SUNDAY SERMON
GOD'S KINGDOM IS LIKE. . .
The Last Sunday Sunday after Pentecost (Christ the King Sunday), Year B
November 23, 2003
Gospel:
She said, "I can't believe it's been 40 years. Nor can I believe that I'm the last person living that was in the back of that car." There were, in fact, four people in the rear seats of the limousine: two men, both named John; and two women, Jackie and Nellie.
I can't believe it, either. Forty years yesterday. On that day, for the second time in this nation's history, a president was assassinated. Perhaps the last words John Kennedy ever heard came from the mouth of Nellie Connally, the wife of the governor of Texas: "Mr. President, you certainly can't say that Dallas doesn't love you!"
A songwriter called it "the end of the innocence" (Glenn Fry). A senator put it this way: "we'll laugh again. It's just that we'll never be young again" (Daniel Patrick Moynihan, From Love Field, p. 139). A professor says it was "the day evil entered my world and a six-year-old became a theologian" (Mark Muesse, commentary in the Commercial Appeal, 11/22/03).
The Kennedy years in the White House were called "Camelot." This is, of course, a reference to the time and lives of King Arthur, Queen Guinevere and the Knights of the Round Table. Jack and Jackie Kennedy were the closest thing to king and queen, the closest thing to royalty many Americans have ever known.
The original Camelot was the place where King Arthur and his court tried to create a new kind of kingdom - one of everlasting peace and collegiality amongst all the royalty of Europe. It lasted, as the song goes, "for one brief, shining moment." And then, it came to an end.
In the real world, kingdoms come…to an end. In the real world, kings are crowned…and killed. In the real world, there is no Camelot.
Today, in the real world, it's the last Sunday before Advent. It's the end of the church year. Today is also called "Christ the King" Sunday, as Christians around the world honor Jesus, the King of Kings. We say he was "crucified under Pontius Pilate." But we also say this about Jesus: "HIS kingdom will have NO end" (emphasis mine), echoing those words from Daniel, "his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed."
What does all of this mean? What are some images of God's kingdom? What does the everlasting kingdom that Jesus brings look like - in this, our country, which rose in revolution from royalty; in this, our city, where more than one King has died?
Here's how Jesus talked about it: the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, the smallest seed of all, which grows up into a huge tree. The kingdom of God is like a bit of yeast, buried in bread dough, that makes a loaf that's large. The kingdom of God is like a pearl, almost priceless, that the owner sells when something even more precious is found.
Jesus shows us that God's kingdom is real. It really, truly exists. Yet the truth and reality of God's kingdom, Jesus tells us, is not always easy to pin down. God's kingdom "is like" more than it "is." God's kingdom is about symbolic and parabolic truth, not just literal, plain truth.
That's why parables and symbols and images were so helpful to Jesus. Those images from the real, natural world were familiar ones. Seeds, yeast, pearls.
People could use their senses to understand. They could see, hear, touch, taste and smell parts of God's creation. And they could come to see God in new and surprising ways, if they were open to what God wanted to reveal to them through Jesus.
One image from human creation might be this one: the kingdom of God is like the mother or father who is equally loving and equally forgiving to each and every child, of each and every generation. She or he loves elder and younger alike, middle or only child alike, daughters and sons alike. Out of that preposterous, profligate love flows a constant restoring of the family, so that outcasts, whether they have been cast out or have cast themselves out, are always being loved into coming home, no matter what.
We see, of course, how that love is received in the story of the prodigal or lost son. The younger son, the outcast, dares to come home, ask for forgiveness and receive great love. The older son is aghast and wants nothing to do with him or anyone else. Both sons are loved, equally but in different ways, by their ever-forgiving father. One of our Taize songs speaks of God's kingdom this way: "God is forgiveness; dare to forgive and God will be with you; God is forgiveness; love and do not fear."
Those of us who are parents know that some children are not yet ready to come
home or to leave home. A lost and found child may think that coming and going
is great. The older, responsible child generally doesn't. It can be hard to
welcome the stranger, even your long, lost brother or sister, when you, too,
need all the love you can get.
