———-

Maybe you’ve seen one of these signs in a store – a gift shop perhaps,
some small mom and pop type of establishment,
a place where they want to warn you not to shoplift,
but they also want to issue the warning in the most polite way possible.
SO instead of posting something like “All shoplifters will be prosecuted,”
they have a small sign near the cash register or at the front door so you can see it as you leave.
A sign that says something like:
“We may not have seen you seen you take it,
but God did.”

Ah, the image of the all-seeing God.
Now while this idea may not scare off many potential thieves,
it is an idea that has haunted me since the days of my early childhood.
Now mind you, I was about as close to angel when it came to good behavior as any child ever has been.
My brother was the bad apple and the black sheep.
I was nigh near perfect.
But on those few occasions when I did do something wrong,
my dad was always quick to remind me that though he nor anyone else may have seen me commit the crime,               
it was most certainly the fact that God had.
“God sees every thing you do, boy,” he would say.
“You might be able to pool the wool over my eyes.
You might be able to get away with that stuff with me,
but God’s no fool.
He sees everything you do,
and he writes it all down in that great big book of his.
And one day, you’re gonna have to face up to all you’ve ever done,
so don’t you forget it.”

My dad had a knack of scaring the Hell out of me,
both figuratively and literally.
And his teachings and sayings had a way of keeping me on the straight and narrow. 

They didn’t have the same effect on my brother, mind you,
but for me, they were the gospel truth,
a truth that was reinforced most every time I went to church with my dad.

You see, in the church I grew up in, our pastor, Sister Ruby Richardson, would often preach and teach about the Great White Throne Judgment and the end of time.
You can read about it in Revelation
And between what she said and my dad told me,
I came to imagine what this great judgment day would look like.
I imagined all the people of the world standing in line waiting to be judged,
And each person, in turn, would be brought before God,
and every deed of his or her life would be projected upon a giant movie screen for all to see,
the good and the bad.
Everyone would see everything you ever did,
and then, at the end of the movie of your life,
God would decide whether you were worthy of heaven or should be consigned to the fires of hell.

Now I don’t have to tell you that the idea of the whole world seeing your sins and faults and misdeeds was another scary thing for any healthy teenage boy to contemplate,
and for reasons I won’t go into this morning.
But every time I heard my dad or Sister Ruby talk about judgment,
I would see that long line of people waiting to be judged,
I would picture that giant movie screen up in the sky,
and I would start worrying that when it came time for me to be judged,
I would be found wanting.
[Work in this quote someone left on Twitter:
"One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure its worth watching"]

Scary stuff, my friend.
And today’s reading from Matthew did and does nothing to alleviate my fears.
Here in this last parable of Jesus’ earthly ministry we find judgment being levied on all the nations of the world.
My worst nightmare come true, in other words.   
And in this parable, Jesus tells his disciples that on the Judgment day
the goats and the sheep will be separated.
On the one hand, the good sheep, we are told, will receive their just reward:
Jesus the judge will look at them and say,
“Come, you that are blessed by my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
But on the other hand, the bad goats will get what’s coming to them,
and suffice it to say,
it’s not very pretty:
“You that are accursed,” Jesus will exclaim,
“depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
The story then ends with these words,
“And these will go away into eternal punishment,
but the righteous into eternal life."

It’s my dad and Sister Ruby all over again.
I just can’t seem to get away from judgment,
and though you may not realize it,
neither can you.
All the nations, Jesus says.
It’s just his way of saying “all the people . . . every man, woman and child who has ever lived, who is living now, and who will ever live. . .
All of them, you and me included, will be judged by Jesus.

And what is the basis for this separation of sheep and goats?
On what basis will we be judged?
The basis is found in our reactions to those in need in the world around us.
It is as simple as that.
What do we do in the face of human need and suffering?

Jesus couldn’t be more plain,
he couldn’t have made it any easier for us to understand.
"For I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
I was naked and you clothed me,
and I was sick and in prison and you visited me."

