Everyone Who Belongs
Christ the King SundayRead the Sermon
Have you ever wondered why it’s so hard to keep a secret?
If you are trying to keep a secret right now, there’s a good chance your mind is often going into a bit of overdrive. Research suggests that keeping a secret requires mental multitasking where we have to go back and forth between what we’re allowed to share and what we have to keep secret. Our minds aren’t the best at multitasking – we can do it, but when we do, we’re almost always missing a details while failing to really give anything our attention.
Beyond the mental gymnastics that we have to go through when trying to keep a secret, going back and forth between what we can share and what we have to keep secret, research also suggests that when we try to keep a secret, we feel inauthentic – it’s not that keeping a secret makes us feel dishonest, it’s more that holding back a secret makes us feel like we are not able to share our whole self, the whole truth, with the world.
My wife, Irene, has had to carry a secret for awhile, which means I’ve had to keep a secret for awhile, until Thursday.
Irene has been working as the associate director at Iowa Interfaith Power and Light where she helps to empower Iowans of faith and conscience to take bold and just action on the climate crisis. If you want to learn more about that, you can talk with Irene or visit their website iowaipl.org
What’s no longer a secret is that her boss, Matt Russell, is going to leave Iowa Interfaith Power and Light to work in the Biden administration as the Iowa executive director for the farm service agency of the USDA. Irene knew that Matt was going to get this new position for a few months, but when someone works for the government, they have to vetted, they have to have background checks, they have go through multiple steps of approval, and that can take a long time.
No one seemed to know when the announcement would come, but for a few months, Irene knew that Matt would be getting a new job and she would have to do her job while preparing to take on a new position as the acting director of Iowa Interfaith Power and Light. Her coworker, Alli, said that Irene was the secret acting director, and with that, her job title became SAD (Secret Acting Director).
Irene is no longer SAD and we no longer have to keep a secret because she is officially the acting executive director of Iowa Interfaith Power and Light and being able to say that out loud is amazing, not just because she’s doing great work that she’s really good at, we don’t have to keep this truth a secret anymore.
The truth of Irene’s job has been true for a long time, but it hasn’t been out in the open, it’s been just below the surface, waiting to be discovered and celebrated.
Our reading today from the Gospel of John shares truth with us in a similar way – there is something going on in this passage between Jesus and Pilate that is just below the surface, waiting to be discovered and celebrated.
In the life of the church, today is known as Christ the King Sunday, it’s the last Sunday of the liturgical year where we worship Christ as king and prepare for a new year to begin with the celebration of his birth. This Sunday we worship to remember whose we are. We reiterate our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. We are followers of Jesus Christ, who we proclaim and recognize as king.
What’s striking about the conversation between Pilate and Jesus in our reading today is that these words are shared between a prisoner in chains and his jailer, under authority of the king, holding all the keys, and yet, we can’t help but wonder where power resides in this moment.
Jesus, there to be judged by Pilate, becomes the judge and takes control of the conversation just as it’s getting started. Pilate gets things started by saying, likely with a sly and sarcastic grin, “Are you the King of the Jews” as if to say to Jesus, there is nothing kingly about you.
The closest Jesus comes to answering that question is saying back to Pilate, “You say that I am a king”. It’s almost as if Jesus is reluctant to claim the title we are celebrating today, maybe because of our expectations on what it means to be a king. Jesus tells Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world, that he came into this world to testify to the truth and that everyone who belongs to the truth listens to his voice.
What if Jesus isn’t spiritualizing the moment? What if we don’t read this passage as a philosophical debate? What if Jesus is the king of a new kind of kingdom that sets aside the powers and polices of the world as we know it where instead of retribution our status quo would be reconciliation? Jesus shines a light into this system of justice to ask if the truth matters here.
Pilate is protecting a system of justice that has been created to benefit some at the expense of others and the innocent Christ comes before him to show just how expensive this system of justice is.
Say what you will about the trial and now acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse, but how expensive our system of justice when it justifies the the shootings that Kyle actively participated while this same system of justice shot and killed Tamir Rice because he had a toy gun in a city park? What is the truth that our idea of justice is built on?
Wisconsin law allows someone to provoke violence and claim self-defense. Defining justice like this only helps to perpetuate the idea that in American we can settle our differences with lethal force, so long as we can turn a moment of utter terror into a story of valor.
Jesus says to Pilate, “My kingdom doesn’t originate from this world. If it did, my guards would fight so that I wouldn’t have been arrested by the Jewish leaders. My kingdom isn’t from here.” It’s as if Jesus is saying to Pilate, I’m not going to play by your rules. Jesus is not of this world and so Jesus will not defend himself through the violence of this world. Jesus will not establish his claims by violence. Jesus will not usher in God’s kingdom by violence. Jesus will not create followers by violence.
