The King and the Kingdom: The Least of These and Love (Matthew 25:31-46)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on October 29, 2017, Proper 25)

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A Parable Retold

Once upon a time, there lived a great king whose kingdom spread all over the world.  He boasted the largest army history had known.  He triumphed in battle after battle, conquering many lands and peoples.  Ruling his growing kingdom with an iron fist, he left no challenge unpunished.  It was said that he had eyes and ears in every corner of his kingdom.  Not only was he all-powerful.  He was also all-knowing.  Some people had begun to whisper that perhaps he was even divine. 

One night, the king had a disturbing dream.  He was making a great tour through his kingdom.  But no one paid him any attention.  They did not cheer for him, bow down to him, or offer any gifts of tribute.  Then the king heard a small, weak voice, although he could not see who was speaking.  The voice said: “They live for another king now.”  The king looked frantically around him but saw no rival.  Who was this other king?

The next morning, the king woke in an anxious sweat.  Immediately he gathered his advisors—his eyes and ears—and instructed them to be on the lookout for any rivals.  Month after month they looked but had nothing to report.  There were no castles as big as his, no armies that could challenge his, no lords who would not pay tribute.  There was no rival king.

Far away from all this royal commotion, a foreign peasant, gaunt and ragged, crossed the border and entered the kingdom.  She knocked at the first house she saw.  The occupants of the home were frightened.  They knew the law against immigrants.  But they also saw that this stranger was in need.  So they took her in for the night.  The next day, the farmers next door stopped by and met the woman.  Their hearts too were moved by her need, so they shared from their harvest and had a great feast.  Soon enough, the authorities heard about this breach of the law, and they imprisoned the stranger.  But even then, her hosts and their neighbors visited her daily, doing all they could to ensure her needs were met.

All of this, of course, was not even a blip on the king’s radar.  He and his advisors were keeping their eyes peeled for the power of the hand.  Not the power of the heart.  Little did they know, that day by day this incident was being replayed all across the kingdom.  People were no longer living simply by the rule of law.  They were living according to a deeper call.  A knock on the door.  A hungry mouth.  A ragged body.  A helpless stranger.  The lack of others ruled their hearts more than the law of the king did.

The king never detected the revolution that would one day overturn his kingdom.  He never saw coming his new rival.  He was looking for Power.  But what was coming, was Love.

A Revolution

I’ve taken great liberties with today’s scripture.  So before I say any more, let me invite you to revisit it later: Matthew 25:31-46.  Perhaps your interpretation will render the story very different from the one I’ve shared.

What captures my imagination in today’s parable, is the imagery that Jesus uses of a king and a kingdom.  Because when I think of a king, I think of castles and armies and great power.  When I think of a kingdom, I think of a dominion that has borders and grows by conquest.

But Jesus overturns these images of kings and kingdoms.  His parable paints a revolution: the king is not prominent and powerful but poor and powerless; the kingdom comes not by way of battles but by way of beggars.  It is not a story of strength but rather a story of weakness.

And that’s just the point.  Christ reigns not through greatness but through the least of these, who are calling us to love.

Our King Needs Us

As our Visioning Team has shared, and as our youth have illustrated so well, Gayton Road feels called to share the life of faith around tables, in small groups, and with the needful.  Over the last four weeks, we’ve explored our calling toward tables and small groups.  Today, we reflect on our calling toward the needful.  If tables suggest where we often find God’s love, and small groups how we often share God’s love, then the needful suggest with whom love often happens.

In today’s parable, Jesus portrays a king whose kingdom is not established in power but is rather born in the care that we share for others.  It’s a picture much like the story that we will celebrate in a month’s time, in Advent and Christmas, when Christ the king comes not in conquest but in a lowly birth.  Our king rules not by hand but by the heart.  Our king does not stand strong and sovereign over us.  Our king needs us.

I’ve invited a couple of folks today to share their experience of encountering Christ in the needful, or as Jesus puts it, “the least of these.”  As they share, I’d invite you to continue reflecting on the revolution of the kingdom.  Do you believe in a kingdom that comes by power or by love?  Does your king come conquering or calling out in need?  In whom have you met our king?  Where have you seen our king’s kingdom? 

Prayer

Powerless Christ,

Our king so often unseen—

Overturn our world

Through your lack and your need.

