The Ministry of Reconciliation

The Rev. Jeffrey A. Geary
Setauket Presbyterian Church

Christ the King Sunday
Colossians 1: 11-20
Luke 23: 33-43
November 25, 2001

This morning we're celebrating Christ the King Sunday. It's the Sunday in which we acknowledge that Christ reigns over the world. Though not in the way we might at first expect. Our texts for this morning hold together the power and the powerlessness of our King Jesus. Christ the King - through whom the world was made, is none other than Christ Crucified - who was betrayed, abused and put to death on a cross.

Sometimes we like to intellectualize this by saying it's a paradox that the one who was so powerless was ultimately so powerful. But its more than a paradox. It's more than an intellectual affirmation. Because to serve that Christ the King who is Christ the Crucified means that we, like Christ, must cast our lot with all those who are despised and vulnerable. And this is the step we are most reluctant to take. But if we do not take it, if we do not cast our lot, our livelihoods, our security, our future with the lot of those in need, the story of Christ Crucified becoming Christ the King is no more than a religious Horatio Alger story - poor boy makes good.

But the Christian story is the story of a man, Jesus, who didn't make it. Who wasn't installed as the next Jewish King of Jerusalem. Who wasn't respected by the religious leaders of his day. Who hung out with criminals, immigrants, dissenters - all those considered suspect by not only the attorney general but by us. Christ the King was hunted down by the temple police and thrown in jail. He endured the death penalty. He was a person the authorities needed, desperately needed, to disappear.

The point of crowning Christ as King is that the crown he wears is full of thorns. And according to the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church, it is he, this poor, despised, thorny Christ, who is the head of the body, the church.

And we - we are the ones who are in service to this thorny Christ - whose crown pricks our very conscience and whose wounds belie our easy assumptions about power.

One of the truly great statements from the Presbyterian Confession of 1967 is that "Life is a gift to be received with gratitude and a task to be pursued with courage...we are called to live as provisional demonstrations of the Kingdom of God, even at the risk of our own security." Why would the authors insist on courage? I think it is because the presence of the cross is at the very center of the new life God gives us; that this new life can only be found when we relinquish power that grasps and secures its own ends, even when that means giving up our own visions of justice, peace, and prosperity that depend on that power.

As you and I both know, words like justice and peace can be employed to describe the very opposite of what God means by these things. Justice is typically used as a stand in for retribution. Peace frequently means either security or elimination of the one who is considered "enemy." Maybe you remember that nuclear missiles were named "peace-keepers" But in the Christian vocabulary, in the language spoken by Christ the King, justice and peace are one word: "shalom" - well-being for all people; not those who are strong enough or rich enough to secure it for themselves.

So, as servants of Christ the King, we need to examine our own visions of justice and peace to see whether they stand up to the gaze of the vulnerable, thorny, Christ. Could it be that our best intentions at justice and peace too often partake of the same power that crucified Jesus? Remember his crucifixion was done for all the best religious reasons - he was stirring up the crowds and threatening the Jews' ability to practice their religion under the rule of the Romans. His death was for all the right reasons politically - people were calling Christ King and pledging allegiance to him, not Caesar. The peace of Rome was threatened. His death was for all the right reasons socially - he elevated outcasts to the same level as decent citizens, he touched people who were diseased, threatening the community with infection, he threatened national security, teaching that enemies were to be loved.

If we are to serve Christ the King, we must, we must carefully examine how our best intentions for justice and peace depend not on the power of vulnerability but of domination - something that is quite foreign to our thorny Christ.

Indeed it is his very blood that effects the reconciliation between heaven and earth. This should be the signal to us that when we seek to serve him as reconcilers in our world, it will not be easy. The Confession of 1967 reads "Through Christ, God was reconciling the world to God: God's reconciling work in Jesus Christ and the mission of reconciliation to which God has called the church are the heart of the gospel in any age."

To serve Christ the King, we must become reconcilers, even as he was a reconciler. Now, by this I do not mean that we should all rush off in showy, vain attempts at martyrdom. What I do mean is that we need to take reconciliation seriously and recognize that its power comes from the power of vulnerability not domination. Too often our own attempts at reconciliation fall far short of the mark. We go to the point of comfort and no further. For example, following the September 11 attacks there were thousands of interfaith services. These services were beautiful examples of how our communities came together to support and assure one another in a time of crisis. But they were truly only a very first step. They were an important step, but a first step. They were the step of support and of joy. We went away feeling good and knowing that our love was communicated and that we received deeply. But there is a next step, a more difficult step. It is the step that says, since I've worshiped with a person of another faith, I know that that person is a person of dignity and a person whose well-being I must assure. So why was there not a general uproar from people of all faiths when the FBI began to interview Arab American men this week - not because there was any substantial reason to think they were connected to the terrorist attacks, but simply because they were Arab and therefore might know something?

Certainly, many of us felt the discontinuity between being part of a worshiping community that respected different faiths and part of a democracy that was suddenly abrogating the rights of some of its citizens. But we must do more than simply feel uncomfortable. The thorny Christ calls us into the midst of the suffering.

The Rev. Allan Boesak, Pastor and former leader of the African National Congress during Apartheid in South Africa has written:

True reconciliation cannot take place without confrontation. Reconciliation is not feeling good; it is coming to grips with evil. In order to reconcile, Christ had to die. We must not deceive ourselves. Reconciliation does not mean holding hands singing: "black and white together." It means, rather, death and suffering, giving up one's life for the sake of the other. If white and black Christians fail to understand this, we shall not be truly reconciled. So it is with peace. One is not at peace with God and one's neighbor because one has succeeded in closing one's eyes to the realities of evil. Peace is the active presence of justice. It is shalom, the well being of all.

And Presbyterian theologian Arnold Comes one of the principle authors of the Confession of ‘67 writes:

"If we are obedient servants or agents of God's grace for reconciliation, we must go and stand in the places of conflict, in the crossfire that occurs wherever people are suffering poverty, imprisonment, blindness, oppression. We must stand there in order that the healing of God's grace and love may be known. Reconciliation, seen not as the end product, but as the process and means to that end, is the way of the cross."

And so we are left this Christ the King Sunday with the odd affirmation that the vulnerable thorny Christ reigns - in the midst of FBI inquiries, in the trample of WalMart shoppers, in the solemn knowledge that students did not blow up their school, in the wake of bitter arguments over the Thanksgiving turkey - Christ reigns.

Christ reigns as a vulnerable thorny King, inviting us to allow our lives to manifest the reconciliation of God. Will take up this ministry of reconciliation?

The quotations in this sermon are from:
Allan Boesak (1984) Black and Reformed: Apartheid, Liberation, and the Calvinist Tradition New York: Orbis Press.
Arnold Come "The Occasion an Contribution of the Confession of 1967" in The Journal of Presbyterian History Volume 79 - Number 1 (Spring 2001).
The Confession of 1967, Book of Confessions The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Part I