Jesus has come to witness to the truth, to this truth that God so loved the world.
The theologian Paul Tillich writes, “Suddenly, true reality appears like the brightness of lightening in a formerly dark place. Or, slowly true reality appears like a landscape when the fog becomes thinner and thinner and finally disappears…Or you may be grasped by the truth in an encounter with a piece of nature…In these encounters you may meet the true reality-the truth which liberates from illusions and false authorities, from enslaving anxieties, desires and hostilities, from a wrong self-rejection and a wrong self-affirmation…Therefore, distrust every claim for truth where you do not see truth united with love; and be certain that you are of the truth and that the truth has taken hold of you only when love has taken hold of you…”
This truth is just below the surface, waiting to be discovered and celebrated, and we are here to claim and live with this love by the grace of God, yet we, like Pilate, often miss it. Rather than seeing the cross as a symbol of solidarity and love, we assume it’s the legal mechanism of punishing Jesus in our place because that’s what we’re used to in punitive relationships. Rather than trusting that God’s grace and acceptance are unconditional, we assume God offers love, power, and status but only on the condition that we fear and obey. This world thrives on quid pro quo, this for that, us versus them, who is in and who is out, but Jesus is not of this world and therefore Jesus’ followers will not fight for him or Christ’s kingdom because to bring this kingdom by violence or coercion is to violate the very principles of the kingdom.
We know what it is to live in a world dominated by a story that tells us the solution to violence is violence, and the only result of that story is even more death and destruction. As Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King wrote, “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
As followers of Jesus, as people that proclaim Christ as King, we are called to witness to the One who demonstrated power through weakness, who manifested strength through vulnerability, who established justice through mercy, and who built the kingdom of God by embracing a confused, chaotic, and violent world, taking its pain into his own body, dying the death it sought, and rising again to remind us that love is stronger than hate, and that with God, all good things are possible.
Rulers like Pilate will rise and fall but the power of God is forever. God’s kind of power is just, is in service to others, is love. God’s power, this love, lives in all of us and through the life of Jesus we witness to what we are capable of when we trust in, embody, and seek to dwell in the promises of God – no matter who may claim to be in power.
The very thing that had Jesus before Pilate, this powerful man trying to figure out just how much of a threat Jesus is or is not, is said to be “within” each of us. Jesus is on trial for leading us into a new kind of kingdom – not the kingdom of Rome, not the Kingdom that Pilate is defending, but the Kingdom of God.
In Luke 17:21, Jesus says that the kingdom will not come “over there” or “over here.” People will not point in other directions at some time in the future. The Kingdom, Jesus says, is already within us. We are not waiting on an army; the Kingdom is present. It shows up in big ways and small ways; in quiet places and in chaos, over meals and in conflict, in birth and in death. Jesus was always drawing our attention to that which is close – to bodies, to now, to each other, to today, to here, to neighbor, to our own hearts ands minds and hunger and longing and grief and joy. Through the life of Jesus, we learn what we are all capable of when we participate in the life of God. The entire dream of God lives in us, brimming with desire to be manifested, always ready to be enacted, moment by moment.
This is the truth that’s just below the surface, waiting to be discovered and celebrated. Christ is king and the kingdom of God is already ours. May we manifest this kingdom by following our king knowing that Jesus is a leader like no other.
Jesus leads us to the truth about living, the truth about faith, the truth about meaning and purpose. The truth about grace and reconciliation. This is the truth that Christ came to testify to. And everyone, hear this, “everyone who belongs to the truth listens to Jesus’ voice.”
In the midst of the holiday season, between longing for the holidays to go back to how they used to be and worrying about the pandemic that we’re still not out of, can you hear the voice of Christ that reminds you of the truth that just below the surface of every moment, waiting to be discovered and celebrated, the kingdom of God is already yours. The love of God is with you, and nothing can change that. Paul writes in Romans that, “in all these things we win a sweeping victory through the one who loved us. I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created.”
Nothing can take this love away from you, not even the powers of Pilate. So when you are confronted by Pilate, when you find yourself in a situation where you have to make a choice, you have to decide that direction you will go, what kingdom you will be a part of, whose voice will you listen to?
May we hear Christ’s voice this week and always. Amen.
Grace Des Moines United Methodist Church Sunday Service Posted by GraceDesMoines on Sunday, November 21, 2021
November 22 – 27, 2021
Click on the day to expand the guide.
Monday, November 22
Read – Ephesians 2:4-10
Notice – “God is rich in mercy.” “You are saved by God’s grace.” That was central, said the letter to the Ephesians. God saved us FROM a broken, self-seeking way of life. But that wasn’t the end of the story; it was just the beginning. What Jesus called “the kingdom of God” aims to restore not just individuals, but this whole broken world to God-given wholeness. John Wesley, Methodism’s founder, applied Ephesians 2:10 to everyday life in his “second general rule”: “By doing good; by being in every kind merciful after their power; as they have opportunity, doing good of every possible sort, and, as far as possible, to all men.” Are there “sorts” of goodness you didn’t used to practice, but do now as a Christ follower? Let “doing good of every possible sort” spark your creativity. What new sorts of goodness might God plant in your life?
