Christ the King

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Luke 23:33-43

On Christ the King Sunday we celebrate and remember that Christ had many roles and functions, and that one of them is as King, King of us, King of creation, King of all.  But the underlying question is, Who is this Christ?  Who is this king? 

When we think of royalty, when we think about rulers of any kind, we have certain visions in our minds.  We have certain understandings of the kind of strength, power, and authority that it takes to lead a world, a country, a state, a city. 

But always, always, when it comes to God, when it comes to Christ, we are handed a vision and understanding that does not,  and frankly cannot, be anything like what we think.   In order to understand this king, I think it can be helpful to return to our original Biblical stories of what a ruler and king are. 

The Hebrew people were told, from the beginning, that God was their God.  They were told that because of who God is, God’s strong presence in their lives, God’s overarching leadership and most of all, God’s amazing and faithful love, that the Hebrew people needed no other ruler, no other guide.   But the Israelites were scared.  They were scared to be a nation without a clear leadership who could defend them, lead them into battle, show them as a united and strong people.  They insisted, they asked for a ruler.  God gave them judges, people who could help them make decisions and interpret right from wrong.  But again, these were not what the people wanted.  They were afraid.  They didn’t believe they could rely on God alone against other nations.  We hear the rest of this story in the book of 1^st Samuel, chapter 8.   “Now when Samuel got old, he appointed his sons to serve as Israel’s judges. ² The name of his oldest son was Joel; the name of the second was Abijah. They served as judges in Beer-sheba. ³ But Samuel’s sons didn’t follow in his footsteps. They tried to turn a profit, they accepted bribes, and they perverted justice. ⁴ So all the Israelite elders got together and went to Samuel at Ramah. ⁵ They said to him, “Listen. You are old now, and your sons don’t follow in your footsteps. So appoint us a king to judge us like all the other nations have.” ⁶ It seemed very bad to Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us,” so he prayed to the Lord. ⁷ The Lord answered Samuel, “Comply with the people’s request—everything they ask of you—because they haven’t rejected you. No, they’ve rejected me as king over them. ⁸ They are doing to you only what they’ve been doing to me from the day I brought them out of Egypt to this very minute, abandoning me and worshipping other gods. ⁹ So comply with their request, but give them a clear warning, telling them how the king will rule over them.”  Then Samuel explained everything the Lord had said to the people who were asking for a king.  “This is how the king will rule over you,” Samuel said: “He will take your sons, and will use them for his chariots and his cavalry and as runners for his chariot.  He will use them as his commanders of troops of one thousand and troops of fifty, or to do his plowing and his harvesting, or to make his weapons or parts for his chariots.  He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, or bakers.  He will take your best fields, vineyards, and olive groves and give them to his servants.  He will give one-tenth of your grain and your vineyards to his officials and servants. ¹⁶ He will take your male and female servants, along with the best of your cattle and donkeys, and make them do his work.  He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and then you yourselves will become his slaves!  When that day comes, you will cry out because of the king you chose for yourselves, but on that day the Lord won’t answer you.”   But the people refused to listen to Samuel and said, “No! There must be a king over us  so we can be like all the other nations. Our king will judge us and lead us and fight our battles.”   Samuel listened to everything the people said and repeated it directly to the Lord.  Then the Lord said to Samuel, “Comply with their request. Give them a king.”

So the people were given kings.  And we’ve had those kings as models for us ever since.  We have come to expect that rulers are people who provide us at least a modicum of stability or protection, but that do so at a very high price.  We expect this.  No matter where you stand politically, or who you support or what kind of government you value, we all know that there are costs we’d rather not pay to having human leadership, human rulers.  Still, we don’t feel “safe” without them.

And yet, God continues to show us another way.  God continues to show us God’s way.  And God’s way is different.  And when we could not see it from what the judges had to say, and when we could not accept it based on what the prophets had to say, and when we could not live it based on what God said to us through scriptures and stories and people and history, God finally sent God’s son to us.  God sent Jesus to show us this other way, this different way.  Jesus came, the real king, the ultimate king, who acts nothing like we expect or understand rulers or leaders to behave.  He doesn’t walk around with body guards protecting his every step.  He doesn’t insist on taking from us to increase his wealth or to pad the pockets of his friends.  He doesn’t take from the poor to give to the rich and he doesn’t take from any of us for his own need or his family’s need.  He doesn’t build a strong defense system or any kind of defense system at all.  Instead, instead he shows us something very, VERY different.  He feeds anyone who comes to him hungry.  He heals anyone who comes to him sick (and sometimes even the dead such as Talitha and Lazarus).  He listens and allows even the most rejected, the least “acceptable”, the least “worthy” to physically touch him.  He includes children, women, people of different nationalities and backgrounds such as the Serophoenician and the Samaritans.  He doesn’t reject them because they aren’t “the chosen ones” or part of his nation.  He includes tax collectors and prostitutes and doesn’t reject them because their behavior is wrong and isn’t what we deem acceptable.  He doesn’t take their wealth and live in a big mansion with servants or luxury items.  He lives poorly, simply, and asks for nothing in return.  He relies on the kindness of strangers and does not worry about his own survival or well-being.  He leads with truth rather than threats or fear or negotiations. 

