“New Year in November”
Sunday, November 23, 2014
First
Congregational United Church of Christ – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
When was the last time you were surprised? Truly,
deeply surprised? When was the last time your world was turned upside down, or
you were caught off guard and felt your heart quicken? This may have been a
really nice surprise: a friend got you an unexpected gift, your boss offered
you rare words of encouragement, your child brought you a fistful of daisies.
Or it may have been that other kind of surprise….you know, the really terrible kind:
a car accident, a phone call in the middle of the night, a job loss, bad
behavior from a dear friend or family member.
Earlier this week I was pondering what it feels
like to be surprised and I suddenly remembered a few videos I had seen online
of young children receiving cochlear implants and being able to hear for the
first time. Maybe some of you have seen these videos, too. Babies and toddlers
and young children hearing their parents’ voices for the first time. The looks
on their faces? Sheer surprise in its purest form. They had absolutely no idea
what was about to happen and their faces are often a mixture of disbelief,
shock, joy, and amazement. One of my favorites was of a little girl, maybe 4 or
5 years old, who just laughed and laughed because she could hear her own voice
for the first time ever. Her dad says, off-camera, “You couldn’t hear yourself
before?” “No!” she gleefully exclaims with delight and just giggles with joy.
Surprise is a powerful force. It can be exhilarating
or terrifying….usually it’s a mix of both, I suppose. Physiologically, a
surprise seems to register the same way for me whether it’s good or bad.
Whether it’s a surprise birthday party or a near-miss in my vehicle, a surprise
means I catch my breath, my heart starts to race, my stomach starts to church,
and I feel a little shaky. It’s a full-body experience.
Jesus knew the power of surprises in storytelling. That
gotcha moment when things don’t go the way you thought they were going? That’s compelling. That’s what you talk
about after the show, right?
We have been working our way through a series of
parables in Matthew’s gospels for the past few weeks and they all have
something in common. Two things, in fact. First, they are all interpreted as
being about the End Times. Second, they all contain surprises. The guy who
wasn’t dressed correctly for the wedding feast is bound and punished – that
wasn’t what we were expecting from a merciful God, right? The poor bridesmaids who
didn’t bring enough oil are kicked out of the wedding party – it seems unfair.
It’s not the way we thought the story would go. The servants who are entrusted
with their master’s wealth and the one who protects the single talent by
burying it is cursed while the ones who took a risk and invested the money are
glorified? Not what I was expecting. I didn’t see it coming.[1]
I’ve heard many-a moralizing sermon about today’s passage
from Matthew. We social justice, do-gooder types seem to love to alternately
toot our own horns or beat ourselves up because we’re not doing enough good. We
love to preach works righteousness and aren’t usually too heavy on the grace.
We’re always working harder (or at least talking about working harder) to fix
the problems around us. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I do think we
need to work hard.
So for many Christians focused on social justice,
this passage has become a favorite. After all, it’s not too heavy on grace,
amiright? This illustrates why it’s so important to resist the temptation to be
a needlepoint Christian. It’s not helpful to pick one verse or one passage and
embroider it all over our lives as if no other passage matters. Doesn’t matter
if it’s John 3:16 or Micah 6:8 or Jeremiah 29:11….no one story is enough to
encompass the entire story of who God is or what God is doing in the world.
If I were going to pick a theme passage for my life
and hold it up at a football game or bumper sticker it on the back of my car, I
don’t think it would be this one: “’Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it
to the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into
eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Just doesn’t quite
have the spirit I’d like for a needlepoint pillow on my sofa, you know?
These passages in Matthew wear me
down. They make me feel a little like I can’t get anything right. A little,
“What’s the use in trying if I’m just going to miss the point and get stuck in
the outer darkness weeping and gnashing my teeth?” You know?
But then I remember…..these stories all have
something in common: a surprise twist. Everyone in this parable is surprised.
The goats have no idea they are goats. They didn’t know they were neglecting
Christ when they failed to go down to the local jail, or didn’t call their
senator about the Farm Bill, or forgot to drop off the clothes at Goodwill, or
ignored the issues surrounding water safety and access all over the glove. They
had no idea they were messing up. This is perhaps not too surprising.
