Christ the King

Christ the King Sunday, delivered at Creator Lutheran Church – November 24, 2019

Deacon Laura Gifford

Luke 23:33-43

Well, then – blessed Christ the King Sunday!

It’s a little weird, isn’t it, that we celebrate Christ the King by talking about Jesus’ death on the cross.  Not necessarily a top way to Win Friends and Influence People.

And yet, for a feast day that began with the Catholics, it’s an awfully Lutheran way to celebrate the sovereignty of our Lord and Savior.

Lutheran theologians talk a lot about the “theology of the cross.”  We recognize that we find God hanging out where God is needed: with the poor, the broken, the sick, the ignored, the imprisoned; those on the margins in our world.  God meets us in our suffering.  God understands, in a deeply embodied way, just what it means to experience those places.  As Paul writes in the Colossians reading for today, “in [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:19-20).  The cross was key to the reconciliation of all things.  This reconciliation was undertaken by the One in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.  Ultimate power committed to ultimate sacrifice. 

Those sarcastic folks on Golgotha were sort of right: Jesus could have saved himself.  But they missed the central point of the Cross: God’s act of solidarity in standing with the broken.  If we aren’t paying attention to where God’s example points us, we’ll miss it, too.  Crucifixion was a punishment for traitors, for those who actively subverted the will of the government.  We tend to hear the criminal who was hanged with Jesus say he’d done nothing wrong and agree with him—but remember, he’d done a lot wrong by the standards of his society.  Keep that in the back of your mind for later.

Christ the King Sunday is a cool day for me to get to preach for two reasons.  First, it’s a great day to talk about what it means to be a deacon.  Second, it has a really cool history, and your friendly local deacon here also has a Ph.D. in American history.  I get to talk about both my vocations!  (Aren’t you lucky?)

I am a rostered minister of Word and Service in the ELCA.  My call is to the Oregon Synod, and I serve on synod staff as Coordinator of Candidacy and Synodically-Authorized Ministry.  Candidacy is the process potential pastors and deacons go through to become rostered leaders.  We walk carefully with folks discerning their calls to ministry to ensure they are qualified, prepared, and equipped for faithful ministry.  Synodically-Authorized Ministry is a process of equipping lay leaders for worship and community leadership in congregations that face barriers to calling a pastor.  I’m developing a lay school for training these leaders.

Those of you who attended the morning educational hour will have heard me talk in a little more detail about what it means to be a minister of Word and Service – a deacon – but the digest version of the story is that deacons are rostered leaders called to ministry at the intersection of the church and the world.  While pastors are called to care for congregations, deacons are called to turn their faces outward, toward public ministry.  Of course these ministries will overlap.  Pastors of congregations are called toward community outreach.  Deacons may work within a congregational setting.  But at its core, the call of a deacon is to operate on the margins, identify and equip others to live out the Gospel, take risks, and bring new ways of doing ministry from vision into action.

Ministry on the margins.  Public ministry.  Sounds a lot like this “theology of the cross” stuff, doesn’t it?

I don’t want to let any of us off the hook.  As I mentioned earlier this morning, we are all part of the priesthood of all believers.  Pastors, deacons, and lay people – all of us – are called toward the theology of the cross.  If Jesus is found on the margins, we need to be there too.  After all, if we aren’t, we’re actively avoiding Jesus.  But how cool is it that our church has a roster specifically dedicated to this work?  Lutherans are bad at self-promotion, generally speaking, but even in Lutheran circles deacons are often an undiscovered gift.  I’m thankful to Pastor Ray for inviting me to come and let you all in on the secret.

If deacons are an undiscovered gift in the ELCA, then the origins of Christ the King Sunday may be an undiscovered gift for the whole of the liturgical church. 

Christ the King Sunday is a new kid on the block in the cycle of our liturgical calendar.  It came along in 1925, when Pope Pius XI released an encyclical called “Quas Primas,” or “which first.”  When Americans think about the 1920s, we tend to think about the “roaring ‘20s” and flappers, or Prohibition.  Over in Europe, however, many countries were still reeling from the nearly unfathomable losses of World War I.  The United States participated in the war for about a year, and we lost citizens.  Europe fought the war for over four bloody years, and it lost an entire generation. 

Unlike World War II, the first World War was at its core a purely nationalist conflict.  We could argue the details of each side’s attributes and failings, but this was not a war fought to eradicate a great evil like the Nazi menace.  After so much loss, with so little seemingly at the heart of the conflict, leaders around the world spent much of the 1920s seeking ways to ensure a lasting peace.  We enacted treaties like the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which literally outlawed war among its signatories.  Those signatories included Britain, Germany, Italy, the United States, and Japan.  Clearly, and tragically, signing such an agreement didn’t make it so.

The church, too, sought ways to overcome the ravages of nationalism.  Pope Pius XI turned toward the worship life of the church for answers: “History, in fact, tells us that in the course of ages these festivals have been instituted one after another according as the needs or the advantage of the people of Christ seemed to demand: as when they needed strength to face a common danger, when they were attacked by insidious heresies, when they needed to be urged to the pious consideration of some mystery of faith or of some divine blessing.” (para. 22)

In 1925, that “common danger,” that “insidious heresy,” was nationalism—the prioritization of tribe or nation among all other factors, including the welfare of people and the planet.  We needed to repent, in the true meaning of the word: to turn around, to look in a different direction for our priorities and promise.

Forgive the gendered language—it was 1925—but Pope Pius wrote: “If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth; if all men, purchased by his precious blood, are by a new right subjected to his dominion; if this power embraces all men, it must be clear that not one of our faculties is exempt from his empire. He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God.” (para. 33)

Who reigns in our lives?  Who receives our greatest loyalty?  Christ the King Sunday reminds us that the answer should be clear.  We are Christians first.  Our loyalty toward Christ outweighs any other loyalties we may have in our lives, including our loyalty to our country. 

When we share the gospel, we share a message that turns our attention away from prestige and toward those on the margins.  Jesus was a very different sort of King.  As a called and consecrated deacon in the ELCA, I am called toward the life of a risk-taker, a life on the margins, cultivating the future of the church into being.  Pastor Ray is called toward a similar life, with a special focus on care for the flock that gathers in this space.  But you, too, are called.  You are the priesthood of all believers, enlivened with the responsibility—and the privilege—to share God’s Good News with all creation.  We serve Christ.  Even if, even when, that challenges the powers of this world.  And the Good News about that—the very Good News—is that by going all the way to the margins, all the way to the cross, Christ triumphs, ensuring there is nothing that can separate us from God’s love.  Now that’s a King worth serving.