How does one become a U.S. citizen? As most of you probably know, if you are born in one of the fifty U.S. states or one of its territories, you are automatically a citizen, regardless of the citizenship of your parents. Anyone born here, even the child of foreign nationals, is a U.S. citizen. If you are born abroad to U.S. citizen parents, all your parents have to do is register your birth with a U.S. embassy or consulate, and, again, you are automatically a U.S. citizen. If you are born anywhere else, you may become a naturalized U.S. citizen. You must be at least eighteen years old, must have lived here at least five years as a resident alien, i.e., have a “green card,” you must have a reasonable command of English, and you must pass a citizenship test. After that, you have all the rights and responsibilities of U.S. citizens. You may vote, and you are expected to abide by the law and pay taxes.
How does one become a citizen in God’s realm? For those residents of God’s realm who acknowledge Jesus as their leader, the process is something like that of becoming a U.S. citizen. If you were “born into” the church, i.e., if you were baptized as an infant, you became a Christian by virtue of the promises and commitments of your parents and sponsors. If you were baptized as an adult, you made your own promises and commitments, promises and commitments that you affirmed or reaffirmed in confirmation. As a citizen in God’s realm, you are assured of forgiveness of all your sins, you may share in Christ’s Body and Blood, and you may receive, as the old Book of Common Prayer put it, “all other benefits of his passion.” But what else? To what else have we committed ourselves, and, more important, what are our responsibilities as citizens of God’s realm?
This is a good question to ask ourselves today. We are at the very end of the liturgical year. Next Sunday we will begin a new year, with a new set of Scripture readings. You’ll notice that your bulletin cover and Scripture insert says that today is the Last Sunday after Pentecost and the feast of Christ the King. Why, you might ask, are we reflecting on Christ as a king? Jesus strongly resisted those who would have made him a king. The Gospel of John tells us that, “When Jesus realized,” after multiplying the loaves and fish, “that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.” Even so, the gospels frequently use royal imagery for Jesus. The gospel of Matthew begins by announcing straight out that Jesus is God’s Anointed One. In the same gospel, when the Persian astrologers arrive in Jerusalem after Jesus’ birth, they ask, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” And towards the end, when Jesus enters Jerusalem in triumph, Luke tells us that people shouted, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
Even so, the feast of Christ the King is not an ancient feast. In the Book of Common Prayer that preceded our current book, the so-called 1928 Prayer Book, we had a one-year lectionary, i.e., the same readings year after year. The last gospel reading for the Sunday next before Advent, as this day was known, was the story of the Loaves and Fishes from John. And this is a strange feast for those who live in a democracy, especially for citizens of the U.S., whose forebears either fought a war to detach from a monarchy or fled tyrannical regimes and persecution elsewhere in the world.
Actually, the feast of Christ the King only dates from 1925. It was created by Pope Pius XI, who also suggested today’s readings. Fascism was rising in Italy and Germany, the Great Depression was looming in Europe, and war was clearly not far off. Pius wanted to remind the faithful that our allegiance as Christians is to something other than earthly rulers. When Protestant churches adopted the three-year lectionary in the 1960’s and ‘70’s, they also adopted the feast of Christ the King with it.
So, as citizens of God’s realm, to what have we committed ourselves, and what are our responsibilities? In our reading from 2 Samuel, we hear the last words of the dying King David. In reflecting on how he has fulfilled God’s covenant with him, David alludes to the just ruler, who is a blessing to all people, and who will eventually triumph over evil. In our reading from the gospel according to John, we hear Jesus confront an earthly despot. Despite facing his own death, Jesus reminds Pilate that the realm that Jesus has proclaimed is totally unlike earthly realms and has its origin and continued life in God.
Our reading from the Book of Revelation gives us more clues as to whom we have committed ourselves and what that commitment might mean for how we actually live. But first a word about Revelation: it’s often misunderstood, especially by those who make the mistake of taking it literally. It was written towards the end of the first century to a persecuted fledgling Christian community. Its writer was most likely not the writer of the gospel of John, but rather the leader of a Christian community in Ephesus, who was exiled by the Romans to the Greek island of Patmos.
