Who's In Charge Here?

During the week I was away in early November, I was with a delegation from the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference of the United Church of Christ to Cuba, visiting churches in Havana and other areas on the western end of the island. On our last morning there, we were in the Jose Marti Airport in Havana, awaiting a flight to Miami. We arrived in plenty of time, cleared customs and immigration – and waited. As we glanced at our boarding passes, we noticed they didn’t actually have seat numbers listed; where they should have been listed, it said “XXX”. Had we been put on standby? Then one of our group happened to look at the flight board, and noticed that our flight number wasn’t listed. We figured, “well, maybe it’ll show up later.” An hour later, our flight number still wasn’t there. No seat number. No flight on the board. None of this seemed promising. Uh oh. So we searched for assistance, but they didn’t actually have any one standing at the gate who seemed to be running things. Occasionally we’d see someone scurry by who looked somewhat official, and we’d ask why our flight wasn’t up on the board. Answers were vague, but they tried to assure us, “don’t worry.” As it happened, there were one or two other English speaking groups waiting flights, and we talked with them – and their flights weren’t on the board either. And come to think of it, I hadn’t actually seen any planes take off. What’s going on? Cuba is big on centralized planning of production and the economy – where were their vaunted central planners when you need them?

By this time I had visions of being stranded forever in Cuba and never seeing my loved ones again. Occasionally we’d see someone in a uniform and would press them for information, but we just kept getting the same vague response – don’t worry. We ran into one traveler who had traveled to Cuba and back a number of times, and she told us – the flight board never has the right flights listed; in all the times she’d flown to Cuba, her flights had never shown up on the board – and not to worry. Eventually we started hearing flight announcements – sure enough, for flights not listed on the board. This made me feel a little better, but I wasn’t confident in my ability to recognize the announcement for our flight, being spoken quickly in Spanish over a crackly intercom system. We saw the first plane for the morning take off – well, that had to be a good sign. A bit later, our flight was announced – and sure enough, just at departure, literally while we were walking toward the door leading to our plane, our flight number finally popped up on the flight board. And our flight made it to Miami, slightly late, but in plenty of time to make our connections to our flight to Philly. As is the custom with flights to and from Cuba, when we landed, everyone clapped. And all our worry was for naught.

This morning, the final Sunday in the liturgical calendar, is traditionally known as Christ the King Sunday or, in inclusive language, Reign of Christ Sunday. It’s a Sunday when we remember that Christ rules, not only over our hearts, but over everything in creation. We may remember the words of Handel’s Messiah – “the kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”

And yet, we need only read the newspaper or look out our window to see a world that seems entirely out of control, in which signs of Jesus’ reign are seemingly impossible to find. This week, we approach Thanksgiving during the most difficult economic times our country has had in recent memory. It seems that our financial leaders have learned nothing from last year’s near-meltdown of the economy, and the billion-dollar bonus gravy train rolls along undisturbed, while millions are out of work and relying on food cupboards and soup kitchens to keep body and soul – and those of their families - together. Many of our political leaders engage in a peculiarly dysfunctional form of honesty – when they’re bought and paid for, they stay bought and paid for, being entirely loyal to those who write them big checks for their campaigns. Many no longer even bother to pretend to care about their constituents. Worldwide, the proverbial four horsemen of the apocalypse – war, pestilence, famine, death – ride grimly along on their mission of destruction. We may feel a bit like my group did while waiting for our flight – who’s in charge here? Is anyone in charge here? Anyone?

During these difficult times, we may be tempted to misinterpret Jesus’ words to Pilate in our Gospel reading this morning. Older translations quote Jesus as saying, “my kingdom is not of this world.” This has often been taken to mean that the reign of Jesus has nothing to do with our daily lives here on earth, that it’s only a promise of pie in the sky by and by when we die. Life on earth can be, in the memorable words of Hobbes, “nasty, brutish, and short,” and only when we die can we go to heaven and experience what it is for Jesus to reign. This is one way in which many Christians over the centuries have reconciled the beautiful promises of God’s reign to the ugly reality they face day after day. And one of the reasons church folk are often accused of being so heavenly-minded we’re of no earthly good.

But I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind. The New Revised Standard Version, from which I read today, quotes Jesus, “my kingdom is not from this world,” meaning, it doesn’t originate here, it doesn’t depend on wealth or military strength or political machinations or any of the other ways in which earthly rulers cling like grim death to power. This can be useful for us to remember when we’re tempted to associate a particular political party or the actions of our national leadership with the reign of God.

At the same time, while Jesus’ reign is not from this world, it’s very definitely in this world, indeed intimately involved in this world, in this country, in this neighborhood. One of the most familiar verses in the New Testament begins, “God so loved the world…..” and that hasn’t changed. The writers of the Gospels saw Jesus’ acts of healing, feeding and teaching, not only as directed at the individuals being helped, but as Jesus’ tackling and overcoming the powers of darkness that keep people sick, hungry and ignorant, as signs of the Kingdom of God in their midst. Jesus’ reign is deeply counter to our culture. Our culture tells us that kingdoms are maintained by what Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has called our world’s unholy trinity of autonomy, anxiety, and greed, which is propped up by wealth, political power, and military might. Jesus’ reign is different – it is like seeds of kindness and caring, growing silently and invisibly until ready to bear fruit, and reproduce more seeds to bear still more fruit for the future.

So what do these seeds look like? When Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth, they looked like acts of healing, feeding, and teaching. Here in Bridesburg, they may look like our food cupboard. They may look like Christian education programs and youth programs to help neighborhood children avoid bad influences and grow up knowing there are loved by their families and by God. They may look like our neighborhood’s small congregations, doing what we can with the resources we have to bring God’s love to our neighbor. They may look like you and like me.

As I’ve said before, more than once, we live in an in-between time – Jesus proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God, and while it is here, it is not fully here. We live in the space between “already” and “not yet.” In this in-between time where the kingdom is here already, but not yet fully, God calls us to mission in our neighborhood and in our world. And God calls us to have faith in that coming day when God’s reign will be fully established, when all that brings sorrow and sighing will be no more, when we will be gathered together forever in the presence of a loving God. On that day there will be singing and praise – and maybe, as on my flight from Cuba to Miami, a round of applause that after all we’ve seen and done and been through, we’ve landed safely, and are finally truly home. Amen.