Sermon based upon Acts 17:22-31 <-- Audio file of sermon
Good morning and welcome to the first Sunday of Advent. This advent a few stars are going to tell you their story. Stars you say? Yes, stars… as in the twinkling lights in the night sky. Our advent devotional, “The Stars Tell The Story,” walks us through the this year’s journey to Christmas through the eyes of several stars.
This week Polaris will tell you about the birth of light and God’s faithfulness to creation. Next week, the fallen star of Lucifer will talk to you. And the following week another star will share with you about promises. That will then lead us to the guiding star of Bethlehem illuminated by the cantata on the 4th Sunday of Advent.
So without further ado, I present to you Polaris.
Hello, my name is Polaris but a lot of you know me as the North Star or even the handle of the little dipper. I must admit I was a little surprised to be invited to speak. People look at me and wish upon me because I burn so bright in your northern sky but they don’t usually care to hear what I have to say. So I thank you for inviting me because I’ve seen a lot and I especially love to share what I’ve seen of God.
You see, God is the reason I know anything. In the beginning, I was just a ball of dust in the darkness. I didn’t really even realize who I was or what I could be because all I knew was darkness. But then, just like your bible says, God whispered a word to me… a word so simple but it changed everything. God said “light.” It was as if life began at that moment… at least I know my life began at that moment. See, when God speaks to us, we are forever transformed.
This thing called light has been an ongoing gift from God since that day. Think about it. The story of God’s work in creation is referred to as conquering darkness so that life can spring forth. Whether it’s lighting a path forward or driving away evil or casting out secrets that fester in the darkness, light is a tool and gift of God and I’ve been truly blessed to be one of God’s faithful servants by sharing my light.
I’ve pointed the way for travelers, kept people company, and watched over them while they sleep. My work as one of God’s good creations has been very meaningful. But you know what the best part has been? Watching people like you.
The first people I watched were Adam and Eve. Did you know that they loved the nighttime? It’s true. They would sit together and tell each other stories as they gazed into the night sky. I liked watching them. I liked it because they were just so full of love. They loved each other. They loved God. They loved the gifts of God. Everything they did, was from love in its most pure form. Even when that serpent tricked them, they weren’t trying to act in an unloving way. They were manipulated into thinking that the fruit would make them grow wise because of the knowledge of good and evil. They didn’t realize that they could not really handle such wisdom. So sadly, the knowledge they gained only polluted their love.
Lots of folks like to point to that story as saying that we’re somehow bad or broken. I don’t know if that’s true. You know what I think? I think it’s just that we’re all limited. We’re limited in what we can see. We’re limited in what we can understand. We’re limited in time. Only God who is in all places, knows all creation intimately, and lives beyond the bounds of time can really use wisdom of good and evil correctly.
Let me tell you what I mean. Take me for example. I am limited in what I know of the earth because I’m always on one side of it. I’ve never seen most of Africa. I’ve never seen Chili or Argentina. And I’ve never seen Antarctica. To me, they might as well not exist. And they don’t know I exist either.
But I’ve seen folks that travel from that side of the earth. And I trust my star friend, Sirius when she tells me that they are beautiful places. But I’m so limited, that I don’t think I could make a good judgment or assess what God has done there or tell you what the people need there. I just don’t know enough.
People are the same way. Adam and Eve and all of humanity now carry the burden of knowing both good and evil. In many cases, you know what good and evil look like and often know how to handle them. But sometimes you know just enough to cause trouble because only God can use that power fully.
For example, look over there at Lavender. She seems nice enough. But when you try to use God’s wisdom of good and evil to judge her, things just get all messed up. Watch this… Did you know that she gave $5 to a homeless person last week? That seems good right? Well it was good for the homeless person but Lavender didn’t do it because of a loving desire to help. She did it because she felt her own shame and inability to truly look into the eyes of the other person. So, you tell me… she did something good but not from a loving motivation. How should she be judged? And let’s go back in time. Did you know that she used to steal things when she was a child? That sounds bad right? But what you don’t know is that her family was very poor and they were hungry. And she has worked hard to make amends for it ever since. So see, trying to use the knowledge of good and evil is complicated. We’re all just so limited. Only God knows enough to use it well.
And speaking of what God knows, I think our limitedness includes what we know about God too. That’s why I love the story of Paul seeing the Athenian shrine to the “god nobody knows.” At least the Athenians were humble enough to know that God might be bigger than what they knew. When I was watching God form the rest of creation, it was clear that we would all be looking at God from different sides, just like I look at the earth from a particular side. So, I encourage you to be careful when you speak of God. Speak boldly of what God has done in your life but speak humbly about what God’s will is for others. It’s just so hard to see what God is doing when you only see part of the story.