Call us and invite us,

Disturb us and draw us

To love,

That your kingdom would be

On earth as it is in heaven.  Amen.

Sharing the Mundane (Acts 2:42-47)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on October 22, 2017, Proper 24)

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A Meal—And So Much More

Some of you may have already heard or read this story.  Over a month ago, Jeff and Rebecca helped Lu move a few things from her house to the church for the yard sale.  Then, just a couple Sundays ago, Lu found herself in the position to return the help.  After we had broken bread and shared a meal at Deep Run Park, Jeff needed a ride home.  He and Rebecca had come together, but she had to leave the park early to go to work, leaving Jeff without a car.

Lu offered to give Jeff a ride.  The way she tells it, this was just to return the favor.  But I know better.  I know that the ride that Lu offered was not part of some exchange.  It was a gift.  Just as Jeff and Rebecca had done a month before, Lu was simply sharing what she could share in a moment of need.  She would have done what she did whether or not there was a favor to return.

In any case, Jeff got in Lu’s Prius and they turned onto Ridgefield, headed home.  Almost immediately, though, the car had what Lu called “a bout of hiccups”: “the right rear tire was bouncing and veering off.”  Now, if you know Lu, you know she’s a fighter and not to be deterred by a little bump here or there.  It’s my understanding that she had planned to keep driving.  Lucky for her that Jeff was in the car, because his mechanical sixth-sense told him that the tire was about to blow.  I don’t know how Jeff convinced Lu of this, but somehow he did, and just after they crossed Pump Road, they turned into a parking lot.

Jeff immediately got to work.  He found the little temporary tire and began to install it.  Just then, a truck pulled into the parking lot.  Lu was fearing the worst—that it would be someone telling them they could not park here—but in fact it was a stranger who had worked for AAA for years and wanted to offer his help.  He could tell that the temporary tire was low on air, so he ran it down to the nearest station to refill it.  Some time later the faulty tire was replaced, and Lu and Jeff completed their journey down Ridgefield to Jeff’s home. 

What a Sunday for Jeff and Lu!  Little did they know what they were getting into when they came to church.  A meal, yes—but so much more.

Pentecost: The Modern Church Poster Child?

In the verses that precede today’s scripture, we have the roar and the rumble of Pentecost, when the Spirit of God rushes upon the crowd of Christ-followers and they make quite a scene, speaking in all sorts of languages and declaring the glory of God.  Peter then raises his voice and gives a rousing, revival-worthy sermon, and three thousand people are baptized, committing their lives to the way of Christ.

I’ll be honest.  Hearing about Pentecost Sunday when the church was born, reminds me a little bit of the glitz and glam of the contemporary religious scene, of mega-churches and feel-good conferences, where the volume is turned up and everyone leaves on a high.  In our modern world, where many churches promise spectacle and self-gain, Pentecost can be distorted into the perfect piece of propaganda.  Here’s what church is.  Here’s what Sunday is: a great, spirited performance and everyone leaves happy.

The Commonness of Church

But in scripture, the story does not end with Pentecost.  After the spectacle, the real life of the church begins.  That’s what we see in today’s passage.  Church is more than a single event.  Sunday is more than a show.  It’s no coincidence that the first followers of Christ were often called members of “the Way.”  They were identified not by a single event of salvation, but rather by their commitment to a way of life. 

What did that way look like?  Today’s scripture says that the early Christ-followers were committed to koinonia, a Greek work that our Bible translates as “fellowship.”  But koinonia is a much richer word than “fellowship” would suggest.  Some people propose the alternative translation “community” or “communion,” but I believe a better translation would be “commonness.”  The word koinonia comes from the Greek word, koinos, which means something like “common.”  It contains both senses of that word: “common” as something that is shared in common, and “common” as something that is mundane, or commonplace. 

So when the early Christ-followers committed themselves to koinonia, or commonness, they were committing themselves to sharing the mundane.  And that’s exactly what we see in today’s scripture.  We see them daily breaking bread together, gathering in their homes together, praying together, joining their resources together.  Come to think of it, this is the same stuff Jesus did.

Everyday, the early Christ-followers shared the mundane parts of their lives together: food, words, things, homes.  Church wasn’t a one-time event in the week.  It was a way of life.  Scholars speculate that at this stage in church history, Christ-followers would not have distinguished between the Lord’s Supper and “just a meal”: every meal together was eaten in remembrance and anticipation of the Lord.[1]  Likewise giving was not an offering enclosed in an envelope; it was what they did whenever someone was in need.

