Living in the Kingdom, where the King chooses to be (sermon from Reign of Christ Sunday, Nov 26/17)

Reading:  Matthew 25:31-45 

The people of Jesus' day longed for the coming of God's kingdom -- for the day when God's anointed One, whom they sometimes called "the Son of Man," would appear in glory and set things right on Earth.  They longed for that day, and had all kinds of teachings about what that One would be like.  

I wonder ... when Jesus begins the story he tells with the words "when the Son of Man comes in his glory," did any of the people around him stop listening because they thought they already knew what he was going to say?

This morning the Rev. James Eaton is preaching this same passage to his congregation – the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY.  And I like the way he opens up and imagines what we have just read: 

I love weddings [he says] and I used to officiate at a lot of them.

There’s all the fuss and planning and then on the day itself, little details that seem so important.  I usually enter with the men and they’re always nervous.  We stand at the front, face the back and the bridesmaids sweep up the aisle, more or less as I rehearsed them the night before.  I remember one whispering as she walked past, “Was that ok?”

Then the organ changes, often getting louder, people stand and a woman in a dress she will never wear again sweeps into the sanctuary, walks up the aisle.  It’s regal; it’s that moment which fulfills every time someone called her, “princess”.

When I think about the opening of today’s scripture reading, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him..”, that’s how I imagine it – that kind of regal entrance, with light and music and everyone standing in awe. “Open the gates that the King of glory may come in”, the Psalm says and because today is Reign of Christ Sunday – open the doors that the Lord of glory may come in.

Then the scene shifts: once the Lord takes the throne, it’s time for business and the business of any Lord is judgement.  So Matthew imagines everyone – all the nations of the world – in one herd before him.  What a crowd!

Here in our church we often say, “Everyone welcome”, but the truth is we’re not prepared for everyone; we’re prepared for about 35 or 40.  What would happen if everyone came? What would happen if one Sunday, we opened the doors and people flooded in, rushed in, so many that some sat even in the pews over there where no one ever does and we don’t have welcome cards and hymnals?

All the nations, gathered.  There are people who don’t get along, there are different races, nationalities, black, white, Asian, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, None of the above, Republicans, Democrats.  The word ‘nation’ is Matthew’s term for Gentiles so “all the nations” means really everybody… even the people at the ends of the earth, which I think is somewhere near Buffalo.

I like to imagine there’s an organist.  I’ve never been to a big assembly like this without an organist, so I assume there is one.  But if you prefer piano music or a full orchestra, feel free to imagine that, the text isn’t clear.

And then all processionals – even those of the eternally awaited King of Glory come to an end eventually.  The king reaches the throne, the followers file into the seats with the “RESERVED” sign taped to them and the last bit of the organ piece rings out and then fades and I imagine the liturgist, in the silence, saying something like what I say here every Sunday, “The peace of the Lord be with you” and then everyone sitting down.

Now the king speaks, everyone strains to listen and this is what he says: move.   Can you imagine if on a Sunday morning you came here, were greeted at the door, you found your usual pew with your friends nearby, you got caught up on the news of the week, the service was about to begin, you settled in just a little bit more, and then the minister says, “Move!”

But that’s what the king says.  He has them divide up into two groups, like a herdsman separating sheep and goats.  Sheep and goats are herded together during the day but at night they are separated and the same thing happens here.  Sheep on the left, goats on the right.  Which are you?  Which am I?

And now he turns to the sheep and tells them they are going to enter into his kingdom for reasons they don’t understand.  They fed him when he was hungry, they clothed him when he was naked, and so on.  Apparently.  They don’t remember doing it.  They don’t remember these acts of charity, they don’t remember their donations to the food pantry, they don’t remember being kind or doing these things.  They did them but they were clueless at the time.  They still are.

Then he turns to the goats and the mirror image thing happens.  They don’t get into the kingdom because they didn’t do these things.  But they don’t remember not doing them. They don’t remember seeing him and refusing him food or clothing or the rest.  They were clueless at the time.  They still are.

When it comes to what they knew at the time, the sheep and the goats here are just the same.  The difference isn’t what they knew, it’s what they did.  It’s how they responded in moments when they didn’t know what they were doing.  The stunning fact about this judgement is that no one understood beforehand what would make a difference.

I like the way James Eaton puts it.

I also like the way Timothy Schmalz imagines and sculpts it.