Pray – Jesus, thank you for all that you have saved me from. Guide me day by day into a way of living that honors and carries out the purpose that you saved me for. Amen.
Tuesday, November 23
Read – Revelation 11:15, Revelation 21:3-5
Notice – The Bible’s last book, in highly symbolic visions, declared that at history’s end Jesus (not the Roman emperor) will be the true ruler. For Christians in the first century, the arrogant, persecuting Roman Empire was evil incarnate. But Revelation 21 drew from Ezekiel 43:7’s vision of a restored temple as God’s “throne” and Isaiah 65:17-19’s announcement that God would make all things new and banish all sadness. Scholar N. T. Wright noted that, despite the 1611 King James Version rendering Revelation 11:15 as “the kingdoms of this world,” further study of Greek manuscripts has made it clear that the noun in Greek was singular—“the kingdom.” He wrote, “It matters quite a lot that ‘kingdom’ here is singular. The vision which John is passing on is a cosmic, global vision, and the ‘kingdom’ which God has established through his Messiah is not simply a collection of kingdoms, ruling over this nation and that. It is his universal rule, scooping up ‘the kingdom of the world’ as a single entity and claiming it back as his own rightful property.”* In the end, our faith says, the God we serve will reign unchallenged and unrivaled. What does it mean for you to give your allegiance to Jesus as the eternal King who rules your life?
Pray – King Jesus, rule today, and every day, in my heart. When you claim the kingdom of this world as your own rightful property, I want to be thoroughly accustomed to honoring your rule. Amen.
- Wright, N. T., Revelation for Everyone (The New Testament for Everyone) (pp. 102-103). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
Wednesday, November 24
Read – Mark 10:23-31
Notice – Watching the young man with many assets sadly walk away (Mark 10:17-22), Jesus shocked his disciples, raised to believe that prosperity was always a sign of God’s favor, by saying, “It’s easier for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter God’s kingdom.” Jesus’ perspective on wealth and poverty completely reversed his disciples’ view of how things work. When have you found God’s values challenging, even reversing, some choice that seemed sensible in light of what you read on the Internet or heard over the TV business channels? How do you strengthen your trust in God, and reset your valuation of earthly treasures?
Pray – Jesus, please keep growing me into a person only your love owns, someone who can take or leave worldly wealth as you direct. Amen.
Thursday, November 25
Read – Matthew 5:13-16
Notice – Jesus likely used the image of salt to highlight his disciples as “salt” preserving the goodness and truth of our world and, in doing so, reflecting God’s nature and glorifying Him. “Jesus uses salt and light to suggest that disciples aren’t expected to live and work for themselves but for others.”* The two main functions of salt in the ancient world were to preserve food, as well as to further enhance the flavors that were already present. Where do you see the need for flavoring and preservation in your community, workplace, and families? How could you influence these areas for God’s glory?
Pray – Jesus, you call me to be salt for the earth, to help preserve and enhance creation. By your spirit, help me to share the goodness and grace that I have to offer to my friends, family, church and community. Amen.
- Eugene Eung-Chun Park and Joel B. Green, study note on Matthew 5:13-14 in The CEB Study Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013, p. 13 NT.
Friday, November 26
Read – Luke 24:44-51, Acts 1:2-8
Notice – Surely the creator God could have written Jesus’ story in the sky or thundered it across the globe. But God’s wisdom made people (us!) the main way to carry out the mission: “You will be my witnesses.” How did Jesus’ command make it clear his people must always focus their life together in mission-driven, outward ways? Whose witness has shaped your life? Now you too are a witness to Jesus’ life-changing work. In what ways can you share your own story of a changed heart and life with those who know you?
Pray – Jesus, I love the daring of telling 120 people in a small Roman province to reach “to the end of the earth.” I love that the Holy Spirit’s power keeps that mission moving. Fill me with that vision and that power. Amen.
Saturday, November 27
Read – Mark 1:1-15
Notice – Mark shared Jesus’ clear, urgent message. “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives.” The Common English Bible renders the Greek metanoia, often translated “repent,” with the phrase “change your hearts and lives.” The Greek word meant “to turn around, change direction.” Jesus called people to a lasting choice to live God’s way, not just a one-time emotional event. What are some key ways Jesus has led you to change your heart and life?
Pray – Jesus, in my darkest times I feel unworthy of your love. Give me “eyes to see” and “ears to hear” how much you love and value me as I reflect on the beginning of your saving mission. Amen.