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St. Martin's Episcopal Church | |
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St. Martin's Episcopal Church | |
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No
Official Title Is Necessary
By the Reverend Shirley Smith Graham
St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Williambsurg, VA, November 25, 2007
Gospel Reading: Luke 23:33-43
There once was an Episcopal Church that was searching for a new music director. As with all good personnel searches, the committee described what they were seeking in a new lead musician. This is what they came up with:
prioritized which skills were more important than others, realizing that a single candidate would not excel equally in all areas. So the nationwide search proceeded. Candidates, from California to Maryland, starting flying in to show off their skills. They played the organ and its big pipes; they led the choir in a sample rehearsal, and they
answered the committee’s questions. And, as often happens with search processes, the candidates began to sort themselves into a small group at the top of the scale and a bigger group at the bottom of the scale.
But, finally, the committee got to the stage of recommending the three top candidates so that the rector could make the selection. After preparing their report, they thought, for fun, they’d figure out who they would choose, if it was their choice to make. At this point, the committee became bogged down, perplexed by the choice they were facing. For none of the candidates had every attribute they were looking for. Some were excellent organists; some were charismatic choir directors; some led the children well; but none of the candidates were exactly what the committee had in mind. However, one of the candidates was excellent in the things the committee had decided a music director would need to be excellent in; he was talented and gifted in the places the church needed talent and gifts; and he was competent in the things he needed to simply be competent about. What this one candidate offered was very close to the priorities, just the way the committee had lined them up. But some members of the committee were not satisfied: the candidate was not excellent in every way. They loved their church, and in their hearts they wanted perfection for that church, in every respect.
Finally an older man on the committee spoke up. He had been around the proverbial block a time or two and had had enough celebrity in his life to meet a number of divas and geniuses, princesses and presidents, as well as many more ordinary people like you and me. This man spoke up and said, “You know, this guy may not be the person we were looking for, but he is the person we need.”
This story has caused me to wonder how often we miss the gift we need and, instead, get hung up on seeking the person or thing we think we’re seeking. Do we ever miss God’s deliverance for us because it doesn’t look like we thought it would? Do we see God’s help before us but miss that it’s the saving help we’ve been waiting for? Do we fail to recognize that salvation has come to us, because it has come in a package we don’t recognize?
Certainly, the king that God is ready to be for us is different than the concept of king we might be expecting. Even from our earliest religious history, we as a people, have not been willing to accept the kind of king God is offering to be. Our spiritual forebears had no king at all other than God until after the Israelites returned from slavery in Egypt. God had labored mightily to deliver the Hebrew people from Egypt. But they had become so used to being slaves that it took them forty years and the dying off of a generation to be ready to walk into the Promised Land that God had provided them. But even after the 40 years, even after the challenges of making room in a new land, even after being delivered to a safe place with abundant food, even then the former slaves were not ready to be free. Liberated from Pharaoh, liberated from the dominance of a human king, here they are asking God for another one: “Give us a king to govern us,” the people clamor. And how does the Lord God respond?: “… they have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Samuel 8:7b). God’s way of being king didn’t look like kingship to historic Israel. So they traded being free under God’s self-giving care for being governed by a human being, who would sometimes be good, and sometimes be bad. The holy people of God – defended under God’s steadfast care – traded their liberty for a king’s dominion. And thus they became like the peoples around them: the Hittites, the Amorites, the Assyrians, the Egyptians. They ended up with the kind of king that is common to human nature, the kind of king who eventually abuses power, as all of us at the top of the food chain are vulnerable to doing. Just look at the indictment issued by the prophet Jeremiah: such kings are the shepherds of Israel that they “have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and [you] have not attended to them” (Jeremiah 23:2b).
But God knows that we don’t need a king like the Israelites’ king. We need a different kind of king, just like that church needed a different kind of music director. We need a Messiah-King, we need Christ the King, One who uses power to pour Himself out to give life to the world. This kingly leadership is consistently called for throughout the Old and New Testaments and is described in the twenty-third chapter of Jeremiah: true kingship happens when leaders shepherd the people, structuring an environment in which the sheep shall not fear, nor be dismayed, nor allow any to go missing. The shepherds are responsible for keeping the flock in such a way that life is fostered and that no one is lost from the flock.
After humanity’s rejection of God’s gracious kingship, I find it amazing God was so patiently willing to try again in Jesus. In the testimony about Jesus that we receive in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus never refers to himself as king. The title king is attributed to him in the scene when Jesus goes riding into Jerusalem on the donkey: “’Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.’” The crowds do this as a fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy, which we heard this morning, with the Lord God saying, “… I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall [do] justice and righteousness in the land” (Jer. 23:5). So, God tells us in advance there will be a king who brings fairness, right-dealing and justice. But when that king comes in Jesus, Jesus does not proclaim that title for himself. We are left to wonder whether Jesus, in his earthly lifetime, fully realized that he was the prophesied king.
The best indication that Jesus understood himself to be the prophesied king comes in his prepares of the disciples for the time he will no longer be on earth. First, Jesus tells his disciples that he bestows on them a kingdom, just as his Father bestowed upon him (Lk 22.29). And then he anticipates the time when they will eat and drink at his table in his kingdom (Lk. 22.30). But these statements fall short of Jesus identifying himself as king.
The Church appoints this day as “Christ the King” Sunday to look at the ways in which we have, after the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, understood him to be our king. For most of Anglican history, after the break with Rome, we lived into our Reformation identity as a people who thing of kingship as civil and not religious title. But, beginning with the 1979 prayer book, the Church reclaimed Christ the King Sunday from our catholic heritage. As soon as we think about Jesus Christ as King, we realize he lives out kingship in a way different than anything of our life experiences have taught us about power, domination, and authority. Jesus, both in his person and as fulfillment of prophesy, was a king whose reigning was not dominating but characterized by outrageously gracious and self-giving stewardship. He put himself and his disciples in opposition to kings who “exercise lordship” over their people. What a funny quirk of the development of the English language that we end up calling Jesus our “lord” when he criticized rulers who “lord” their greatness over others. The one who saves is different than the one who lords.
Jesus himself points to this early in his ministry. He is becoming famous in the region as he goes from place to place teaching, healing and forgiving sins. So finally John the Baptizer sends a message asking Jesus if he is the Savior they’ve all been waiting for. In response, Jesus does not claim that title for himself, but tells John what he already knows: read the signs and judge for yourself. The blind are receiving their sight; the lame are walking; the lepers are being cleansed; the deaf are hearing; the dead are being raised; the poor are hearing good news. Judge for yourself. This is the Messiah-king who is not going to proclaim himself, but who will serve in such a way that no official title is necessary
And, in fact, the king will be the
least in the