A sermon preached Jan 3, 2010 at Southminster Presbyterian Church
Boise, Idaho
Job 40-42 (selected verses)
And the LORD said to Job:
“Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?
Anyone who argues with God must respond.”
Then Job answered the LORD:
“See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
I have spoken once, and I will not answer;
twice, but will proceed no further.”
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:
“Gird up your loins like a man;
I will question you, and you declare to me.
Will you even put me in the wrong?
Will you condemn me that you may be justified?
Have you an arm like God,
and can you thunder with a voice like his?
“Look at Behemoth,
which I made just as I made you;
it eats grass like an ox.
Its strength is in its loins,
and its power in the muscles of its belly.
It makes its tail stiff like a cedar;
the sinews of its thighs are knit together.
Its bones are tubes of bronze,
its limbs like bars of iron.
“It is the first of the great acts of God—
only its Maker can approach it with the sword.
“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook,
or press down its tongue with a cord?
Can you put a rope in its nose,
or pierce its jaw with a hook?
Will it make many supplications to you?
Will it speak soft words to you?
Will it make a covenant with you
to be taken as your servant forever?
Will you play with it as with a bird,
or will you put it on leash for your girls?
Will traders bargain over it?
Will they divide it up among the merchants?
Can you fill its skin with harpoons,
or its head with fishing spears?
Lay hands on it;
think of the battle; you will not do it again!
Any hope of capturing it will be disappointed;
were not even the gods overwhelmed at the sight of it?
No one is so fierce as to dare to stir it up.
Who can stand before it?
Who can confront it and be safe?
—under the whole heaven, who?
Then Job answered the LORD:
“I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
‘Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you declare to me.’
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
This week the church will celebrate Epiphany. Epiphany is Greek for an appearance or a manifestation. Epiphany is also known as the 12th day of Christmas, and the date when the 3 wise men arrive to visit the young Jesus.
But if you noticed, the text we read this morning had nothing to do with wise men or Jesus. After a brief return to the lectionary for Advent, we jump back today into the Year of the Bible readings. And we’re approaching the end of the Book of Job in our readings.
Job is an interesting book, and is unique in the canon of scripture. Scholars aren’t sure about when it was written, or about who wrote it, but there are parallel stories in other contemporary Middle Eastern cultures.
Job, rather than a book of history, should be seen as a parable, perhaps. Or an epic poem, in which age old questions are pondered.
Job was a good guy—better than you and me. He was without fault before God and he was very blessed. A big family. loving wife. lots of cattle, sheep, goats, camels. You name it—big screen TV’s, riding lawn mower, platinum card—he had it all. He was also known for his great faith.
And one day in the heavenly courts, one of the heavenly beings says to God, “I know you like your servant Job, but I think he only likes you because you have blessed him with so much. Why wouldn’t he like you? He’s got the perfect life.”
And so begins the wager.
How will Job respond when his family dies? When his livestock and fields are destroyed? When he loses all that he has?
Job’s friends show up and sit with him in silence as he grieves. But then they decide silence isn’t enough and start giving helpful advice—“your children must have sinned—that’s why they died.”
“You must have cheated people. Because we know that God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked”.
“Just face it, Job. You must have done something for this to happen.”
But Job won’t accept that. He doesn’t know about the divine wager, but he knows that sometimes bad things happen to good people and that it is so not helpful for people to just explain things away.
Job doesn’t lose his faith.
But Job does say, “okay, if I have done something to God to deserve this, then God should come down here and tell me what I did.”
The book of Job employs courtroom language. Job wants to face his accuser. He wants his friends to stop it with their hearsay evidence and he wants God to answer.
And so we get our epiphany, our divine appearance.
It isn’t a star in the heavens to guide the wisemen, in this instance. But God answers Job out of the whirlwind. The text you heard this morning is actually God’s second speech to Job. The first can be found in chapter 38 and 39 and it is a beautiful piece of literature that I invite you to look at it this week. In the first speech, God takes Job on a tour of the cosmos and through all of creation, and then asks him, “now how many horses have you invented, Job? Where were you when I set the earth on its course in the heavens? How well can you explain to me why penguins can’t fly?
