God’s Dream

It’s not often that I feel the need to share an entire Sunday morning’s teaching, but this is one of those times, with only a few edits from this morning’s spoken version, including this preamble.

Today, the last Sunday of November, is Reign of Christ Sunday, or Christ the King Sunday. It is seen as the culmination of the church year. Many of us clergy, in the United Church of Canada, at least, have trouble with this day. Christ as King of my heart is acceptable to me, but Christ as King in a colonializing way is not. (For an example of that teaching, have a peek at this.)

Next week is the first Sunday of Advent, when we start thinking about the baby Jesus once again. But here, today, at the end of the liturgical year, we are supposed to be celebrating Christ the King, the King of the Universe, the King of our hearts, the King of Kings. But that is far from what Jesus wanted. Jesus never wanted to sit on a golden throne, crowned with anything but that crown of thorns, which was a joke of the Roman soldiers, and an instrument of torture.

One of my school friends once said that this is the day when we “celebrate the undereducated, blue-collar, nomadic, brown, king of an upside-down kingdom”. Definitely brown. We forget that. We imagine a blonde Mary, and a blue-eyed baby in the manger. But no. Definitely brown.

We can get too enamoured of Jesus the King, sitting in heaven. Religious people through the centuries believed God was “up there” sitting on a cloud. Consequently many people in our society, if they think of God at all, still imagine God to be elsewhere, uninvolved, other than to judge. But Jesus is not that kind of king.

Our Gospel reading today, in Matthew 25, starts out with the Son of Man coming, in his glory, it says, with angels and a throne. And everyone in all the world gathers together to hear what the King has to say.

In this story, Jesus, the King, divides everyone into two groups. He blessed one group, the group that saw the King when he was hungry and thirsty, and fed him. They noticed him when he was a stranger, a refugee, a new person in town, and welcomed him. When they saw him naked and poor, they gave him clothes to wear. They visited him in the hospital, and in prison.

The people could not believe that the King was saying this. When, oh when, was the King EVER hungry or thirsty, or new in town, or naked, or in the hospital or in prison?The answer came back quickly. Whenever they saw ANYONE hungry or thirsty or new in town, or naked or in the hospital or in prison, that person was the King.

God, the Divine, the Source of All, the King above all Kings, was not sitting on a throne in the sky, far off, and remote. God, the Divine, the Source of All, the King above all Kings sits beside you at the doctor’s office, stands in line with you at the Post Office at Christmas, and walks Queen Street with cap in hand asking for a bit of change.

Jesus insisted that every life mattered to God — that we could see Divinity in the face of anyone around us. Those who are hungry… those who are thirsty… those who are lonely… those who don’t have enough… they all matter deeply to God. That is where God is.

These days few people think about coming to church to worship or to learn about the Sacred. As I’ve said on many occasions in the past year or so, more people are seeking God in Nature than in churches. And why is that? Maybe the answer can be found in the words of Isaiah, in chapter 58.

It says it is a message for the people of Israel. Keep that thought in the back of your mind today, but I want you to hear this as a message to Church people, a message to Christendom. We live in a world where Christian nationalist governments say they want to let God rule their countries.

What is happening in the United States is only part of the broader picture. There’s also Russia, Brazil, Hungary, Italy, etc. Before the January 6 attack on the Capitol in Washington, people gathered to pray around a heavy rough hewn cross, hugging Bibles to their chests, and waving “Jesus saves” flags, before marching with their weapons toward the Capitol. A CNN article from last year quotes author Kristin Kobes Du Mez as saying that “White Christian nationalist beliefs have infiltrated the religious mainstream so thoroughly that virtually any conservative Christian pastor who tries to challenge its ideology risks their career.” I am so grateful to be part of the United Church of Canada, about to say what I am saying today.

Christian Nationalism is so strong in the United States that the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, in a recent interview on Fox News, said: “Someone asked me today in the media,… what does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’ I said, well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it — that’s my worldview.” “The danger,” wrote one journalist, “is that Johnson will follow the Bible, and not the Constitution.”

So, back to Isaiah 58, where it says, starting in verse 2, that “day after day, you worship [God] and seem eager to learn his teachings. You act like a nation that wants to do right by obeying his laws. You ask him about justice, and say you enjoy worshiping the Lord. You wonder why the Lord pays no attention when you go without eating and act humble. But on those same days that you give up eating, you think only of yourselves and abuse your workers…. Is this really what he wants on a day of worship?”

Isaiah goes on to say that real worship is setting free those who have been treated unjustly. Real worship is sharing food with hungry people. Real worship even involves inviting the homeless into your own home, and giving your clothes to those in need. “Then your light will shine in the dark; your darkest hour will be like the noonday sun.”

It’s hard, if we look at policies of those Christian Nationalist governments, to find examples of justice, compassion, and care. It’s much easier to imagine a God of vengeance on the throne, than an undereducated, blue-collar, nomadic, brown, king of an upside-down kingdom, ruling those countries.

I don’t want you to think that I am only thinking about governments in what I am saying today. The United Church of Canada emphasizes justice, compassion and care, on the larger scale. But in our smaller churches, when we are afraid that our doors will close, we often spend more time thinking about how to keep the church going and the lights on, than we spend helping the hungry or thirsty, the new in town, the naked, or the people in the hospital or in prison.

If God were making a Christmas list, if Jesus was describing God’s dream for the world, it would not be a wish for full church buildings. It would be a wish for a group of people wanting to change the world through justice and compassion. It would be a wish for a group of people wanting to care for the Earth as well as the poor. It would be a wish for everyone connected with any church to be going out, into the streets and neighbourhoods, making their worship real through justice, and through sharing food, housing, and clothes.

Right now, too many people think that all God wants is for us to obey the laws of the Old Testament. They see a Christianity in the news that is far from what Jesus called for. They see churches that follow tradition behind closed doors, when Jesus wants them to see love, outside, on the streets, and in the neighbourhoods. “Then,” Isaiah said, “your light will shine in the dark.” Then people will see what the Kingdom really is, or should be. That is God’s dream. That is Jesus’ dream. Not church buildings or Sunday School programs, or Christian governments. But love, mercy, justice, kindness, compassion, and care.