Powerful

Scriptures:       Jeremiah 23:1-6,  Psalm 46

                        Colossians 1:11-20,  Luke 23:33-43

Today is Christ the King Sunday, or in inclusive language, Reign of Christ Sunday.   On this Sunday, the last of the liturgical year, we recognize that as Christians, Jesus Christ not only saves us but also rules over us – and, we believe, will at the end of time be recognized as the ruler of the universe. 

But the readings for this Sunday reveal a Christ as a king who doesn’t act much like our idea of a king.   On one hand, Paul in his letter to the Colossians writes, of Jesus, that all things were created in him and through him and for him; that he is before all things and that in him all things hold together.  Paul says that he is the head of the church, the firstborn from the dead, the one who is to have first place in everything, the one through whose blood on the cross all things in heaven and on earth are to be reconciled to God.   Simply put, Paul is saying that Jesus is the center of the universe, a sort of spiritual center of gravity around whom everyone and everything else revolves.  And this sits well with our notions of an all-powerful God.

On the other hand, in our reading from Luke’s gospel, we are presented the image of Jesus on the Cross, sentenced as a troublemaker and a traitor to the Roman empire, nailed to a cross outside the city wall, forgiving those who were killing him, promising one of those crucified with him a place in paradise.   Not our conventional image of royal power; indeed, it was an emissary of the Roman empire, a representative of the Roman ruler, who sentenced the ruler of the universe to death.  In the three-year cycle of readings, the gospel readings for the other two years also present unconventional images of Jesus as ruler.  In two years, we’ll read John’s account of Pilate’s interrogation of Jesus, to which Jesus responded that his kingdom is not from this world.  Next year we’ll read Matthew’s account of the ruler at the end of the age, judging the sheep and the goats on whether they helped or failed to help the least of Jesus’ sisters and brothers, telling them, however you treated them is how you treated the king.  And so our Gospel readings for this Sunday reinforce the image of Jesus as a king who acts nothing like our notion of how a king should act.

Returning to today’s readings, we’re given two wildly contrasting images of Jesus, a Jesus who is both powerless and all-powerful, a Jesus who is central to human existence in a cosmic sense, yet in his time on earth was treated as a criminal outcast.

Maybe part of why we struggle with these contrasting images is our sense of what it means to have power and to use power.   Normally, powerful people use their power to benefit themselves.  If they have financial power, they use it to get more wealth for themselves.  If they have political power, they use it to amass more power for themselves, often by stepping over those with less power.  Countries with military power, such as our own, use it to dominate countries with less military power.  In our experience, the powerful use their power to increase their own comfort and to reduce their own pain.  More than that, they distance themselves from the pain and struggle of others.  And it’s for this reason that we often think of the powerful as out of touch, whether it be a candidate for political office or a leader in industry or finance – we expect them to take care of themselves and their own kind, and abandon everyone else – unless that strategy is bad for business.  The powerful live in their gated communities and are never seen in the ‘hood – except, if they’re politicians, perhaps at election time to get votes.  And then there are those persons with personality disorders who use their power to make themselves feel better by making other people feel worse, who try to relieve their own inner pain by inflicting pain on others.  Even those powerful people who are not sociopaths often use their power to keep their opposition divided and fighting among themselves.  Divide and conquer, as the saying goes.

Consider how different – and yet how powerful – Jesus is.  Nailed to a cross, Jesus has the power to forgive the criminal next to him and welcome him to paradise.  Standing before Pilate, it is Pilate who has the power of Rome behind him, and yet Jesus knows Pilate is essentially a puppet, nothing more.   And in Matthew’s gospel, the king has power over peoples’ eternal destiny, and yet is so close to the powerless poor that anything done to them, good or bad, he treats as having been done to him.

Most powerful people use their power to avoid pain for themselves.  Jesus uses his power to rescue others, even when it brings pain or even death onto himself.  Most powerful people use their power to lift themselves up and put others down.  Jesus uses his power to lift up all of humanity and all of creation.   As Paul wrote to the early church at Philippi, concerning Jesus:

[T]hough he was in the form of God,

[Jesus] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him
   and gave him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,
   in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6-11)

In Colossians, Paul writes of several things that God does through Jesus.  According to Paul, God rescues us from the power of darkness.  God rescues.  We’re told that God transfers us into the kingdom of Jesus.  And as Paul writes, Jesus used his power to reconcile – our reading from Colossians says that through Jesus, God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven.  To reconcile. To bring together. To make peace where there was hostility.  To allow God and humanity and the creation to work together, where before they had been at cross-purposes. 

We live in divisive, angry times, and in days and weeks and months and years ahead, I fear we will be bombarded with examples of power used to degrade and debase others, power used to harass, to injure, even to kill.  Those in power may use their power to keep society divided against itself, labeling certain groups – Muslims, immigrants, racial minorities, LGBT persons – as unworthy of citizenship, as unworthy of protection.  As followers of Jesus, we cannot participate in this kind of power.  Those who use power in this way cannot be our heroes.  We cannot invite our children and grandchildren to imitate such persons.  Rather, we’re called to use our power as Jesus did –  to reconcile, not to alienate, to bring together, not to divide, to lift up, not to crush down, to heal, not to kill, to give life, not to destroy it, to protect the planet, not to plunder it.  And to say we are powerless is a cop-out; we all have some degree of power.  Let me say it again: every single one of us has some amount of power.  Even if we have nothing in the way of financial or political power, we have the powers of our bodies, physical and mental, we have the power of our own life experience, the power of our connections with friends and neighbors, the power of the gathered community of faith, indeed, the power with which God blesses the powerless who call on God’s name.  At Emanuel, we have our community of faith – and we also have our property, such as it is – aging, worn, but still there, still usable – and our property gives us power to help those who are vulnerable, if we choose to use it in that way. Our challenge will be to use whatever power we have wisely, creatively, generously.  We can be guided by our baptismal vows – to renounce the powers of evil and seek the freedom of life in Christ, to profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, to be Christ’s disciple, follow in the way of our Savior, resist oppression and evil, to show love and justice, to witness to the work and word of Jesus Christ as best we’re able, and according to the grace given us, to grow in the Christian faith and to be a faithful member of the church of Jesus Christ, celebrating Christ’s presence and furthering Christ’s mission in the world.

We live in dangerous times, and these baptismal vows are not just soft words.  Living out his baptismal vows led Dietrich Bonhoeffer to his execution during the time of the Third Reich, led Archbishop Romero to his assassination, while he was celebrating Mass, in El Salvador.   Living out their baptismal vows led to multiple arrests and prison time for Dorothy Day, for the Berrigan brothers, and for others less widely known who were faithful to their vows even unto death.  If we live out our baptismal vows, truly honor them with our lives and not only with our lips, our lives may become very challenging.  We may find ourselves in danger.  But we will not face danger alone; we’re promised that God will be with us.  And our words and our actions will show the world to whom we belong, will prove to the world that indeed Christ is our King, that indeed Jesus is our Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Amen.