Pr. Joseph Crippen

Christ Jesus doesn’t want to be a king; Christ wants us to be Christ, following him as the Truth of God in this world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Reign of Christ, Last Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 34 B
Text: John 18:33-37 (plus 38a)

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

We have a problem with this festival day. Jesus doesn’t want to be a king.

A few years ago, we joined many other Christians in renaming this festival “the Reign of Christ” to minimize the masculine language of the title king. But today Jesus is clear. We didn’t think deeply enough. Jesus doesn’t want the title king at all. He doesn’t want to be put in any kind of hierarchy, benign or otherwise.

Twice in Jesus’ trial Pilate asks him if he’s a king, and twice he says no. The first time, he says if he were a king, his followers would be fighting for him and he wouldn’t be standing in this trial. The second time, he says that Pilate’s the one who called him a king. But, Jesus says, “I was born and came into the world for only one thing, to witness to the truth.”

Yet for most of Christian history, we’ve insisted on making Jesus a king anyway, lifting him up as Ruler of all things, singing coronation hymns. Some of us claim he’s a different kind of king than worldly rulers – it’s why this festival was started in the first place. But far too often we have fought to make Christ our King a winner, proving him wrong in his confidence about us before Pilate, proving we don’t understand him.

The history is clear. Whenever we make Christ our King, people die.

When we make Christ a King we get the Inquisition and the Crusades and kill millions. When we put Christ’s cross on our banners, it ends up on our shields and war machines, and people die. We get Cortez slaughtering the Mexica for the glory of that cross. We create the Holocaust. We commit physical, spiritual, and cultural genocide on the native peoples of our land. When we lift up a hierarchical Christ the King we end up with two millennia of a Church that abuses, patronizes, demonizes, sexualizes, and excludes women, so much so that an outside observer might conclude the Church hates women. When we worship Christ as Supreme Ruler we get Christian nationalist fascism that wants to reshape our nation into a twisted, white-centric dystopia claimed to be under Christ’s rule.

But it’s always been this way. After the resurrection, the disciples asked Jesus if now was the time he was going to restore Israel, throw off Roman oppression. It’s as if they said, “we totally misunderstood that you were going to die. We were wrong. But now you’re alive again, we’re back to conquest, right? Now you have real power.”

Even as we look at the current national landscape, how many of us have fantasized about Christ coming in and sorting all this out, punishing evildoers? No matter how well intentioned, historically no outcome to a hierarchical view of the Triune God avoids getting out swords and hurting people.

And so Jesus says, “you say I’m a king. But I came only to witness to the truth.”

That’s the heart of it. Jesus, God-with-us, came to witness to the truth about God. Not our truth. Our need for hierarchy. The only truth the Triune God is willing for us to know and understand. And here it is:

God being born to an impoverished refugee family isn’t a nice detail to bring out when we consider immigration issues. It’s God’s central truth. Jesus walking as God-with-us among the poorest, the hungriest, the weakest, the most vulnerable, isn’t a side note to our view of God. It’s the only note. Jesus, one with the Father and the Spirit in the Trinity, hanging bloody on a cross isn’t a bump to overcome on the way to resurrection. It’s the only truth about God’s love that God wants you to know.

The truth, Governor Pilate, isn’t an idea. It’s Jesus, God-with-us. “I am the truth,” he said. Everything you and I need to know about God, everything, is contained in this human vessel, from birth to death.

This is the only truth Jesus wants us to know and follow. The only God God wants us to know is a refugee, impoverished, oppressed, killed by the hierarchy of the world. A God only seen serving others. A kneeling God, washing feet and sores, and offering a hand of love. God doesn’t want us to indulge our pathetic human need to elevate someone into a hierarchical authority structure. God’s truth is here, in the least, the lost, the broken. Period.

Faithfully celebrating the reign of Christ can only be on God’s terms. In God’s truth.

Where we rejoice and praise God when people are fed and cared for, when justice happens, when love changes hearts. Where we proclaim the only reality of the Triune God that matters, that God is with those who are refugees, impoverished, oppressed, killed by the hierarchy of the world.

What that means for our celebrating the reign of Christ, I don’t know. For the most part, the New Testament writers push language about reigning over all things into the world to come. Maybe there we’ll be able to praise the Trinity as the ultimate Ruler of All without hurting people.

But for now, for here, you and I know where God is. And if we’re going to follow the Truth, that’s where. Nowhere else. We don’t even put God on a pedestal. God will just get down anyway and go where God only wants to be found.

Jesus had an odd confidence, telling Pilate, “my followers know the difference.

 They know I’m not a king.” So far we’ve proven we don’t know that very well.

But maybe Jesus was just expressing hope that we could figure it out. Maybe Jesus was saying to you and me, “If you’ve been listening to my voice, I’m confident you’ll hear this. And hearing, follow that truth.” And amidst all the slaughter and hate the Church is guilty of, if you look in history you can also see plenty of Christ’s followers who heard this voice, learned this truth and lived in this reign as God lives in it. Praising God the only way God will accept it, by lives of love amidst a world of pain and suffering. Love even to enemies and those who hate.

And here’s what those followers learned: when they followed God’s actual Truth, Jesus, God was always with them. They’d face ventures of which they couldn’t see the ending. They’d start down paths they’d never trodden on before. They’d face perils and dangers unknown to them before. But they’d do this knowing God’s hand was guiding them, God’s love supporting them. Always.

