Today we celebrate Christ the King. We celebrate Jesus as King - not as royal heir in waiting. Not as Crown Prince. We celebrate Christ the King because the Kingdom of God is already a reality firmly established in heaven. The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that the Kingdom is in the process of being established here on earth. And we have a role to play. Those who see the Kingdom and experience it rejoice. We rest in the glorious shalom, the Peace of Christ. But the Kingdom on earth is certainly not fully realized. Not yet. We don’t yet experience it. We don’t yet live it. We worry, we are anxious, stressed, we are afraid. We are uncertain of what’s to come. This morning let’s take another look at what the Kingdom of God can be under Christ the King.
Think of the gospel stories: Jesus was born into a Jewish family in an occupied country under the thumb of a foreign army, the Roman empire. The Jewish people were essentially enslaved by Rome, and as slaves in their own country had little hope. They were afraid. As bad off as they were, they were afraid of any change. It could get worse. They were waiting for a Messiah who would free them from the Romans, an earthly king who would save them.
I can understand this because I grew up Jewish. I was a more or less typical Jewish child. My family lived on a dairy farm in a town in eastern Massachusetts. Early September meant not just the start of school, but the coming of the High Holy Days and the Jewish New Year. During these High Holidays I would get to skip a week of school and contemplate my sins. I really tried to follow the Law of Moses to the letter. The traditional way of life. It’s not easy to avoid sin as a Jew. I certainly believed if I didn’t do things right, bad things would happen to me and my family. If I did everything right, bad things might not happen. My faith was centered on avoiding catastrophically bad consequences, on following many, many religious daily behavior rules, like keeping Kosher. Six hundred and thirteen rules in scripture; many more added by tradition. I was constantly edgy and stressed. Like the Jewish people of biblical times, I wanted a leader, a king, who would make everything right, who would save me.
During Jesus’ time on earth the traditions of Jewish faith offered a sense of community, of solidarity. The prophets’ promises were of a better future but distant. But no immediate hope. Things are what they are. We’re stuck, but we’re stuck in this together. Hunker down.
Then Jesus begins teaching. It’s a new message. Jesus taught change. Dramatic change. Not at all what was expected.
Jesus’ teaching was exciting, but very strange, very untraditional. Even Jesus’ disciples had trouble believing him. The disciples grew up as traditional Jews. They were waiting for a Messiah, the One Moses said would come after him. The Anointed One who would open a new era. No one really understood what this new era would be. But all agreed it would be very, very good. Many thought he would be a traditional king because God promised King David that the Messiah would come from David’s lineage, be of the House of David. But he would rule in perpetuity, whatever that meant.
Given all of this, it’s no surprise that few recognized Jesus as a King. He taught forgiveness and love, humility and awe in the face of our creator God. Where is his army? Why hasn’t he vanquished the Romans? Isn’t that how we’ll be saved? This isn’t a KING. So there was a special sting when, at Jesus’s crucifixion, a sign reading INRI was nailed to the cross. In Latin - the language of the Roman Empire - those four letters stood for Jesus Nazareth King Jews. So there was no misunderstanding, this inscription was also written in Hebrew and Greek. Mocking. “See what happens to your king.”
But then came the Resurrection and Pentecost. The unexpected message of Jesus took quiet root. Those who heard the Good News began to share it. The Disciples were Jews who spread the word to Jews and gentiles throughout the Roman Empire. The Disciples taught in the synagogues, which were like community centers welcoming God-fearing gentiles as well as Jews. The Roman roads connecting the synagogues acted as a network for Peter, Paul, Mark, Matthew, James and other Disciples to preach the Gospel all through Europe and the middle east.
Before Christianity, the reason to be religious was to avoid angering God. Obey. Follow the rules faithfully. Jesus’ ministry and resurrection taught us a new and different picture of faith, a faith centered on love. Love of God, love of God’s creation, and love of all our fellow creatures. A new life of acting in God’s love and spreading God’s love in the world. A new world where God is universal, a God who cares for all people, not just a particular tribe. A God who loves us, forgives us and asks us to love and forgive each other. This is the new Kingdom of God of which Christ is King. The planting of God’s Kingdom on earth. And God’s plan includes all of us, all mankind welcomed as permanent residents of this glorious kingdom. We still have a hard time believing it; we struggle to trust in this call to live and act in God’s love. But when we do act on it, the Kingdom grows here on earth.