Timothy Schmalz is a sculptor in St Jacobs, ON who for some time has been creating life-size bronze statues of Jesus based on the ways in which Jesus identifies himself in the Gospel reading this morning.  The homeless Jesus.  When I Was Hungry and Thirsty.  When I Was Sick.  When I Was Naked.  When I Was in Prison.  When I Was a Stranger.  The statues are being installed all over the world.

And a few weeks ago Karen sent me an article about the homeless Jesus that was installed on the grounds of St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Davidson, North Carolina – a wealthy and upscale neighbourhood.

The reaction to the statue was immediate.  Some loved it; some didn't.  One woman even actually called the police the first time she drove by it because she thought it was an actual homeless person.  She called the cops on Jesus.

Another neighbor a few doors down from the church wrote a letter to the editor saying the statue creeps him out.  Many said it was an insulting depiction of the son of God, and that what appears to be a hobo curled up on a bench demeans the neighborhood.

The rector’s response?  “It gives authenticity to our church,” he says. “This is a relatively affluent church, and we need to be reminded that our faith expresses itself in active concern for the marginalized of society.”

Then the story goes on to say that Schmalz offered the first casts of the homeless Jesus to St. Michael's Cathedral in Toronto and St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.  Both declined.

A spokesman at St. Michael’s said appreciation of the statue “was not unanimous,” and the church was being restored so a new work of art was out of the question.  A spokesperson at St. Patrick's in New York said they liked the homeless Jesus, but their cathedral was also being renovated and they had to turn it down.

They didn’t say no.  It’s just that with the renovations, with what was going on and what they were busy doing, it wasn’t the right time.  There wasn’t a place for it in their current plans.

And I wonder … is that what happens to me some time?  That I don’t say no.  I’m not that hard-hearted or cold.  But there just isn’t time, and I don’t have a place in what I’m doing, for the least of these who are members of Jesus’ family?  To really meet them or see them, or be close enough to them to reach out in any personal way?

I’m busy with other things, and they’re good things.  I live in another place, and it’s a good places.

But it means I’m often cut off and isolated from, protected against, not close enough to these particular members of Jesus’ family to see them, feel what life is like for them, be able to reach out to them, and come to know and meet the King of Glory hidden in the encounter? 

Except, there are moments, aren’t there?  And there are ways – in which I am – we all are, confronted and interrupted … in which we are touched and moved to action … in which we are surprised and opened up to reach out in compassion and love … and even if I am not, even if we are not aware of the significance of what we are doing, even if no one else see or ever knows, even if we aren’t even sure ourselves just what good if any we have done, the King of Glory sees how we have responded and opened our life to him … and to the members of his family … and to the way his kingdom comes into our world.

 

Meeting Jesus as Jesus chooses to be (towards Reign of Christ Sunday, Nov 26)

Reading:  Matthew 25:31-46
(Jesus talks about the coming of the kingdom, and about who will find themselves in and out of God's favour when all is revealed at the end.  According to Jesus, the test is quite simple: do we or do we not see, love, and reach out to Jesus in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned people of our time?)

Timothy Schmalz is an almost-local (Kitchener, ON) sculptor whose life-size and small-replica statutes of the hungry, homeless, naked, imprisoned and otherwise very human Jesus are showing up all around the world.

Homeless Jesus

  

On his website, Schmalz says, "I am devoted to creating artwork that glorifies Christ.  I describe my sculptures as being visual prayers.  It brings me happiness when my sculptures are installed outside; three dimensional bronze works of art are excellent advertisements for any Christian Church."

 When I Was a Stranger

He goes on, "Saint Gregory the Great wrote that 'art is for the illiterate'; the use of images was an extremely effective way to educate the general population.  Our contemporary culture is in the same state today, not because of illiteracy, but because people are too busy to read.  In this world of fast paced schedules and sound bites, Christian art creates 'visual bites' that introduce needed spiritual truths in a universal language."

 When I Was Hungry and Thirsty

He says further, "Christian sculpture acts for many as a gateway into the Gospels and the viewer’s own spirituality.  After looking at an interesting piece of art the viewer is curious. 'Who is this man on a cross?  Why does he suffer?'  The more powerful the representation of the art, the more powerful the questions become."

When I Was Naked

 When I Was in Prison

"...excellent advertisements for any Christian church..."

"...an extremely effective way to educate the general population..."

Can you imagine any of these sculptures (which one would you choose?) on the front lawn of our church?  