And while this is easy to understand,
it has at times proven very hard for Christians and the Church to act upon.
Too often, we, as followers of Christ, reflect the attitude of this poem by William Duckworth (adapted by me):
For I was hungry, and you over ate
Thirsty and you watered your lawn
A stranger and you called the police
and were glad to see me taken away
Naked and you were saying
“I don’t have a thing to wear —
I must get some new clothes tomorrow
Sick and you asked, “Is it contagious?”
In prison and you said,
“That’s where people like you belong.”

And what is true for us individually is more often than not true of us as communities of faith,
for after all, the Church may be greater than the sum of its parts,
and I pray to God that it is,
but it is still composed primarily of people,
people like us . . . people with faults and failings
people who are selfish and self-serving,
people who so often pay only lip service to the teachings of Jesus.
Like most of the world,
we tend to take care of ourselves first,
and only later think about those around us.

There’s an old southern preacher and prophet named Will Campbell.
He must be close to or over 90 years old by now,
and he has lived his life tweaking the nose of the Church that he loves.
When he had been invited to preach at one of Nashville’s largest mainline Protestant churches,
Campbell discovered upon his arrival that the parking lot was filled to overflowing and the sanctuary was packed.
Standing room only.
But as he walked through the church’s lobby,
he took notice of all the fine decor:
Persian carpets and potted palms and works of art all along the walls.
Coming into the sanctuary,
he looked up

at a mammoth stained glass window at the front of the room,
he noted the ornate carvings on the altar and pulpit,
and he saw row upon row of beautiful brass and silver pipes for the organ along one wall.

When it came time for his sermon, Campbell ascended into the pulpit,
took one more look around the place,
and then preached a brief but powerful message.:
He said, and I quote,
"Jesus Christ, you could sell all this crap and feed half the people of Nashville,,"
and then he walked out.                

At another church, this time in Wisconsin,
Campbell took a slightly more subtle approach.
He had spent some time in his message criticizing the opulent lifestyles of TV preachers and evangelists like Jimmy Swaggert and Jim and Tammy Baker, you remember them, don’t you?
Well, after bemoaning the excesses of church folk like them,
he went on to say, and again I use his exact words here,
‘All that was built off the backs of the poor.
If you chase wealth back far enough,
you get into the mines and the fields.
It’s not the boss man who’s digging the coal out of the ground
and raising the crops.
What’s wrong with all this affluence in the name of gentle Jesus is that it’s built off the exploitation of the poor.’
Everybody listening was in general agreement, nodding their heads.
Campbell paused for a few seconds, and then he asked,
‘All right, what’s the difference between what Swaggert and the Bakers do and the pope’s jewels,
or all those Lutheran and Presbyterian and Methodist steeples out there casting shadows on whores and pimps and addicts and bums with . . .
seldom a gesture in their direction from any of us proportionate to what we spend on ourselves?
If you push it to its conclusion, the difference is very little at all,
it’s simply a difference of taste.’

Well, I bet those two churches never invited Campbell back to preach.
What do you think?
But as abrupt and as confrontational as he was,
Campbell was also right.
The Church is to be judged and condemned when it cares more for it’s own well-being or it’s own survival than it does for reaching out with love to those living in the shadows of its steeples and walls,.
the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned.

To care for these . . . to care for the least of these,
is not just a good idea,
it’s not just something we do when we have some leftover time or money or energy.
To care for them is at the heart of what it means to follow Jesus,
and we will be judged based as Father Robert Capon says on whether or not we have ministered to the last, the least, and the lost.

There is no other way to read and interpret this simple story of Jesus’.
And I believe that any church wanting to be the church will find a way to offer literally and figuratively the food, the water, the warmth, the love, and the care that this world around us so desperately needs.
And if we don’t,
then we don’t deserve to bear the name Christian,
and our community of faith does not deserve to be called a Church.