And when THIS king, this king that we cannot understand, this king who acts completely differently from what we want or expect or demand from our human rulers, when this king is killed, as of course he would inevitably be, this king still, on the cross, in his dying moments, behaves completely differently from any king we can imagine.  He doesn’t send for his troops to rescue him.  He doesn’t call for a start of war or revenge.  He doesn’t threaten the end to those who did this to him.  He doesn’t shout out “you will be sorry”, and he doesn’t fight back in any way.

Instead, as he hangs there on the cross, as he dies, as he suffers the deepest pain, and he continues to think about others, others who are suffering.  And again, it isn’t the “good” people he worries about in that moment.  It is anyone, anyone at all who is suffering.  He is hanging on the cross next to two people who have done terrible wrongs, who are being killed as criminals for some atrocity or another.  Maybe they were both murderers.  Maybe they killed children.  We aren’t told.  What we are told is that in that moment Jesus doesn’t ask.  He doesn’t care what they have done.  What he cares about is that they are scared and suffering.  And in that moment, this king, who does not “rescue” them or himself, even when he is goaded on to do so, instead, in that moment, as he suffers, hanging on the cross – he offers to the criminal crucified next to him the promise of paradise.  He reaches out with the strength of knowledge and love that goes beyond any personal suffering, and he offers life, real life, to the scared and dying human, imperfect person next to him. 

This is the KING that we are given, the REAL king, the savior, our God.  He does not jump off the cross to save himself, despite the pain, and the inevitable death that he faces.  He does not “negotiate” or buy popularity or play politics.  He lives life following God to the fullest, and he pays for it with death, a death he accepts even while he loves and cares for those around him, even those whom, like this criminal next to him, we would probably not deem worthy of that love or care.

Walter Brueggermann said it this way – “Every (government) regime is frightened…..  It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing alternative futures to the single one the (earthly) king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.”  Well, again, the king that we see, the king that Jesus presents is not this kind of king.  This is the king who IS the prophet, who IS the artist…who takes all of our understandings of rulers and leadership and what it is to command people, and he turns them on their head. 

This week is Thanksgiving.  And then we begin Advent.  And all of them, Christ the King, Thanksgiving, and Advent connect… all are about seeing God in the unexpected places, being grateful because we have seen God, and expecting that God, Christ, King, Jesus as a baby – will not be what we expect. 

I struggled with the sermon this week.  I struggled to write it because I am saying the same thing that is being said across the country on this Christ the King Sunday.  That Christ the King is nothing at all like the kings and leaders we think we need.  That instead Christ the King is the King GOD wants us to have – a king of love, compassion, service, selflessness, faithfulness – God wants us to have nothing else but God for our king, our leader, our ruler.  What is new in that?  What new word can I bring that you have not heard every year on this Sunday?  What stories can I possibly tell you to illustrate this reality?  But then I thought, the thing is, we need to hear this every year.  Because we are still, STILL looking for that earthly king to lead us.  We still are.  And that is not the king God calls us to have lead us.

So how will we recognize this Christ?  How do we recognize this King?  As we enter Advent, as we come to God with thanksgiving in our hearts for all we have been given, how do we know our loyalty is to the right king?  How do we know we have found Christ again?  

We will know him, as we always do, by his love.  By his unfathomable, unimaginable, kind, caring, unconditional and all-encompassing love.   We will know him by the people he includes, which is everyone, and by the fact that he loves even those who offend us deeply.  We will know him by his unexpected appearance among those we don’t usually count, or see, or care for.  We will know him by his love. Amen

The Spiritual Discipline of Guidance

Philippians 2:12-18, 1 John 4:7-16

Today we continue our look into spiritual disciplines.  As you know, I have been trying to focus on ones that we don’t talk about as often or as much, and today we will be focusing on the spiritual discipline of guidance. 
As people of faith, we recognize that we need God’s guidance.  But how do we seek that?  How do you seek out God’s guidance? 
Many of us are good at asking advice from loved ones when we are struggling to make a decision.  But as a spiritual discipline of guidance, we are called to frame these questions and the conversations with others differently.  Rather than asking, “What should I do?” the spiritual discipline of guidance calls us to ask, “Where is God in this decision?  What is God calling me to do?  Which choice will best allow me to serve God to my fullest potential?  Which choice is best not only for me, but for all of God’s people?”  This last question is especially important because it calls us to see that every choice we make impacts more than ourselves and that every choice we make, therefore, is a choice about if, how and how much good we do for God and God’s people.   It again, honors the Spirit in the “other”.

