Christ the King - YrC

homiletics sermon, so really early, except this is the day I preached it.

Father, we thank you for the strength, the endurance, the patience, and the joy that enables us to share in the inheritance of the saints and be present to the kingdom of your beloved Son. Amen.

Today’s readings are from the last Sunday in the church calendar. The lectionary calls today Christ the King. However, unless our parish happens to be named Christ the King, we are unlikely to celebrate this in any particular way.

In truth, most of us are enjoying one last minute of calm before our lives are overrun with holiday parties, family gatherings, shopping and wrapping extravaganzas and just a general over consumption of everything. Each year we produce – collectively and individually – a great pile of lists of what we have accomplished that in more or less implied ways, identify what we hope to do differently next year.
Today, in this minute of calm, we can see that all this activity is pointing to something. It is pointing to our desires to be part of a community, to be loved, to be more than a worker in a job. I think the mere fact that we pile so much onto the last month of the year testifies to the importance we give to the end and the beginnings that follows.

So I find it a bit ironic that for Christians, at least liturgically and lectionary minded Christians, today is the end of the year. Today is the day we bring into sharp focus the now and the not yet of the kingdom of God.

Our readings today are shot through with images of kingdoms; kingdoms of safety and justice and righteousness. God lifts up good shepherds, good kings, good nations. Finally, God lifts up a son.

Colossians tells us, “For in Jesus, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself ALL things, whether on earth or in heaven by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

Some of these images are clearly, for us, in the past. I haven’t needed a shepherd lately; I am pretty squarely in the democracy camp. But there is something about that cross, that reconciliation that is ongoing, that is even now. It keeps working for us – as a literal image and as an ongoing action.

The now of God’s reconciliation is as present for me, a sinner, as it was for the thief on the cross next to Jesus. In that critical moment of Jesus’ ministry, the thief begs him. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” he replies. The thief believes that the kingdom is in the future, yet Jesus reminds us that it is also today.

Like the thief, we, in our Christian journeys partake in this ongoing moment. Sometimes it’s flashy and instantaneous, sometimes it gently unfolds, and sometimes it’s as graceless as a sticky clutch. But the reconciling of all things, in heaven and on earth, always happens. It is always, somehow, this moment.

This moment is both now and not yet.

It is now because we are here, in the presence of each other, in the presence of the table, in the midst of the Word. We are reminded in Colossians that all things were created in and through Christ. “He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church.” Here we sit; the church, the very body of Christ. The hands and feet and elbows and knees of the continuing reconciliation of all things. It is now.

And it is not yet.

Because in the midst of the lists and calendars and plans and parties and even a dentist appointment or two, we clearly see that the world is not reconciled to God. The world is clearly not at peace with itself. There are wars being fought, right now. There are clean up crews for hurricanes and earthquakes working as we speak. The world is not a kingdom of safety and justice and righteousness.

And yet, here we are, now, knowing that we are so beloved that God took on the flesh of a human so that we would feel that love without any boundaries.

Right now, between the end and the beginning of another year, we have this moment to compile our own lists and our own longings, for the now and not yet.

When did I act as the hands of Christ in the world?
How many moments did I use to reconcile rather than divide?
Can I reach for the not yet?
Can I live, even for a minute, in the moment of Paradise that Jesus promises even the guilty prisoner?
What can I do differently, now and not yet?

Tomorrow I start baking for the holidays. I start mailing holiday cards to people I don’t see very often. I begin rehearsals for the Christmas pageant. Tomorrow is a whirlwind.
Today.
Today is the day I will be in Paradise.