"Alpha and Omega" Sermon for Christ the King, 25 November 2018
Sermon for Christ the King Sunday
25 November 2018
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer,
Jerusalem
The Rev. Carrie Ballenger Smith
Grace and peace to you from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Kate Bowler
is a scholar and professor of religion who teaches in the Divinity School at
Duke University. At age 35, when she had a 2-year old son, she was diagnosed
with stage IV colon cancer. If you’re looking for something excellent to curl
up and read during these upcoming cold months, I can’t recommend highly enough
her book called “Everything Happens for a Reason: And other lies I’ve loved.” She
writes frankly and beautifully about what it’s like when suddenly you realize you
are not in control, that humans are not limitless, and that life is a privilege,
not a reward for somehow getting it all right.
It’s been a
few years since that diagnosis, and Dr. Bowler is still living with cancer and
still sharing about it. The other day I listened to season 2 of her podcast,
also called “Everything Happens”, in which she interviews others who have faced
an event that changes everything. This week she talked with a woman named Emily
McDowell, who started a greeting card company after she herself was diagnosed
with cancer at a young age.
(Emily’s
greeting card company is unlike any other, by the way. Her cards don’t put a
tidy, happy bow on top of terrible things. Instead of “Get well soon”, her
cards say things like “When life gives you lemons – I promise I won’t send you
that article I read about how lemons cure cancer.”)
Emily started
this company because so many terrible things were said to her in the wake of
her diagnosis—and even years after! She has been in remission for quite a while
now, but people today will ask her, “So….is cancer going to be the thing that
kills you?” to which she often responds “Well I don’t know yet. Stay tuned for
Season 2!”
The people
who say such awkward things—and I’m certain most of us here have either been that
person, or have been the one on the receiving end—are asking because they want to
know: What’s the end of your story? (and, lying just behind that question, is
another one: What’s the end of my story?)
Of course, this
is the ultimate question, the one humanity has been asking since the beginning
of time. But I feel it’s gotten tougher to deal with in recent years. In an age
when we can binge-watch an entire series on Netflix over a weekend, or when we
can watch a movie and, if it gets boring, at the same time Google the ending on
your phone (maybe I’m the only one who does this?) not knowing the end is extra
hard for us to handle. How are humans today supposed to deal with a cliffhanger
like a cancer diagnosis? Or the rumors of war? Or pregnancy? Or an election
season? Or…well, life in general?
As a child, I
would often read faster than I could get my hands onto new books. So, imagine
my joy (and my parents’ joy) when I discovered “Choose Your Own Adventure”
books. Are any of you familiar with these? The writing was pretty terrible, but
you would start a chapter, and then every so often would be given a choice to
make: “If you open the door, go to page 15. If you want to leave it closed, go
to page 18.” Oh, I loved these books, because the choices led to different
endings each time. It was like having many books in one! I would read them over
and over, enough that I could manipulate things to get the ending I preferred.
You see, I
wanted to be in control of the ending.
But of
course, we aren’t in control.
As Kate
Bowler puts it, in relation to life after a cancer diagnosis: “Control is a
drug, and we are all hooked.”
If you’re
wondering where this sermon is going this morning, well here it is:
“I am the
Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come,
the Almighty.
In this
morning’s text from Revelation, John of Patmos shares the beginning of his spectacular
vision, in which it is revealed that the Lord God, whom we have come to know
through the person of Jesus Christ, is the Alpha and the Omega, both the beginning
and the end.
And that
means that this life is not exactly like “choose your own adventure”. Oh, we will
have adventures! We will have adventures, for we have immense freedom through
Christ Jesus—freedom from the wages of sin and death, but also freedom to
live, to love, to serve God and neighbor. Our God is not a magic puppet master
in the sky, Alleluia.
But just as in
the beginning was the Word,
And the
Word was with God,
and the
Word was God, (John
1:1)
So also at the end
of the day,
At the end
of the world,
From the
pilot episode to the series finale,
On every last
page,
There is God.
The God of
love is always the end of the story.
Every.
Single. Time.
I know, it’s
hard to trust this sometimes.
Perhaps most
of the time.