One way we seek out spiritual guidance is to pray, but then do we take the time to listen for the answers? 

Contemplative listening is a practice that many spiritual directors learn as they listen to their directees, but it is one that we can do with ourselves as we listen to God as well.  It involves asking God a question and then literally sitting in the silence and listening.  We try to listen for God in a non-anxious space.  We try to limit the rattle of our thoughts and our comments to God and simply be with God.  We pay attention to the feelings that emerge in our bodies, the images that come to our minds, the questions that pop into our heads, as ways God might be leading us to think, reflect and move differently. 
Another practice in guidance is reading scripture, but as we use it for guidance, we are called to read it differently, to sit with it, practicing things like lectio divina, which means “divine word” and is a call to really listen to what scripture is saying to us in each moment.   
The spiritual discipline of guidance includes other things though as well.  We are called to recognize that God calls not just individuals but communities, and that God’s wisdom is to be found not just within scripture or within one self but also within the community of God’s people.  We have come to recognize that the Holy Spirit can talk through groups as well as scripture and prayer, and that we are called to seek out the wisdom and guidance of all those whom the Spirit touches.
As Presbyterians, especially, we believe that call, any call (and we believe that all of us have a call) is discerned in community.  Our call process for pastors, for example, involves many people who must affirm and support each potential pastor’s call into ministry.  Each pastor-to-be goes through extensive interviews and examinations in ever widening circles. A candidate for ministry must be trained in a theological school system, must also go through rigorous testing that takes place separate from the school, and also must pass through a committee at their home church, and a committee at Presbytery, one on one interviews as well as interviews with committees, finally ending with an examination before the entire Presbytery to discern if that person really is called into ordained ministry.  This belief that call is discerned in community is very central to who we are.
Several years ago, there was a debate on the floor of the Presbytery I was part of at the time about whether or not a pastor seeking ordination through our Presbytery should be required to attend at least a few classes at a Presbyterian seminary.  There was one pastor who argued vehemently that pastors wanting to be Presbyterian ministers should not have to attend any classes at a Presbyterian seminary.  He himself had never attended any classes at a Presbyterian seminary and he told us all that the Committee on Ministry had insisted that he do so.  He said it like this, “The Holy Spirit was calling me to attend a different seminary, but the Committee on Ministry told me I had to attend at least a polity (church government) class at a Presbyterian Seminary.  I refused to do that, and I’m fine as a Presbyterian Minister.”  But as the debate continued, it became clear that he was not, in fact, fine as a Presbyterian pastor.  He had failed to understand this very basic principle of Presbyterian belief that a call is discerned through community.  The Holy Spirit was calling him, through the committee and through the Presbytery, to take one class at a Presbyterian seminary.  He refused the call of the Spirit, and arrogantly assumed that his wishes were in line with the Spirit despite a whole group of people whose call it was to help others discern, telling him otherwise.  And as a result, he had no understanding at all of what it really means to be a Presbyterian pastor who recognizes and values the Holy Spirit’s strong and amazing work through communal discernment.  Not surprisingly, he left the denomination a couple years after this debate, joining another denomination that does not believe in the call of every individual, nor in call being discerned in this communal way.
Still, the truth is that this is hard for all of us.  We all can become arrogant at times and assume that we know what God wants, especially for ourselves, despite a praying body of people who are telling us differently.  We all can assume that we are hearing the Spirit more clearly than the body.  We all can, at times, fail to follow the call that we are led to through the discernment of the body of Christ in community because we are so individualistic in this culture and we are, frankly, out of practice in discerning God’s will through community.
So, how do we do this with regular concerns?  There are several practices of guidance and discernment that are available to us.  I mentioned above contemplative listening, study and simply asking God and others for help, and guidance.  But there are many other ways as well. 
The Quakers practice something called Spirit Rule.  When Quakers worship together, they sit in silence, listening for God.  Sometimes a Quaker worship service will be entirely silent for the whole hour.  However, often times a person will feel called to speak.  He or she will say what they feel compelled by the Spirit to express and the rest listen for the underlying truth in what is said.  Anyone may speak - woman, man, child, visitor, member.  But they see their worship time as a corporate seeking of God’s will.  All present are encouraged not to respond to what others have said, but to continue to sit in the silence and listen for the Holy Spirit’s words to them. 
