Sermon preached by the Reverend Nicholas Lang

St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut

The Feast of Christ the King - November 25, 2007

You may recall the TV ads that featured a guy who was always a few minutes behind. In one scenario he is playing tennis, waiting for the serve. The ball flies past him and after a few seconds pause, he swings his racket. At a restaurant, over a glass of wine, his girlfriend says, “I love you.” After a considerable gap—long enough for her to exit—he finally responds, “I love you, too.” The point of these ad spots, of course, is the importance of good timing.

Last week, Mother Donna stopped by my office door and said, “Nicholas, have you seen the Gospel for Sunday yet?” Well, I had. We both wondered aloud how we were going to deal with what is a Good Friday Gospel on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. What exacerbated this for me was walking into Starbucks on Friday morning and realizing that I was confronted by a barrage of Christmas carols playing in the store. Yet here we are reading a text that brings us to the cross, to the crucifixion and final moments in the life of Jesus. I feel a bit like that man in the ads as I attempt to preach on this feast of Christ the King. Is our timing off?

No, I don’t think so. I think the world around us has the problem. By mid-October we begin to get all rapped up in this consumer-oriented, secular, commercial appeal to spend a lot of money and energy in gift buying, decorating, and creating revelry and somehow what gets so very lost in all of it is that it is the end of the story, not the beginning that is important. We are mesmerized by the image of a little baby in a manger and that image overshadows the power of the cross. So this morning, as we observe the feast of Christ the King, we find ourselves not in Bethlehem at the stable, but in Jerusalem on Calvary on Good Friday.

Writing about today’s feast in The Christian Century, Lutheran Pastor Mary Anderson says: “Here at the end of the church year, after living through another cycle of hearing the story of Jesus’ life, of being taught by him in miracle and parable, we come to the coda of this hymn of praise. After another year of living our lives, burying our dead, baptizing our babies, marrying and divorcing, struggling and thriving, we bring all of the year’s experiences to the climax of this day. We lay it back at the feet of the one enthroned on the cross, giving thanks. It’s great to be a people ruled in love and mercy.”

The problem is how do we associate Jesus—the Lord on a cross—with any kind of royal nomenclature or sense of monarchy? How do we call someone a king when we know he was opposed to any kind of hierarchical relationships and who taught that the mighty would be made low and the humble exalted, that the first would come last and the last first. How do we connect Jesus with a title that is so undemocratic, so politically incorrect? How do we talk of kingship when we have heard Jesus preach the gospel of servanthood over domination? Even from a purely physical point of view, evidence suggests that he was all of about 5 feet 3 inches and, considering his ascetic lifestyle, a lean 110 pounds. How do we identify this person with such lofty titles as “King of kings and Lord of lords?”

Here is one of the great paradoxes of Christianity—that, as we celebrate the feast of Christ the King at what is the end of the church year, we are hearing a text that forces us to remember this unsettling fact of salvation. God took on flesh in a way that defies human understanding. Our hunger for dominance, which so often motivates what we do and how we behave is spurned by the king we see on the cross. And we do that today knowing that within the hour we may walk into Stew’s to the serenade of “Jingle Bells”—or even go shopping for a Christmas tree.

But there is more. What our focus should be today is not the concept of a king but rather the kind of kingdom into which we are invited as the people of God. We find three key characteristics of that kingdom in the Gospel today: Radical welcome, reconciliation, and forgiveness. We find a dying Jesus in pain and humiliation welcoming a convicted felon into Paradise. And we find him offering him the precious gifts of reconciliation and forgiveness—so sparse in today’s world.

The kingdom of God is the one place where this happens and it is the church to which Jesus has entrusted these gifts and commissioned us to bring them to a broken world. Every time we walk back to gather around the baptismal font and to welcome a new member of Christ’s Church, we renew our covenant with God and with one another. We promise to be the instruments of God’s heaving grace, of God’s power of reconciliation, bearers of the blessing of forgiveness. We also promise that, in good and in bad times, we will support one another and walk with one another the faith journey on which we have embarked.

It is so terribly sad when, for whatever reason, people walk away from the table of conversation or the table of the Eucharist—either in the church at large or in the local parish community—and forget not only who we are, namely the Body of Christ, but what we are called to do for one another: to continually invite each other in, to come to the Table in spite of our differences, work towards reconciliation, and offer forgiveness. Yet we can easily forget who we are and the life God has given us through this fellowship of holy community.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov once told this story: “There was once a prince who took ill and decided he was a turkey. Stripping off his clothes, he crouched naked under the royal table, refusing to eat anything but crumbs that had fallen to the ground. Many doctors were called to examine him, but none could help. One day a wise man came to the king and said, “Let me live in your home that I might befriend your son. Be patient and I will make him well again.” Immediately, the wise man approached the royal table, stripped off his clothes, and sat down next to the prince. “Who are you?” demanded the king’s son. “I am your friend, a turkey like yourself,” the man replied. “I thought you might be lonely and decided to come and live with you for a while.” As the weeks passed the “turkeys” grew accustomed to each other and soon became good friends. They ate crumbs, drank from tin plates, and discussed the advantages of being domesticated birds rather than humans. One night, when the royal family was having dinner, the wise man signaled to the king, whose servants brought two silk robes and cautiously placed them under the table. The sage quickly donned one of the robes, and before the prince could utter a word, announced, “There are some dumb turkeys who are so insecure that they believe putting on a silk robe might endanger their identity.” The prince thought for a moment, nodded his head, and began to clothe himself. A few days later, the wise man again signaled the king. Broiled beef, potatoes, and fresh green vegetables were placed on the floor near the sage. Looking quite pleased about the display, the wise man began to eat the food and exclaimed, “Absolutely delicious! It’s good to be a turkey sophisticated enough to enjoy the food of humans.” The prince readily agreed and hungrily shared the meal. Eventually, the wise man called for some silverware and asked to be served from the palace’s best china. “After all,” he explained to the prince, “why shouldn’t intelligent turkeys want the best for themselves?” Finally, after many months, the sage came and sat at the table. While eating and drinking with the royal family, he called down to the prince and said, “Come, join me. The food is the same but the chairs make an appreciable difference. Besides, we turkeys have a lot to offer. Why should we restrict ourselves by remaining aloof? Certainly our ideas can benefit the minds of men.” The king’s son came up and sat at the table. It was only a matter of time until he was cured.

On this Christ the King Sunday, the Jesus we find on the cross is not the deluded prince who was brought back to a life of normalcy, nor the king who helped facilitate the process, but the wise man who humbled himself and, in sharing another’s condition and plight, became the bridge to healing and wholeness—to redemption.

This is the kind of “king” we honor today and this is the economy and the way of his kingdom—to share one another’s struggle and condition and, by our willingness to welcome, stay in conversation, come to God’s table together with all our differences, to be the instruments of each other’s healing and life transformation. What that is, essentially, is the stuff of resurrection and Jesus has blessed us with the power to share in that miracle.

Next week we will be in a new church year and we will return to the beginning of the story. We’ll hear the promises of the prophets, the preaching of John the Baptist, and, eventually the much beloved Christmas narrative. But, for us, it is the end of the story that is most important—the cross and resurrection.

In The Wisdom Way of Knowing, author Cynthia Bourgeault writes that the first title given to Jesus by his immediate followers was moshel meshalim —a master of wisdom. Through his parables, through his miracles, through his very way of life he came to help people awaken. He came to raise us from the dead ends in our life.

Howard Thurman, the first African American to occupy the position of Dean of the Chapel of Boston University, once said, “Don't worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive." God sent Jesus to this world to help you and me come alive and, in our aliveness, to gift one another with welcome, reconciliation, healing and forgiveness. Your kingdom come, Lord Jesus.