But you know what is surprising to me? The sheep
also had no idea. They didn’t know they were sheep at all. They didn’t know
they were seeing Christ face-to-face at the Breadbasket, or in the hospital bed,
or in the long committee meetings for community organizing. They had no idea
they were getting it right.
Now that is surprising to me. And the part that
really gets me? It’s this: I think perhaps one of the points of this story is
that none of us really know whether we’re sheep or goats. We mess it up? We
don’t notice. We get it right? We don’t notice. We probably think we’re getting
it right when we’re really messing it up and vice versa. We don’t know. But you
know who does know? Christ. Christ knows.
I don’t know if that makes you feel good or bad. It
makes me feel a little of both at the same time. It makes me feel, in my body,
the same way I feel when I am surprised: my breath gets a little short, my
palms get a little sweaty, my heart thumps around in my chest a bit.
This particular Sunday is Reign of Christ Sunday. You
may also know it as Christ the King Sunday. As such, it seems like a pretty
good time to ponder what it might mean to claim Christ as our Ruler.
A few weeks ago, I found myself in the middle of an
intense debate among some colleagues about whether the language of Christ as “Ruler”
matters to us and to the people in UCC churches. I don’t know how often you
think about Jesus Christ as your Ruler, if you do at all. For me, the language
is still relevant. I think a few years ago I would have told you it didn’t ring
true for me at all, but these days I find myself trying to live more fully into
that claim about Christ.
I typically use the language of Ruler instead of
Lord because I don’t think of Christ as a male and a Lord is a male ruler. Now,
Jesus? Yes, it seems to me that Jesus was a male. But Christ is not the same as
Jesus. Christ is the eternal force who existed before Jesus of Nazareth was
born and continued on after Jesus’s body was crucified. Christ is the force
that cannot be extinguished and that force does not have a body or gender for
me. James Cone speaks of Christ as a “liberating event” and I love this image
of Christ as an event.
So what does it mean to claim Christ as Ruler? Well, for me it means
that my ultimate allegiance rests with God and my ultimate work in this world
is to do all within my power to bring about God’s Reign on Earth. It means
something decidedly counter-cultural.
There are so many entities in this world that compete to become our
Ruler. To Christ is our Ruler is to say that the Black Friday sales at Walmart
and the Thanksgiving sales at Target are not our Ruler. If Christ is our Ruler
then our President is not our Ruler. If Christ is our Ruler then the stock
market is not our Ruler. If Christ is my Ruler then my grades, my weight, my
promotion at work, my publications, my bank account balance…none of these
things are my Ruler.
What about you? If Christ is your Ruler, who or what else is not your
Ruler? (time for responses)
We are already moving a bit into a space for reflection and you may
have noticed you have two post it notes stuck to your bulletin. Which brings me
to the title of the sermon: New Year’s in November.
Did you know it’s actually New Year’s Eve right now? The church year
ends today. Next week it will be Advent, which is the beginning of the church
year. So I thought that today we might make time for some New Year’s
Resolutions. Not the ones about the number on the scale, or the cleanliness of
your house, or spending less time on Facebook.[2]
Those two post it notes are for you during this time of reflection. One
is meant to be about your own life: In the coming year, how can you live your
life in such a way that the Reign of Christ is ever more present in the world
around you? What concrete change can you make? No one will see what you write
on that piece of paper unless you want them to see it.
The second note is about our life together: In the coming year, how can
we as a community of faith live in such a way that the Reign of Christ becomes
more of a reality? What can we do together?
During the reflection time and the offertory, I hope you’ll take a
moment to write on each note. The individual one is yours to take home and
stick somewhere where you’ll see it each day. The second one, the one about our
life together, I hope you’ll be willing to share it with the rest of us. As you
leave the Sanctuary today, I invite you to stick your post it to one of the doors
as you exit the Sanctuary. You can put your name on them if you want people to
know it’s from you. That might be a great idea because then you could connect
with others who share your interests and passions.
Let us listen for the voice of our Still-Surprising God during this
time of reflection.
[1] Thank you to
Greg Carey for enumerating theses surprises in Matthew’s gospel
[2] I am
indebted to Karoline Lewis of workingpreacher.org for this idea about making
Reign of Christ-centered New Year’s Resolutions.
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