Sermon 11/25/07
On the Verge - Jeremiah 23:1-6, Luke 23:33-43
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Let me make a confession to you. Last week as the Staff-Parish Relations Committee met before our Church Conference, Craig Gipple, the committee chair, mentioned something about us still getting to know each other here. We still have a lot to learn about each other yet. We know some of the most important things already – about each other’s character, focus. But we don’t know all the details yet – you don’t know my favorite color or my favorite food, or the name of my cat or the names of my brothers besides the one who lives with me. I don’t know where some of you grew up, or how you met your significant other. But today I’ll confess to you something about myself so you have a little more insight into who I am.
The process of ordination, the path to becoming a pastor is a long one, and there are many requirements to check off the list before ordination. I want to tell you about part of the beginning of the process toward ordination. Before a candidate is allowed to get too far along in the process of becoming a pastor, she must undergo a battery of psychological tests, including a review of the results of these tests with the conference psychologist. The tests involve hundreds of questions as specific as whether you preferred President Washington or President Lincoln, and as vague as whether you hear “voices” – always a tricky question for those answering a call from God! I’ll admit I was suspicious of the testing process – wondering what some of these questions could possibly tell anyone about me. When I met with the conference psychologist to review my results, my skepticism shone through – the test revealed among other things that I was a defensive test-taker, guarded in my answers! Another thing it revealed was that I also have a tendency to question authority figures. Apparently, I have authority issues. My reaction to the news, was, as revealed, to be a bit defensive and skeptical. Oh please. I don’t have issues with authority figures. What does this psychologist know?
But, my mother might tell you a different story. Not about authority issues between the two of us, but about my relationship with my sixth grade teacher, for example. Apparently, though I barely have a recollection of it myself, apparently I had gotten into the habit in sixth grade of correcting my teacher when he was wrong. Surprisingly, he didn’t like this, and I got a note home about it. Now, I liked my sixth grade teacher a lot. But I figured he was into sharing authority since he left the answer book out for us to check our own homework responses. I figured he wouldn’t mind a little help when I saw him giving a wrong response. Turns out, I was the one who was wrong in that situation! OK. Maybe I have a small issue with authority figures.
Today, our two scriptures lessons are about authority. Today is Christ the King Sunday, or Reign of Christ Sunday, and it is a Sunday when we think about what it means to say that Jesus is the King. This is the last Sunday of the Church Year – next year a new lectionary year begins with the first Sunday of Advent. But today, as we bring this year to a close, we pause to think not about the baby Jesus, but about the man Jesus, Christ the King. This is a fairly new special day in the church – it was developed by the Pope in the 1920s as a response to the increasing influences of communism and secularism – a day to emphasize that there is indeed an order to society, with Christ as the King. Today, our world climate has changed drastically, and the reasons for establishing this special Sunday are no longer major concerns. Do we need, then, to celebrate this special Sunday?
After all, the image of a King doesn’t communicate as much today as it might have in Jesus’ day. Today, the only royalty that is a part of our everyday experience is probably in our hearing about the social lives of Prince William and Prince Harry, or in following the life and death of someone admired like Princess Diana. But these members of the royal family hardly have authority. They are figure-heads, with position but without real power. So we have to stretch our minds a bit, to think back to the social and political climate of the biblical era to understand how Kingship was conceived.
When the Israelites became a people, God made them to understand that they wouldn’t be like other nations who were ruled by earthly kings. God would be their ruler, their king. But over time, the Israelites began to ask God for an earthly king. Israel got what it wanted. Instead of being ruled by spiritual leaders, prophets, and judges, Israel got a king. With rare exceptions, like King David, these kings abused their office, their power, and turned the people away from God with their sinful practices, instead of guiding people to God. In our text from Jeremiah, we hear Jeremiah lamenting this pattern of corruption. Jeremiah speaks of the kings as the shepherds of the people, a common metaphor for a leader. “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture . . . it is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended them.” But, in Jeremiah, we hear not just lament, but hope. Jeremiah is not ready to give up on the idea of a just king. He envisions God raising up a new king, a just and righteous king, a king like the beloved David, a king described as the coming messiah. “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock . . . I will raise up shepherds over them . . . says the Lord. The days are surely coming . . . when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” Jeremiah expected a messiah – a messiah that would reign as a wise and just king, a king like David.