Curiously, the book brings together two kinds of writing. First, it is apocalypse, i.e., a vision of a future realm in heaven that contrasts sharply with the present corrupt times. Many of the early scenes take place in heaven, while in the latter part we witness the defeat of Babylon, the writer’s stand-in for the Roman Empire. But the book is also a letter to seven of the Christian communities in cities near Ephesus. The greetings and the praise of God at the beginning of the passage we just heard are standard fare for ancient letters. Even so, in this opening section, complete with quotations from two Hebrew prophets, we have suggestions as to what it might mean to be a subject of this king, a citizen of God’s realm. And what do we hear? We hear something about who Jesus is, what Jesus has done for us, and how we are to live as Jesus’ followers.
Who is Jesus? Jesus is, first of all, a martyr, which literally means “witness.” Jesus is a faithful witness to God’s power and an instrument of it. Jesus is also the one who, though a martyr, overcame death. Most important, Jesus is a ruler, the final authority over all earthly political rulers, indeed of all creation. As a descendant of David, he too has kept God’s covenant, and he will be the just, generous, and merciful ruler to which David alluded in his dying words.
What has Jesus done for us? Jesus “loves us and freed us from our sins….” Notice the tenses. Jesus is present to us now, loving us and caring for us now. More important, Jesus’ saving work is completed. “It is finished,” Jesus said from the cross in John’s gospel. Finally, Jesus “made us to be,” or perhaps enabled us to be, citizens of his country, whose work as citizens is to worship and serve.
So how indeed do we live in this realm? How do we worship and serve? As those who wish to be faithful followers of Jesus, we are, first of all, called to follow Christ’s example as a faithful witness ourselves. We are to acknowledge that our first loyalty is to him: not to our family, not to our social class, not to our friends, our team, our school, our political party, or even to our own country. And here let me say that loving one’s country is not a bad thing, it’s a good thing, but our first commitment as Christians is to God and to God’s realm. As Pius XI reminded faithful Catholics, nationality and all other identities come second. If we are serious about our allegiance to Christ, then we must also be prepared for hard choices, when we must intentionally and prayerfully try to align our will with God’s will.
Truthfully, the only way we can align our will with God’s will is to be in close relationship with Jesus. And that is our second responsibility as citizens of God’s realm. We are called to worship regularly, pray daily, and continue to grow as Christian through study of Scripture, theology, history, and ethics. If we wish to do the works are truly of God’s realm, we must be servant-leaders. Even when the forces of darkness threaten to overwhelm us, as they did in Beirut, Paris, and Mali, we are called to work diligently for peace. We are called to demonstrate compassion for all, as Jesus did, care for those in need, and welcome to our table the least, the lost, and the left behind. In so doing, we are to bring others into Christ’s gracious realm, serving as windows and instruments of Christ’s mercy.
Finally, as citizens of God’s realm, we are called to remember that we have committed ourselves not to a tyrant or a despot, but to a God of love, a God who deeply loves us and all creation as beloved children, a God who has promised to love us forever. “Rejoice, the Lord is King!” This is the good news! Proclaim it and live it!
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
O Blest Communion
As most of you know, I spent last week in New Orleans. Among the places my husband and I visited was an exhibit dedicated to Hurricane Katrina. Needless to say, although the hurricane struck New Orleans a little over ten years ago, the terrible memories of the breach of the levees following Katrina are still fresh, and the city is still recovering. Over eighty percent of New Orleans was under water following the breach, and 1,833 people died. Many thousands fled the city, and to this day not all of those who left have returned. In addition to the more than 175,000 homes that were lost to the flooding, priceless cultural artefacts, religious objects, and personal items were lost forever. To compound the tragedy, three weeks later, just as the city was beginning to dry out, hurricane Rita roared by. While only seven people died, countless more homes and businesses were flooded again.
Of course we in southern Ohio are no strangers to destructive weather. We too have seen floods and tornadoes. Early last month, extreme rainfall caused disastrous flooding in the Columbia, South Carolina area, destroying homes, businesses, roads and bridges. Almost three years ago to the day, Hurricane Sandy, as a hurricane and a post-tropical cyclone, caused at least 147 deaths in the Northeast United States, Canada, and the Caribbean, according to the National Hurricane Center. And, of course there was the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 that caused monumental destruction and havoc in that small country.