It’s hard to
trust that Christ the King of love reigns over all when we see what’s happening
in Yemen, when we see what’s happening to people and the forests in California,
when we see what’s happening in Gaza,
When we see
a loved one struggling with cancer, when we ourselves are struggling, when we’ve
messed it all up,
When we wonder
how all this---how the world, how my world—will end.
But again: “I
am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end” says the Lord God.
I am the
beginning and the end.
Do not be
afraid.
The Kingdom
is near!
I will be
with you to the end of the age.
In the
church today—especially in our particular strain of mainline Protestantism—we chiefly
think of Christian discipleship as being about what we do and how we live in
the here and now. We teach and preach and practice all the hard things Jesus
taught, and try to encourage one another that being a Christian is about more
than believing the right things. It’s about living the faith. And this is
right and good! We should indeed forgive, and show mercy, and feed the
poor, and stand with the oppressed, and love our enemies, and seek to follow in
the footsteps of Jesus our brother—today.
And…(not
but, and…) there is another component of discipleship, and that is how we deal
with the question of tomorrow.
Perhaps you don’t
really believe that life is like a “Choose your own adventure” book. But I
think many of us have absorbed the message that if we just do more, eat better,
pray harder, wake up earlier, and color within the lines, we can control tomorrow.
That we can, by the power of our positivity, will tomorrow to be the way
we hope it to be.
We may even
believe we, by our own power, can save the world.
But dear
people: Today, on Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the church year,
we gather to affirm Christ alone, not Caesar, as king of our lives. The empire
is not king. The patriarchy is not king. White supremacism is not king. The
military industrial complex is not king. The Occupation is not king. Amen!
On Christ
the King Sunday we join our voices with the faithful of all times and places in
demanding that every other false dictator step off the throne, take off the
crown, and leave us be. Amen!
But you know
what? You also are not king.
Neither your
hard work for the sake of the kingdom, nor your brokenness and falling short
of the kingdom, have any bearing on the ultimate outcome of this beautiful
dance called Creation.
God’s got
that.
The Lord
God, Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, Creator of the universe, is the one
who puts the period at the end of every sentence.
And so, by
our baptisms, disciples are called not only to join in the holy work of co-creating
the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven,
We are also
called to cultivate a holy trust that the God who was, and who is, and who
is to come,
Will never
let us go,
Will never let
the story of the world end in fascism,
Or in bombs,
Or in bullets,
Or at the hands
of any of the other false monarchs who periodically rise up and take an earthly
throne.
Believe me,
I know it’s very hard some days to let go of control, or the illusion of
control, and to trust that Christ is truly coming soon—of his own accord.
It can be
hard to trust that, as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “the arc of the
moral universe is long, but it always bends toward justice.”
It can even seem
foolish to believe the bold statement that often appears on the separation
wall: “Love wins.”
And yet, the
abundant hope that the Lord God Almighty is at the end of the story, no matter
what happens in the messy middle, is what makes it possible for followers of Jesus
to follow in his footsteps today:
To live boldly,
to speak bravely, to love extravagantly, without fear.
I resonated
so much with a passage in Kate Bowler’s book, where she relates that after her cancer
diagnosis, a good friend encouraged her: “Don’t skip to the end.”
Don’t skip
to the end: Don’t worry about the last page of the book!
That’s not
easy.
So where do
we find the hope and the courage to do that? To live in the here and now, to
make the best decisions we can, to follow Jesus as best we can…and let God handle
the rest?
Revelation 1
verse 7, at the end of today’s reading, says:
“LOOK! He
is coming with the clouds. Every eye will see him.”
Friends, where
do you see Christ coming near in your life?
Where do you
find the blessed assurance that your story, too, will end in love?
Maybe it’s in
the socks and chocolate a friend brings when you’re recovering from surgery.
Maybe it’s in
the eyes of your new grandchild.
Maybe it’s
in the joy and thrill of new love.
Maybe it’s
in the persistence and resistance of our Palestinian neighbors, who refuse to
let a wall be the end of their story.
Or maybe it’s
in the old, old story,
the story of
the God who was: the one who sustained
your ancestors and has never failed us yet,
in the story
of the God who is: Christ, risen indeed,
And in the story
of the God who is to come:
The One at
the end of your story,
The One whose
perfect peace keeps your heart and mind in Christ Jesus today and every day.
Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment