Christ the King

Rev. Debbie Cato
John 18:33-38 and Revelation 1:4b-7
Fairfield Community Church
November 24, 2024

Open us, Holy One, to your Word and your Way. Clear our minds of daily distractions. Fill our hearts with the humility we need to hear and receive the message you intend for us today. Amen.

 

 

Christ the King

 

 

 

Today we celebrate Christ the King Sunday or the Reign of Christ Sunday.  This is the end of the long church season after Pentecost, called Ordinary Time, and before the start of Advent.  This week we pause to reflect on the meaning of Christ's reign over the church, the world, and our lives. What kind of king is Jesus?  What does his rule look and feel like?  What does it mean to live under his kingship?[1]

 

The lectionary gives us a reading from Revelation that gives us an image of Christ the King, when he comes again.  ‘"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’[2]  The Alpha and the Omega – the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.  God is the beginning and the end.  You can hear the kingship in this passage. The respect. The awe. The image brings an emotional feeling of God’s greatness.  His sovereignty.

 

Then, the lectionary gives us, what I think, is a rather odd Gospel reading to reflect on Christ the King.  We don’t see Jesus in his kingly glory, transfigured and dazzling on a mountaintop.  We do not watch him rise from the waters of

baptism with heaven thundering in his ears? We don’t witness one of his spectacular miracles?[3]

 

 

Our Christ the King does not appear in any of those majestic guises. Instead,

the Gospel of John offers us a picture of Jesus at his physical and emotional

worst; his most vulnerable.  Jesus is arrested, disheveled, harassed, hungry,

abandoned, sleep-deprived — and standing before the notoriously cruel Pontius Pilate for questioning.  If I were going to write Jesus into a kingly scene, this would not be the one I’d write.  This week, our king is an arrested, falsely accused criminal.  A dead man walking.  His chosen path to glory is humility, surrender, brokenness, and loss.[4]  And that’s who Jesus was.  Not someone who grabbed onto power and glory, but someone who was humble and surrendered himself to serve others.  Someone who did God’s will.

 

Now, consider the exchange that takes place between Jesus and Pilate in light of our current crises of truth: “Are you a king?” Pilate asks Jesus repeatedly, annoyed, perhaps, that a bedraggled peasant is taking up his valuable time.  Annoyed perhaps that he even has to deal with this.  “You say that I am a king,” Jesus answers cryptically, implying both that Pilate’s question is the wrong one, and that Pilate’s assumptions about power and kingship are irrelevant to the ways of God.  Then Jesus continues: “For this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  “For this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

 

Pilate’s response echoes down to us across the ages, a question to end all

questions: “What is truth?” What is truth?  We’ll never know if he asks out of

contempt or curiosity or anger. Maybe Pilate actually wants to know.  But it doesn’t matter; Jesus doesn’t respond. That is, he doesn’t respond with

words.  He doesn’t engage Pilate in a philosophical debate.  Instead, his reply

 is embodied with his whole life: “You’re looking at it,” his silence implies. 

 

 “You’re looking at the truth.  I am the truth."  In other words, truth isn’t an instrument, a weapon, or a slogan we can put on a refrigerator magnet. The truth is Jesus.  The life of Jesus, the way of Jesus, the love of Jesus.  Jesus himself is the complete embodiment of truth.

 

It seems we are in a “post-truth era.” There is no such thing as truth anymore.  We are steeped in a culture of outright lies, exaggerations, wild conspiracy theories, and fake news.  Objective facts do not exist or even matter. We listen to whoever is talking the loudest or making the most outrageous claims and that becomes our truth.

 

On this Christ the King Sunday, this Gospel passage reminds me that one of the most urgent tasks facing the church is creating a robust, urgent, and gracious relationship to the truth. If Jesus came to testify to the truth, if he is the truth, if he is the king of truth, then what do we, his followers; his church, owe our king?  What does loyalty to truth look like?

 

As followers of Christ, we belong to a kingdom that is not bound to this world or what the world says.  You and me, as followers of Jesus, as Christians, belong to Jesus.  We belong to the truth.  Speaking the truth, being the truth, and even belonging to the truth are what make Jesus a king.  His kingdom – his nation – is not defined by earthly terms.  Jesus comes from and belongs to God’s kingdom and friends, so do you and me, his followers. 