How would you feel being greeted by it on a Sunday morning?  What would it say to you?

What might it say to people in the community?

And are there ways in which we communicate that message to others -- even without the statue, by what we do and how we act as a church, and as individuals in the community?

  
If you wish, you can learn more about Schmalz and his work at his website:  https://www.sculpturebytps.com/large-statues-monuments/

Happy partners: or, I like what you've done to the place ... (sermon from Sun, Nov 19)

Reading:  Matthew 25:14-30

(In his last days before he was killed, Jesus and the community of people he brought with him from Galilee spent most of their time in the Temple in Jerusalem.  Some who came with him were awestruck at the Temple’s size and grandeur.  But not Jesus.  What he saw was how wasteful and unfaithful to God the Temple was, and he was convinced that when the kingdom of God would come, that kind of Temple and tradition would have no place in it.  And, of course, he was not shy about saying so ... and the reading is one of the stories he told to make his point.)

Earlier this year – back in mid-February, we almost lost our church.  The building, anyway.

During worship there was a short or overheating of some kind in the cable feeding power to the blower motor for the organ, which heated the plywood casing to the point of burning, so that by the end of the worship service, just as the last people left were beginning to get ready to go home the smoke alarm went off, the fire was discovered, a call was put in to the fire department, and before they arrived Dave Durfey and Elgin McEneny had the fire extinguished. 

Fortunate timing?  Quick action?  The providence of God watching out for us?  We came that close to losing a lot -- if not all, of the building.

Now, nine months later – yes, it’s nine months, a normal gestation period – we are opening the building up in a way it’s never been opened before, with a lift to make all three levels accessible.  Now everyone can get into, and all around the building to activities anywhere in it, regardless of physical ability.

Nine months after almost becoming the former Fifty Church, is this the birth of a new day for us, and a new way of being who we are?

Thinking of almost losing what we have had for a long time as a church, and now having something more … according to the Gospel reading and the story Jesus tells about the kingdom of God, it seems God does not mind redistributing the gifts of his kingdom among his servants from time to time, depending on how they are used.

Some of God’s servants, Jesus says, are given lots to work with – all kinds of resources to do good things with, in the world.  Others have less, but still quite a bit.  Others yet have only a little.  Sometimes fearfully little.

For each one, though – for each servant, each Christian, each church, each community of faith, whatever they have is enough.  Because the standard for all is the same.  It’s to use whatever you have for growing the kingdom of God wherever you are in the world, or run the risk of losing it.  Of having it taken from you, and given to someone who will use it more faithfully than you.

We know churches go through cycles – natural life cycles of birth, growth, maturity and decline, and then either renewal and new birth, or death.  Within these cycles there are ebbs and flows, natural rhythms of expanding and contracting, of things going up and things going down.  The story of this congregation is over 200 years old; we know about natural rhythms and cycles.

But there is also something more – not just natural, but supernatural or spiritual growth and decline.  Not just natural, but also spiritual ebb and flow, that has nothing to do with numbers and size, is not dependent on being big, is not deterred by being small.

It has to do with knowing, doing and sharing in what God wants done, in what God is doing in the world around us, and in what God is happy to bless and to prosper.

There’s a really interesting phrase in the story Jesus tells about being a servant of the King.  It doesn’t appear in the translation we used this morning (The Message), but maybe you remember it from the more traditional translations we normally read.  It’s the phrase, “enter into the joy of your master.”

It’s part of what the master says upon his return and his settling of accounts with the first two servants – the ones who did well with what was given to them.  “Well done, good and faithful servant!” he says to each of them.  “You have been faithful in a few things; I will put you in charge of many.  Enter into the joy of your master.”

In The Message that last sentence is translated, “From now on be my partner.”  So maybe it’s something like, “Be my partner; share in what makes me happy.”

And isn’t this why we’ve done what we’ve done? 

Was it the law, and the need to comply with provincial standards around accessibility?  Was it other churches becoming accessible, and the need to keep up?  Was it our own members, and the need to help ourselves get around in our building more easily? 

Or was it also – and maybe most of all, our love of God and the deep happiness that comes of being part of what God is doing in our time to make all the world a good place to be?

“Be my partner,” God says.  “Share in what makes me happy.”

I know how happy I feel when I come here on a Thursday morning because that’s the morning I’m not here alone.  The Quilt Club arrives for 9:30 and all through the morning they’re in the Upper Room just outside my office door.  It makes this building a happy place to be.

