“What Day Is It?”
Preached Sunday, November 14, 2021
The end of Daylight Savings Time has caused some minor chaos and an above average consumption of caffeine in the LeBrun household over the last week. As our child has been working through a nap transition AND a time change, well, we’ve seen 4AM multiple days over this past week. Is it really an hour more sunlight in the morning when you’ve been up for several hours before the sun rises?
A time change with a lack of sleep has been leading us to ask, over and over again, “What time is it???” And, if I’m being honest, on several occasions even, “What DAY is it!?”
Did anyone else seem to lose track of all sense of time this past week?
This sense of confusion as to time was compounded by a devotional I led at Admin Council on...what day was it??? Just kidding, it was totally Tuesday. For those who have not served on the Administrative Council while I’ve been pastor here, I start every meeting with a short spiritual devotional. I decided to do something themed for Christ the King Sunday as it was or, well, IS the next high holy day on the church calendar. So on Tuesday night we listened to the words to the Charles Wesley hymn, “Rejoice, The Lord is King” in the style of lectio divina, that is, listening closely to how God could be speaking to you through the word. You read it once to take in the meaning. Twice for a word or phrase that jumps out at you, snags your attention, calls to you. And a third time to focus on that word or phrase to see what God could be saying to you through it. This is a great tool or technique for reading Scripture prayerfully. So we did that with the hymn, “Rejoice, The Lord is King.” If you didn’t know the hymn before, we sang it as our opening hymn this morning.
As we were going around the table at Admin Council and sharing, several people shared how the words brought them great comfort in these anxious times that we live in, especially the word’s in the first line of the third stanza: "His Kingdom cannot fail.” That these words brought comfort in the midst of all that is happening in the world - that no matter what goes on in our world, what upset, what tragedy, what confusion or terror - GOD’S Kingdom cannot fail. And in that moment, as I listened to my parishioners, you, talk, my sermon just clicked in my head and I got so excited! Yes! Those words from the hymn paired so well with this week's difficult Gospel Lesson. I knew what I was going to preach! Yes, I was going to take this Gospel Lesson, known as Mark’s Little Apocalypse and pair it with this line from the hymn and the theme of Christ being King.
What clicked for me was this simple but also deeply true, powerful and comforting thought: That while all things in this earth may fail, fall down, crumble, institutions and empires - God's Kingdom CAN NOT FAIL. Cannot fail!
That while there may be wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and truly a million little apocalypses where it feels like our worlds are ending, God's Kingdom CANNOT FAIL! So where should we place our trust, our hope?
In a Kingdom where Jesus is King! In a Kingdom where Jesus reigns! In a Kingdom where Jesus reigns, as the hymn says, with truth and love! And oh the sweet sweet promise that Jesus gives us - that he came to usher in this Kingdom, that his Kingdom is near - this gives us reason to rejoice! Not to succumb to the anxiety, fears, and turmoils of this world and this worldly kingdom - but to rejoice in glorious hope that God’s Kingdom is near!
Now - let’s put a pin in this. We’ll come back to it. But first - back to that moment of realization of what I should preach in the Administrative Council meeting. My excitement didn’t last long when I realized I had made a mistake about what day it was - or what day this Sunday, today, would be. My issue was the pairing of this hymn with this Scripture worked so nicely in my head because I thought this Sunday, today, was Christ the King Sunday. Christ the King Sunday, also known as The Reign of Christ Sunday, is the last Sunday in the liturgical year, the Christian calendar, and it is meant to be a holy day reminding us that Christ is indeed in charge.
And here’s the thing - today is NOT Christ the King Sunday -that's NEXT Sunday and the hymn was recommended for NEXT week where the Scripture is Pilate asking Jesus if he is a King. Okay, deep sigh and I went back to the sermon drawing board to try and find another way the Spirit would speak to me through the text, another sermon idea to flesh out and preach... and, STILL, I couldn't shake these two thought:
One - first thought: Is Christ not King every Sunday - every DAY?
And two - second thought - well, the worship team and I decided to leave the white paraments up...Since technically last Sunday was white and this Sunday green and next Sunday white but that was a lot of work so we were just gonna leave the white up for three Sundays...
So yes, I decided that, this Sunday, today, regardless whether this day is a specific liturgical day or not, I will proclaim that Christ is King. Christ is king in the sanctuary and in worship. Christ is King when buildings and institutions and kingdoms come crashing down. Christ is King in natural disasters and war, in rumors of war, in times of unease and distress. Christ is King in world ending or world altering events, Christ is King, yesterday, today, and tomorrow too. Christ IS King.