 

Even historically, the church has distorted the truth to reject and dehumanize those we conveniently call “others.” It continues today. If truth is king, then distorting inconvenient facts for our own political, racial, social, cultural,

religious, or economic comfort, is not.  If truth is king, then “fake news” is not.  If truth is king, then self-deception is not.

 

The truth Jesus embodies in his life, death, and resurrection is not instrumental or self-glorifying in any way.  It does not serve to bolster his own power and authority. Quite the opposite — it humbles him.  It empties

him.  It takes away his life.[5]

 

Nowhere in scripture do I see Jesus using any version of truth that sidesteps humility, surrender, or sacrificial love.  He doesn’t secure his own prosperity at the expense of other people’s suffering.   He doesn’t allow holy ends to justify corrupted means.  He doesn’t make honesty optional when the truth strikes him as inconvenient.  And he never aligns himself with dishonest power to guarantee his own success.[6]

 

This is our king.  Can we stand for the truth as he does?  Can we belong to the truth as he does?  Can we tell and keep telling the beautiful, hard, joy-filled, pain-filled, powerfully undeniable stories we know to be true about this Gospel Jesus whose very identity is truth, and whose best expression of power is surrender?

 

Next week we enter into Advent, a season of waiting, longing, and listening.  We will walk into the expectant darkness, waiting for the light to dawn, for the truth to reveal itself, for the first cries of a vulnerable baby, born in humble circumstances, to completely and unexpectantly redefine kingship, authority, and power forever.  We will be looking at “Words for the Beginning.”[7]  The

 beginning of hope and life.

 

Yes, we are living in a post-truth culture.  But we are not a people without hope.  The king who reigns will never abandon us.  The truth lives.  Truth will survive. And we belong to him.  We belong to Christ the King.  He’s our King.  No other. Amen.

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[1] Journey to Jesus.  Debi Thomas.  What is Truth?  November 21, 2021. https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3220
[2] Revelation 1: 8
[3] Ibid.
[4] Journey to Jesus.  Debi Thomas.  What is Truth?  November 21, 2021. https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3220
[5] Journey to Jesus.  Debi Thomas.  What is Truth?  November 21, 2021. https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3220
[6] Ibid.
[7] Sanctifiedart.com.  Advent Series.  2024.

Do Not Worry! God is in Charge

Rev. Debbie Cato
Isaiah 49:8-16 and Matthew 6:25-34
Fairfield Community Church
November 17, 2024

Open us, Holy One, to your Word and your Way. Clear our minds of daily distractions. Fill our hearts with the humility we need to hear and receive the message you intend for us today. Amen.

 

Don’t Worry!  God is in Charge

 

Listen now to a reading from Isaiah 49:8-15

This is what the Lord says: “In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate
inheritances, ⁹ to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’

“They will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill. ¹⁰ They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water. ¹¹ I will turn all my mountains into roads, and my highways will be raised up.

¹² See, they will come from afar - some from the north, some from the west,
some from the region of Aswan.[a]”

Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

 1⁴ But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.”

¹⁵ “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! ¹⁶ See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.”

 

I put a lot of prayer time and energy into deciding what to preach today.  I’ve been following the lectionary, but it wasn’t what I wanted to say.  I didn’t think it was what you needed to hear.  If I’m truthful, I worried about it – a lot.

I suspect you are all anxious about my retirement announcement.  You are afraid of the unknown future.  You might be remembering the challenge it was after Pastor Paul left and before you called me.  At that time, you may have even thought that the church was dying.  You were tired.  You were burned out.  You thought it was all on your shoulders.  You thought it was up to you.

The first few times I preached here, I could sense the low energy in the pews.  But I could also sense the presence of the Holy Spirit in this sanctuary, and in your own lives as you shared prayer concerns with me, as I got to know you and heard your stories.  God never left you during that in-between time.  The Holy Spirit was your constant companion.  God had a plan for this church.  He continues to have a plan. God has been and will continue to be, faithful.

Today our Gospel reading is from the sixth chapter of Matthew.  It’s in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount - Jesus’ “Call to Faith.”   It is in this section of his Sermon, that Jesus teaches us how to live out our faith and how to practice our faith.  We learn that not only is it important to do what is right, but we must do it in the right way for the right reasons.  And here, in the middle of Jesus’ sermon – His “Call to Faith,” Jesus teaches about worry.  Mmmmm – do you suppose worry is sign of the state of our faith?

