"Christ The King -- Hanging On A Cross!" Christ the King Sunday November 25, 2007

(First, read the passage for this sermon: Luke 23:33-43)

So the marketing machine is in full swing for Christmas! The stores are full of Christmas decorations. (They have been, for weeks). Christmas carols have been playing over loud speaker systems. Christmas trees are for sale all over.

Did you see the Wal Mart ad in last Sunday’s newspaper? It proclaims, “You can e-mail your wish list to the whole family at walmart.com/toyland!” There are 12 spaces on the Wal Mart Wish List. On the lines next to each item are notations such as, “If you buy me 20 gifts this year, MAKE THIS ONE OF THEM!” (Twenty gifts?!) Next to six of the lines is a multiple choice check-off where you can choose among these four possibilities: “Want it!” “Need it!” “Must-Have!” “PLEEEASE!!” (Oh, there is one notation next to one line that reads: “Please buy me this gift. I would love to donate it to a less fortunate boy or girl.” (And I’ll keep the other 19 gifts for myself, I guess.)

That’s only the most offensive example of the marketing onslaught that will threaten to overwhelm us in the coming weeks. We will be encouraged to think that the purpose of Christmas is to buy stuff. As much as we give in to this, we lose sight of who the Jesus is, whose birth we’re preparing to celebrate during these weeks.

Technically, I shouldn’t even be speaking about this, this morning. Advent, the season of preparation, doesn’t begin until next Sunday. But the juxtaposition between that Wal Mart ad and this morning’s gospel reading is just too much to ignore. The marketing machine is in full swing for Christmas – and what do we read from Luke’s story? We read the gospel writer’s description of Christ the King, who is hanging on a cross! Let’s spend a minute with these startling mixed metaphors.

First a little bit of “Liturgical Year 101” review. Next Sunday, Advent begins. The first Sunday in Advent is the first Sunday of the new church year. This morning ends the previous church year: it the Sunday of Christ the King. In the gospel readings for this day, the title “king” becomes a metaphor. The story makes it clear that Jesus contradicts any conception that we may harbor, about what a king is! Christ the King is surely something else.

What do you think of, when you think of a king? You think of a man who is grand and glorious, right? You envision much pomp and circumstance! You see a man surrounded by a powerful military, perhaps. A king is the commander of legions of loyal subjects, who are loyal and obedient mostly out of fear. (If not, then “Off with their heads!”)

In Jesus, we do not see such a grand and glorious king, driving the lead tank into battle. Instead, on this Sunday, with this theme, we see Christ the King hanging on a cross.

The cross has become such an ubiquitous symbol that it’s lost its offense. Crosses are even sold in jewelry stores! We cannot lose sight of the fact that the cross, of course, was the lethal injection syringe of the ancient Roman Empire. It was the empire’s method of capital punishment. It was the way the empire executed its criminals. Is it possible to recover some of the shock in these verses, as they reveal how God has saved you and me? With all of our conceptions and assumptions about a king and his power and glory, the astonishing fact is that God has saved us through humiliation and through weakness!

Look again at the masterful story that the gospel writer has crafted. Jesus is crucified at the place outside the city wall called, “The Skull.” Two other condemned criminals are on their own crosses, on either side of Jesus. Jesus is officially identified by a sarcastic sign that reads, “This is the King of the Jews.” The watching crowd, including any supporters Jesus might have, is silent. Meanwhile, Jesus is humiliated by those who speak – by the Roman leaders, and by the Roman soldiers, and even by one of the criminals crucified with him! It is important to pay attention to what they say. The leaders taunt Jesus, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” The soldiers jeer, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” Even the one of the criminals says, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!"

Do you notice the word that they all use? Those who are taunting Jesus are ridiculing claims that he is sent from God to bring salvation. Obviously, from all appearances, that cannot be true! Right? He shows absolutely no ability to save himself, let alone other! Some king!
Here’s how brilliant this story is, for you and me, reading in faith: in their humiliating taunts, the leaders and the soldiers and the one criminal are alerting us to the fact that Jesus the Christ does indeed save us! The shock, indeed the offense, is how Jesus is the Savior of the world.