Harsh?  Yes.
But is it any more harsh than the words Jesus utters at the Judgment?
`You that are accursed,
depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;
for I was hungry and you gave me no food,
I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
I was a stranger and you did not welcome me,
naked and you did not give me clothing,
sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’

Mother Teresa once asked some visitors to hold up one hand. 
“The gospel,” she said, “is written on your fingers.”
Then holding up one finger at a time,
she accented each word,
“YOU DID IT TO ME!”
She then added,
“At the end of your life, your five fingers will either excuse you or accuse you of doing it to the least of these.
You DID It To Me.

More harsh words of judgment,
and the only thing I will add to mitigate them at all is this:
the one who judges us is also the one who died for us.
And as we move from the word to the table,
we remember his great love for us.
We remember that more than anything else,
he would have us follow him and that he offers us the strength to do his work and will in the world.
And one way we can receive his love, his grace and his strength is by taking into ourselves these simple elements of bread and juice.
So in the words of the prayer of Great Thanksgiving,
we all pray this day:
Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here,
and on these gifts of bread and wine.
Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ,
that we may be for the world the body of Christ,
redeemed by his blood.  Amen.

The Text This Week

SAMUEL

Dylan’s Lectionary Blog

Sermons and Liturgies – Richard J. Fairchild

Laughing Bird Liturgical Resources

Resources: Based on the Revised Common Lectionary

THE TEXTS

The Revised Common Lectionary

The Book of Common Prayer Lectionary

Vanderbilt Divinity Library

Roman Catholic Lectionary Readings

IMAGES

Christ the King (Stained Glass Window)

Christ the King (with Sacred Heart)

Christ the King

Jesus with Crown of Thorns on Trial (Black and White)

Jesus (Pantocrator)

Christ the King

Jesus on Cross between Thieves (Black and White)

Jesus on Cross (Solitary, Black and White)

Jesus on Cross between Thieves and with Crowd (Black and White)

Jesus on Cross (Head Shot, Black and White)

Jesus (Orthodox Icon, Pantocrator)

Bulletin Cover (Christ the King, Colossians Text, Black and White)

Powerpoint Background (Christ the King)

Powerpoint Background (Colossians 1:16)

SERMON PREPARATION

From Fit for a King (Christ the King, Year C, November 25, 2001):

As the last selection from Luke in the C cycle of Lectionary readings, the crucifixion is an epitome of Lukan themes. Announced to the shepherds as savior, Jesus does this from the throne of the cross. The “good thief” (Luke calls him simply a “criminal”) calls him simply Jesus, a gesture of intimacy but also the promised name given at birth for the one who would reign as king (Lk. 2:31-33). The criminal asks to be remembered by Jesus, but receives much more—intimacy with him in Paradise. Jesus, who took on the mantle of Isaiah to proclaim salvation to the poor and the marginal (4:18) and came “to seek and save the lost” (19:10), promises salvation to one like himself, marginal and rejected. Luke’s Jesus preaches reconciliation and love of enemies, and as he is led to execution, he heals the ear of the hostile high priest’s servant, breaks down the hatred between Pilate and Herod and dies with a prayer to his Father for forgiveness of his executioners (23:34).

From Preaching Peace’s Anthropological Reading:

Christ the King Sunday. Here we are, singing, "All Hail the Power of Jesus Name!" at the top of our lungs, and then we get this really, really depressing Gospel reading. Jesus, hanging on the cross, comforting some poor slob who feels bad about what he’s done, and about what’s happening to Jesus. We could’ve gotten somethng more fun. We could’ve listened to the crowds shout "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!" as Jesus rides into Jerusalem. We could’ve listened in on Pilate asking Jesus, "So, are you a king?" But no. We have Jesus in his least kingly moment. Or so it would seem.

In the whole of the Passion Narrative, there is only one human being who realizes what’s really happening prior to the events of the resurrection. There is only one person, looking at Jesus on the cross, who does not see disaster. Tradition calls him Dimas. Luke calls him a thief.

from Christ the King? Luke 23:33-43

Where do you expect to meet your king?