But take heart. I’m not actually here to make us feel small and remind us of our limitedness. To me, the real miracle isn’t that God can use this wisdom and the rest of creation can’t. The real miracle is that creation just keeps being beautiful and amazing in spite of our limitedness. Think about it. With all the things that could go wrong in creation, there’s far more that’s gone right. Accidents are rarely as bad as they could be. Wars are avoided at the last minute. Children are born into love every minute. Relationships are formed and make us more than we were. All this beauty is swirling around us and the only real explanation for why such a limited creation could make more beauty than destruction is that most of us are always being drawn to the light.
Since God’s first utterance of light, we seem to have this little voice inside of us that keeps us moving forward in search of more light, more beauty, more love… a fuller view of God. That’s the whole meaning of Advent. I’ve heard lots of folks talk about Advent as a time of waiting and expectancy. I guess that’s true. But the word Advent comes from the Latin word adventus meaning “coming.” Coming is a progressive verb… which means that it is currently happening and will continue to happen.
Now you don’t need some star giving you a grammar lesson but the point I want to make is that Advent, the coming, is a journey. Much like how creation is always moving toward the light, Advent is about our journey toward a light being born. We’re not waiting… we’re on our way.
You know what else I always like? Even as we’re drawn to the light of God, God is with and amongst us. Read your bible. Talk to your friends and neighbors. You can even talk to many of the people you might call enemies. What you’ll find from listening to their stories is that God never gives up on us and never leaves us. God didn’t give up on Adam and Eve after their mistake in the garden. Instead, God made it clear what the consequences were and helped them know how to prepare to live life differently. God didn’t abandon Paul as he took the gospel to new places. Instead, Paul found that God made provision for him through the ever growing & ever working body of Christ. And today, when we feel lost in the darkness, we are not abandoned by God. We need only be faithful and soon we’ll be able to see God working for our support and help during those times.
I’m always amazed at how God keeps reaching to us. It’s like watching that prodigal son come home over and over again. Trust me, I’ve been watching this go on for more time than humans have existed. Because you see, God is just so full of love and grace. God’s love keeps drawing us all toward God and to each other. And God’s grace keeps us seeking to find more light even when we’ve stumbled into darkness.
God loves us as we are and for who we are. God won’t ask the dandelion to stop being so fuzzy or the rose to not be so thorny. God loves and joins us in all our beauty, our defenses, our darkness, and our light. God knows that our rights and our wrongs have a story. They have a reason. God knows that we have deeply rooted fears. God also knows that we have a huge heart made for love. God knows every part of us. God knows all of creation and still reaches out to us every single time offering love, redemption, transformation, growth, nurture, and relationship. God loves us for who we are but knows that in the light, it is our beauty that will grow and flourish.
I’ve been watching you and will continue to watch you. You are a beautiful people. Trust in God’s presence and that calling from the dawn of creation to walk toward light. When you let God dispel the darkness, you’ll be amazed at just how beautiful you become. Amen.
Sermon for Christ the King Sunday based upon Colossians 1: 11-20 <-- Audio file of sermon
Good morning. It’s good to be back with you and I’ll be with you for the better part of Advent as well. Actually, I feel like today is the beginning of Advent rather than the last day of the liturgical year because when I read the lectionary texts for today, which we call Christ the King Sunday, it felt like I was reading a prelude or prolog to our advent devotional, “The Stars Tell The Story.”
This text from Colossians is a what some theologians refer to as the “Cosmic Christ” because it talks about Jesus in these larger than life terms. This passage stands in sharp contrast to the way Paul usually talks about the body of Christ because it’s talking more about how all the universe relates to Christ rather than the way Jesus relates to us. It also stands in contrast to the way Jesus talked of himself and the way he led his ministry. When Jesus reached out he did so in relationships, daily connections, and in the details of people’s lives. His own interactions were about getting into the thick of people’s lives. And when he told stories, they may have included big picture metaphors, but they were usually about how people were to relate to one another. But this passage in Colossians is different. It shows us a big picture view of Christ.
Now this got me to wondering why that is. Why is it that Paul would talk about Jesus in such a different way than usual? To find out, I only had to read a bit about the people of Colossae in that time and then it all made sense.
You see, Colossae was a town in the rugged, mountainous land of what would be modern day Turkey. Christians were a small sect amongst many other more dominant religions. All of the other popular religions were polytheistic, meaning that they had many gods. Now this isn’t surprising because Jews followed by Christians and then the Muslims some time later were the only religions claiming “A One True God” rather than many gods. So this little group of Christians that believed in one god who had also been a real live person was considered suspicious and weird in that time.
But the way they stood out didn’t stop there. Colossae was also what some of us might call a very backward culture. They were extremely superstitious which is why so many religions took hold rather than a dominant one. What I mean by this is that for every problem that arose, they believed it was caused by a demon or dark power. This would spark some religious faction to step up with the idea that they knew which god to pray to or pay tribute to in order to have the problem fixed. Now in an area of the world frequently plagued by earthquakes, droughts, and war, finding the “god” to fix it was like flipping a coin. It was all just chance. And so this produced belief in a lot of gods that had, in their view, answered their cry at one point or another.