And Job withdraws his lawsuit. In the face of creation and his very small role in it, Job is humbled, tells God that he’s sorry, and then repents in dust and ashes.
Job asked for an epiphany, and he got one. But not, presumably, one he would have scripted for himself.
His grand tour of creation included two mythical creatures. Behemoth and Leviathan are creatures of chaos, completely outside the control of humanity. You might be able to put a harness on an ox to plow your fields, or make pets out of dogs and cats, but Behemoth and Leviathan cannot be domesticated. But God considers them to be a beautiful part of God’s creation. Listen to how God describes Behemoth—“It is the first of the great acts of God”.
This seems to be in opposition to the account of creation in Genesis—where humanity is put in charge of stewardship over creation. In Job, humanity is no more important than the onager, the duck, or Behemoth. In contrast to Genesis, Behemoth is the first great act of God, not Adam, not humanity.
It seems as if this epiphany is God’s way of saying, “yes, human creatures, I made you too. And I love you. But I don’t only love you. And perhaps you shouldn’t think so highly of yourselves”.
Maybe this call to humility is a good way to begin our New Year. As we make resolutions about how we are going to interact with each other, how we’re going to treat the planet entrusted to our care, and how we’re going to live in this new year, perhaps an epiphany of humility could be helpful.
People have long turned to Job to ponder the question of why bad things happen to good people.
The question of where is God in tragedy is one with which we still struggle. Yet I find comfort in the idea that people were wrestling with the same issue thousands of years ago when Job was being written. It suggests that the reason we don’t have an answer to that question—not because we haven’t put our smartest minds to the problem—but because, perhaps, the mystery of God is not something we understand this side of eternity.
But some things are clear.
God doesn’t mind faithful people calling for answers. God doesn’t promise we’ll like the answers, or even understand the answers, but God doesn’t critique Job for wanting to understand. It is always okay to cry out to God for an epiphany.
God does not, however, like it when people like Job’s friends try to explain away the mystery of God. Their pat answers, presuming they know the mind of God, are what cause God to take offense. God tells Job’s friends, “my wrath is kindled against you for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”
And then the story of Job ends. We are told that God restored his fortunes. He ends up with twice as much as he had originally, including 10 new children. Listen to the last verses of Job’s story:
“The LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys.
He also had seven sons and three daughters.
He named the first Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch.
In all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them an inheritance along with their brothers.
After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children, and his children’s children, four generations.
And Job died, old and full of days.” (Job 42:12-17)
I can’t imagine what it took for Job to raise this “replacement” family. After the loss he’d already faced, it must have been a huge act of courage to give his heart to these new children. But Job’s tour of creation has changed him as a parent. Now that he’s approaching his life with some post epiphany humility, he seems to value all of his children—even Job’s famous daughters. The text tells us that even his daughters receive an inheritance from their father. Nobody in the ancient world was doing that.
The story of Job ends on a positive note, but it still leaves me feeling uneasy. 42 chapters and a few thousand years later and we’re still wanting answers. Yes, God, we’ll try to be more humble in the face of the wonder of your creation, but we still are left with the same questions. Why do bad things happen to good people? Worse yet, why do good things happen to bad people? We are still left crying out for an epiphany.
In a few moments, we’ll gather around this table to share communion. And as we remember Jesus, the son of God, through the meal he shared with his disciples, we have the opportunity for yet another epiphany. Again, not the star in the east, but an appearance, revealing, or manifestation of God, nonetheless. Perhaps as God heard our questions, our lament, our frustration with the ways of this world, God realized his answer to Job was only good to a point. The world needed a different kind of epiphany. We needed to see God in new ways. And so God became flesh and dwelt among us. God in Jesus suffered the way we suffer. God in Jesus celebrated the way we celebrate. God in Jesus held friends as they cry, just as we do.