Jesus the Christ is the king who has come to suffer extreme humiliation – even his clothes are taken from him while he’s on the cross! – to bring forgiveness through that disgrace and dishonor. And notice the radical significance of this: on the cross Jesus prays, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." Here’s what’s happening. Jesus, crucified, unsupported by anyone in the silent crowd, taunted by the leaders and the soldiers and even one of the criminals, is praying for forgiveness for his executioners!

Wow.

How astonishing is this forgiveness that Jesus is enacting! He taught his disciples about it, and you and I give words to it each week, in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our sins, and we forgive those who sin against us.” How shocking it is to actually mean that! How offensive to our sensibilities of fairness: that people should “get what’s coming to them!”

In the story from Luke, titles of Jesus are hurled at him in sarcasm by the leaders and the soldiers and the one criminal – “the Messiah of God,” God’s “chosen one,” “the King of the Jews” – and it turns out that all of those titles are true! We come to realize that through the irony of the taunts!

And the passage pushes the offense even further, for you and me middle class Americans with our conventional religious assumptions. Notice that the one person in the story who sincerely identifies who Jesus is, is someone we today would suspect of being a terrorist: a Palestinian criminal who is also being executed!

Wow.

What does this morning’s gospel story reveal to us, on this Sunday of Christ the King? It places Jesus the Christ, Christ the King, God become flesh, deep into human suffering and brokenness. The story reveals to us that, no matter how deep is the muck of suffering and sinfulness that you and I are mired in, that is precisely where God is. That is where God is, bringing forgiveness and salvation. Right there in our muck.

Pray on these things, if you will. How might this liberate you from Christmas preparations that are entirely beside the point of celebrating what God has done in becoming human flesh? Maybe you can stay out of Wal Mart entirely!

I pray, instead, that you will celebrate the birth of this Jesus, in a way that leads you into the great joy of God’s gift!

In the name of God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

"Joyful Generosity" November 11, 2007, Proper 27, Pentecots 24

(First read the text for this sermon: Luke 20:27-38)

A person can practice religion in a way that is deadening to the human spirit. The life of faith then becomes a life of burden. That’s a tragedy, of course, because the Christ was born to embody among us the good news of grace, forgiveness, salvation and resurrection! That good news is the source of deep joy and freedom!

There’s not any joy in this morning’s story from Luke. Look at how the Sadducees confront Jesus in a way that is deadening!

First of all, you need to know that among Jesus’ opponents were two major groups of leaders of the Jewish people: one group called the Pharisees and another group called the Sadducees. You also need to know that the Pharisees and the Sadducees were great opponents of each other. They held different beliefs. A chief difference was that the Pharisees believed that there was a resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees did not. In this morning’s story, the Sadducees confront Jesus with a conundrum. Their intent is not only to trap Jesus into saying something will get him into trouble, but to mock the idea of the resurrection itself. And so they say: Imagine that there is a woman who dies, having been married to seven husbands. All of these marriages are according to the Jewish law, that a brother must marry his dead brother’s widow to raise up children for his dead brother, to keep the line of descendents going. It turns out, though, that all seven of the brothers die, and none of them has produced a child. The Sadducees challenge Jesus: "In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”

You know what Jesus’ answer is, as the story proceeds. As I enter into this narrative this time, what strikes me is how the Sadducees are using a certain belief – belief in the resurrection – to provoke conflict. They’re wanting to ridicule the Pharisees, and to try to catch Jesus in the cross-fire, and to prove that they’re right, and that those who believe in the resurrection are wrong.

How often, in today’s religious mix, are beliefs used in that way? To judge those whose beliefs are “wrong?” To maintain divisions? How deadening that is to the human spirit! What a joyless burden our beliefs become!