 

Listen now for the word of the Lord, 

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  The Word of the Lord.

Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us that God said to the people who were in exile in Babylon, “For surely, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.’

Friends, I could go on and on, reading the promises God made to His people over hundreds of thousands of years.  “In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances, ⁹ to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’  God spoke this into the lives of His people about 700 years before the birth of Christ. 

Around 730 years after Isaiah’s prophetic message to the Israelites, Jesus told the poor, oppressed, marginalized people listening to him teach on that mountainside, ²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”  Friends, God created you in His own image.  He called you his beloved.  Why wouldn’t he take care of you even better than he cares for the birds?

Are you worried; discouraged; perhaps even afraid?  In times like this, we forget how God has taken care of us in the past.  We think we have to solve it, figure it out.  We think it’s all up to us.  We don’t believe He will help us?  What will I do if, we think.  What happens if?  What if?  Worry is a response to something that not only hasn’t happened – it might not happen at all!  But we worry.

Worry disturbs and interferes with our comfort and peace of mind.  How many hours of sleep have you lost because you were worried about something that might happen the next day?  How many vacations have you spent worrying about something back home rather than relaxing and enjoying your time away?  How many times has your quiet time or prayer time with God been interrupted by worry?

Every time I worry; every time you worry; we sin.  You see, worry is disbelief.  Worry is essentially a failure to trust God.  When we worry, we are saying (or thinking) that we don’t believe God will take care of us anymore.  We don’t think God will provide.  We don’t think God has a plan.

If we really trust God, if we really believe that he is our loving, sovereign God; we will give it to God and know He’s got it handled.  We will have confidence in the knowledge that God will take care of us.  That good will come out of all situations.  Jesus teaches us that we must seek God rather than worry about ourselves and our needs.  Our confidence in our Savior must overcome our inclination to worry; our faith must be stronger than our doubt. 

 

When we acknowledge God’s sovereignty, it allows us to step down off our throne as king or queen of the universe.  Recognizing God’s sovereignty allows us to give up the burden of control that so many of us think we have.  Recognizing God’s sovereignty allows us to admit that God has had control all along.  It's about reminding ourselves that God is in charge of our lives.

I’m confident that God is already preparing the heart of your next pastor.  He already has someone in mind.  God is not surprised by my retirement.  I’m confident that God will call the right person to walk with you through the next chapter of this church, and the next chapter of your lives. 

But I will also say this, it will be up to you what happens in the interim. You can’t just sit and wait.  You can’t be hopeless.   It’s up to you to determine what kind of faith community you want this to be.  Are you going to let discouragement overtake you and therefore take over this church?  Or are you going to be hopeful – knowing that God said, “I have a plan for you.  A plan to give you a future with hope.”

 

You have to decide – each one of you, not just a few - “Do you want continue to be Fairfield’s community church?  Then you will need to be involved in making that happen.  You will have to own the ministries.  You are the church.  Not the pastor. 

 

Do you want to continue to invite groups and people into our building?  Do you want to continue to have Sunday School for the children and Vacation Bible School in the summer.  Get involved.  Make it happen.

 

Do you want to continue to have Soup & Study?  There are a number of you very capable of leading it.  The DVD’s make it easy and the leader’s guide is great.  Will someone step up?  It’s up to you.

 

Do you want to continue to maintain the building; to take care of the parsonage; to keep the grounds looking nice?  Then help!  Be a part of taking care of the building and grounds.

 

The Nominating Committee is going to be looking for someone to fill a position on our council next year.  Someone has to say yes.  Yes, I will serve. Yes, I feel called to serve. If everyone says no – where does that leave us?

 

I could go on and on, but I think you get it.  There are things to do for every ability; for every limitation.  Every single one of you has skills and talents to use for God’s ministry.  That’s why you have them.

 

My message to you this morning is to be hopeful.  To know that God has cared for His people for centuries.  He is not going to stop now.  The Holy Spirit is alive and well in this church; in this community; in your lives. I feel her every time I walk into the church; every time I look at your faces.   But it’s going to take each one of you to be prayerful, to hold onto hope, and to be involved.

 

We are human and our limited understanding of God gets in our way of really, really getting it.  God knows our needs and He will provide. Jesus tells us that if we stay focused on God, if we keep our thoughts on Him, we won’t be preoccupied with worry. 

In the Gospel teaching this morning; in this call to faith, Jesus reminds us that we are precious children of God.  God loves us more than we can imagine.  He knows our needs.  Whatever the situation, God is in the midst of it – and that is what our faith is in. God already has a plan for this church. A plan “To give you a future with hope.”   Amen.

 

 

 

Resistence to Power

Rev. Debbie Cato
Mark 12:38-44
Fairfield Community Church
November 10 2024 

Let us Pray:  Holy God,  thank you for this opportunity to worship you and come closer to you As we approach your Word, may we be ready to receive the message you intend for us today. Amen.

 

 

Resistance to Power

 

 

 

The Sunday after a volatile election is a difficult time for a preacher to

step into a pulpit. What does one preach about after such a momentous

national election?  What do I say when I know that some of you are

pleased with the election results, and some of you are devastated?  So

often we think that the pulpit is not a place for politics.  Yet, Jesus was

very political. He overturned tables in the temple when he saw how the

merchants were taking advantage of the vulnerable, he kicked the

money changers out of the temple because they were there to

personally profit, not worship God. He spoke out about the abuses he

saw in the religious leaders. Even though he was God, his whole life; his

whole ministry, was based on humble servanthood – a stark contrast to

the political and religious leaders or his day pr the political leaders of

today!

 

No matter who was going be elected the next president of the United

States, no matter which party was going to control Congress, one thing

was clear: we would have a lot of work to do. No matter what happened

on Tuesday, the division in this country is a huge issue. Honestly, I

think the only solution is to focus on Jesus, he will tell us how and

where to prioritize our work.

 

I’ve been preaching from the lectionary, which I think I told you is a

planned preaching of scripture that is broken down into 3 years.  If you

preach the lectionary, in 3 years you have preached all of scripture.  It

helps you from only using scripture that you like; that’s easier to preach

on a Sunday Morning.  This passage was the lectionary Gospel reading

for today.  God’s timing is always perfect.

 

We read two stories in this passage.  But don’t think they aren’t related!

The first story this morning is when Jesus condemns the scribes. It is

not merely a condemnation of hoity-toity scribes and the praise of a

generous widow. In this passage of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is condemning

a Temple system built to benefit the powerful and prey on the most

vulnerable. The scribes of ancient Israel were educated officials, relied

on to handle the community’s legal, financial and political issues.

Eventually, they gained so much status and power that they even

became self-appointed interpreters of God’s Law.

 

Jesus warns that the scribes who walk around in long flowing robes,

being greeted with respect, and sitting in places of honor will face the

consequences of devouring widows while they say long prayers to keep

up their righteous appearances.  The “best seat” in the synagogue, to

which Jesus refers is the position of authoritative interpretation. The

power to say, “This is what God’s law means. This is how God’s law

is to be practiced.”   The power to promote personal agendas and build

political, economic, and religious systems that most benefit those

sitting in the “best seats.”  Benefit those who are already powerful. 

 

The widow is not powerful.  She is not important.  A widow had little to

no standing in Jesus’ time.  She had no way of earning a living.  Yet she

is pressed to contribute to the Temple treasury by a religious system that convinces her it is faithful to give “all that she had,” all she had to

live on.

 

The poor were encouraged to support the Temple and in doing so,

support the already wealthy and powerful scribes seated within it who

were already much, much wealthier than the poor.  Throughout

scripture, the wrath of God is most often directed against those who

preserve their own wealth and power at the expense of the orphan, the

widows, the resident alien, and the poor.   And yet here are the scribes,

self-appointed to interpret God’s laws and how they would personally

benefit.   In fact, the poor and vulnerable, like this widow, were

encouraged to give to the point of exhausting their resources, devouring

even the meager inheritances they hoped to pass to their children.