It may not answer the questions about why bad things happen to good people, but it does answer the question to where God is in the midst of it. God is right there with us, in the midst of it, experiencing it as we do.
I’d like to wish for you that 2010 will be nothing but happiness and roses. But I can’t do that. Because I know that there will be difficult times too. What I can wish for you in 2010 is that through it all, the good and the bad, you will feel God’s presence with you in the midst of it. May it be so. Amen
If pastors were honest about it, Zechariah is probably one of the stories we like the least. He is one of our own, a priest, serving God in the temple in Jerusalem. Remember back to your readings in Exodus about how the priests function in the temple. One priest would go in and make the offering. Possible encounters with the Divine were not taken lightly, so only trained professional priests did this. “Do not try this at home” might be the sign on the wall.
So, Zechariah walks in to the place where God lives, and the divine messenger walks in the door and speaks to him. But Zechariah doesn’t quite believe him.
Now, if Zechariah had encountered this angel in the produce section of Albertsons, or while out for a run on the greenbelt, we could sympathize with him a little more. Because we can understand missing the Divine while you are in the midst of your busy life.
But he’s in the temple. This is why pastors are uneasy about this text. We spend a lot of time in God’s house. We listen for God. Except of course, for when the divine speaks to us clearly and we miss it all together.
Let’s look at what the angel says.
“Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.
He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.
With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
All of the usual angel stuff—do not be afraid, etc, etc. But some very specific instructions too—your prayer has been heard. Your wife will bear a son. His name will be John. He must never drink wine or strong drink. He will be willed with the Holy Spirit even before he is born…
But Zechariah, even in the midst of the divine presence, can’t put aside human details. Like Sarah and Abraham before him, and like us after, perhaps, Zechariah allows very human details and limitations to question God’s movement in the world. “How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years….”
He doesn’t die in his encounter with the Divine. But he does lose his voice. He doesn’t say another word until John is born.
Losing your voice, your ability to speak words that matter, is not a small consequence.
Most of the things for which I use my voice may not be too important. I order a sandwich at a restaurant. Or I remind my kids that they need to wear long pants and coats when it is 19 degrees outside.
But our voices do matter. Calling our family to see how they are doing and to tell them we love them. Speaking truth to right wrongs or stop injustice. Telling others where we have seen God active in our lives.
Losing your voice for 9 months would give you ample time, I suspect, to think about what you really want to say.
And Zechariah finally gets his voice back when he verifies that this child is to be called John, as the angel said, even though everyone thought his name should be Zechariah Junior.
And, once he has his voice back, did you notice what he said? Twelve verses of poetry so beautiful that I wonder if he had been composing it in silence those nine months.
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.
By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Zechariah’s voice is back and it bursts forth in praise and hope and promise and thanks. And he also recognizes something about his son, John. Zechariah and Elizabeth may have been priestly class, but this child of their old age was something else all together. Zechariah recognizes that John will be the prophet of God. And he connects John to the Old Testament prophets before him.
Malachi, who you heard today, spoke of a messenger who would prepare the way of God. Malachi dates from the time of Ezra, which you have just finished in your Year of the Bible readings. His name actually means “my messenger” and he had an important message to share with God’s people, weary with exile, conquest, and displacement. “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”
I wonder if Zechariah, during his nine months of silence, and after coming to terms with Elizabeth and Mary’s pregnancies, poured over these prophetic passages, seeking to understand what was to come. Malachi’s prophecy, to which Zechariah connects his son by calling John the one who will prepare the way, is good news, in a sort of frightening way.
The Lord we seek will suddenly come to his temple. There’s the good news. God will become flesh and pitch a tent among mortals. That’s the good news for which we’re preparing now. Jesus’ birth, as far as Zechariah saw it, was God suddenly coming to his temple.