The practices of the faith can become deadly, as well. That happens when they become requirements to be fulfilled. Practices of the faith become deadening when they become a list of “shoulds.” But when they are seen as invitations to live into the good news of Jesus the Christ, these practices bring us into joyfulness!

What do I mean by practices of the faith? They include worship, prayer, keeping sabbath, servanthood to those in need, hospitality, forgiveness, study, generosity, and the list goes on and on. Each one of those are learned disciplines, at first. That is why it is so important for parents and grandparents to model these practices to their children and grandchildren, so that they understand why these practices are important, and to train children to do these things. That formation in the faith doesn’t happen by magic! And as adults, we continue in these faith practices throughout our lives – so that, over the years, the Holy Spirit will form us, through the doing of these practices, in the joyful good news of grace, forgiveness, salvation and resurrection! Now, think about this. This formation is much, much different from how we are molded to be selfish and self-centered and greedy and consumerist, by the hundreds of marketing messages we receive each day. There is certainly no joy in any of that!

With that context, I hold up the spiritual practice of generosity as an invitation into joyfulness!

This is the time of year when congregations do their fall stewardship programs, to fund the budget for next year. And, often, that’s done in a way that is deadening. Many think that the very word, “stewardship” should be discarded – because they associate the word with begging for money in church!

Instead, of course, our call to be stewards means caring for the creation God has given us, and using well the money God has given us and the talents and the time God has given us. The faith practice of generosity becomes a joyful response to these gifts we have first received from God!

The Biblical standard is to give away 10% of your income towards God’s work. That 10% figure is called a tithe. I am proud of how we at St. Stephen are moving towards becoming a tithing congregation! As we do that, we will have hundreds of thousands of dollars more to use in expanding our ministry programs!

I’ve been encouraging everyone to use a tool that helps in growing towards the tithe. It’s the chart that you’ll receive again this year, that shows you what an additional 1% increase will be, of your income. One percent a year, for as many years as it takes, to grow towards the tithe! Many of us already give away 10% (and more!) to the congregation. Others of us are in the six, seven, eight year process of growing towards this, 1% a year.

Of course, it’s not just money. One of the joys of being a part of this congregation is that we are all the time offering each other opportunities to give our time to the work of God among those in need. We are all the time coming up with openings to contribute our talents, what we’re good at, to the work of the kingdom.

And so, our congregation’s members give their time and talent to Faith in Action, and to the FISH food pantry and clothing closet, and to the PORT homeless shelter program, and to tutoring in the schools, and to Senior Center leadership, and to local clinics that bring medical care to the poor, and to non-profits that need computer expertise, and the list goes on and on. Our growing giving of money makes it possible for us to support costs of counseling for those who can’t afford it, and support children at the Grove Christian Outreach Center, and give school scholarships to African children at the Mongai Lutheran Parish, and here’s another list that goes on and on. And our growing giving of money means that we expand our ministries here in this congregation, through staff time: so that our worship and prayer and study and music and pastoral care is richly formative in the faith.

And something more happens to us as individuals. When we are generous with our money, when we give away our time and our talents, we find ourselves being formed by God, in joyfulness! Through joyful generosity, we are freed from the deadening effects of materialism. Through joyful generosity, we are able to resist the culture’s deadly formation in consumerism and selfishness.

What an opportunity for joyful spiritual practice!

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

"Those Saints Who Formed Us, And Those We Form" All Saints' Sunday November 4, 2007

All Saints’ Sunday draws us into cosmic reality. This morning we are especially conscious of the “one communion in the mystical body of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,” to use the words of the Prayer of the Day.

On All Saints’ Sunday we give thanks for those who have died in the faith. According to the faith of the church, those who have died are still members of the church – the church triumphant. In a few minutes we will sing about us and them, “we feebly struggle, they in glory shine.”