We could go on and on with hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, cyclones, and tsunamis. To so-called “natural disasters” we can easily add those caused by human folly. In fact, the curators of the Katrina exhibit in New Orleans admitted that Katrina was a “natural force with an outcome compounded by human error.” And who can forget the BP Gulf oil spill or that of the Exxon Valdez? Add to them, on the macro level famine, war, ethnic cleansing, and violent political dictatorships, and, on the micro level, rape, illness, addiction, domestic abuse, injustice, and accidents. In the face of so much human need, our elected officials seem more than ever to be handcuffed by extreme partisanship and totally unable to agree on even the smallest steps. No wonder some of us want to cry out, “Where are you, God? What are you doing about our messy, broken, sinful world? Are you totally disconnected from all these disasters?”
And yet, we are also people of faith. We admit our brokenness and sinfulness, and yet we trust that there is more to human destiny than one disaster after another. Our Scriptures, so full of God’s promises, tell a different story than that of the daily news. Today’s Scripture readings in particular give us an assurance, a “blessed assurance,” that God is with us in all the disasters that crash in on our lives. What is more important, in the midst of these disasters, God offers us hope for the future, for a restoration of creation, and for life lived on a new plane. Addressing a people in exile, the writer of the first part of the book of Isaiah assures his readers that God knows their plight and sorrows with them. Although their world had been turned upside down, in much the same way as for those suffering from the hurricanes, Isaiah suggests that God will ultimately bring about a different future for the exiles. Can you picture that heavenly banquet? All the wonderful food and the best wine? After my week in New Orleans, I certainly can! Wouldn’t you be comforted to hear that God will perfect creation, and that a future without death, a future of joyful abundance that is open to all, is part of God’s plan?
Our Gospel reading puts “skin” on Isaiah’s vision, so to speak. Do you have any doubts that God knows our pain? Jesus’ visit to Bethany is the last of the signs that John’s Gospel offers us that Jesus is the Word made flesh, that Jesus is sent by God to be God in our midst. And what does God-with-us do? He weeps! He knows our pain and loss and grieves with us – then and now. And then, pointing forward to his own resurrection, he releases his friend Lazarus from the bonds of death and assures the crowd, the gospel readers, and us, that eventually all of us will be set free from the bonds of death, that all of us will, with the readers of Isaiah, feast at God’s great banquet.
Surely the writer of the book of Revelation also understood God’s promises of restoration and wholeness. He was writing to Jewish Christian communities that had suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Roman Empire, so he used different images to capture his vision of God’s future. In the image of the new Jerusalem, he gives us a wonderful symbol for perfected creation. Can you picture that perfect city, so different from any known on earth? Shining, sparkling, gem-encrusted, perfect in its dimensions, a place where all is new, where death has been banished, and where the gates are open to all? And more: in this newly perfected Jerusalem, the compassionate God who comforted the exiles and wept over Lazarus knows all of God’s people intimately. And lest we think all this is a vain hope, John declares that, “It is done!” God has already acted decisively, and, despite our doubts, God is even now bringing God’s plans to fruition.
At this point you might be asking, “Wait, isn’t this All Saints Day? Aren’t we celebrating all those saints ‘who from their labors rest?’ Why do we hear all these readings outlining God’s compassion for us and God’s promises of a restored creation? What about all those holy women and men?” Here’s the answer. To begin with, by saints we do not mean only holy people who lived centuries ago and are now enshrined in icons and stained glass windows. The true saints, both those on the official calendars, and those known only to a few friends and relatives, are those who have caught the vision. The true saints are those who have experienced God at work in their own lives and who trust God’s promises. The true saints are those who can see past the grief and pain of this life and can glimpse God’s future with their own eyes. The true saints are those who, seeing this future in their mind’s eyes, have accepted God’s invitation to share that vision with others.