All this to say: long before the long robes arrived on the scene, installing their pulpits and ordaining their ministers and prescribing the elements of worship, the church was already alive and well.  Not in a spectacular way, but rather in a very common, everyday way—in the way of Jesus.  The church committed itself to koinonia, “commonness.”  The church shared the mundane.

When Does Church End?  Begin?

I think back to two weeks ago.  Like the early church, we broke bread together at Deep Run.  And a little bit later, we left.  Was that the end of church?  Was that the conclusion to Sunday?

It wasn’t for Lu and Jeff.  For Lu and Jeff, I’d dare say, church was just getting started.  They were about to share a rather mundane, headache-inducing experience together.  Lu would share her car.  Jeff would share his mechanical know-how.  A stranger would share his truck. 

Koinonia.  Commonness.  The church shares the mundane.  After the sound system is unplugged and the spectators leave satisfied, that’s when church really begins. 

Common and Sacred

A little bit later today, we will enter into this koinonia, this commonness, as we break bread together.  Traditionally we take communion all together.  This is a good and meaningful practice.  It represents our oneness as a church, our integrity with the body of Christ.  In my experience, though, there are occasionally side effects.  At some larger churches, communion has felt to me like a spectator sport, where I watch from my seat in the audience as the clergy perform.  Or sometimes it has felt like simply another shopping transaction in my week, a private little pick-me-up not unlike a Starbucks coffee.  Or sometimes it has felt like nothing at all.

As our Visioning Team learned this last year, Gayton Road feels called to share the life of faith in small groups, where two or three are gathered—and with good reason.  The blessing of small groups is that they encourage koinonia, commonness, sharing the mundane.

I remember the first time I took communion with only a handful of Christ-followers.  We sat in a small circle.  We read, prayed, and blessed the bread and cup together.  Our hands touched as we broke the bread for each other.  We looked into each other’s eyes as we served each other the cup.  These were the most common of elements and most common of human interactions.  And yet here, bread and cup and touch and gaze were more than throwaway gestures.  Here they became the body of Christ.  I trembled.  In that circle, I felt a holiness that I had not often felt in a sanctuary, as I received and shared the love of Christ in a very bodily, tangible, matter-of-fact way.  How common that experience was—and yet how sacred!

Today we sit in small groups of six or seven.  At communion, each small group will be invited to share the bread and the cup and the prayers together.  Like the early followers of Christ, we will share the mundane: bread, words, hands.  It may feel unremarkable.  I don’t know, it might even feel tedious—not unlike changing a tire!  That’s okay.  In fact, that may be a good thing.  The church is not a spectacle or a gathering for self-gain.  If today’s scripture is any indication, the church is much more profound than that—so profound, in fact, that it shares and sanctifies even the most mundane.

Prayer

Common God,

Shared among all

In the mundane parts of life:

Bread, prayers, tires, trucks—

Draw us out of our self-seeking

Into the sacred commonness

Of life together,

Where we are embraced

By your love.  Amen.

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[1] William H. Willimon, Acts (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 41.

In Heaven as It Is on Earth (Matthew 18:18-20)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on October 15, 2017, Proper 23)

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Whatever You Do on Earth Will Be Done in Heaven

Every week we pray with Jesus: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  We are praying, effectively, for heaven on earth.

In today’s short passage, there’s a curious reversal in Jesus’ words.  Rather than talking about the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, Jesus talks about life in heaven as it is on earth.  “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”  Basically, whatever you do on earth will be done in heaven.  In other words, Jesus isn’t talking about heaven coming to earth.  He’s suggesting the opposite here: that life on earth will somehow become life in heaven. 

This is a striking counterpoint, then, to the Lord’s prayer.  If the Lord’s prayer had misled us into thinking that God would be heaven’s chauffeur and drive heaven down to our doorstep, Jesus’ words here remind us that we have a radical responsibility.  Heaven can come to earth, but not without our willing hearts.  Not without us binding or holding onto what is good, and not without us loosing or letting go of what is hurtful.

The Little Things Live On

Jesus’ words in today’s passage emerge from a conversation about personal relationships.  So when he says, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and likewise whatever you loose,” I think what he’s really saying is that heaven, if it is ever to happen, will begin in our personal relationships.  The kingdom of God will not come as a great spectacle.  It will come in the little things.  For the little things live on—in heaven as they were on earth.

