Sermons for the Month
Undercover Agents for a Servant King
DATE: November 21st, 2004
SERVICE: Christ the King Sunday
TEXT: Colossians 1:11-20 and Luke 23:33-43“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN It's arrived again - Christ the King Sunday - the last Sunday of the church year. On this day we ask the question, "What does it mean that Jesus Christ is King?"
Here in the United States we do not have much experience with royalty, but we do have a President and Vice-President, Senators, Congress People, Secretaries of State and of Defense, not to mention all the people in leadership roles beyond the government.
When we consider these leaders we like to say that they are strong or decisive or tough or forceful. We want leaders who will keep us safe and are on our sides and make our country or our business or our school look good.
It's not often that a leader is openly self-deprecating or self-sacrificing because that is not what people want; that's not what it means to be a leader. We celebrate leaders for their victories, not their defeats and for their power not their weaknesses.
So, I was a bit surprised at one of the things I heard when I watched the news program 60 Minutes last Sunday. It was a report on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat following his death. The program was a review of several interviews that correspondent Mike Wallace had done with Arafat.
In one of the early encounters he was asked about the ever-present threat of being assassinated, and if that possibility was ever out of his mind. With great boldness and emotion Arafat responded, "For me, my life is nonsense. The life of my people, the existence of my people is the main and the major concern and aim of my life. My life is nonsense."
His words spoke of self-sacrifice, yet when it came right down to it Arafat refused to risk his life for an agreement that was proposed by Israel's Prime Minister, the best deal that had ever been offered in the quest for peace. After that many said that Arafat became the main obstacle in that quest.
He said his life was nonsense, and yet fears for his life, and probably for his reputation as a man to be reckoned with, kept him from pursuing the greater good.
This should not surprise us because it's not often that we encounter truly sacrificial leaders. That's why the Old Testament prophet Samuel was so opposed to the people of Israel's request for an earthly king. They had rejected God as their king. In I Samuel 9 we read that they want to be like other nations and have someone visible to represent them and to fight their battles for them.
So Samuel warns them that a human king will be power-hungry; he will draft their sons into military service and force their daughters to work for him. The human king, Samuel proclaims, will take the best of their fields, vineyards, orchards and livestock. One day, Samuel says, the people will cry out because of the earthly king.
(As an aside here, let me tell you that we talked about this text in Confirmation Class the day after the election and the young people were quick to note that it's true that people are not satisfied with their earthly leaders, and every four year they "cry out" for change - even when someone is re-elected those who voted for that person often find reason to complain.)
The problem is that we have one view of a leader and God has another, and it is not about power or decisiveness or being tough. There is only one way to truly be a king, and we see that way in Jesus.
Jesus - the one who according to Colossians 1:19 contains the totality of divine essence and power, in whom all the attributes of God are disclosed, is the model for leadership.
And what do we see in him? What is so clearly described in today's Gospel lesson? It's hard to grasp because the model of leadership, Jesus, is humiliated, helpless, suffering, abused, sneered at and taunted. If you saw the movie "The Passion of Christ" last spring then you have a clear picture of his pain and degradation in your minds. God on a cross - where is the power in that?
The power comes in the sacrifice. It is seen in forgiveness offered to his persecutors, to a criminal dying with him and to us - acts of pure grace. The power wells up at the resurrection three days later when death, the ultimate enemy of humanity, is defeated. And the power continues in his followers who are empowered to serve and to give.
We follow Christ the Servant King. He is, says C.S. Lewis, the rightful king who is in disguise and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. (Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, pg. 51) The sabotage is this - we change the world by serving the world, by laying down our lives instead of clamoring for power and control. This is what Jesus did.
Our task in life is to become little Christs. Can you imagine? It means that we give up our natural selves in order to become a new self in Jesus Christ who leads by example. Once again let me quote from that great Christian classic Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. He writes:
"…the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view; letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from your natural fussing and fretting; coming in out of the wind.
We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because we are now letting Him work at the right part of us. It is the difference between paint, which merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain, which soaks right through." (Mere Christianity, pg. 170)
We live in a world that values temporal victories, power, forcefulness, but we follow a King who tells us that the last will be first and those who lose their lives will save them. Our king specializes in suffering and sacrifice for the greater good. And as we allow his words, his grace, his loving power to seep into us we will become undercover agents who sabotage the power centers with a calm message of forgiveness and peace.
Christ is the King, he is our king and as we follow him the words of our first hymn will come to pass, "So shall the Church at last be one; so shall God's will on earth be done; new lamps be lit, new tasks begun" … done by us, the spies of the true King.
AMEN