The saints do indeed constitute a “great cloud of witnesses” for us. Certainly the saints of history, those ancient martyrs in whose memory this feast day began, are among their number. So too are those like Francis and Clare of Assisi, who turned their backs on wealth and adopted a life of service to the poor. Who can forget the scholars among them, Dominic, Thomas Aquinas, or Catherine of Siena? Or the mystics, Hildegard of Bingen or Julian of Norwich? Or Brother Lawrence, who knew God’s presence with him in the pots and pans of a monastery kitchen? More contemporary saints are also alive in that “cloud:” people like Philander Chase, the founder of the Episcopal Church in Ohio, Julia Chester Emery, the founder of the United Thank Offering, Mother Ruth, the founder of the Community of the Holy Spirit, Thomas Merton, Trappist monk and teacher of mysticism to us all, or Martin Luther King, Jr., whose martyrdom helped break down the walls separating the races. And then there are the saints known only to you: those relatives, friends, and teachers, who shared their vision of God with you and led you to trust in God’s promises. Truly the saints are beyond number.
And what of ourselves? What is our call on All Saints Day? Certainly, we are called to remember the saints with gratitude, to give thanks to God for the courage they showed in their day in sharing their visions of God. And are we among the saints? When our time is past, will we be among that “cloud of witnesses?” You and I could not stop Hurricane Katrina in its tracks. We cannot solely by our own individual efforts stop war and erase poverty. But can we too catch the vision? Can we deepen our relationship with God? Can we see ahead to God’s future and accept God’s invitation to join in bringing that future nearer? Lane Denson reminds us that in our readings from Mark’s Gospel this fall we have been called to be servant leaders. On All Saints Sunday, we are charged with accepting that call and falling in with all the rest of the saints, with the apostles, martyrs, and mystics, all the founders of communities, all those who have gone to the aid of those suffering in disasters, all those who gave their lives for racial and ethnic justice, all those who care for God’s creation, and all those who seek to eliminate poverty and injustice. On All Saints Sunday we too are called to join the communion of saints and proclaim the good news. We too are called to see beyond the limitations of this life in the present, beyond the disasters, beyond the social inequity and racial discrimination, beyond the abuse and destruction that we have visited on nature. With the saints we too are called to claim the promise of God’s reign now and forever.
O blest communion, fellowship divine! God grant that we may know ourselves to be numbered among them!
Of course we in southern Ohio are no strangers to destructive weather. We too have seen floods and tornadoes. Early last month, extreme rainfall caused disastrous flooding in the Columbia, South Carolina area, destroying homes, businesses, roads and bridges. Almost three years ago to the day, Hurricane Sandy, as a hurricane and a post-tropical cyclone, caused at least 147 deaths in the Northeast United States, Canada, and the Caribbean, according to the National Hurricane Center. And, of course there was the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 that caused monumental destruction and havoc in that small country.
We could go on and on with hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, cyclones, and tsunamis. To so-called “natural disasters” we can easily add those caused by human folly. In fact, the curators of the Katrina exhibit in New Orleans admitted that Katrina was a “natural force with an outcome compounded by human error.” And who can forget the BP Gulf oil spill or that of the Exxon Valdez? Add to them, on the macro level famine, war, ethnic cleansing, and violent political dictatorships, and, on the micro level, rape, illness, addiction, domestic abuse, injustice, and accidents. In the face of so much human need, our elected officials seem more than ever to be handcuffed by extreme partisanship and totally unable to agree on even the smallest steps. No wonder some of us want to cry out, “Where are you, God? What are you doing about our messy, broken, sinful world? Are you totally disconnected from all these disasters?”
And yet, we are also people of faith. We admit our brokenness and sinfulness, and yet we trust that there is more to human destiny than one disaster after another. Our Scriptures, so full of God’s promises, tell a different story than that of the daily news. Today’s Scripture readings in particular give us an assurance, a “blessed assurance,” that God is with us in all the disasters that crash in on our lives. What is more important, in the midst of these disasters, God offers us hope for the future, for a restoration of creation, and for life lived on a new plane. Addressing a people in exile, the writer of the first part of the book of Isaiah assures his readers that God knows their plight and sorrows with them. Although their world had been turned upside down, in much the same way as for those suffering from the hurricanes, Isaiah suggests that God will ultimately bring about a different future for the exiles. Can you picture that heavenly banquet? All the wonderful food and the best wine? After my week in New Orleans, I certainly can! Wouldn’t you be comforted to hear that God will perfect creation, and that a future without death, a future of joyful abundance that is open to all, is part of God’s plan?