I imagine the Upper Room is a happy place Wednesday evenings as well, with both the Joy and senior choirs practicing for Sunday mornings.  And with the NOW group there every fourth (or it every last?) Monday. 

And the Lower Hall?  Last night it was a pretty happy place with church members and other people from all around sharing the noise and nourishment of a Spaghetti Supper.  In a few weeks it will be happy again when we come in on a Saturday morning to prepare the dinner for the Wesley Centre the next afternoon – with Fingers-n-Toes drawing people in the week before, and the Scout’s Breakfast With Santa a week later.

A few weeks ago it was fun to spend a Saturday morning and afternoon all around the building and inside and out with a group of confirmands and one of their friends that we’d never met before.  As much fun as opening all the doors in the summer for summer day camp.

Good things happen here – things that make the rest of life good for us and for others. 

And can it be God’s desire that it be just us, and just those who can navigate barriers and inaccessibilities who can get in on things here? 

Or is God happy with nothing less than that the good things of life be opened to all? 

So … when the master returns and starts the accounting of what we’ve done with what we have, what will he see?  And what will he say?

Maybe … I love what you’ve done with the place. Well done, good and faithful servants!  You make me happy. 

And now tell me, what do you have in mind for what we’re gonna do here together for the good of the community around us?

 

Reading:  Matthew 25:14-30
(Jesus tells a story about being servants in the kingdom of God.  The master is about to leave and he gives his treasure into the hands of his servants -- different amounts to each.  In his absence, some servants do well with their part of his treasure, making it grow in the world.  Some -- one, anyway, does nothing with it for fear of losing it.  When the master returns, he asks for an accounting of what the servants have done with what was entrusted to them.)

In mid-February we almost lost our church building.  It came that close to burning, but it was saved from any significant damage.

This Sunday -- 9 months later, we open a new chapter in the life of the building with the installation and dedication of a lift that makes all levels of the building accessible.

Quite a turn-around!

And why?  Why was this building saved?  Why is the whole of it now accessible?

Does God have something in mind?  Something God wants to be happening here?

Monday at the Church Council meeting, the Council members were asked to imagine that they were not church members and not even looking for a place to worship or do anything religious on a Sunday morning, but were passing by the church and noticing what a nice little building it is.  What would you imagine it might be good for?  What you might want to ask if you could use it for?

I could tell you some of the things Council thought of.  And I'm sure that will be shared some time.  

But first and for now, what do you think?  

Imagine you do not belong to Fifty and are not looking for a place to worship or do anything religious.  But you notice this nice little building along Highway 8, just about on the border of Winona and Grimsby.  

What do you think it might be good for?  That you might be willing to go to there?  Or even organize yourself, if you could get permission from whoever's in charge of the building?

When the saints go marching in ... will it be a grander parade than we ever imagine?

Reading:  Revelations 7:9-17
The Book of Revelations is a book of comfort and hope for Christians in a difficult time.  Towards the end of the first century of what we now call the Christian Era, followers of Christ found themselves increasingly at odds with society around them, and with many of the directions and policies of the government in Rome.  As a result, many suffered persecution, some were killed, and a number of the leaders were sentenced by the Empire to exile on the island of Patmos.

John the Seer is one of those leaders, and on Patmos he was given an intense vision about God and the good news of Christ persisting, and God’s kingdom coming on Earth.  In one part of the vision he sees 144,000 of the people of Israel – 12,000 of each tribe, gathered in praise around God’s throne.  In other words, he is assured that the people of God – the covenant community, will be complete, no matter what.  And then there is something more – something even greater, beyond that.  

Oh when the saints go marching in

When the saints go marching in

O Lord, I want to be in that number

When the saints go marching in

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying,

“Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?”

I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.”

John the Seer, one of the early church leaders, and the whole of the Christian community around him in their little corner of the Roman Empire, were concerned.  With what they believed, who they followed as Lord, and what they lived for, they didn’t fit easily with society around them.  They were often at odds with the culture of their time, and sometimes openly opposed the official policy and direction of the government in Rome.

So the government didn’t always support them in what they did or said.  Nor defend their right to be doing it.  Sometimes even tried to suppress their mission and message.  Ordinary Christians suffered, some were killed, a number of leaders were sentenced to exile on the island of Patmos – where John received a grand, intense vision about the mission persisting and enduring, the powers of evil failing and falling, and God’s kingdom coming on Earth.  He saw 144,000 of the people of Israel – 12,000 of each tribe, gathered in praise around God’s throne – a symbolic sign that the known people of God – the covenant community, would be complete and would not be undone no matter what may come against them.

