Advent Lutheran Church

"Fear of Change and Trust in the Truth (Christ the King Sunday)"

 

Grace and peace to you from God the Creator, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ the King.  Amen.

 

In the 1988 movie, The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese, Niklaus Kazantzakis) rocker David Bowie is Pontius Pilate and Willem Dafoe portrays Jesus.  During his “trial,” Jesus and Pilate meet in the famous encounter between God and the power of Rome.  Although the depictions of Pontius Pilate in film have ranged from thug to sympathetic dreamer, this telling employs a dispassionate, intellectual Pilate.  For him, this “Jesus event” is a riddle of logic, a puzzle to solve.  Upon their meeting, Pilate asks Jesus if he will give him a sign, perform some miracle as proof of his power.  Jesus declines, and sits in brooding silence.  The scene continues:

 

            Pilate:  If you can’t do a miracle for me, then I see, you’re just another Jewish politician. 

                        So your kingdom, your world, will replace Rome.  (long pause)  Where is it? 

            Jesus:  My kingdom is not from this world.

            Pilate:  No, it wouldn’t be, would it?  Look, it’s one thing to want to change how people live,

                        but you want to change how people THINK, how they FEEL.  And that’s dangerous. 

                        Because it doesn’t matter HOW you want to change things.

                        We don’t want them changed.

 

Reminds me of that old adage, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”  Humanity has never enjoyed change, while at the same time we yearn for it in the cycle of giving and receiving, of shifts in control:       

                        “In the beginning” it was “good” – and then our pride took over.

                        God choose the People of Israel – and we sold ourselves into slavery.

                        God rescued us from Egypt – and we grumbled in the wilderness.

                        God brought us into the Promised Land – and we cried for a King.

                        God gave us kings – and for awhile there were good times.

                        Then we began to forsake God – and we were taken into captivity.

                        God restored us to our land – and we disobeyed again.

                        And still, God kept his promise of Messiah – and we put him to death.

 

Martin Luther remarked famously that “We are at once saint and sinner,” and every one of us knows what that’s like: 

to love God and yet trust ourselves even more; to want to be faithful, and yet resist surrendering our control; to exhaust ourselves with trying to be good, and tasting failure at every turn.  Makes it hard to even know what to yearn for.

 

Which prompts me to ask the question similar to what Pilate will ask Jesus in the next scene, “Do we even know what truth is?”  In Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976, Robert Altman, Arthur Kopit) Paul Newman’s character, Buffalo Bill Cody, is challenged on what lengths he’ll go to in order to promote himself, and he replies, “Truth, is whatever gets the most applause.” So, is truth simply what we all agree on?  Eugene Peterson’s modern-language interpretation of the Bible, The Message, paraphrases Jesus words as follows, “Everyone who cares for truth, who has any feeling for the truth, recognizes my voice,” and says that the truth is something we have a feeling for, a longing for, and we hope that the powers-that-be don't block our way to the truth.

 

2,000 years ago, the Lordship of Jesus challenged the lordship of the Roman Empire, the most powerful political and military structure in history, but who does it challenge now?  What is the truth in your life that would endanger you if you spoke it?  Think about the responses you might get if you publically and emphatically stated, for example, “We are consuming too much.  We are too dependent on fossil fuels.”  Or, “Money isn’t as important as you think.  Americans are displaying a global arrogance.”  Or even, “War is no longer effective.  Control does not provide security.”  Or what about, “We are not as special as we think…” 

 

Deep down we know (or suspect) that what we have been taught (or been convinced of) contains some things that are just not true.  We learn it, or confirm it, whenever our financial security begins to crumble; or, our self-esteem disappears with our job; or love from others no longer fills us up; when we accept the fact that we are all the same; or when we finally realize and accept that we will die.  What is your gut level response to the realization that someone else might be in control?  Is it, “AARRRGH!?”  Or, maybe, for some, it brings a huge sigh of relief, “Ahhhhh…”           

We humans are all yearning for change, but we just don’t know who can move us beyond our fears.  Add to that difficulty that the concept of “king” doesn’t play well around here.  King George was the bad guy in the struggle for American independence, and except for the occasional benevolent ruler (Monaco’s Prince Rainier) or publicly adored royal (Britain’s Princess Diana) we don’t have much use for the crowned heads of state here in the New World.  Even the phrase which all Christians should have no trouble proclaiming, “Jesus is Lord,” has become so identified with the Christian evangelical movement, the fundamental and non–denominational conservatives, that we who are American Protestant mainline church-goers are almost afraid to say it out loud, lest we be identified with those “other” believers.

 

So what does it mean to be “in the world but not of the world,” to belong to God?  It means we surrender our fears and give our love and trust to God, out of the yearning to be led by and to belong to something greater than ourselves.  Many of you know that I am a huge fan of the television series, LOST.  Well, to prepare myself for the last season of LOST, I have found a new show with wonderful theological themes.  This year, it is FlashForward –that gets me to the couch on Thursday evenings.  The premise for this series is that on October 6, the entire world blacked out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds and saw their futures six months from now on April 29.  Awakening from the blackout with those visions, some of the people are doing everything they can to make sure the future they saw in their flash forward never happens.  The rest of them have a new lease on life, a renewed hope in the future in general, and specifically in their own.  One of the FBI agents on the team investigating the blackout, comments on how the flashes forward have affected the whole population.  He says, “No longer are people living from their past, now they are living towards their future.”

 

As we mark the end of the church year with the feast of Christ the King, we are doing just that – living towards our future - as we lift up that to which all of our theology points: waiting for birth of the King; watching him grow and serve God; walking with him to Jerusalem, and then on to Calvary; rejoicing as God raises Jesus from the dead and receiving his very Spirit to empower our lives; remembering how Jesus came to change our living and our dying.  So as we begin, yet again, will we let Christ change us and reign over us?  It requires change.  It requires surrender.  Let me conclude with a prayer that was written in the 1800’s, but still has much to speak to us this day, as we prepare to come to the Table of God’s grace:

 

“Prayer of Surrender” - Hannah Whittal Smith

“Here Lord, I abandon myself to you. 

I have tried in every way I could think of to manage myself,

and to make myself what I know I ought to be,

but have always failed. 

Now I give it up to you.

Take entire possession of me. 

Work in me all the good pleasure of your will. 

Mold and fashion me into such a vessel as seems good to you. 

I leave myself in your hands,

and I believe you will, (according to your promise,)

make me into a vessel for your own honor,

‘sanctified, and meet for the master’s use,

and prepared for every good work.’”  Amen.