If you’ve read or seen A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, perhaps you remember the ghost of Jacob Marley, who bears a heavy chain and warns Scrooge: “I wear the chain I forged in life.  I made it link by link…and of my own free will I wore it.”  Marley is bound beyond as he was bound on earth.

But we can bind and be bound by other things too.  My memories of living in Sheffield visit me most frequently at breakfast time.  In the little terraced house where I lived, our home full of graduate students was always abuzz in the morning.  There would be a common pot of coffee brewing, started by whoever got up the earliest.  If I’d made biscuits, they’d be in the oven, filling the kitchen with the smell of warm butter.  My housemate Adriana often began her day with a smoke; sometimes I’d take a cup of coffee out on the back steps and accompany her, and we’d share our hopes for the day or our speculations on life…or simply our silence.

This is all to say, those mornings in Sheffield have an afterlife.  The little deeds we’ve done are gone, but they also live on.  Our terraced house was not always the scene of peace and harmony; there were differences and arguments from time to time.  But for the most part, we let those go.  Our forgiveness “loosed” those things on earth, and now, I trust, they have no hold on us in heaven.  But the love that bound and held us together here on earth—still binds and holds us together now, as we move toward heaven.

An Infinitely Charged and Sacred Space

In telling that story, I’ve played it safe.  You and I both have histories that are not so peaceful and easy.  We have histories that still hurt, in which we are still “bound,” which we still hold onto.

Those hurtful histories prove Jesus’ point as much as the harmonious ones do.  Namely, that our relationships are an infinitely charged and sacred space.  They have the capacity to bless us with heaven, but also to harm us indefinitely.  What we hold onto and let go of now, is what will hold onto us or not for longer than we can know.

As our Visioning Team met this last year, we shared stories of our most meaningful experiences at Gayton Road.  We’ve already heard about how significant the table has been—as the place where we encounter our Lord in feasting and friendship, in sharing and self-giving, as the place where we receive and participate in God’s love, which is stronger even than death.  Another story shared frequently in the Visioning Team’s meetings, was the memory of small group gatherings.  These memories were good ones.  Having heard Jesus’ words today, I would even go so far as to say that these small groups are where the kingdom happened, where life on earth became in fact life in heaven.  As we hear some of these stories now, I would invite us all to reflect on our own experience of small gatherings, both here at church and elsewhere.  Where have we experienced small groups as sacred, as charged with holy possibility? 

In the Face of Another

As we’ve just heard from Amanda and John, in the small gatherings here at Gayton Road, there is a sacred potential and holy responsibility.  It goes far beyond the content of these groups—whether that’s songs or Bible study.  It has to do, rather, with a way of life, a way of relating to each other, a way of forgiving bad notes and being bound in love and care.  When at these gatherings we hold onto what is good and let go of what is hurtful, we welcome the kingdom.  Or as Jesus puts it, where two or three gather in his name—which is to say, in the spirit of his binding love and his loosing forgiveness—Jesus himself is there. 

Our small groups are saturated with holy possibility.  In the face of another, we receive an invitation to love and forgive, a call to bind our hearts together and to let go of hurt.  So that one day it will be in heaven as it is on earth. 

Prayer

Living Christ,

Who entrusts us

With the kingdom responsibility

Of love and forgiveness,

Binding and loosing:

Gather with us

In our small groups,

And inspire us

To the little deeds

That live on

In heaven.  Amen.

He Came Eating and Drinking (Luke 7:34)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on October 1, 2017, Proper 21)

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More Than a Man Eating and Drinking,

More Than a Table

If you were playing hide-and-seek with Jesus, and you were it, where would begin looking?  We might be tempted to begin by looking for Jesus in the Temple, as his parents did when he was a child.  Or perhaps we might look for him in the workshop, for it’s said that his family were carpenters.  But if the gospels are any indication, we would have better luck searching somewhere else.  We would do better to begin with the local diner. 

It’s a striking fact: in the gospels, we find Jesus at the table much more often than at the Temple.

So often is he found at the table, in fact, that he becomes known as “a drunkard and a glutton” (Luke 7:34).  It’s understandable, perhaps, how Jesus receives this reputation, but it’s rather unfortunate too.  Jesus is always at the table, yes—but he’s doing much more than eating and drinking.  If all that we see is a drunkard and a glutton, then we’ve really missed out.