And then something more:

a great multitude that no one could count,

from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,

[also] standing before the throne and before the Lamb,

robed in white, with palm branches in their hands,

[joining the heavenly chorus of angels and of all Earth praising God].

He is asked by one of the elders standing nearby, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from; who are all these other people gathered around the throne of God, celebrating God’s kingdom come?” And John says, “I don’t know.  I’ve no idea who they are, where they have come from, or how they have got here.  You’ll need to tell me.” 

Sometimes we have no idea just how many saints there are, and or even who they are all around us.

Back in early May of this year I read a headline in The Hamilton Spec:  “Mobster Angelo Musitano shot dead in Waterdown driveway.” 

“A fatal gangland-style hit targeting notorious mobster Angelo Musitano may be the start of a new crime war in Hamilton,” the story began.  “The Spectator has confirmed Musitano, whose 40th birthday would have been on Sunday, was gunned down in the driveway of his Waterdown home Tuesday at about 4 p.m.  Neighbours say they heard multiple shots fired.”

It’s the kind of story you can’t help but read.  And have quick instinctive reactions to.   I felt a voyeuristic, titillating interest the moment I saw the headline.  As I read about his murder, I my head held a moralistic, self-satisfying conclusion like “crime never pays.”  As I read on about his life and death, my heart shed a half-sympathetic tear for “what a wasted life.”  

But still he was completely other and distant from me.  He was a Hamilton boy and Waterdown neighbor; we lived in the same city but in different worlds.  We had nothing in common, and I felt no real, personal interest in him.

And then, in the second half of the story, I read:

"Mike King, who says he has been a good friend of Ang's since meeting him at a Christian men's group several years ago, was shattered by the news… “Ang had left his past behind him,” King said emotionally. “Ang would stand up for what's right for everyone.  He was a devoted father and was devoted in his faith.  He was a good person.”  King said Ang loved his wife dearly and was living a clean life, running a legitimate business.  “He loved the Lord.  He changed his life for the Lord.”  Ang recently wrote a book about his life, said King, telling the story of overcoming his criminal past."

I wondered about that.  Wondered how true it was.

Then almost six months later, a week or so ago I was given a little book by John VanDuzer, titled “Are You Looking for the Truth: I Found Him.”  In it are printed the stories of a dozen or so people – ordinary people of Hamilton, Niagara and this part of southern Ontario who have been transformed by encounter with God and with Jesus.  They are people who have come through addictions and heart-breaking life-journeys, who have struggled with cancer and trauma and death, who have met God and Christ in a hospital room, in prison, in Haiti and in the depths of despair, and who beyond the emptiness and addictiveness of their 21^st-century life – whatever their life-ordeal was, have been changed for good and forever by the encounter.

And Angelo Musitano’s is one of the stories – of how in his 30’s after a life of crime, murder, imprisonment and unhappiness he happened across a friend’s Bible, read in it about “living to please the Lord,” (that’s the one phrase that caught him), bought a Bible for himself, learned to pray and know himself loved by God just as he was, made amends to God and to others, and gave his life to helping others find God and the key to a new life as he had.

Oh when the saints go marching in…

the parade will most likely be bigger,

and most probably include a lot of people we might never imagine.

Sometimes, like the followers of Christ in the time of John and the Book of the Revelations, we fear for the future – for our own future, anyway.  When we look around us -- at the numbers on Sunday, at the aging (and amalgamating and closing) of churches around us, at the problems being faced by the United Church, at the marginalization of the church and of Christianity in Canadian society -- do we fear sometimes we may be a dying breed? 

The reality is, though, there are more than we know.  An innumerable multitude of people of all tongues and traditions and trappings, both inside and outside the church, mostly living under the radar of news and announcements, not blowing their horn but living their faith, transformed and changed day by day by God and by Jesus and by their holy books.  People like Angelo Musitano. 

And the question is not, how did he become one of us?  Nor is it, how do we get to be like him?  The question is, how do any of us day by day get to be in that number – get to be part of that multitude gathered around the throne of God, living together towards the coming of God’s kingdom on Earth?

O Lord, I want to be in that number

When the saints go marching in