As a young professional, I was one of the exiled people of Israel still anticipating the promised Messiah. The Waiting. I was waiting to see the Messiah. I didn’t know Elijah had already returned as John the Baptist. I didn’t know the Messiah’s name was Jesus. I did not yet understand the Kingdom of God was already firmly established in heaven and was struggling to expand its beachhead on earth. I don’t think most of us truly accept that we already have a role in the Kingdom. Do our children or grandchildren or neighbors trust that there is a Kingdom? Do they look around and see a Kingdom being built?
Once we live as residents of Christ’s Kingdom, we can start to feel God’s shalom. The Kingdom is here and it is growing. It is growing person by person, one person at a time. Each person who joins the Kingdom grows the kingdom, and in turn each Christian personally grows as their struggles with life lead to deepening character and increasing faith and love and hope. This is how the kingdom grows. Each human becomes a disciple capable of showing Jesus to those Waiting. We are all Waiting. We may not realize we are waiting or what we are waiting for until it arrives. And this is exactly what happened to me.
Our farm was a rough place. The hired hands were a tough crowd. They milked and fed the cows, cleaned the barns, worked the dairy, worked the fields. They drank and they fought. The weaker were bullied by the stronger. The hired men came and went, some staying a few months, some a few years. When I was an infant a Swede named Axel Carlson hired on. My mother predicted he wouldn’t last a month because he was so soft-spoken and gentle. But Axel was a Christian, a devout Lutheran. Axel was sent to us and he stayed. His example of gentleness, kindness, goodness, peace-making, serenity and charity lifted my sister and brothers and me many times over the difficult years of living as poor Jewish farm kids in an inhospitable environment.
Axel broke up fights on the farm, separating the fighters and saying, “No brothers. Not what we do.” Axel sent us kids to the store with more money than necessary to buy cigarettes and said, “You keep the change.” Axel bought me my first car - my ticket to college and off the farm - and disguised his generosity by “hiring” me to drive him on a road trip to Minnesota to explore his family roots. Axel was a guardian angel to us all. Axel lived and worked on the farm for over 40 years, a biblical time span. Axel looked soft, but had enormous strength. Axel showed Jesus in his life and words and work. Axel was a Disciple who showed me Jesus.
A second person: One Sunday morning in 1967, sitting in the back of the Congregational Church in the Highlands in White Plains, the Rev. Dr. Alden Mosshammer read Paul, Romans, Chapter 12 verse 2. He proclaimed it the way scripture is meant to be proclaimed. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Be changed in heart and mind and action. Live the will of God. Rev. Mosshammer proclaimed the message of the Kingdom and his life demonstrated the message.
I suddenly saw the possibility this Christian message could be true. When I got a paperback copy of the New English Bible, I realized it was the Torah, with the New Testament added at the back. I read from Matthew to Revelation. I read the genealogy of Jesus’ family. Jesus is the house of David, the Son of God promised to David’s posterity. This is the Kingdom God promised to David. This is the flower of Judaism. This is the sure guide and goal for each and all of humanity. And I believed. I stopped waiting and joined the Kingdom of God as a permanent resident.
Paul spoke of the conversion of the Waiting in Romans, chapters ten and eleven where Paul teaches that the Jews who are waiting will come to know Jesus when they see the Gentiles as living examples of Jesus Christ. The same is true of all who are waiting in anxiety and stress - our neighbors, our children, our grandchildren. All those will see the Kingdom of God through us, and will want to have what we have, what they have been missing. It’s true for us all. I was called to Jesus as my King by God the Father. God did this through Axel Carlson and Alden Mosshammer, two men, each a living Christ to me.
I thank God for his call. I do my best to show Jesus as I have been shown Jesus. I urge you, each of you who are also permanent residents of the Kingdom, to be Jesus to someone.
You will know to whom.
In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.