Maybe you think he’ll be in a palace. Perhaps you think he’ll be riding in triumph in a parade displaying symbols wealth and power. In Luke we meet our King on his way to glory dying on a piece of tree. Two criminals were there
with him standing, both were struggling for breath on their own crosses waiting along side of Jesus for death to come. One criminal mocked Jesus. The other believed. One made fun of him as he stood dying, the other asked, "Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom."

Is this your king? The crucified one.

From Last Sunday after Pentecost, Year C: Christ the King Sunday by Sarah Dylan Breuer

Jesus offers a radical redefinition of kingship, a radical vision for how the truly powerful use power . . . Christ the King is the one whose kingship was shown in how he treated the poor and outcast as royalty, and whose vindication from the God in whose name he rode into Jerusalem showed us that his humble service is the kind of behavior God truly honors.

From Reflections on the Lectionary for November 2007:  The Future Beyond the End by William J. Sappenfield

In 1519 Martin Luther wrote The Heidelberg Disputation. In it, he made the famous distinction between the Theology of the Cross and the Theology of Glory. Luther’s contention was that people are naturally drawn to the Theology of Glory, which he defined as a desire to take God’s glory by force of will, to use a relationship with God for protection from suffering, and to have God answer our desires. Of course, Luther rejected such an understanding of a relationship with God. Luther further asserted that people are naturally repelled by the Theology of the Cross. (Paul had rightly called the cross a “stumbling block” in 1 Corinthians 1:23.) The Theology of the Cross proclaims that Christians have a relationship with God because they “have died with Christ” (Paul again, Romans 6:7–8) and they can only know God by how he comes to them as Jesus. Jesus comes to us as one crucified, so if we are to know him, it will be as one on a cross.

From Signs of the King (Ps. 46; Jer 23:1-6; Col.1:11-20; Lk. 23:35-43) by Rosalind Brown

We all have our own ideas of what royalty is . . . 

We also know what royalty should look like. . .

[But] In fact, none of our ideas reflect God’s concept of kingship (human or divine) completely. We are not alone in this. In Jeremiah’s time the people’s understanding of kingship was tainted by human kings who had led them to the point of imminent destruction and deportation. God spoke of the kings as shepherds who had failed to care for their people. Would a nation scattered and destroyed, left uncared for and afraid, even want God to raise up another shepherd or king for it? Could the people welcome a righteous king?

When we come to Christ the King Sunday, we have to acknowledge that we bring cultural baggage with us. But what happens if we lay our preconceptions to one side and let the readings tell us what a king is?

From Preaching Luke 23:33-43 by Patrick J. Wilson

How do we know the work of God? When God’s salvation appears in our midst, how do we recognize it? And as preachers, how do we speak of it? Luke preaches by way of narrative, allowing the truth to shine surrounded by sarcasm. This question of how do we recognize the salvation of God has haunted the Gospel of Luke from the beginning. It was the devil who first proposed it back in chapter 4. Jesus was famished, Luke says, and the devil quite reasonably and helpfully proposes, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread" (4:3)—save yourself from the pangs of hunger, weakness, perhaps even death since 40 days stretches toward the limit of human endurance for fasting. Not in the least discouraged by Jesus’ response that "One does not live by bread alone" (4:4), the devil proposes another strategy: "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down" (4:9) and count on God to "command his angels" (4:10) protect you so that not the slightest harm will come to you. It only stands to reason that God would wish to protect God’s own son, God’s anointed one, the agent of God’s salvation.

 

FULL SERMONS

From Christ the King Sermon by the Rt. Rev. Leo Frade, Bishop of Honduras

We see it over and over again. The question is being asked constantly to Jesus. If he is the king, then why is he is such misery and pain. If you are the king, you should not be going through so many problems, or facing such predicaments.

It was Pontius Pilate that asked him: "Are you the king of the Jews? I am sure he was thinking if you are a king then why are you in jail?

And I think that we should ask our Christ one more time: Are you the King of this feast that is being celebrated by our Honduran church so destroyed by misery and pain? If Christ is our king, then how come we are facing so many problems and encountering such horrible predicaments?