Our Gospel reading puts “skin” on Isaiah’s vision, so to speak. Do you have any doubts that God knows our pain? Jesus’ visit to Bethany is the last of the signs that John’s Gospel offers us that Jesus is the Word made flesh, that Jesus is sent by God to be God in our midst. And what does God-with-us do? He weeps! He knows our pain and loss and grieves with us – then and now. And then, pointing forward to his own resurrection, he releases his friend Lazarus from the bonds of death and assures the crowd, the gospel readers, and us, that eventually all of us will be set free from the bonds of death, that all of us will, with the readers of Isaiah, feast at God’s great banquet.
Surely the writer of the book of Revelation also understood God’s promises of restoration and wholeness. He was writing to Jewish Christian communities that had suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Roman Empire, so he used different images to capture his vision of God’s future. In the image of the new Jerusalem, he gives us a wonderful symbol for perfected creation. Can you picture that perfect city, so different from any known on earth? Shining, sparkling, gem-encrusted, perfect in its dimensions, a place where all is new, where death has been banished, and where the gates are open to all? And more: in this newly perfected Jerusalem, the compassionate God who comforted the exiles and wept over Lazarus knows all of God’s people intimately. And lest we think all this is a vain hope, John declares that, “It is done!” God has already acted decisively, and, despite our doubts, God is even now bringing God’s plans to fruition.
At this point you might be asking, “Wait, isn’t this All Saints Day? Aren’t we celebrating all those saints ‘who from their labors rest?’ Why do we hear all these readings outlining God’s compassion for us and God’s promises of a restored creation? What about all those holy women and men?” Here’s the answer. To begin with, by saints we do not mean only holy people who lived centuries ago and are now enshrined in icons and stained glass windows. The true saints, both those on the official calendars, and those known only to a few friends and relatives, are those who have caught the vision. The true saints are those who have experienced God at work in their own lives and who trust God’s promises. The true saints are those who can see past the grief and pain of this life and can glimpse God’s future with their own eyes. The true saints are those who, seeing this future in their mind’s eyes, have accepted God’s invitation to share that vision with others.
The saints do indeed constitute a “great cloud of witnesses” for us. Certainly the saints of history, those ancient martyrs in whose memory this feast day began, are among their number. So too are those like Francis and Clare of Assisi, who turned their backs on wealth and adopted a life of service to the poor. Who can forget the scholars among them, Dominic, Thomas Aquinas, or Catherine of Siena? Or the mystics, Hildegard of Bingen or Julian of Norwich? Or Brother Lawrence, who knew God’s presence with him in the pots and pans of a monastery kitchen? More contemporary saints are also alive in that “cloud:” people like Philander Chase, the founder of the Episcopal Church in Ohio, Julia Chester Emery, the founder of the United Thank Offering, Mother Ruth, the founder of the Community of the Holy Spirit, Thomas Merton, Trappist monk and teacher of mysticism to us all, or Martin Luther King, Jr., whose martyrdom helped break down the walls separating the races. And then there are the saints known only to you: those relatives, friends, and teachers, who shared their vision of God with you and led you to trust in God’s promises. Truly the saints are beyond number.
And what of ourselves? What is our call on All Saints Day? Certainly, we are called to remember the saints with gratitude, to give thanks to God for the courage they showed in their day in sharing their visions of God. And are we among the saints? When our time is past, will we be among that “cloud of witnesses?” You and I could not stop Hurricane Katrina in its tracks. We cannot solely by our own individual efforts stop war and erase poverty. But can we too catch the vision? Can we deepen our relationship with God? Can we see ahead to God’s future and accept God’s invitation to join in bringing that future nearer? Lane Denson reminds us that in our readings from Mark’s Gospel this fall we have been called to be servant leaders. On All Saints Sunday, we are charged with accepting that call and falling in with all the rest of the saints, with the apostles, martyrs, and mystics, all the founders of communities, all those who have gone to the aid of those suffering in disasters, all those who gave their lives for racial and ethnic justice, all those who care for God’s creation, and all those who seek to eliminate poverty and injustice. On All Saints Sunday we too are called to join the communion of saints and proclaim the good news. We too are called to see beyond the limitations of this life in the present, beyond the disasters, beyond the social inequity and racial discrimination, beyond the abuse and destruction that we have visited on nature. With the saints we too are called to claim the promise of God’s reign now and forever.
O blest communion, fellowship divine! God grant that we may know ourselves to be numbered among them!
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