Treason! [Christ the King A]

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Christ the King A

11-23-2014

Matthew 25:31-46

Treason!

Two visions of sheep.  Two visions of a divided flock.  Two visions of a King.  Two visions of a Kingdom. 

But it is not that they are the same – not exactly.  Not all of the details match up.  The historical contexts were certainly different.  And so were the speakers.

The prophet Ezekiel speaks to the nation during a time of exile – the flock has been scattered.  In his vision the kings and leaders of Israel have failed.  The people have been separated from their homes, their land, each other.  But even crisis presents opportunity – if one is willing to take advantage; And the wealthiest members of the nation take advantage – exploiting and devastating the needy.  Ezekiel longs for the people to again become one flock under the true Shepherd – not another earthly monarch but God.  Ezekiel longs for God's reign of justice and peace.

The prophet Jesus casts his vision during a time of occupation – the flock is under the thumb of the Roman Emperor.  The Emperor is the self-declared ruler of the nations.  But in Jesus' apocalyptic vision it is God's Messiah who rules and judges the nations of the world.  It is the unseen reality that will be revealed in the fullness of time.  Jesus longs for a better world – a world in which the vulnerable are loved, a world in which the least are showed the same dignity as kings and queens.  Jesus, like the prophets of old, longs for God's reign of justice and peace.

And, my God, wouldn't that be amazing?!  We pray for the kingdom of God to come every Sunday.  It has been the prayer of the Church for ever.  “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.”  It is what we want.  It is what we say and pray we want.

Actually, who wouldn't want the kingdom of God to come?  Who wouldn't want God to be in charge?  Who wouldn't want “on earth as it is in Heaven?”  Not the pain and the suffering and the hatred – but as it is in Heaven.  Who wouldn't want that?

The Ezekiel passage has a long back story.  And I think the history is helpful, so let's go back to the time before the kings – before Solomon and before David and even before Saul.  Israel did not always have a human monarch.  But the people wanted a king – a powerful human king, not an invisible divine king. They begged the prophet Samuel for a king – so that they could be like other nations – a military power, an economic player, a respectable nation.  So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, ‘These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons to fight his wars; he will take your children to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war. He will take your daughters to staff his kitchen. He will take the best of your produce and give it to his friends. He will take your grain and your vineyards until his belly is full. He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take your flocks; and finally he will take you and you shall be his slaves. And in that day, when you have nothing left, you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you.’ But the people did not care; they said, ‘No! but we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations.'  And it was in this way that the people rejected the kingship of God.  They traded the kingdom of God to fit in. 

Fast forward to Ezekiel's day: generations of kings have plundered their own people, cannibalized the nation and the flock is scattered.  The people received everything they were promised.

Except one thing that is: God did answer when they called out to God.  God's words coming out of Ezekiel's mouth: “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.”  It is the promise of God to a people in exile.  It is the promise of God to a people that decided they could do better than God, that rejected God.  A spurned lover in whom hope springs eternal.

We pray for the kingdom of God to come every Sunday.  It has been the prayer of the Church for ever.  “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.”  It is what we want.  It is what we say and pray we want. 

But is the kingdom of God what we really want?  Nation after nation – throughout history – has chosen no.  It is seldom as explicit as the story from 1 Samuel.  But nations reject the rule of God by their actions, by their stances, by the way they spend their money.  The truth is nations always choose the GDP and the financial markets and military might over God.  God offers peace but we prefer power.

Each prayer for the coming of the kingdom of God is an act of treason.  We pray for the kingdom of God to come so often that it is easy to forget just how dangerous the prayer is.  The kingdom of God is a threat to the world in which we live.  Our prayer is for our kingdoms to fall.  Our prayer is for the reign of God to rise in their place – to finally flood the world with justice.  The ultimate goal is peace but before peace there will be upheaval. 

And that is why those in power, those who benefit most from the political and economic systems of the world, almost always oppose God's reign.  They have something to lose.  The kingdom of God is good news, really good news – but maybe not for those who get fat on the spoils of war, or for those who get rich by exploiting others, or for those who just really, really love cheap socks made in Bangladesh.  Ezekiel's fat sheep/lean sheep story is a critique of our world as much as it was of his world. The rich are still exhausting the earth's resources and dominating the weak and needy.  Kings and princes still grow rich with power and money while children starve to death.  And God still has strong feelings about this. 

In Jesus' vision the nations are judged by how well or poorly they care for their vulnerable.  Because it is easy to forget the voiceless; it is easy to ignore those who have been pushed into the dark corners of society; it is easy to turn human lives into political pawns.  Because there is stuff to do and money to be made. 

Jesus' vision of judgment day is the judgment, not of individuals, but the judgment of the nations.  It always is.  Because the nations of the world continue to reject the reign of Christ – mostly because the values of the kingdom of God are not good economic policy, not good military strategy, and are just too merciful to be realistic. 

We are caught up in a world of systems that ravage the vulnerable and weak.    We live in a world where just one percent of the population controls almost half of the wealth.[1]  We live in a world where the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer and the powerful talk like that is a good thing.  Vice is the heart of our economies; we rely on addiction – alcohol, tobacco, oil, gambling, war, violence, drugs, and insatiable consumption.  These things that chew people up and spit them out: if people were saved, if they were set free, nations would go broke.  We live in a world in which corporations are people, but actual people are called collateral damage.  We live in a world of predators and prey, fat sheep and lean sheep. 

And we are asked to pledge our allegiance to these systems and nations and governments and corporations.  We are expected to offer our loyalty.  We are not supposed to ask questions. 

But that is not going to work because we have already pledged our allegiance – to a different kingdom – one not of this world – or at least not yet.  We are citizens, through baptism, of the kingdom of God – a kingdom has not yet come but is coming – ever breaking through the darkness of our age.  We glimpse it on occasion.  But one day the reign of God will topple every corrupt system of this world.

Maybe in Jesus' vision the separation is really nothing more than a line in the sand.  Maybe the choice is ours – which kingdom?  The kingdoms of this world or the kingdom of our God?

The reign of Christ is near.  The kingdom of our God is coming.  But we are already members of that kingdom; and we can live into that kingdom now – even in the midst of a corrupt and sinful world.

Brothers and sisters, we are people of hope; we see through the eyes of a promise.  We are called to usher in the reign of Christ our King.  Live with the prophetic imagination of Ezekiel who hoped for something better, who spoke salvation to a ravaged people.  Live with the prophetic imagination of Jesus who for love's sake became poor and needy, hungry and oppressed – who came to seek the lost and strengthen the weak.  Question everything.  Invest in the world God wants.

It is easy to lose hope.  The 24-hour news machine saturates us with fear and sadness, anger and bitterness.  We still see the wicked prosper.  We still watch as the ruthless succeed.  Good people are trampled every day – they were 3000 years ago and they are still today. 

But don't lose hope.  It is coming.  God's reign of justice and peace is coming.  And it starts here: in the hearts and lives of those who dare to pray that most treasonous prayer: thy kingdom come, thy will be done – on earth as it is in Heaven.

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[1]    http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/20/264241052/oxfam-worlds-richest-1-percent-control-half-of-global-wealth