The Defiance of Christ the King

First Lutheran Church, Detroit Lakes, MN

Pentecost 25 – Christ the King | 11.22.2020 | Matthew 25:31-46

Today, on this final Sunday worship of the church year we conclude once and for all that Christ is King. Christ the King Sunday.

Now, this might seem like an obvious, or not very meaningful, or cliché claim, but I want to make clear that to claim Christ as King is perhaps the most radical and powerful claim we can make for our everyday lives.

On a macro scale, saying that Christ is King means that NOTHING gets more of our allegiance or loyalty than Jesus – not the United States, not the American Dream, not the Republican Party, not the Democratic Party, not Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, not capitalism, not any economic theory, not any global empire, not any celebrity, not any cultural trend, not any cultural principle gets more of our allegiance or loyalty than Jesus if we are to claim Christ is King.

And on a more micro scale or personal scale, to say that Christ is King means that nothing gets to claim rule over us or define us no matter how hard these things try – not our insecurities, not any workplace or schoolyard bully, not our financial situation, not the pain people have caused us, not our past, not our shame, not our anxieties, not our diseases, not our afflictions, not even death.

All these things pretend to claim that we belong to them, that we belong to our shame, that we belong to pain and trauma, that our worth is tied to what we produce or consume, that we ought not love or appreciate ourselves, or that we belong to the bad things that are happening around us, but defiant of all these voices, today we proclaim to each other that, NO, none of these things rule over us; in fact, all of these things are dethroned once and for all when we claim that CHRIST IS KING!

So, again, we need to remember how radical it is to proclaim that Christ is King in and over our lives. In a world that profits off of our self-doubt and insecurity, in a world that uses and exploits human beings for power, and in bodies that carry too much pain, too much guilt, and too much shame…to say that Christ is King is an outright act of rebellion against all these forces – a rebellious battle cry of the King who defines you and reigns with this promise: YOU ARE LOVABLE AND LOVED. YOU ARE FORGIVEN AND SET FREE. FOREVER.

That is the promise for us for each and every day of our lives.

Christ is King.

Now, my friends, changing gears a little bit here based on our Gospel of Matthew today, keep an eye out for where our King shows up in our lives. Not only is our King unique in the way that he shares power and rules with mercy, but he is unique in where he decides to dwell.

He does not dwell on some immaculate throne, he will not be found in the halls of worldly power and might, he will not show up with well-armored armies, he does not reside atop some mystical mountain, and he will not be accessed, as one theologian writes, once some “spiritual journey” is completed.[1]

As Jesus says here in our passage in Matthew, he will show up in our neighbor. He will show up in the thirsty, the hungry, the stranger who is wandering, the unclothed, “in the least of” our sisters and brothers (Matthew 25:40).

The philosopher, Peter Rollins, writes, Jesus the King is found:

…in the outstretched hand of a hungry stranger, in the flesh of a tortured body, in the figure of the thirsty, the homeless, the imprisoned…God is not encountered in the highest being in the chain of beings but rather in the lowest and most humble of things.[2]

In other words, Christ the King is not only a proclamation of our own royalty in Christ Jesus, but is also about seeing the royalty in our neighbor, in whom our King tells us he dwells.

Therefore, where we serve our neighbor, we serve our King. Where we treat the vulnerable as royalty, we acknowledge the royalty of Jesus who exists in their very bodies.

This inherently implies our responsibility for our neighbor, especially the suffering…AND, it is powerfully good news. That God exists in real human being means thatGod is not inaccessible. God is not far off. God is not ‘out there’ or ‘up there.’ He’s not Zeus atop Mt. Olympus. He’s not at the end of the journey, or the spiritual obstacle course. Choosing to make his grand palace in the flesh of humanity, OUR KING IS HERE!

This is the dynamic proclamation of Christ the King Sunday. Christ is King, and therefore all other powers are dethroned, you are claimed by nothing else other than Jesus and his love. And our King dwells neither in the halls of power and prosperity, nor at the end of some rainbow…He is here. In his Word. In the Sacrament. In you and me, and, as that same theologian writes, he is in the “actual, physical bodies and circumstances,” of our neighbor.[3]

My friends, Christ is King…which means you are royalty, and your neighbor is royalty…now, and forever.

Amen.

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     [1] David Lose, “Christ the King A: The Third Sacrament,” In the Meantime, http://www.davidlose.net/2020/11/christ-the-king-a-the-third-sacrament/.

     [2] Peter Rollins, The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2009), 142.

     [3] David Lose, “Christ the King A: The Third Sacrament,” In the Meantime, http://www.davidlose.net/2020/11/christ-the-king-a-the-third-sacrament/.

When God Gets Angry

First Lutheran Church | Detroit Lakes, MN

Pentecost 23 | 11.08.2020 | Amos 5:18-24

²¹ I hate, I despise your festivals,
   and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

Amos 5:21

That is God speaking through the prophet, Amos, and God is angry.

The context for Amos was a fractured kingdom of Israel with a lot of disparities. It was not only a time of political turmoil but also one where the wealthiest in the kingdom were mistreating, neglecting, and taking advantage of the poor.

…And God is irate.

That was just a snapshot of God’s anger in our reading today, and for good measure, here’s from earlier in the very same chapter:

⁷ Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood…
¹¹ …because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain,
you have built houses of hewn stone[!],
   but you shall not live in them;
you have planted pleasant vineyards,
   but you shall not drink [your] wine.
¹² For I know how many are your transgressions,
   and how great are your sins—
you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe,
   and push aside the needy…

God is fuming.

Briefly, on God getting angry: sometimes I hear fellow Christians say, I don’t like the OT God…that God is too angry for me. First of all, the NT God and the OT God are the same. Remember, Jesus’ Bible was the OT. So, let’s get that straight.

Secondly, on our discomfort around an angry God: The fact that God gets angry can be a terrifying prospect, but we shouldn’t sugarcoat or ignore these parts of Scripture. Sure, we might ask: what kind of god is that spastic and temperamental? How is that a loving and merciful and trustworthy god?

Well, think about it this way: what kind of god would never get angry? What kind of god would be unmoved when the poor are fleeced and oppressed, neglected, and kept in poverty? What kind of god would lack this passion?

Think of it in terms of parenting: what kind of parent would one be if they didn’t ever get angry with their children, especially when one beats on or schemes against the other? What kind of parent would one be if they never called out their child’s cheating or bullying at school?

A god that doesn’t get angry is a god who doesn’t care, and a god who doesn’t care, doesn’t fully love.

God’s anger isn’t arbitrary. It’s almost always directed at when God’s people hurt each other.

So, although sometimes uncomfortable, whenever we see or experience in Scripture God getting angry we need to remember that divine anger is a sign that God, as an OT professor once lectured, is “passionate” about our existence, and what happens with it.[1]

And today’s text from Amos is an example of that divine anger. The poor were being neglected and actively abused! And it was not only that the people were doing that, but they were simultaneously patting themselves on the back for what great worship they were putting on—great music, big festivals, pious prayers—and through Amos, God lit them up, basically saying: Oh so you’ve got time and energy for worship, but not the poor?

To quote Amos again directly:

²¹ I hate, I despise your festivals,
   and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
…
²³ Take away from me the noise of your songs;
   I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

 ²⁴ But let justice roll down like waters,
   and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

As my OT professor would say, there’s a reason we don’t use this text on Christmas Eve.

This text is a white-hot indictment: God doesn’t care that much about our worship, nay…God is OFFENDED by our worship, nay…I better quote Amos directly: God HATES our worship, if we’re simultaneously forgetting about the afflicted and doing injury to the poor. Think about that…hates our worship…

We are reminded through Amos that the life of faith is not just about gathering for worship, but is also about showing up for the suffering, and if then God finds the pageantry of worship infuriating.

And you know what?—what a perfect text for Veterans’ Day weekend—because this weekend we’ll see all sorts of “festival” and pageantry honoring our veterans. Every industry will prop up veterans in their commercials, every politician will give lip service to the troops, the NFL will deck out every stadium, cities will fly extra American Flags, and memorials will be held all over the country—and veterans deserve every ounce of this honoring and more. And given what we just heard in Amos, I do wonder how God responds to all of these “festivals…[and] assemblies” when:

…according to Forbes, “At least 20% of the veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan suffer from either major depression or…(PTSD)…” and yet only half of those veterans will receive the necessary treatment services.[2] ONLY HALF!

…when nearly 1 and 4 of people who are homeless are veterans who have served in the armed forces.[3] ONE IN FOUR!

…and when according to the Department of Veteran Affairs, 20 veterans die from suicide every day.[4] TWENTY!

With this data in our face, as a collective, we are honoring our vets with talk, and failing them with our walk… Amos makes me wonder…how God sees this: ²¹ I hate, I despise your festivals…²³ Take away from me the noise of your songs…when the veteran community is suffering like this.

To localize this text even more, as we gather for worship—and we offer good, faithful, beautiful, and necessary worship—let us meanwhile acknowledge that according to US Census data there are nearly 3,800 people in Becker County living in poverty (unable to secure basic needs to live.).[5] At 3,800 people, Becker’s population in poverty would be the second most populous city in the entire county.

As we worship, God’s Word in Amos implores us to remember the suffering among us, and reminds us that we are called to let our just and righteous action flow from us like water. If we don’t, well, we see God’s opinion on that.

And, listen, this isn’t a threat of ‘Do this or else eternal damnation.” This divine anger, again, is a reminder that YOU ARE LOVED! And your neighbor is loved. As God calls us to let our justice flow like water, remember the waters of your baptism in Christ Jesus where your salvation and forgiveness are proclaimed forever.

You got that? Jesus loves you! Even as we fail our suffering neighbor, Jesus loves us and has redeemed us, and his Spirit dwells within us. Now we are to let that love empower us, recreates us, and send us back into the breach of radical service for the suffering.

God’s love is permanent, and that doesn’t mean we’re immune to God’s displeasure.[6] So as our Veterans wander homeless without the care they need, as the population of those in poverty makes up a 10^th of our county, let’s let it sit that God is enraged when we fail to love one another. And let’s let it be proclaimed, that you and I have been redeemed by Jesus and set free, not just to light the lights of worship, but to let our light shine in the darkness of the world’s suffering. Amen.

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     [1] Terence Fretheim, “Theological Reflections on the Wrath of God in the Old Testament,” Horizons in Biblical Theology 24, no. 1 (2002): 7, 17.

     [2] Nicole Fisher, “The Facts that Matter Most this Veterans’ Day,” Pharma & Healthcare, Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicolefisher/2016/11/11/the-most-important-things-to-know-about-veterans-health-this-veterans-day/#4a269846b4d1.

     [3] Ibid.

     [4] Ibid.

     [5] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/beckercountyminnesota.

     [6] Heschel, The Prophets, 39.