But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” That’s the part of Malachi’s prophecy that gives me pause. If you are familiar with Handel’s Messiah, this prophecy is sung by a deep male voice. I can’t read the words without hearing the soloist in my childhood church singing the part. Handel wrote the music for that prophecy well because it is beautiful and dark and kind of scary. And I’m sure the man who sang that role each year is the nicest person, but I confess to always being a little afraid of a man who would deliver such a prophecy.
But remember for Zechariah, this prophecy of Malachi is all good news. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them!”
Redemption.
I know that this has been a difficult year for some of you. The Israelites, too, lived through successive bad years. And I think what Malachi would say to you is “don’t lose hope.” Trust God. Trust that there is a future with hope. Winston Churchill is quoted as saying, “if you’re going through hell, keep going”.
It is not a place where you want to stop.
But Advent hope is for this. Awaiting both the birth of God-with-us, and the return of God, means that we trust God has envisioned a future for us with hope and redemption.
Redemption.
The truth is that redemption sometimes requires a refiner’s fire. To see a beautiful metal, like silver or gold, you have to burn away the impurities. You have to be willing to let go of all of the things to which you cling—illusions of control, or pride, or even the certainty of how the future is supposed to unfold—all of those impurities need to burn away in the refiners fire, leaving you with a beautiful clarity that you can rely on God. And, Advent hope is also a reminder that God’s restoration happens outside of our control. We don’t get to decide what goes in to the refiner’s fire. We are what goes in to the fire. We are the ones in need of refining.
Maybe Zechariah’s nine months of silence were the refining fire he needed to go through to see his blessings clearly. To realize that he didn’t need to voice objections to God when God had made the path clear. To realize that his own son, and not Zechariah himself, was going to play a pivotal role in the story of God. To humbly see God’s work of redemption taking place in the midst of his own family.
We will come to the Table in a few minutes. And at this table we see Advent hope in tangible ways. A feast has been prepared. And not just for a few. Not just for those who can afford to pay for dinner. All are invited to this table and there is room enough for all. This meal has gone through the refiner’s fire of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. A tangible sign that God will provide and is providing.
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
May it be so.
Amen.
We heard a few verses from Micah’s prophecy this morning. “From you, O Bethlehem, shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient of days!”
Remember that when Micah’s audience would have first heard this prophecy, they didn’t know about Jesus. They were likely in exile or just unpacking their suitcases on their return from exile, so the idea of a powerful and useful ruler coming from little Bethlehem would have seemed far fetched.
And probably not very inspiring. We don’t even want to hear such prophecies today. We want to hear about power that will dominate! We want our leaders to come from Big Places and have Big Influence.
What if your prophecy today said, “From you, O Weiser, shall come forth one who is to rule…”
Nothing against Weiser, I hear it is a nice place. But it doesn’t really inspire Big Things. It is just a town, where people like you and I live.
But, while we are looking to New York, Los Angeles, or to the Statehouse downtown, Micah is desperately trying to get us to refocus our attention in another direction.
He wants us to look for someone who will stand in God’s strength rather than in their own strength, or the strength of weapons, wealth, or influence.
This is Good News because this leader will feed his flock. The people will be secure. He shall be the one of peace.
From little Bethlehem, the one camel town.
There is no indication that the people who heard Micah’s prophecy paid it much mind. “Yeah, Micah. We’ll see about that. Bethlehem, hah! And I suppose, while we’re making crazy predictions, that this leader will be born to an unwed teenager too. That Micah is a funny guy!”
But that is, of course, exactly how God works.
Again, and again, and again, God confounds our understanding for how things should be, for how the story is supposed to play out.
It is worth remembering. Because even now, 2,000 years later, we still seem to be surprised that the son of God would be born in a stable to a teenage mother and not born in the halls of power. We still seem to live as if nothing good could come from little Bethlehem, or Weiser, for that matter. We still live as if the Divine story is not going to intersect in our little Boise.
The author of Luke’s gospel seemed to have believed the prophet Micah. He recognized the leader who would “be the one of peace” in the person of Jesus.