Today, especially, you and I give thanks for those saints whom the Holy Spirit used to form us in faith. For many of us, those were family members. This year, for instance, I give special thanks for my Dad, who, along with my Mom, considered getting out on Sunday morning for worship to be every bit as important as getting out on Monday morning to go to work. We never missed. (In fact, on Sunday morning, my Dad’s rule was that we could not begin reading the newspaper until we were dressed and ready to go. That prevented last minute struggles to get us kids out of the house! And so, each Sunday, my brother and I would be seen with our dress clothes on, shoes shined, ties knotted, reading the comics!)

I am blessed to have been born into a family culture that, for generations, has included deep devotion to the church. My children are continuing that family culture (God be praised). So, my Dad was in a long line of faith-filled people in the family. I get a kick out of this description of one of my great-great grandfathers, from a family history written 80 years ago:

Father, John William Ballentine, was confirmed in St. Peter’s (Piney Woods) Church. At the formation of Macedonia Church in 1847 he became a member of that congregation, in which all his children were baptized and confirmed. He was a member of the Council practically all his life. Though the old home was 5 miles from the Church, and the so called road was miserable, and there was a deep creek to ford, we do not know that he ever missed a service. And for about 35 years, there was not even a stove in the church. There was no organ in the church, and father sat in the “Amen” corner, and started the tunes. He also was a kind of peace officer during service. Macedonia had a door on each side, and one at the rear end, opposite the pulpit. Often those first on the Church grounds would remain out of doors, until the preacher would take his text, and begin his sermon, and then with screaking and screaming shoes, many of these young folks would come in the side door, walk between the preacher and the congregation, and go back to the rear end for a seat, or even in some cases go on out at the back door. Usually those who sat in the rear of the Church were mischief bent. We have seen them spit tobacco juice on the Church floor until a stream would run off from the puddle thus made. Usually such parties engaged also in some hilarious conversation during the Sermon. Many a time we have seen our father, from his vantage viewpoint in the “Amen” corner, look over his glasses, back over the congregation at such parties, get up from his seat and go back and sit down in the midst of the unworshipful group. It usually had the desired effect, there was no more talking during the sermon. He meant business, and they knew it, and what is more, they respected him.

It has been years since there was anyone alive who knew my great-great grandfather. Indeed, enough years have passed that few people now alive knew my grandparents. That’s the way it happens. For any of us, three generations on, there is little first-hand remembrance. Our lives are that short.

But God knows those who have died! We Easter people know that life in God continues, even after the human finality of death. “We feebly struggle, they in glory shine.” And the Holy Spirit has passed the faith down, from generation to generation. There have been saints in each generation to form the saints in the next! The Christian faith is always one generation from extinction. Not one of us would be here this morning if there had not been saints who taught us to worship and to pray.

Who were the saints for you? Who did the Holy Spirit use to form you in the practices of the faith? What faces come to mind? Were they members of your family? Were they friends who invited you in childhood to Sunday School? (I have heard that from a number of adults over the years, whose parents never darkened the doors of a church building, and who grew into people of faith beginning with an invitation from another child!) Were the saints for you a pastor, or a Sunday morning teacher? Were they other adults who took you under their wings? We give thanks to God for those saints who, in glory, shine!

And here’s something else, that is most important on this All Saints’ Sunday. God the Holy Spirit has put others into our lives so that you and I can invite and nurture them, so that the Spirit can use us to form others in the faith!

Think of those with whom God has put you in relationship. What responsibility the Holy Spirit gives to parents and grandparents, in particular! Children. Grandchildren. Students. Co-workers. Friends. After you have been gathered into the church triumphant, who will remember you as one of the saints whom the Holy Spirit used to form him or her in faith?

I don’t know abut you, but to me this is profoundly holy and very exciting. What a mystical communion: the body of our Lord, Jesus the Christ. It includes those in the Church catholic, which means those of every place and every time – all those who have died in the faith, and all those now alive in the faith, and all those who are yet to be born into the faith! All are gathered together in cosmic reality, here in this place, especially as we share the bread and wine, as we commune with each other, and commune with God – who is in communion as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia