 St Alban’s Episcopal Church Bolivar, Missouri Monday, November 15, 2021 Christ the King, part 1  What does “king” mean in the Old Testament, the Bible Jesus knew?Virtually every Jewish prayer or blessing begins: “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the Universe” And then continues with something specific like: “who brings forth bread from the earth” or “who has brought us to this day,” or, “who has commanded us to kindle the Sabbath lights.” This is important in Judaism, because it affirms every day, often several times a day, the the real Lord of all is God. Jews have often been called “stubborn”, and “difficult” by rulers who expect them to bow to contemporary powers and authorities. The Romans despised the Jews because, of all the peoples they conquered, Jews were unique in refusing to accept the proclaimed deity of the Emperor, even in tiny and “insignificant” ways. When they tolerated improved roads, mail service and other “gifts” of the conquest, Jews steadily refused to drop even a pinch of salt in front of the image of the Imperial power.  Hitler’s blaming of Jews for all of Germany’s problems was not new – nor was it a uniquely German hostility. Pogroms had occurred again and again throughout history, no matter how assimilated Jews were, and no matter how successful. It was always this stubborn insistence that only God, “king of the universe” can rightly be obeyed or worshiped. And they did it far more convincingly than most Christians, who have from very early been eager to share worldly power, or at least to obtain approval of earthly powers by giving them the honor they demand. Christian history is full of such stories; Germany saw a majority of Christians succumb to Hitler’s Nazi rule. And we are witnesses to other contemporary attempts to blend Church and state – or to make the Church over into the state’s image and likeness, no longer walking at right angles to it, no longer seen as a thorn in the flesh of kings and presidents. Beginning our prayers, “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the Universe” might just possibly force us to confess that we do not in fact recognize that authority at all. And perhaps that’s a good thing to consider on this first day – If God alone is King, and God is Love, why are we so slow to acknowledge it? Who told us that “King” represents a bad guy, a despot on a throne far away? Who has ruined all the best stories for us so that we have forgotten that “the hands of a king are the hands of a healer?”  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pastor, professor, theologian in Germany was executed by the Nazis at age 39. But in his short life he had done everything he could to oppose the regime of Hitler. In 1943 he was asked how it had been possible for the church to allow Hitler to seize absolute power. His firm answer: “It was the teaching of cheap grace. “”Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession (of faith,) absolution without personal confession (of wrong).Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” We might word that differently, perhaps. But surely we recognize that surrender of ourselves to the Love that does demand everything of us – for the good of the whole world and for our own fulness of freedom and joy – is difficult. G K Chesterton once said, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” We probably know something of the truth of that in our own hearts. “Blessed are you, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe” Before we can celebrate Christ the King, we need to acknowledge that we are not altogether comfortable with the notion of a King who might tell us things we do not want to hear, and ask us to do what we are not inclined to do. We have become quite accustomed to a God who pretty much leaves us to do as we please. We have called that, “love.” This has happened partly because we have been told some horrific things about God and God’s authority that make us fear and mistrust the Lordship of God – the Kingship of Christ. We have somehow come to believe that God wants us slightly miserable, always anxious about our wrong-doing or failures, forever meek and mild and pleasant. We fear that God wants us to live a sort of pious, slightly boring half-life. But the reality is far other. To engage in relationship with, and obedience to, the True King is to be taken on adventures of faith and hope and courage that we cannot dare to imagine. But none who have “tried” that sort of Christianity have ever found it wanting. “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheel of injustice; we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” (Bonhoeffer) |
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