And he tells us the story to make sure we see the connections too, to make sure we, also, see the good news from little Bethlehem.
For Luke, the birth of Jesus is both mundane and every day as a teenager in Nowhereville giving birth and also cosmic, earth shattering, game changing as the power of God defeating the powers of this world.
But Mary doesn’t know this quite yet.
Immediately preceding our passage, Mary has gotten some news. The angel has appeared and told her not to be afraid. She’s going to give birth to the son of God.
The angel doesn’t give her the details about how this will all work out, but does tell her that nothing is impossible with God. Which is great, really.
But I wonder what Mary was thinking after the angel left.
How can I tell my parents?
How can I tell my fiancé?
What are people going to say?
Why didn’t the angel appear to them?
So this unmarried pregnant teenager leaves town.
With haste.
And heads to visit her distant cousin Elizabeth. Elizabeth is one of our many barren women in scripture. She is gifted with a late life pregnancy and the child in her womb will be a great prophet. John the baptizer.
It seems that the best place for a pregnant teenager to take stock of her situation is with a barren woman. Mary needed to go to a barren woman to appreciate an unplanned pregnancy.
Have you had news like that? I imagine you haven’t had a visit from the angel Gabriel, but have you received news made you stop and really take stock of your situation?
I was visiting with a woman at Thanksgiving dinner who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. After three surgeries, chemotherapy, and now radiation therapy, she is beginning to feel that her life is returning to her. But she said that one of the blessings of the last months is how her friends responded.
She said that life is busy and that we don’t always take the time to spend with the people we love because we get caught up in the routines of our busy-ness. But she said these months had been a blessing because her friends had stopped and taken time to share their gifts with her. In addition to the practical gifts of meals and care for her young children while she was facing treatment, they also gave of their very specific gifts. A wigmaker made her a wig. A calligrapher painted some inspiring words on her wall. An herbalist made her a batch of healing herbs. She spoke of how powerful those gifts were to her, and how they had mattered as much, if not more, than the chemo, because these people who loved her stopped and took time to give her something intended just for her.
It made me think of Mary and Elizabeth, giving each other particular gifts that nobody else could give. Mary’s visit must have given comfort to a woman who had been in seclusion. And Elizabeth’s child leapt within her womb and she gave Mary a blessing—blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
Think how powerful that blessing would have seemed to Mary—to have the message of the angel confirmed by a real person she knew and could trust.
Between the two of them, Elizabeth and Mary, bearers of both the Messenger and the Message, they were able to support each other in ways that other people could not. Older formerly barren woman and younger unwed pregnant teenager—able to celebrate together over their miraculous pregnancies.
Mary’s reply, Mary’s gift, to Elizabeth’s blessing is a prayer, a hymn, a poem of thanksgiving, promise and justice. And it isn’t just a gift for Elizabeth, or just a prayer for Mary. This is a prayer for all of creation—from generation to generation. After stopping to take stock of her situation, to meet with Elizabeth and get some perspective, Mary seems to live into the cosmic nature of her reality.
“My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant!”
She goes on to describe the great things that God has done for her.
God has shown strength.
He has scattered the proud.
He has brought the powerful down from their thrones.
God has lifted up the lowly and filled the hungry with good things.
Her prophecy is even stronger and, perhaps, even stranger than Micah’s. Because, of course, we know that the proud have not yet been scattered. The powerful are still on their thrones. The lowly are still low and the hungry have not yet been filled.
But Mary puts her prophecy in present tense, not future tense.
Maybe because she sees the future becoming the present in the reality that God has chosen her to bear God’s own son, the Messiah. Mary’s song proclaims the very reality and promise that she embodies.[1]
As we move toward Christmas, may Mary’s song be a reminder to us that the reality that was inaugurated in a birth in a stable in Nowhereville, Judea is still in process. We are called to sing her song and to live our lives showing we believe it to be true. If God would choose to be born to a teenage mother in the backwater of Judea, what more might God have in store for us? May the Advent, the Coming, of God turn our lives and our world upside down so that Mary’s song may be true for all.