Perhaps Jesus explains it best himself.  In the gospels, there are two ways that Jesus describes his own life.  On one occasion, he owns up to the obvious: “The Son of Man,” he says, “came eating and drinking” (Luke 7:34).  I imagine Jesus saying this in the same way that we might confess to an undeniable charge.  “Alright, you’ve got me.  I’m always at the table, eating and drinking.  There, I’ve said it!”

But on another occasion, Jesus gives us a glimpse into what’s really going on in all the eating and drinking.  There is more at the table than meets the eye.  At the spiritual heart of all that Jesus does is this: “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God,” he says.  “For this purpose I was sent” (Luke 4:43).

In other words, the Jesus who comes “eating and drinking” is the same Jesus who is always “proclaim[ing] the good news of the kingdom of God.”  The table is not just a mess of food and drink.  The table is how Jesus shows us the kingdom of God.  For Jesus, the table becomes a picture of the kingdom.  A doorway into the kingdom.  A celebration consummating the kingdom.

What the Kingdom Looks Like

What does the kingdom of God look like?  While the world dreams of pearly gates and streets of gold, power and prestige beyond measure, Jesus simply sets a table.  “Here,” he seems to say, “Let me show you what the kingdom really looks like.”

At the table, Jesus brings down the powerful and lifts up the lowly, giving pride of place to the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame (Luke 14:12-14).  At the table, Jesus welcomes the unwelcome: he eats with tax collectors and sinners (Luke 7:34).  At the table, Jesus makes friends (Luke 7:34).  At the table, Jesus makes life more abundant, turning water into wine (John 2:1-10).  At the table, Jesus tells stories, stories that shatter our assumptions and presumption and open up new life (cf. Luke 7:36-50, 14:15-24).  At the table, Jesus meets needs, giving bread to the hungry (Luke 9:10-17).  At the table, Jesus heals the sick  (Luke 14:1-6).  At the table, Jesus sees ours tears and shows us forgiveness (Luke 7:36-50).  At the table, Jesus serves us and cares for us—even washes our feet (John 13:1-17).  At the table, Jesus shares bread and cup as reminders of his undying love, as a promise that he will always be with us (Luke 22:14-20). 

The table is so much a part of who Jesus is, that even when he’s not there, he cannot help talking about it.  It spills into his thoughts and his dreams, his parables and his conversations.  When he speaks, it’s about weddings and feasts (Luke 5:34-35; 14:7-11), banquets and celebrations (Luke 15:11-32), wineskins and vineyards (Luke 5:36-38; 13:6-8; 20:9-19; Matt 20:1-16; 21:28-32, 33-45), seeds and gardens (Matt 13:24-30; Luke 8:4-8; 13:6-9, 18-19), yeast and bread and water and fruit (Luke 13:20-21; John 4:7-15; 6:22-59; 7:37-39). 

Jesus is never far from the table.  And the table, I must believe, is never far from the kingdom of God.

Stories of the Table,

Stories of the Kingdom

Over the last year, as our Visioning Team met together and shared stories and experiences, the table came up again and again.  In retrospect, that’s no surprise.  I have a hunch, a suspicion, that the tables here at Gayton Road are much more than simply tables, just as Jesus was much more than a man eating and drinking.  I have an inkling that the table is, in fact, where we have caught a glimpse of the kingdom of God, perhaps even stepped foot inside the kingdom of God.

As we hear some of these stories now, I invite you to reflect on your own experience of the table.  Not just the communion table here in the sanctuary, but the tables in the fellowship hall, and the tables at your home, and the tables across the world at which you have sat with friends and strangers.  Have these tables ever been more than just tables, more than just a mess of food and drink?  Have you ever caught a glimpse of the kingdom at one of them?  When?  Where?  How? 

What did it look like?

Prayer

Christ who came eating and drinking,

Whose kingdom draws wondrously near

In tables

Where gifts of food and drink are prepared and shared,

Where we are filled with gratitude,

Where strangers are welcomed,

Where nobodies become somebody,

Where friendships are made,

Where healing and forgiveness and care give us new life,

Where your love is blessed, broken, and shared:

Be our holy guest today, at this table,

And in the days to come, at tables near and far.

Your kingdom come, your will be done.  Amen.