Sunday, November 21, 2010

Text of Sunday Sermon - The Days Are Surely Coming

Jeremiah 23:1-6
The Days Are Surely Coming
James Sledge                                          November 21, 2010 – Christ the King

The other day I was flipping through the hymnal looking at the hymns listed as being for today, Christ the King.  Some of them are pretty well known: “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name!”  “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” “Rejoice, the Lord is King,” to name a few.  Here is the first verse of another one.  “The head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now; a royal diadem adorns the mighty victor’s brow.”
When Jesus began his ministry he said, “The kingdom of God has come near.”  And now, on the last day of the Christian year, we celebrate that despite the powers-that-be trying to stop Jesus, despite their killing Jesus, he sits upon the throne of God’s kingdom, and the day is coming when everyone on earth will see his reign.
Christ is King!  All hail, King Jesus!  In a lot of people’s minds, the Jesus who died on the cross has now morphed into a king of power and might.  Some Christian writers go so far as to say that “the lamb becomes a lion.”  The Jesus who willingly suffered has been transformed into a warrior who will return to earth to set things right, by force if necessary.
Some of those hymns seem to hint at this.  Yes, Jesus suffered once, but now he is clothed in glory.  The crown of thorns has been replaced by a real crown.  The lamb that was slain is now “the mighty victor.”  That sounds a bit more like my image of a king, of God’s messiah.
We Americans don’t have that much direct experience with kings and royalty.  But I think most of us still have a pretty good image of them.  We’ve seen enough movies, read enough stories, and seen royals from other countries.  Think about the images that come to mind when you hear the word king.  Think about the things you associate with kings. 
There’s a king in the Bible who fits my stereotype of a king to a “t.”  It’s Solomon, who built the great Temple in Jerusalem, who was known for his wisdom.  Listen to this description of how Solomon lived.  Solomon's provision for one day was thirty cors of choice flour, and sixty cors of meal  ten fat oxen, and twenty pasture-fed cattle, one hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fatted fowl…  (Solomon) also made a great ivory throne, and overlaid it with the finest gold… Nothing like it was ever made in any kingdom.  All King Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; none were of silver--it was not considered as anything in the days of Solomon…  Solomon gathered together chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem… Solomon’s import of horses was from Egypt and Kue. (1 Kings 4:22ff)  And I suppose I should mention that Solomon also had 700 wives, including a daughter of Pharaoh, and 300 concubines.  Now that’s a King!
So on Christ the King Sunday, perhaps we should picture Jesus like Solomon, only grander.  Except I’m not sure the description of Solomon is all that complimentary.  In the book of Deuteronomy, just before the Israelites cross the Jordan River to enter the Land of Promise, Moses recites God’s law.  The law on kings says, He must not acquire many horses for himself, or return the people to Egypt in order to acquire more horses, since the LORD has said to you, "You must never return that way again."  And he must not acquire many wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; also silver and gold he must not acquire in great quantity for himself.  When he has taken the throne of his kingdom, he shall have a copy of this law written for him in the presence of the levitical priests.  It shall remain with him and he shall read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, diligently observing all the words of this law and these statutes, neither exalting himself above other members of the community nor turning aside from the commandment. (Deut. 17:16-20)
I wonder if the prophet Jeremiah has these verses from Deuteronomy in mind when he condemns the kings and priests and leaders of his day.  Jeremiah says that the terrible events in Jerusalem, the coming destruction of the city and the exile of the people to Babylon, are because of bad shepherds, shepherds who didn’t care tenderly for the flock, but who enriched themselves and enjoyed the good life. 
And Jeremiah promises that God will not sit idly by forever.  Those shepherds who have not attended to the flock will themselves be attended to by God.  And God will raise up a good shepherd who will search for and find all the lost sheep, none shall be missing.
If Jeremiah was around today, I think he would find quite a few folks who fit, more or less into the bad shepherd role.  As our nation and the world struggle to come out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, CEOs of corporations that have laid off thousands of workers are being paid hundreds of millions of dollars.  And when these CEOs are let go, they receive severance packages and retirements that often exceed what the rest of us will make in a lifetime.
And if you can’t become a CEO, make it big in politics.  If you do, you will never want for money again.  I saw a report the other day on how, during the worst economy in my lifetime, the average wealth of those in Congress jumped 16% between 2008 and 2009, from $785,000 to $911,000.  Almost half in Congress are now millionaires.  And all US presidents, regardless of party, walk away from the White House rich, whether or not they were rich when they were first elected.  They almost can’t help it, with appointments to boards, invitations to speak, and book deals.
I don’t want to paint with too broad of a brush, but I imagine that biblical prophets, who tended to speak large and use hyperbole, would have struggled to name the good shepherds of our day, the leaders who worry more about the sheep than themselves, who do not acquire great quantities for themselves, who do not exalt themselves over the other members of the community, who meditate day and night on doing what is right.  But curiously, when the prophets see their world falling apart because of bad shepherds, they do not hope for a return to the good ole days, but instead for a new thing that God will do.
I recently attended a retreat where the featured speaker was Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann. He argued that one of the crucial tasks for the church in our time is to help our society move through a drama of loss and renewal.  And he says this can only happen when we look around us, speak the truth about our situation, lament the loss all around, and from there, begin to envision and hope for the new thing God is doing.
Facing loss, we often prefer denial.  We want things to get back to how they were.  We long for good ole days.  We speak of how we need to restore traditional values.  We fondly remember when there were 40 youth in the confirmation class. But the problem with all kinds of denial and nostalgia is they presume that some moment in the past is as good as it gets.  But as soon as we elevate any good ole day to such a pinnacle, we essentially deny the faith of prophets, the faith of Jesus.  We say that when it comes to our daily lives, to life here on earth, to history, God doesn’t have much to do with what happens.  God doesn’t matter.
And so in our day false prophets of nostalgia like Glenn Beck arise and insist that Jesus and the Bible don’t say anything about social justice, about a coming day when the poor are lifted up and the hungry fed, about a new day when the shepherds’ concern is only for the flock, not for themselves.
But prophets like Jeremiah stare into a time of defeat and exile, look at the ruins of a shattered Jerusalem, see the suffering of the poor and those caught up in the economic tragedy of that day and insist, “The days are surely coming…”  Jesus looks to the agony of the cross and insists that it will be a great victory for God’s kingdom that is drawing near.
And we, as we proclaim Christ our King, and as we offer our pledges to God, must decide what we will long for and hope for and work for.  As we see the world around us changing, as things we have counted on and enjoyed and grown comfortable with pass away, as we strain to see a future that is not at all clear, will we, like the Israelites who had escaped Egypt, look back in longing for the old, the familiar?  (Facing the uncertainty of the Wilderness, the Israelites begged Moses to take them back to the security of slavery in Egypt.)  Or will we trust that the future belongs to God?  Will we move toward something we can see only by faith, boldly proclaiming, “The days are surely coming…”

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