Today is Christ the King Sunday. This is also the end of our liturgical year. Our new year will begin next Sunday with the first day of Advent. In some ways, it is appropriate that our church year should build toward this. The course of our journey of faith should lead us to declaring that Jesus is Lord, that his kingdom will have no end, and that the Kingdom of God will have final say against the powers and principalities of this world.
But this language can be uncomfortable for those of us who don’t give power to earthly kings.
What does it mean for us to declare Christ as King? And to more than declare it—what does it mean for us to live as if that is true?
One of the other things we do at the end of a year is to look back, to remember the year that has been. And I think it has been a pretty good year in the life of this particular congregation—despite the deaths of long loved members, we have welcomed new members and stayed strong in the midst of a frightening economy.
But for American Christianity, overall, I’m not sure this is a year we’ll look back on and celebrate. And I think it stems from some confusion about what it means for Christ to be King.
Here’s an illustration. After the tragedy at Fort Hood a few weeks ago, people were saying that the shooter, who happens to be a Muslim, claimed to be a Muslim ahead of being an American. The commentators went on to say that he should have put his country ahead of his ideology.
If ideology was behind his horrible actions, then I would argue he should have just put his ideology aside altogether. Our world doesn’t have room for any ideology that is life-taking instead of life-giving.
I am certainly not seeking to justify violence, terrorism, or whatever was behind his motives. What if he had been a Christian? Would people have said he should have put being American ahead of being a Christian? I am troubled by the idea that we should be Americans ahead of being Christians. Who is our King?
Where do our loyalties lie?
In the early years of the faith, Christians weren’t allowed to serve, and wouldn’t serve, in the Roman Army because the soldiers were required to worship the emperor and to make sacrifices for him.
Over time the church moderated its stance, allowing people to serve in the defense of their country as long as they weren’t forced to commit idolatry. And when the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, the distinction between God and Country blurred to such a level that we still, 2,000 years later, are seeking to answer the question—who is our king? Who do we serve?
Clearly, millions of faithful Christians have managed, over the years, to serve God and country, but I encourage us to be careful when we automatically connect the two.
For example, I know some of you are upset about the phrase “happy holidays” replacing “Merry Christmas”. Certainly, when we are greeting other Christians, the appropriate greeting is “Merry Christmas”. The birth of Christ is our reason for this approaching season.
But I suggest to you that if our government were to sanction “Merry Christmas”, it would blur the line between God and Country in ways that are helpful to neither. For one thing, not all Americans are Christians. And as we value our freedom in this country to worship a King who was born in a stable, so we value the freedom of others to worship differently.
Additionally, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News available to us, and to the world, through the person of Jesus of Nazareth, is MUCH, MUCH bigger and better than any political ideology of any nation. Even ours. Having our government explicitly claim Christianity seems an attempt to confine God to our human political aims. And no matter what you think about our government in DC under any President, they do not speak for God.
Our scripture passages today are from our Year of the Bible readings, and while they aren’t explicitly about Christ as King, they are about the implications of living as if Christ is our King.
Peter is arrested by King Herod. He doesn’t get in trouble with the religious establishment—the Presbytery or the General Assembly. He’s arrested by the government. Claiming that Jesus was Lord had very real political implications for Peter and the early church. Because the Emperor was Lord and King. Claiming Jesus as Lord was, as far as the Romans were concerned, a subversive political statement—not just a religious claim. Herod assigns 16 soldiers to guard him, which seems a little excessive to me. But what do I know? Clearly this is a prisoner Herod either thinks is dangerous or is likely to try to escape.
But in this story, the Kingdom of God is too strong to be contained by walls, locked gates, and Roman soldiers.
On one level, Peter knew this. He’d been preaching that very message. In chapter 5, after they’ve been busted out of prison the first time, he says, “We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus…and we are witnesses to these things…”
So Peter knew what it meant to proclaim Jesus is King. He’d been thrown in prison for doing exactly that.