Another, non-denominational practice of guidance is something called a “clearness committee”.  A clearness committee can be called by any individual for the seeking of guidance around a very specific issue.  I graduated from seminary with a concentration in spirituality and one of the required classes for that concentration was a semester long course on clearness committee.  We were divided into small groups and each person brought an issue to the group for group focus for a number of weeks before moving to the next person’s question.  The purpose was for the group to work together to listen to and for the Holy Spirit’s guidance.  The person with the question for discernment presents their question, their issue along with any background information that may be informing the question for them.  During the first sitting, the members of the group are not to give advice, but to ask questions with the purpose of moving the questions deeper.  The questions are not to be hidden advice.  For example, “Have you thought about doing x?” is not really a question, but advice.  Similarly, “My brother once tried x and it worked for him” is not a question, it is advice.  Instead, the questions might be, “How do you feel when you think about this part of what you shared?”  “What memories or images come up for you around this part of the issue?”  “When you ask God about this part of what you shared, what do you hear?”  Other questions might ask for more information, clarification, or deeper thinking.  The next session, the person with the question gives feedback as to where their thinking has moved and what has been helpful and then again, the committee asks questions.  At this point, committee members can also talk about how they have been impacted by the issue the one member is facing.  But again, this must never be framed in terms of advice, but more “when I think about x, I feel anxious because I remember when I made a similar decision and this is what happened.”  Or “when I reflected on y, I felt moved to make a change in my own life…” etc.  Also , the focus person may ask clarifying or thinking questions of the committee. There is a great deal of silence during these meetings as well, as people listen for the Spirit, and listen for the movement of feelings, etc.  The process continues for several weeks, but the key component is that while it is a committee of folk helping one person have greater insight and discernment, advice is never given.  We can never fully understand what another person is going through.  So helping another person gain insights, remember factors, explore the issues is helpful.  But giving advice is not because it is always based on limited information.  My own personal experience of clearness committee was that as a listener it was hard not to give advice.  At the same time, all of us found that the exercise or practice of listening becomes impeded when we are thinking in terms of advice.  When we are just called to listen, the listening can go much, much deeper because we are not distracted by trying to think about what we are supposed to say.  As the focus person, it was extremely helpful to not be bombarded with others’ advice, but simply be accompanied in the journey of discernment by wise and thoughtful people who were willing to ask the questions and reflect back what they were hearing without giving direction or advice.  This is a practice that I think would be very helpful for any of us to try, and if any of you would like to be part of a clearness committee, or have a particular issue you would like help with, please let me know and we will put one together.
      The final practice of discernment or guidance that I want to mention this morning is that of seeking out spiritual direction.  Spiritual direction includes many things, and listening to sermons or being part of small groups studying scripture is an aspect of spiritual direction.  But actually visiting with a spiritual director is also extremely helpful.  Their role and their goal, again, is not to give advice.  They listen for God, they help their directees to listen for God, they push questions about where God is acting and what God is guiding us to do.  My personal experience is that seeing a spiritual director is extremely helpful in deepening our relationships with God, which then allows for much clearer decision making.
     I want to point out one last time that seeking guidance as a spiritual practice is not asking for advice.  It is not giving advice.  I can’t state this strongly enough.  The practice of guidance is a practice of listening for God, deepening our relationship with God, being led by the Spirit, truly, whether that Spirit is talking through an individual or a community.  The process of guidance can be distorted, there is danger in it, but the greatest danger comes in the form of charismatic voices trying to give advice, telling us what we need to do, and claiming that they know what needs to be done because God has spoken to them.  This is a good reason in itself why advice should never be part of it.  And when someone is giving you advice in response to your seeking guidance, I would encourage you to be very wary.  Guidance invites you deeper into relationship with God.  Real spiritual guidance never seeks to manipulate or control.
          The purpose then of seeking guidance is not to have all our problems fixed and to know exactly what we need to do in any moment.  The purpose of seeking guidance is to deepen in our relationship with God.  That is why it is an important spiritual discipline.  We deepen our hearing of God, we deepen our seeking of God, we deepen our experience of God.  And we do so with the humility to recognize that we can’t do any of that alone.  We are led by the community of God’s people as well as the Holy Spirit in our deepening.  We acknowledge that none of us have all the answers or really any of the answers.  Only God does, and when we have the humility to seek guidance in these different ways, we remember that God is always there to lead us when we but ask.  We remember that God wants us to be in full relationship with God because in choosing relationship with God, we are choosing to be the most whole, genuine version of ourselves that we can be.  We remember that God’s answers are perfect, and are just waiting to be given.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.