Reign of Christ Sunday
Scripture: Matthew 25:31-46
Natalie Sleeth, whose hymn we sang at the beginning of today's worship, "Praise our God with the sound of trumpet," has written a number of hymns in our hymn resources. One has become a favourite at times of remembrance, "In the bulb..." (Voices United 703) Two of the verses are:
In the bulb there is a flower;
In the seed an apple tree;
In cocoons a hidden promise:
Butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter
There's a spring that waits to be,
Unrevealed until its season,
Something God alone can see.
In our end is our beginning;
In our time infinity;
In our doubt is our believing;
In our life, eternity.
In our death, a resurrection;
At the last a victory,
Unrevealed until its season,
Something God alone can see.
Natalie wrote this hymn and dedicated it to her husband Ronald, who was diagnosed with cancer soon after its composition. It was later sung at his funeral. I had also heard that Natalie wrote the hymn as a means for her children to understand something about death and new beginnings.
I think of Sleeth's hymn today because we are embarking on something new, something that before now has been unrevealed and only now seems to have come into its season, something that God has seen and has helped us in this congregation to see. Namely, we are letting go of an old structure and, based on our purpose statement, embarking on a new process, a more open process, a participatory process that has slowly revealed itself to us in due season.
This is also the end of the Church year, Advent being the start of a new Church year, which begins next week. Like any new year change, we are encouraged to let go of the past, or maybe to let the gifts of the past inform how we live today so that we might share our lives more fully tomorrow and be more fully present now. And like I've said many times before, this hymn, this process of trying something new, and this time of new year is also a time to remind ourselves that we are never defined by the past; this moment is a new moment for us to embrace with all its possibilities. This is the moment that God has been revealing... and that revelation is an ongoing process of discovery and co-creation, not a once only thing!
As I was reading and thinking about today's worship, I read the sermon prepared for the online Day1 Organization for this Sunday. Day1 is the voice of mainline Protestant churches on radio and internet. The sermon was prepared by Dr. Greg Garrett, a writer and professor of English at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Dr. Garrett began his sermon by reminding us that "the answer is 42." Who knows where that's from? ... Yes, it's from The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Universe and it is the answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. "42" Garrett goes on to muse about the parable of the sheep and the goats and asks the question, "so what is the question."
There are times when we read things from Scripture in worship and we all squirm a bit. The judgement passages are challenging; the passages that suggest that God is angry make us uncomfortable, just like the passages where violence is depicted in some of the Hebrew Scriptures, or where the interpretation that is offered in parts of the Hebrew Scriptures is that if we only live a righteous life we will reap our reward, but if we live an unrighteous life, we deserve our suffering. These passages, and the bible is full of challenging passages, need exploration, discussion, dissection, and in some cases a declaration, "Well, it's in the bible, but that doesn't necessarily make it true."
Often after worship, I'll be asked about a particularly challenging piece of Scripture, like today's passage. I've been asked before about heaven and hell and whether Matthew believed in this. But, what is the question?!
The bible does not really deal with heaven and hell per se. Some churches have turned the idea of heaven and hell into a full-time ministry with the understanding that our only task in life is to get ourselves into heaven and to avoid hell. Well, this isn't a biblically based interpretation and while eternal damnation appears in several of Matthew's parables, it wasn't about a place as it was a literary mechanism to invite us to think about our lives. Heaven and hell, for Matthew, and for the biblical writers, wasn't about a place. The Commonwealth of Heaven, for Matthew—for Jesus—was about how we are called to live in this world as a co-creator of love, justice, hope and peace. God works through us and is alive in usÑor the Commonwealth of Heaven works through us and is alive in us—as we live our lives in the here and now.
I think the question that Matthew poses is, "how will we live in the face of cynicism, crass and open greed, and self-interested concern?" Or another question comes to mind, "How will we live in the world and make real the transformative power of God's Spirit?" Or even a third question, "How will we live together with others in accepting the blessing offered us and, in turn, pass that blessing on to others?"
The answer is the concept that God is in each of us. The answer is in seeing the Christ in everyone we meet. Or, in language from our Purpose Statement, it is to see the embodiment of God in all of life around us. It is too easy to create categories of us and them, sheep and goats, in and out. We encounter this frequently and it is difficult to resist the language. But Matthew calls us to resist: to resist the judgement of others, resist the easy categorization, or resist the easy dismissal of others without walking in their shoes. Whitey Ford, in a song made famous in 1998 called, What It's Like, raised all kinds of questions about how we label and judge and dismiss.
Jesus invites us into relationship with one another, with those with whom we may disagree, with those of whom we are ignorant. We are invited to make real the understanding that all are our sisters and brothers. Countless parables and stories abound in all traditions about the courage it takes to look people in the eye when we meet them on the road of life, whether in situations of need or not; when we make eye contact, we acknowledge and sister or a brother on the road.
We live in an age when alienation is very real, when people feel alienated from society because some don't have a cell phone, some don't watch TV, some dress and behave differently. When Alanna and Fraser moved to Victoria more than a year ago now, I mentioned how I was concerned because Alanna and Fraser dress differently and look differently than conservative VictoriaÑthey are good Nelson people! Fraser has long dreadlocks, multiple piercings, a studded collar and Alanna has short hair and also piercings. We were walking around Victoria getting some things for their apartment and we received many stares from others. I wanted to shout from the corner, "Look people, we are all human beings worthy of love; or to quote Shakespeare, I wanted to say, Ôif you prick us do we not bleed. If you tickle us, do we not laugh..." I was so thankful that they both seemed rather oblivious to the stares and I was equally grateful when we went into one shop, an alternative lifestyle shop, and the greeter said, "Hey, man! Cool dreads!" I thought, "they'll be ok."
The Church has an important part to play in providing an example where all are welcomed and loved and included and valued! In our society when alienation is very real, there need to be safe places where we can all be together, where we can all just simply "BE."
Our new constitution coupled with our new Purpose Statement taps into some of this understanding that the question is, "how shall we live together" with the answer being, "as sisters and brothers who bear the Christ image in each one, who embody the love of God." As this Church year ends and a new one begins, as we put to rest our old constitution and take up a new one, presuming the vote will be positive, we do so with a new spirit, a new openness, a new energy in living as God's people in this moment and time. While the answer may not be 42, the answer may be LOVE.
Amen.
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