But did you notice in the text that Peter seems a little surprised to be rescued? He thinks he’s having a vision. He can’t quite believe his own eyes as they pass through locked doors.
And then he goes to a house where the church has gathered to pray for him. And they don’t believe it either. They are praying for him to be released, but when he shows up, they think it must be a ghost.
This text illustrates well how the power of God, how the Kingdom of God, is so much bigger than any human understanding of it—even humans who have devoted their lives to the proclamation of the Kingdom. We just can’t get our minds around it. The divine mystery defies our narrow imaginations.
But we should still try to seek the Kingdom of God. It is right for us to gather at the end of each Christian year, to proclaim Jesus is King, and to consider how our life reflects our claim that God is Lord of our lives.
But we should also do so cautiously. We should be careful to equate the Gospel with any human institution or political party. We should be careful to not confuse the goals of any government, no matter how well intentioned, with the much bigger work of the Kingdom of God.
And, like Peter and the followers who had gathered to pray, we should proclaim the gospel and pray for it, and then we should expect to see things change.
We should expect to see the lion and the lamb lie down together.
We should keep looking for people to work out their differences to build something bigger than our individual desires.
We should train our children to make stands for justice.
We should expect to see love between people that is stronger than any illness or death that might try to get in the way.
Our reading from psalm 18 is attributed to David after the lord had delivered him from his enemies. And it seems to fit with Peter’s deliverance from jail. But I hope we’ll see it in the broader context of following Christ as our king. Because when we look at it that way, it isn’t just delivery from the people we don’t like or agree with.
It is the delivery of the entire creation from the systems that work against justice. The promise of the coming Kingdom of God gives us hope in the face of despair because it shows us that God is ever for us.
Hear the words of the Psalmist again:
He reached down from on high, he took me;
he drew me out of mighty waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy,
and from those who hated me;
for they were too mighty for me.
They confronted me in the day of my calamity;
but the LORD was my support.
He brought me out into a broad place;
he delivered me, because he delighted in me.
It is appropriate to dedicate our pledges on Christ the King Sunday. Because where we place our time, talent, and money makes a claim about whom we serve. God is inviting us all to be tangible signs of God’s kingdom on earth! In a few minutes, we’ll be collecting the rest of our pledge cards and also our time and talent cards. I invite you to do something for God’s kingdom that you haven’t done before. You don’t need to sign your name to the time and talent form, unless you want me to contact you about it. This is for you. If you’ve never gone with us when we’ve walked through the neighborhood inviting people to join us, then maybe this is the year. If you’ve never served as liturgist, or usher, then maybe this is the year. If you’ve never helped with a mission project, maybe this is the year. Whether it is teaching Sunday school, feeding the homeless, serving on a committee, or pulling weeds from flower beds as our wonderful volunteers did yesterday, I invite you to do something for the kingdom of God in this coming year.
I think that one of the reasons Christianity has been struggling in America is because we’ve forgotten what our message is. It seems that all Christians are known for anymore is what they’re against. Think about it—if you were to ask non-Christians what we believe, they would likely say we were against rock and roll, against abortion, against gay marriage—the list goes on. Because I think Christians have spent more time saying what they’re AGAINST.
But that isn’t the message the world needs to hear. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of Jesus Christ—that’s the message the world needs to hear. Listen to Jesus’ words from Luke, when he quotes Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
That is what Jesus was FOR.
And we are invited to be his witnesses to the very end of the earth—all the way to Kuna, even—to share that good news. It will require us to expand our imaginations, because God’s Kingdom is so much more than we can dream it to be. It will require us to be aware of the way our culture tries to equate God’s kingdom with the kingdoms of this world. It will require us to think about and put into words, what it is that we are fighting FOR, not just against. And, like Peter in prison, praying for release, we will need to have eyes open to recognize where God is at work in our lives, unlocking our chains, opening locked doors, and setting us on the path so we may proclaim the kingdom of God. Amen.