Christians on the other hand were not as concerned with trying to fix these things that went wrong as much as they were helping the people suffering because of it. Now I’m sure that they prayed to God to bring back their flock that drowned in the flood and to stop the earthquakes. Who wouldn’t? But rather than being focused on what they couldn’t control, they were focused on what they could… being a good neighbor and caring for the poor and meeting the needs of the suffering. So let me tell you, these people were some real weirdoes in Colossae!
So here’s Paul writing a letter to them and in good pastoral form, he’s says “Ya know all those bad things and dark powers? You don’t have to worry about those anymore. God has answered them in an ultimate way through Christ. You just keep doing what you’re supposed to each day and God will take care of all the stuff you can’t control. Christ is the glue that holds you together now. Live in that victory and you’ll never need to wonder who’s in control.”
Ok, well that’s my translation of what Paul wrote but don’t take my word for it, read verses 13-17: [God] has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Hmmm… So maybe this “Cosmic Christ” really is about relating to people where they are and getting into the thick of their lives anyway. It seems to me that if a group of folks were being persecuted for not having enough cosmic mojo behind them, Paul just told them how they could explain Christ to the person with deeply rooted superstitions or the family who feels haunted by a darkness because they had lost so many loved ones. This “Cosmic Christ” sounds pretty available to everyday folks if you ask me.
All this leads us to what this passage has to say to us today. Because as much as I love digging into the history and sharing these interesting connections, you probably would like to leave here with more than an anthropology lesson.
So what is all this about? What does Christ the King Sunday mean? What does it mean to have Christ as our king? Well, this passage gives quick overview of several the ways to think of Jesus. Beginning with verse 15, Paul says that Jesus is:
Now we could probably talk for days about what all that means but I think Paul drove his ultimate point home. All this stuff about Christ reconciling himself to all creation, being the head of the body, and holding everything together is about us recognizing that as Christians, Christ is of always of ultimate importance and at the very center of our experience.
the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him 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.
See, this is about what Paul said at the beginning of the passage. “Giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
We inherited the light. We have been rescued from darkness by Christ, our guiding light. We have been transferred into the kingdom. That kingdom is a new covenant in Christ. That kingdom is living out the life of Christ here and now. That kingdom is the peace of knowing that all other things are in God’s hands. For Christians, we cannot do anything without seeing Christ in it and if we can’t see Christ, it probably isn’t for us to do.
Christ’s reign as king lifts the burden of saving the world off our shoulders and leaves us to do only what our particular calling is in the body. God’s job is redemption and forgiveness. Our job is being that new creation. To use a term we don’t often use in the church anymore, Christ’s reign reinforces the sovereignty of God. God’s sovereignty means that God’s vision and redemption has, is, and will work to completion regardless of our will or action. God’s power is true power and works for the good of creation through Christ.
You see, the reason I keep drawing a sharp line between what we are called to do as the body of Christ and what we need to leave to God is because we so often get them confused and start to meddle in the affairs of God.
Let’s take for example that old saying “Love the sinner; hate the sin.” Well, that sounds good on the surface. It sounds like something we should be able to do but is it? See, getting focused on judgment puts us in God’s realm. When we are focused on figuring out what is wrong with someone, it then becomes all too easy to miss seeing God’s image in them. Instead, our job is follow Christ’s lead of seeking relationships.
If we truly want to help someone that we believe is suffering in sinful existence (as if we aren’t all suffering from brokenness), then we should enter into loving relationship with them and provide her or him with what the need to shed that which burdens them. In relationships we are all healed by God’s love in our midst. Furthermore, when we do this, the responsibility for judging or “fixing” sin is removed from us and placed in God’s hands because we’ve been faithful in relationship.
This is the whole essence of the church. Us opening up to let others help us find healing. Reaching out to others to nurture them along the way. Going outside these doors to be Christ’s hands of caring and nurture in the world. Christ came and gave us a more excellent way. Our job is to live it one day at a time.
The Rev. Dr. Michael Battle, an episcopal theologian said, “Christ’s reign distinguishes the human community from the frenzied animal kingdom. Jesus has taught us to act differently, to be human in such a way that we will no longer crucify God in our midst.” I thing that’s a mighty powerful vision.
When we look around, who do we see that we can extend Christ’s hand of healing to? When we look into ourselves, what wall do we need to let down to receive Christ’s light more fully? When we leave this place, where can we extend the love we learned from fellowship with Christ?
Sisters and brothers, this passage reminds us that God has all the universe well in hand so that we don’t have to worry about that. Ultimately, like the people of Colossae, we just need to stay focused on what we can do each day as part of the body of Christ and let God take care of the rest. Amen.
