do. And this is certainly the time of the
year for doing our work – clarifying what really matters in our lives, figuring
where our time and attention should be devoted. Our secular and religious
calendars urge us towards a time of contemplation and clarification.
On the more secular side of
things we kick off this season with a holiday that’s all about contemplating
our blessings and then move directly into a season of consumptive frenzy. To
live in the United States during the month of December is to feel the constant
pull of many little gods constantly tugging us in myriad directions – “buy this,
do this, you need more of this, that’s not enough, hurry up, slow down.” I
sometimes say that we should start putting therapist referrals in the bulletin
during Advent because it is just such a difficult season for many of us emotionally.
Even nonreligious folks find it hard to get through December without doing some
serious soul-searching.
Of course, on the religious
side of things, we are more explicitly urged to use the upcoming seasons as a
time of contemplation. It is a time to truly focus on doing our work – both as
individuals and communities as we witness the re-birth of Christ in our midst
and ponder the yet-unknown gifts of the coming year.
So it’s a season for
pondering. And when I ponder the notion of Christ as Sovereign Ruler – I feel
conflicted. On one hand, I see what we’re trying to do here: refocus our
allegiances and re-frame the concept of ruling. We are trying to say, “God is
God and our earthly rulers are not.” And we are being asked to reconsider what
it means to be a ruler – is a ruler the one who comes with a sword and scepter?
Or is a ruler the one who comes on a donkey and washes the feet of his friends?
I like the idea of pushing back and playing with the concept of what it means
to be a ruler.
But I also struggle because
Jesus himself was not a big fan of being called King. And in some instances,
like in today’s passage, he was called King in a taunting way. So I’m not sure
Jesus would be excited about us having a whole Sunday called Christ the King,
you know?
As I was reading commentaries
on the Luke text this week, I noticed that D. Mark Davis has renamed this
Sunday “Christ the Crucified” instead of Christ the King. He takes issue with
the idea of calling Christ “King” for some of the same reasons I mentioned
earlier.[1]
I think there is real merit
to this idea of focusing on Christ’s crucifixion at this time of year. I have
always thought the sudden appearance of the Passion narratives right before the
Jesus’s birth felt awkward. Why do we have to focus on the gloom and doom of
Jesus’s horrible murder right before we get to celebrate his birth?
But when I read Richard
Swanson’s exegesis of Luke’s version of the crucifixion this week, I began to
really see that thinking about Christ’s crucifixion right now, before Advent,
makes a lot of sense.[2]
Swanson notices that, first
and foremost, the story of Jesus’s death that we have in Luke’s passage today
is a martyr story. In martyr stories, the martyr dies unjustly and is
surprisingly calm in the face of great physical and emotional torment. Swanson
says that “stories about martyrs are dangerous” because they govern the way
people who are dying march towards death. People who are close to death know
what is expected of them – that they are to remain calm in the face of great adversity
– and they do their best to play their part. But it is a lot to expect of
someone dealing with great pain and anguish.
Perhaps it is for this reason
that Swanson chooses to focus his analysis of this text not on Jesus’s actions,
but on the other players on the stage. Instead of holding up Jesus as a model
for how to live and die – which certainly has its time and place as a teaching
tool – Swanson argues that we should pay close attention to the faithful ones
that accompany Jesus to his death and beyond.
Although this is not the case
in all the Passion narratives, in Luke’s story, Jesus is surrounded by the
Jewish faithful right up to the bitter end. Swanson points out that, “On the way to the torture site, the daughters of
Jerusalem mourn for Jesus, claiming him as their brother, their son, as the
grandson who reminded them of the hopes of their youth.”
And when Jesus arrives at the
place of his execution, the faithful Jews are still there. Swanson writes,
“[The Jewish faithful] look and they understand: Rome is doing what Rome does,
and Jews are doing what Jews do in response: they gather, they bear witness,
now and in every century.”
Jesus is crucified right there
next to a faithful Jew who begs Jesus to remember him after they are both dead and
gone. Swanson paints the scene for us: “As the narrative camera pulls back, we
discover Jesus is surrounded by mourners, followers, family, women and others
who have also followed him, and observant Jews even from those among the Jewish
Council. Everywhere Jesus turns there are people of faith. Years ago the comic,
Woody Allen, said that eighty percent of life is showing up. Luke’s storyteller
appears to know that. No matter what happens to the messiah, the King of the
Jews, the Jewish family shows up.”
The Jewish family shows up. It
strikes me that this is one of the many things we are called to do this time of
year. Show up.
We who claim to follow Christ
in whatever way we claim him – teacher, prophet, rabble rouser, Messiah, Lion
of Judah, Prince of Peace, King of Kings or Lord of Lords – we who claim to do
our best to walk in the Ways of Christ are most certainly called to show up.
We move into a season of the
year that is busy, busy, busy. We are pulled in every direction – family
obligations, end-of-the-year projects at work, extra social commitments, a
desire to make those perfect December memories, a desperate need to carve out
time for ourselves to simply breathe and be. December will eat us alive if we
let it.
And perhaps that’s the faint,
yet powerful whisper of this Sunday. The last one of the Church Year: “Don’t
allow yourselves to be eaten alive. You are witnesses to the One Who Shows Up
and you are called to show up, too.”
Whatever the demands of the
Season, we are urged to show up. It will look different for each of us. Some of
us may be called to refocus our energy and attention on the birth of Christ in
our midst as we move into a season of intentional spiritual contemplation.
Others may be called to carve out time and space to serve others – giving of
our time and money here at the end of the calendar year. Some of us are called
into that great spiritual practice of letting our “yes” mean yes and our “no”
mean no – seeking opportunities for Sabbath, saying “yes” to activities that redeem
and fulfill the world, and saying “no” to those traditions that wear us down
and suck the joy out of living.
I don’t know what showing up
this December looks like for you. Heck, I’m not even sure what it looks like
for me yet.
But I do know this: we walk
alongside The One Who Shows Up. Christ has been showing up now for a long, long
time, and promises to show up again this year. God has promised to never leave
us nor forsake us.
And Christ is one of the best
reminders we have of that promise: the One Who Showed Up in an unexpected barn
in a little noplace town; the One Who Showed Up on a horrible horrible hill
called Golgotha; and the One Who Showed Up even after death…even when there’s
no way he should have been showing up at all.
As we move into this new Church
Year, I invite each of us to risk showing up. And to celebrate the good news of
knowing that we never ever have to show up alone.
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