 

In an ancient temple, the giving was done when you first walked into

the temple.  The temple money offerings were typically collected by

placing coins into designated chests or "trumpets" located within the

Temple grounds, supposedly where people could discreetly contribute

to the temple.  The chests or trumpets were likely brass so if coins –

such as what the widow gives, they could be heard hitting the metal.  From where the scribes were seated, they could judge the size of the offering by the sound. (Something like this….)  Jesus condemns this system and those who support it, saying it “devours widows’ houses”

 

I have to confess that I have preached this text often, and when I have, I

have spiritualized Jesus praising the generosity of the faithful widow,

avoiding the clear political implications of this text. I’ve used it as a

passage to talk about tithing.  But, as I was studying in preparation for my sermon today, I began to see a link connecting the Temple’s treasury box and the ballot machine that accepts our votes. What kind of system do we support? What kind of government? What kind of people are we?  Who do we elect and empower to the “best seats”? Whose interests do they have in mind?

 

In The Word before the Powers, Charles L. Campbell writes that the a

of preaching is a critical practice of nonviolent resistance, one that not

only links the biblical text to today’s moral and ethical challenges but

also shapes the life and practices of church communities. Campbell tell

the story of André Trocmé, the pastor of the Reformed congregation in

Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, the small village in southern France that

effectively sheltered over 5,000 Jews during World W.

 

As Campbell tells it, on the Sunday after France surrendered to Nazi

Germany, Trocmé stepped into his church’s pulpit to proclaim: “The

responsibility of Christians is to resist the violence that will be brought to bear on their consciences through the weapons of the spirit.” Through the “best seat” of authoritative interpretation to which he had been called, Trocmé preached, week after week, of Jesus’ nonviolent resistance against oppressive political powers and his care for the most vulnerable, keeping this vision alive during a politically treacherous time.[1]

 

Those coins the widow put in the treasury box represent more than money.  They represent faith and belief and how these must be lived out in our lives in  concrete acts and not solely by rituals that no longer

 

hold religious power or purpose.  Powerless rituals do not call forth deep acts of faith from us through our witness in the world.  Instead, these heartless rituals have become pro forma ceremonies marking questionable status and empty piety.  The coins represent a faith-filled offering found in presenting all of who we are and all we hope to become to God for service to the world.[2]

 

Together, these two sections in Mark’s gospel read as a lament for and

an indictment against any religious – or political system that results in a poor widow giving all she has so that the systems leaders may continue to live lives of wealth and comfort.  Be aware, the attack is not only on  Jewish- religious practice.  The attack is on any system that masks egotism and greed.  We should be as outraged as Jesus by any system that appropriates the property of the poor and the near-destitute in order to perpetuate the wealth of the elite.[3] 

 

Today, we know what message America’s electorate sent through the

polls. We know what vision for America the majority of voters have.

But we must ask this questions, “What vision do you believe Christ has

for our country?”[4]

 

What I can say as a pastor who has studied God’s word in depth, is that

Christ prioritizes the needs of society’s most vulnerable, and God

supports systems of political and economic justice. To our “best

seats” we should not elect politicians who build systems that most

benefit themselves. From our “best seats” we followers of Jesus Christ

 

must proclaim that change begins with us, how we treat each other,

how we work together to solve complex problems, how we treat the

widow, the stranger, the orphan—the most vulnerable. [5]

 

The way Jesus taught his small band of twelve disciples, he started a

groundswell of love and care for all God’s people — and particularly

those oppressed by unjust systems.

 

Yes, we have a lot of work to do. We also have a teacher we can trust

and a path that leads to our own and others’ liberating salvation.  The

choice is ours.  Amen.

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[1] Presbyterian Outlook Commentary.  Mark 12:38-44.  Teri McDowell-Ott.  https://pres-outlook.org/2024/10/twenty-fifth-sunday-after-pentecost-november-10-2024/
[2] Feasting on the Word.  Proper 17.  Mark 12:38-44.  Theological Perspective.  Emilie M. Townes..  P. 286
[3] Feasting on the Word.  Proper 17.  Mark 12:38-44.  Pastoral Perspective.  Rodger Y. Nishioka.  P. 286
[4] Presbyterian Outlook Commentary.  Mark 12:38-44.  Teri McDowell-Ott.  https://pres-outlook.org/2024/10/twenty-fifth-sunday-after-pentecost-november-10-2024/
[5] Presbyterian Outlook Commentary.  Mark 12:38-44.  Teri McDowell-Ott.  https://pres-outlook.org/2024/10/twenty-fifth-sunday-after-pentecost-november-10-2024/