And, in essence, that is what Jesus is conveying to his disciples in Mark’s Gospel Lesson today.
We often interpret this passage to be about THE end, THE apocalypse, but the language here is not necessarily THE END but "a" end.
In Greek, Eschaton would be THE end where Christ returns in final victory and establishes a new heaven and a New Earth. And here in this passage we have Jesus using a different word. Jesus uses the word telos for end, *A* end, the end to the way things currently are.
How often do "the way things are'' change or “the world as we know it” end in our lives? I’d say more often and more rapidly than we’d prefer or like to think. War, a natural disaster, buildings and lives crumbling - when these things happen, the world as we know it ends. It changes. And we can never go back to how it was before.
In my lifetime I can think of multiple examples of this, in just my short 30 years.
9/11 - never going back to the way things were before.
The subsequent wars and conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan - never going back to the way things were before.
Covid - March 2020. Never going back to the way things were before.
In some your lifetimes,
JFK being assassinated - never going back to way things were before
The moon landing - never going back to way things were before
The civil rights area and the assisination of MLK - never going back to way things were before
The Vietnam War - never going back to the way things were before
The Cold War - never going back to the way things were before
Even those things that pushed us forward like the moon landing and the civil rights era - once those things happened, the world was irrevocably changed. Like the Temple that Jesus was saying would fall down and crumble. While the temple was standing in Jesus’s lifetime, when the Gospel of Mark was written, that temple was no longer standing. And for the Jewish people whose lives were centered around that temple - that was a world ending, world changing event. They could never go back to how it was before.
Jesus references these world changing events as birth pangs - and, well, literal birth pangs are another thing that, once they start, your world will never be the same.
Every ending of the world as we know it is a chance for something more - more peaceful, more just, more loving, more like God's Kingdom. Now, do we always get that right? No, sometimes we do exactly what Jesus warns his disciples against - we are led astray. We are led astray by people telling us that we have to pick sides, we have to fight, we get caught up in the war, we go to war - trying to trust the nations and kingdoms and ways of this world that fight and rise up against each other... and eventually ALL will fail and fall. We do this instead of focusing on the Kingdom that will be there after every ending, the Kingdom that Jesus showed us, the Kingdom that Jesus invites us to build - God's Kingdom of truth and love, a Kingdom where Jesus reigns from his eternal throne, a Kingdom that cannot fail.
And so today, whatever day it is, and every day, let us put our trust in Christ, a king whose Kingdom cannot fail - rejoice in that glorious hope.
Amen.
Did anyone else seem to lose track of all sense of time this past week?
This sense of confusion as to time was compounded by a devotional I led at Admin Council on...what day was it??? Just kidding, it was totally Tuesday. For those who have not served on the Administrative Council while I’ve been pastor here, I start every meeting with a short spiritual devotional. I decided to do something themed for Christ the King Sunday as it was or, well, IS the next high holy day on the church calendar. So on Tuesday night we listened to the words to the Charles Wesley hymn, “Rejoice, The Lord is King” in the style of lectio divina, that is, listening closely to how God could be speaking to you through the word. You read it once to take in the meaning. Twice for a word or phrase that jumps out at you, snags your attention, calls to you. And a third time to focus on that word or phrase to see what God could be saying to you through it. This is a great tool or technique for reading Scripture prayerfully. So we did that with the hymn, “Rejoice, The Lord is King.” If you didn’t know the hymn before, we sang it as our opening hymn this morning.
As we were going around the table at Admin Council and sharing, several people shared how the words brought them great comfort in these anxious times that we live in, especially the word’s in the first line of the third stanza: "His Kingdom cannot fail.” That these words brought comfort in the midst of all that is happening in the world - that no matter what goes on in our world, what upset, what tragedy, what confusion or terror - GOD’S Kingdom cannot fail. And in that moment, as I listened to my parishioners, you, talk, my sermon just clicked in my head and I got so excited! Yes! Those words from the hymn paired so well with this week's difficult Gospel Lesson. I knew what I was going to preach! Yes, I was going to take this Gospel Lesson, known as Mark’s Little Apocalypse and pair it with this line from the hymn and the theme of Christ being King.
What clicked for me was this simple but also deeply true, powerful and comforting thought: That while all things in this earth may fail, fall down, crumble, institutions and empires - God's Kingdom CAN NOT FAIL. Cannot fail!
That while there may be wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and truly a million little apocalypses where it feels like our worlds are ending, God's Kingdom CANNOT FAIL! So where should we place our trust, our hope?