How can we see God’s kingdom in death and destruction? It’s hard to see it in failures and broken dreams? How could I explain about God’s sovereignty and almighty power to that poor man that presented me with his dead child that he had just pulled from the waters. "Monse’or pray for him, he is my only child. Do something, please bishop, do something!!!"

From Christ the King – Last Sunday After Pentecost, A sermon by Luke Bouman:

How then, does Jesus fit into this picture? How is Jesus king? Certainly in today’s text Jesus looks anything but a king. In fact, most of the royal language in today’s text is more taunt than title. “If you are the king……” “If you are the Messiah……” Even the sign over the cross is a title of derision. “The King of the Jews” is placed above Jesus as a sign that he has lost in the greater game of “king of the hill” that is being played out in ancient Judea, a province of Rome. The governor, widely known to be ruthless, had dispatched yet another challenger to the authority of Rome and its emperor. Jesus is even rejected by the religious leaders of his own people. Either they are comfortable towing the Roman line, or they are uncomfortable with Jesus as a challenger to the status quo, or both. They do not see him as the anointed one, who will be king.

From "Christ Our King" a sermon on Colossians 1:11-20

We don’t know much about kings. We know the definition but have no experience of them. We have all grown us in a republic or democracy of some kind. To us kings are the characters in fairy tales or stories of long ago and far away. When we think of a monarch we think of the Queen of England. A noble woman to be admired, but she is hardly an example of what monarchs historically have been. A genuine monarchy is something we have no first hand experience of. As a result we modern people don’t really know what we mean when we call Christ our King.

To understand what "Christ the King" means we have to understand what a monarchy is. Let me contrast it with the form of government we know: democracy. The way that a democracy works is rather plain to us. In a democracy power is distributed evenly among the people. In a democracy the people tell the leaders what to do. If they don’t do what we say, we kick them out of office. In an a

bsolute monarchy things work the other way around. All the power belongs to the King or Queen. The monarch tells the people what to do and they obey. If they don’t, the Monarch has the authority to punish them for it.

Now hold on to your socks. I have some news for you that might be shocking for some. The Kingdom of God is not a democracy. It is a monarchy.

From A View From The Cross by John Jewell

There is something astounding about today’s scripture readings when you compare and contrast Luke and Colossians. You are seeing Jesus in two mind boggling, absolutely opposite views.

One the one hand Paul lifts a veil — as it were — to a profound spiritual view of who Christ is. "… all things have been created through him and for him…. in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell…" Juxtapose with this Luke’s gut wrenching picture of someone hanging on a cross between two convicted criminals. This is a death reserved for the "low-lifes" of the Roman world. Those who are supposed to be the leaders of God’s chosen people are hurling insults as though to grind salt into the wounds of the crucified One.

Can you fathom this! How can it be? The One whom Paul says is "the image of the invisible God," being ridiculed by the likes of these hypocrites, power mongers and thieves? And what is the response of the One in whom Paul says all powers and rulers and authorities were created? Does he smash them with a Rambo-like sword of terrible vengeance? Or blow them to bits with a breath? How about unleashing all the fury of Michael the archangel’s host of warriors?

No. He says, "Father forgive them…"

From Pastor Daphne Burt "Serving a King who Died on a Cross"

You don’t have to be particularly observant
to figure out what time of year it is right now –
All you have to do is walk into your neighborhood Walgreen’s.
No sooner was Hallowe’en over
than the orange and black decor of the season of trick or treating
was replaced by the red and green
Of what is arguably America’s favorite season:
The “most wonderful time of the year” – “Shopping season.”

However, for Christians,
this time of year means that we once again challenged
to reflect upon how our core values
are not necessarily the same
as those of the world around us.

For Christians,
today is not last day of a weekend of great sales and discounts that kicked off that “shopping season” –
it’s the last Sunday of the church year,
Christ the King Sunday,
a time for us to remember who we are and whose we are.