When we turn to our gospel lesson from Luke, we find much mention a Messiah and a King here too. We’re thrust suddenly to the crucifixion. Jesus is on the cross, dying. Repeatedly in these short verses, we’re made to understand why he’s being put to death. He’s claimed, or accused of claiming to be the messiah. For those already in power, the idea of a messiah, a King coming to take away their power, was no welcome idea. In this scene from the cross, the leaders scoff at Jesus, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” The soldiers mock Jesus, chanting, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” Even one of the criminals crucified with Jesus taunts him, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” The inscription on Jesus’ cross, the statement of his crime, reads “This is the King of the Jews.” All the mocking and jeering happens because the leaders and others think that by successfully crucifying Jesus they have proved he is no Messiah, no King, no one special or sent by God. If Jesus was the Messiah King that Jeremiah described and the prophets spoke of and the people were hoping for, Jesus would be able to overcome his captors, free himself, conquer occupying forces, and reclaim Israel for the people. Clearly, Jesus has no power, no authority. He is no King.
And yet, here we are, celebrating a day which recognizes the authority that Jesus has in our lives. The Reign of Christ, the Kingship of Christ. How did we get from there to here? We know the accounts of what happened next – we know about resurrection. But does this give Jesus his authority? Does this make him the Messiah? Even his triumph over death doesn’t make Jesus into the Messiah King the people were expecting. The people were looking for someone who was going to bring justice, get rid of the ruling Roman regime, and be a leader like Jeremiah described. Jesus didn’t do any of that, in life or life after death, did he? So how does Jesus have authority? Where does his authority come from?
That’s a question that constantly bothered the religious leaders of his day. We’ve already looked at several of Jesus’ debates with his contemporaries. The scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees in turn would bring question after question to Jesus, trying to trip him up. What concerned them most? Why the constant stream of questions? They recognized that Jesus spoke as one who had authority, and they want to know where he gets his authority from. Several times in the scriptures we can read Jesus being asked, “Who gave you the authority to do that, say that, teach that?” Who gave you the authority?
We may not have Kings today, not in the way people in biblical times experienced them. But we certainly have authority figures that we have to deal with and recognize and reckon with, don’t we? Who has authority over you? Your employer has authority over you. The Bishop of North Central New York has authority over me, to send me where she would like – and now that I’m serving in New Jersey, I have two bishops with authority over me! The Book of Discipline, our book of order and church polity, has authority and power over me. This congregation has authority over me, even as I exercise authority in the congregation – our relationship is reciprocal. The government has authority over aspects of our lives. The IRS has power over us. Police officers have authority over us. Elected community officials exercise authority. The military has authority and power to exercise. Where does this power come from? What is the source of this authority? How do these people get this power?
In almost all these cases, we give authority to others to have over us, either directly or indirectly. We elect our government officials and we elect our bishops. My authority as a pastor comes hopefully with God’s blessings, but is given to me at my ordination after gaining approval from a staff-parish relations committee, a district committee on ordained ministry, a conference board of ordained ministry, and an executive session of the clergy at annual conference. Even the IRS gets its authority over us indirectly from us. And whenever we have authority like this, power over others like this, that power is subject to becoming corrupt. Jeremiah’s lament was over the corrupt power and authority of the kings of Israel. We see corruption in the government at time in all levels. And the church is not immune to abuse of power either. What’s the famous quotation? “Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
How, then, can God have power? How can Christ be King and not have this power become corrupt? At last, we come to the crux, the key, the core. In the cross, in Jesus’ crucifixion, in his willingness to submit to death, in his commitment to God’s will that caused him to not resist but instead to give his own life, we see authority that is not given by us. We see power that is not lorded over us. Because, as usual, God turns things upside down from what we expect. God’s power, Jesus’ authority – this authority comes not from strength, but from weakness. This power that Jesus has comes not from exalting over others, but from being humbled before others. Jesus is a shepherd leading not before us, as we might imagine, but as true shepherds would, leading from behind. Jesus said that the first would be last and the last first, and his words identified his own authority. By emptying himself, Jesus became full, and by submitting to God’s will and the power others sought to have over him, Jesus was filled with true authority. This Christ who is King is King by bringing himself low, where he is most needed, not by raising himself up over us, beyond our reach.
Next week we transition into Advent, and we’ll see that the baby we’re expecting is not born into a place of status, not born into wealth or position. The king we’re expecting will be born vulnerable, born without resources, born poor, born one of us. God with us. God with authority. Christ the King, whose power comes from emptying himself out for the sake of others. That’s an authority we are called to respect, called to respond to, and even called to strive for in our own living. Who has authority in your life? How do you exercise the authority you are given as disciples of Jesus Christ?
“Surely the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up . . . a righteous branch, and . . . he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’” Amen.