In a Kingdom where Jesus is King! In a Kingdom where Jesus reigns! In a Kingdom where Jesus reigns, as the hymn says, with truth and love! And oh the sweet sweet promise that Jesus gives us - that he came to usher in this Kingdom, that his Kingdom is near - this gives us reason to rejoice! Not to succumb to the anxiety, fears, and turmoils of this world and this worldly kingdom - but to rejoice in glorious hope that God’s Kingdom is near!
Now - let’s put a pin in this. We’ll come back to it. But first - back to that moment of realization of what I should preach in the Administrative Council meeting. My excitement didn’t last long when I realized I had made a mistake about what day it was - or what day this Sunday, today, would be. My issue was the pairing of this hymn with this Scripture worked so nicely in my head because I thought this Sunday, today, was Christ the King Sunday. Christ the King Sunday, also known as The Reign of Christ Sunday, is the last Sunday in the liturgical year, the Christian calendar, and it is meant to be a holy day reminding us that Christ is indeed in charge.
And here’s the thing - today is NOT Christ the King Sunday -that's NEXT Sunday and the hymn was recommended for NEXT week where the Scripture is Pilate asking Jesus if he is a King. Okay, deep sigh and I went back to the sermon drawing board to try and find another way the Spirit would speak to me through the text, another sermon idea to flesh out and preach... and, STILL, I couldn't shake these two thought:
One - first thought: Is Christ not King every Sunday - every DAY?
And two - second thought - well, the worship team and I decided to leave the white paraments up...Since technically last Sunday was white and this Sunday green and next Sunday white but that was a lot of work so we were just gonna leave the white up for three Sundays...
So yes, I decided that, this Sunday, today, regardless whether this day is a specific liturgical day or not, I will proclaim that Christ is King. Christ is king in the sanctuary and in worship. Christ is King when buildings and institutions and kingdoms come crashing down. Christ is King in natural disasters and war, in rumors of war, in times of unease and distress. Christ is King in world ending or world altering events, Christ is King, yesterday, today, and tomorrow too. Christ IS King.
And, in essence, that is what Jesus is conveying to his disciples in Mark’s Gospel Lesson today.
We often interpret this passage to be about THE end, THE apocalypse, but the language here is not necessarily THE END but "a" end.
In Greek, Eschaton would be THE end where Christ returns in final victory and establishes a new heaven and a New Earth. And here in this passage we have Jesus using a different word. Jesus uses the word telos for end, *A* end, the end to the way things currently are.
How often do "the way things are'' change or “the world as we know it” end in our lives? I’d say more often and more rapidly than we’d prefer or like to think. War, a natural disaster, buildings and lives crumbling - when these things happen, the world as we know it ends. It changes. And we can never go back to how it was before.
In my lifetime I can think of multiple examples of this, in just my short 30 years.
9/11 - never going back to the way things were before.
The subsequent wars and conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan - never going back to the way things were before.
Covid - March 2020. Never going back to the way things were before.
In some your lifetimes,
JFK being assassinated - never going back to way things were before
The moon landing - never going back to way things were before
The civil rights area and the assisination of MLK - never going back to way things were before
The Vietnam War - never going back to the way things were before
The Cold War - never going back to the way things were before
Even those things that pushed us forward like the moon landing and the civil rights era - once those things happened, the world was irrevocably changed. Like the Temple that Jesus was saying would fall down and crumble. While the temple was standing in Jesus’s lifetime, when the Gospel of Mark was written, that temple was no longer standing. And for the Jewish people whose lives were centered around that temple - that was a world ending, world changing event. They could never go back to how it was before.
Jesus references these world changing events as birth pangs - and, well, literal birth pangs are another thing that, once they start, your world will never be the same.
Every ending of the world as we know it is a chance for something more - more peaceful, more just, more loving, more like God's Kingdom. Now, do we always get that right? No, sometimes we do exactly what Jesus warns his disciples against - we are led astray. We are led astray by people telling us that we have to pick sides, we have to fight, we get caught up in the war, we go to war - trying to trust the nations and kingdoms and ways of this world that fight and rise up against each other... and eventually ALL will fail and fall. We do this instead of focusing on the Kingdom that will be there after every ending, the Kingdom that Jesus showed us, the Kingdom that Jesus invites us to build - God's Kingdom of truth and love, a Kingdom where Jesus reigns from his eternal throne, a Kingdom that cannot fail.
And so today, whatever day it is, and every day, let us put our trust in Christ, a king whose Kingdom cannot fail - rejoice in that glorious hope.
Amen.
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