From Christ the King by The Reverend Dr Michael Chandler

If you and I were expected to watch a crucifixion, we would be distressed and horrified even though we are entirely accustomed to violence on TV and in newspapers. The agonised shrieks of the condemned men would give way to moans and both sounds would be mixed with the distress of friends and relatives, and with the noise of the world going about its business. There would be the blood, the mess, the smell of sweat and fear and worse.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the suffering, but not difficult to overdo the description in a sermon. So, let your own mind play upon the spectacle, like ‘the people [who] stood by watching’. And then remember the identity of the man in the centre, with the criminals, ‘one on his right and one on his left’ (Luke 23.33). Remember him in the context of what was to be written about him a few decades later. We heard one such passage a few minutes ago; here it is again: – ‘He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and earth were created, things visible and invisible, … all things were created through him and for him. He himself is before all things’ (Colossians 1:15-17).

It is one of the massive ironies of the Christian story that we have become entirely accustomed to both the realities that I have tried to describe. We read descriptions of Jesus’ crucifixion without realising the horror. We read about Jesus’ divinity without being disturbed by relating the two.

 

WORSHIP RESOURCES

From Moira Laidlaw:

Call to Worship
Read Luke 1: 68-79 responsively  or use the following based on Luke 1:68-75:

Blessed be the  God of Israel who looks favourably on all people;
who is raising up a mighty Saviour  from the house of David;
a Saviour who will deliver us from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
We have received this mercy, promised to our ancestors,
and with thanksgiving,
we will worship and serve God in holiness and righteousness all our days.
Through the tender mercy of God, 
those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death will know  healing and light,
and they will be guided in the way of peace.
Blessed be the God of Israel for the prophecies of old are about to be fulfilled.

Offertory Prayer
Eternal God, we offer to you these gifts and our lives. May Christ the King rule in our  hearts and lives so that we are powerful witnesses to the truth of your kingdom of  love, justice, mercy and peace.  This we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen

From Thomas L. Weitzel (see his excellent Great Thanksgiving Prayer at this link as well)

Dialog for Christ the King:

A. Behold, the King comes. Alleluia!
C. O come, let us worship and bow down. Alleluia! Alleluia!

A. Rejoice greatly, for Christ is your King.
C. Blessing and honor and glory be unto him.

A. Blessed are you, O Lord, King of the universe; you have delivered us from sin and death.
C. By your blood, you have brought your people into your kingdom.

A. Therefore God has highly exalted him:
C. And bestowed on him the name which is above every name;

A. That at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow:
C. And every tongue confess him the King of glory.

A. Behold, the King comes. Alleluia!
C. O come, let us worship and bow down. Alleluia! Alleluia!

From John Jewell:

Call To Worship (Based on Psalm 46)

Leader:  The Presence of God is our Strength,
People: Our refuge in times of trouble.
Leader:  When God is with us, there is joy in our hearts,
People: Therefore we rejoice and give thanks.
Leader:  For you alone, O Lord are God,
People: The one who reigns in all the earth.

Prayer of Dedication

Because of your great gifts to us O Lord, we have forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to your perfect love. Bless the gifts we bring and give us courage to live more fully for you.  Amen.

From Bruce Prewer:

Confession and Assurance

We come before God in confession, laying our faults at the feet of Christ.
Let us pray.

To you, Christ our King:
We bring our lust for power and set it down before your rejection of power.
We bring our love of money and place it before your willing poverty.
We bring our stubborn pride and set it before your utter humility.
We bring our pay-back mentality and lay it before your mercifulness.
We bring our desire for self glory and put before your love of God’s glory.
We bring our self interest and rest it before your self giving.
We bring all our vaunted wisdom and lay it before the “folly” of your cross.

Most merciful God, please forgive us once again. Enable us to let go of guilt, and to take steps to prevent future debacles. Correct the distortions in our thinking and feeling, and realign our hopes and ambitions to your will. Let us become in action as well as intention, the brothers and sisters of Christ the King.
Amen!

Assurance

Good news! Wonderful news! My friends, God has already forgiven you. Believe it, take it to heart, and live it! It is for real!
In the name of Christ.
Amen!