Reign of Christ
November 24, 2019
No Outsiders in
God’s Kingdom
St. Luke 23:33-43
“Truly, I tell you,
today you will be with me in Paradise.” St. Luke 23:43
It
is Thanksgiving Time. The Advent Season
is about to begin. Windows are full of Christmas
decorations. Black Friday is upon us –
when due to seasonal shoppers business runs in the black. And yet on this
Sunday in November we hear the story of the Jesus being put to death on the
cross.
It
seems out of sync with the season when everything is warm and fuzzy and we are
about to welcome a baby.
Pastor
Don Schmidt a UCC pastor serving in Seattle tells of his childhood experience
that you too may have had.
“When
I was young, one of the great joys of Christmastime was to drive around one
evening and look at the lights. We lived
in a tiny community and sot it was a special thrill to drive about an hour to
the nearest city to see a much wider display of holiday lights. One year, we drove past a house that had a
large cross made of lights reaching up from the roof. ‘My father’, says, Don Schmidt, - who was
(and is) an active member of his church and a person of strong faith – looked
at the house:
“I
just don’t understand what a cross has to do with Christmas,” he said. And we
all agreed.
For
so many people, including Christians, there seems no connection whatsoever
between the baby in the manger and the person on the cross.
So
the liturgical church year has something to teach us. We end the church year with a special day
call ‘The Reign of Christ.’ And where do
we find Christ reigning from: the cross.
St.
Luke – the same Gospel and only Gospel that gives us the story of the babe in
the manger is the Gospel that puts Christ on the cross making amazing regal
proclamations.
St.
Luke begins with the story of Mary and Joseph heading to Bethlehem under the
auspices of a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be
taxed. It was the powerful Empire
impinging on the life of the peasants to count and control them.
The
birth of Jesus is patterned after the hero births of the Caesars only Luke
turns everything inside out and upside down.
This Caesar Jesus – like the Caesars before him, is a Son of God. But this God king is not born in wealth in a
royal palace, but among peasants in a humble stall.
This
God-King Jesus, a new Caesar, is unlike any other Caesar. His birth is not hailed by trumpeters from
palaces to the royal elite, but rather announced to humble shepherds tending
their flocks by night.
And
so it goes with this Son of God – this new Caesar – Jesus who brings in the
Kingdom of God. His teachings, his way,
his healing and compassion is unlike any Caesar before him and he threatens the
Empire.
That
Empire that values power, raw control, taxing and pushing people around and military
might, that Empire that values the markets and the gross national product and
keeping the elite politicians in office and cutting out aid to the poor and
marginalized, and keeping all borders safe from foreigners – stands in bold contrast
of the reign of Jesus.
This
new Son of God born of peasants, teacher of the Law, storyteller and Rabbi bringing
in the Kingdom of God is a threat to the Empire.
Imagine
that – an upstart prophet from Nazareth threatening an Empire by his love! He is a new Caesar according to St. Luke – an
anti-hero kind of King who mocks the powers that be and reveals their
fallacies.
In
stories like the Good Samaritan Jesus announces the reign of God in which
foreigners and even enemies act with more compassion than the religious elite.
In
contrast to every other Caesar, he is a King who decrees: “Love your enemies, do good to those that
hate you.”
He
heals and serves others rather than being served and taken care of. He rules among the people eating with the
commoners and the outcast, breaking class boundaries of gender and tribe.
Jesus
announces that the Kingdom of God is not for some chosen religious elite but
rather that in God’s Kingdom there are no outsiders. In fact the whole kingdom hierarchy
- commoner, peasant, and slave is thrown out.
God’s
people are not some religious club meeting for their own enjoyment, but rather
God’s people are a servant people, a people of a way of life in bold contrast
to the Empire.
Where
those in the Empire seek to acquire the highest seat and fend for who is the
greatest. Followers of the Kingdom of
God seek to serve and reach out to neighbor, immigrant, and stranger alike.
Empire
people are interested in feathering their own caps and making their own way
through life. People of God are
followers of a counter intuitive way in which the first will be last and the
last first.
Luke
portrays Jesus as this anti-Caesar hero – ruling as Caesar’s opposite and thus
a threat to the Empire.
So
this Sunday we have Jesus reigning from the Cross. His throne is the cross and he is making
kingly pronouncements:
“Father,
forgive them for they know not what they do.”
We
hear that so often that it may have lost its impact. Can we imagine anything more opposite than a
king like Caesar? Not one Caesar in
history has spoken such radical news of forgiving those who were putting him to
death.
That
is a radically different approach to the world, that we God’s people are called
to be a part of – such compassion and forgiveness. Such reconciliation can be a healing balm in
relationships among families who are about to have a lot of time together
during the holidays.
Christ
offers from the cross a stark contrast to the ways of the world.
And
to the criminal dying near him – Jesus does not convert him to Christianity or
ask anything of him, but out of pure grace welcomes the thief into
Paradise.
By
the way the thief could very well have been Persian. The Persians had conquered God’s people and
at one time were their enemies. But
Cyrus, the King, sent them back to their homeland.
By
the way the term ‘Paradise’ is a Persian term.
So here we have King Jesus on the cross reaching across barriers of
race, religion, foreigners, enemies and in the language of the person he is
addressing welcomes him into ‘paradise.’
Luke
portrays a Jesus who is the most vigorous champion of the outsider. He excludes
no one. Religion has a long history of
doing just that, of reducing the huge mysteries of God to the respectability of
club rules, of shrinking the vast human community to those who are in and those
who are out. But with God there are no outsiders.
How
radical the stark contrast between Caesar Jesus and the Caesars of the Empire!
How
often we have caved into the ways of the Empire in our own time and fled from
the Jesus Caesar of the cross.
The
question that remains each Reign of Christ Sunday is whether we will choose to
live as if the one who reigns in not Caesar, but God.
Amen
Thanks Kenn...good to reconnect...Charley Lopez, seminary classmate.
ReplyDelete