Have you ever noticed, in the Lord's Prayer, there are two "kingdom"s,
two "heaven"s and two "forgive"s? The kingdom of heaven,
the kingdom of God is about forgiveness. Forgiveness is about restoring families,
and God wants, in God's time, to do just that, to restore all things and all
people in that well-beloved son called Jesus.
Here's another image of the kingdom. The kingdom of God is like a journey you can take without always leaving home - although, sometimes, you will need to leave where you are. God's kingdom is sometimes about moving on, perhaps even literally. Mostly, though, it is for Christians about an inner journey with Christ Jesus.
In the words of author Elizabeth O'Connor, the life of the kingdom of God in
Christ, the life to which Jesus calls us, is a life of both journey outward
and journey inward. The outer journey of Jesus to Jerusalem and the inner journey
of Jesus to crucifixion are inextricably linked. And so with us.
As followers of Jesus, as people of faith, this is our journey, too. Journey
inward, journey outward. Saturday Habitat builds and Sunday worship. Sitting
still to be fed and running to feed the hungry. Morning prayer and pastoral
care.
Here's one last image of God's kingdom I want to share with you today. It's an image that has been with me ever since I left Memphis to go to college in New England nearly forty years ago. The kingdom of God is like the sea, beating against the rocks. Those rocks seem to stay the same forever, but over time, they change.
In Psalm 93 the Psalmist describes the kingdom of God. God puts on splendid, kingly apparel, yes, but it is the regal garment of water. God's reign is "mightier than the sound of many waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea" (verse 5). This sounds like our familiar God, powerful and mighty.
Those powerful and mighty waves pound on the seashore. They seem to do little to change the coastline. Those rocks seem mightier than the waters ever could be. But this is God's world, God's creation, God's kingdom.
We know that waves do not break a rock with one blow. And we know that, over time, drop by drop, those breakers will have their way. How much more powerful, then, might the breakers of God's sea be, washing over us, day by day?
That's the outside. Then there's the inner part. Slowly, over time, if we allow it, the sea of God's love opens us and waits to fill us. Slowly, over our lifetimes, God wants to change our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, with drop upon drop of divine love.
This one-time Yankee rock does like to fight with our oceanic God. I sometimes try to stand firm against God's sea of love. I want to resist what our presiding bishop, Frank Griswold, calls being "cracked open by God's own joy and desire for our full flourishing" (Going Home, p. 3). Meanwhile, Jesus reminds me whose kingdom it is.
As the priest in this parish whose primary responsibility is pastoral care, I keep learning more about the persistent, oceanic love of God. Week after week we have been praying for "those who minister to the sick, the friendless and the needy." That would include all those people in this parish - dozens and dozens of them - who offer pastoral care here. And that would include me.
I can't speak for anyone else. But let me tell you what that prayer, week after week, drop after drop, has been doing to me and for me and inside me. God's prayer for me through all of you has helped me experience God's kingdom within.
As I listen to your voices and hear your stories and take them into my prayer, God's pounding and soothing waves wash over me. I begin to hear your cries as my own. The sick, the friendless and the needy. The sick, the friendless and the needy.
The sick. Sick of a chronic or progressive illness. Sick of struggling. Sick and tired. Tired of hearing about the worries of the church and the world, when you have enough worries of your own. Tired of feeling down or depressed. Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. If you feel this way, fear not. You are not alone. God is with you.
The friendless. Feeling like an outsider for the first time. Always feeling like an outsider. Feeling like you may have no one who will really listen to them. Feeling alone, rejected, even abandoned. If you feel this way, fear not. You are not alone. God is here.
The needy. Needing to complain, to ventilate, to blow off steam. Needing a job, a break, a life. Needing someone to love. Needing God. Fear not. God is with you.
These days I hear music from our Taize service, even when I'm not here: "The kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Come, Lord, and open in us the gates of your kingdom." I hear music, and I know that it is up to me and all of us to open the gates of our hearts and minds and let the King of Kings rule our lives, so that we can care more deeply for each other. I hear music, and I know there is no Camelot.
Yes, there is an everlasting kingdom. I can stop resisting Jesus, my King. I can choose to be a part of bringing in God's kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven.