Today is Christ the King Sunday. We begin the last week of the Christian year. Today we celebrate Christ as the true king of all creation, who redefines what it means to be human and what it is to be Lord.
I’ve been wondering lately if I could come up with a one-sentence summary of scripture that was more involved than, “God is love.” I can’t really top that one. Not sure if I should even try. If I were to try it would read something like, “How to be God’s faithful people in occupied territory.” Whether it is Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia or Rome scripture is about the forces of empire dictating how to be human, while God’s people struggled to be faithful both on the margins and in the middle of these massive dominions that defined the world. It is largely one long story about being at home in God but out of place in a world that was up to something else. If God’s people got in the way of empire, or didn’t fit into the way of things then there were consequences, and scripture is largely about living with the consequences of not fitting in, of being out of place. The Cross of Christ and the cross that we bare can be considered the consequence of compassion.
Comparisons to empire can be made with our own day, Dwight Eisenhower called it the “military industrial complex”, others have called it “industrial consumerism.” There are many names and ways to describe the globe spanning network of corporations that control so much of the economy, that transcend nations with tremendous influence on politics and all forms of information. It doesn’t really matter. God’s people have lived out of place in every type of economy and every type of government. The challenge has always been to live and serve as God’s people without being controlled or overly influenced by the ideas and ideologies that surround us. More and more I see life and scripture merging into one experience of living with faith where it is only welcomed if it doesn’t get in the way or rub the powerful the wrong way.
Who tells the story for us about what it means to be human?
Advent begins next Sunday the true New Years Day! The Advent season is about the Advent of God’s empire into the world, a kingdom that is different, “not from here” as Jesus says. The Christmas season is about God becoming a refugee in history, claiming it back, and God’s people carry that presence into the world, re-colonizing, reclaiming and restoring. But it is a story that is not defined by power, coercion, fear and control, not like other kingdoms, but rather it is marked by service, humility, kindness, endurance and flagrant stupid crazy hospitality, it endures evil rather than try to solve it.
The Christian story is that the Triune God is incarnate into human history, lived, was crucified by an empire that had co-opted the religious institutions of the day, rose from the dead and will return to set all things right. It is a story that reveals God as the one who endures suffering and evil without becoming yet another tyrant. It is a story about what it means to be human because in the cross we see the fullness of God and the fullness of humanity as the same person, Jesus, who is Lord of all, Christ the King.
This year as we begin to prepare to worship and celebrate the nativity of our Lord, it feels like the war to tell the story about what it means to be human is especially acute. Who will we listen to? How will we be human? How will we have faith that is always out of place?
Keep that Feast.
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