And so they followed.

What do you think? Do you want go along with Pilate and everyone else? Or do you want to follow the Truth, follow Christ on a path that will be with God all the way and bring healing and hope to you and so many, to the whole creation?

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Where love is, God is. That’s your hope, and why you are the hope of the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 32 B
Texts: 1 Kings 17:8-16; Mark 12:38-44; Psalm 146

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

It’s really a matter of what you want to focus on today.

Do you want to consider Elijah’s context, where he’s fleeing from a narcissistic evil tyrant who abuses his people, a king furious at Elijah for daring to speak God’s Word to him?

Or Jesus’ context, occupied Palestine under imperial oppression, where some of the wealthy religious leaders are manipulating the system and crushing people to enhance their wealth, “devouring widow’s houses,” as Jesus says?

Today we’re dealing with deep grief, anxiety, disgust, anger, and dread at what has happened. We legitimately fear for our neighbors’ safety, some of us even fear for ourselves. A lot of people are going to be hurt in the next years, people we love and people we don’t know, if the promised written plan for our country is now executed by those coming to power. That resonates with King Ahab, and Rome, and these wealthy elites.

But they’re just not the important thing here. We sang in our psalm not to put our trust in rulers. They’re just not worth it. And if we don’t focus on them, what we see in both stories is a shining ray of hope.

We see a poor widow act with empathy against all reason.

She and her son are nearly finished. She has enough flour and oil to make one bit of so-called bread, and when they eat that, what’s left is the long, excruciating process of starving to death.

And this prophet wants her to share. Says God will make her jug of oil and jar of meal never run out, if she helps him. Now, there’s no chance she’s ever seen magic food storage bins. No reason to think Elijah’s not just saying this so she’ll feed him.

But she does. This woman with nothing to do but die and watch her son die, shares what she has with this crazy man.

It’s an awesomely beautiful thing to see, the light of this love.

And look – there’s another poor widow acting against all reason.

Maybe she’s one of those widows cheated by the leaders Jesus just condemned, but however she became so poor, she’s down to two chips of copper that aren’t worth a penny.

And she comes into the treasury, where there are thirteen containers with metal trumpet shaped tops that people noisily throw their money in as an offering. Josephus says seven were labeled, designating commanded offerings for doves or sacrifices, or for incense, and so on, and six were labeled for voluntary offerings. Others say only one or two were voluntary ones. But given that Jesus praises her choice, this widow surely went up to the “voluntary” chest.

And she gives all she has. We don’t need to know why to be dazzled by the light of such beautiful, willing generosity.

Our psalm doesn’t trust rulers. But it does invite us to trust and sing praise of God, who cares for all in need.

A God who, we sang, gives justice to those who are oppressed and food to those who hunger, who releases captives and gives sight to the blind, who lifts up all who are bowed down. A God who cares for the stranger and sustains those on the margins of society. And who frustrates the way of the wicked, we sang.

This is the God to whom these beautiful women belong. A God who empowers them to act as God’s love, even if it seems ridiculous and irrational to others.

In these women, you can see the shining light of God’s love in the world. And find hope.

So here and now, can you also see God with us, in our world?

I see God right here, in all of you. Grieving, struggling with fear and anger, worrying who won’t survive this new future, and whether there’s anything we can do about it, you came here anyway. To be with each other, love each other. Even if it’s your first time, you came looking for God. To see if God has a word of hope for you, for the world. You being here is a shining ray of hope that God is here.

And we’re baptizing a little boy today, a sure sign of God’s presence. God will claim Adam and bring him through the waters into the family of Christ. But notice how we frame God’s action. His parents and sponsors will promise to make sure he’s part of a community of faith so he can learn, as we do here, to trust God, proclaim Christ in his words and deeds, care for others, and work for justice and peace. To join us to proclaim Christ, care for others, and work for justice and peace, as we say at the end when we welcome him “into the mission we share.” Today we see in Adam another blessing who will bear God’s creative and redeeming word into the world with us. Oh, this is a shining ray of hope that God is here and will always be here, if God keeps finding people to share this mission.

And you will come to God’s table today, our sure and weekly sign of God’s grace. And yes, it’s a Meal of forgiveness and God’s love for you. But it’s also food for the journey, waybread, strength and filling to help you and me have courage for what we can do today and the next days. It’s God’s lifting up of our hearts to see that even we are God’s grace in this broken world. This shining ray of weekly hope is a certain sign that God is with you and me and all God’s children. For the long haul. For the hard work. For the healing of all things.

The 8^th century Christian who wrote the hymn our choir will sing this morning saw what we see today.

Where charity and love are, that’s where God is. In every act of love in a world filled with hate, a world where plans for hate are written and ready to be executed, in every act of love God frustrates the wicked. With us. With you. How can you stop millions of people acting in God’s love in every part of this world?

These two wonderful women gave their all, and that’s your invitation. To pour your heart and love into God’s mission, to care, as God does, for all who are vulnerable and lost and afraid, for all who are hungry and homeless and oppressed. Don’t be discouraged if you think you don’t have much to offer, that your love surely can’t make a difference. A tiny bit of flour and oil, a couple chips of copper, the world disdains as nothing.

But God knows better. Your love, your offering, is as powerful as anything in this world. Because where love is, God is. Let that be your shining ray of hope today, even as God shines from you as you go out into the world.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen