(Below is the preaching manuscript of the sermon. Due to the nature of preaching and the movement of the Holy Spirit, it is not the same as the video above which was recorded at Memorial United Methodist Church on 11/16/17 at the 9:30AM worship service.)
Eph. 1:15-23 I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Today is Christ the King Sunday. Kingship is a difficult thing for Americans to comprehend. Our country was literally founded on a rejection of monarchy. I lived in England for a year during seminary and while I was there, I got to understand just what a monarchy can look like. It is a subtle influence. I didn’t even notice it at first, however, every day you are surrounded by symbols of the monarchy. It is on the money you use, the stamps on your mail, signs around town, mail boxes, and even on some of the foods you use. The monarchy also features on the news, it punctuates every major holiday and sporting event. There are no institutions or people who so dominate our society in quite the same way.
When thinking about the Lordship of Christ, such a pervasive influence and impact makes more sense. Consider your Thanksgiving table. God does not intend to be relegated to a corner of our world like cranberry sauce on my family’s Thanksgiving table. It almost never got eaten. I swear my mom just put it on a dish out of obligation. Instead, Jesus should be like the gravy. It seems into every other item, even when you don’t necessarily intend for it to.
Both of these metaphors fall far short in describing what it means for Christ to be King. The monarchy in England is pervasive, but is a figurehead with little real power. Gravy may fill your plate, but no one would mistake it for the whole meal. Christ as King not only has influence, but also has complete authority in every corner of creation.
Christ the King Sunday provides us with the opportunity to take a moment before the start of Advent and celebrate the fact that the baby we will begin to focus on is now the King of the World. We celebrate the fact that Jesus Christ did not stay a baby in a manger, but grew up, died, was resurrected and now sits at the right hand of God the Father and everything in earth and in heaven is under his control.
There is such darkness and chaos in our world. In the newspapers, on TV, social media we find reports of violence, war, political unrest, suspicion, corruption, oppression, and so much more. I have heard of many people who have quit reading the news or going on Facebook in an attempt to stave it off. However, chaos and distress creep into our lives as well. They come when a friend receives a diagnosis, a relationship becomes strained, work gets stressful, or our lives become somehow knocked off center. It is in these moments when we need to remember that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Paul gives us this vision of Jesus, raised from the dead and sitting at the right hand of God, “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, above every name that is named not only in this age, but in the age to come…all things under his feet. Just when our world seems like it is careening into chaos, Paul reminds us that God is in control. There are no forces in heaven or on earth that are more powerful. There is nothing in this age, or any age to come that will come out victorious.
Such a statement is not Pollyanna optimism or plugging your ears and pretending it is not real. Recognizing Jesus Christ as Lord does not give us an escape from the world and all its troubles. The reality that Jesus Christ is Lord helps us to live in the midst of those troubles with the knowledge that those troubles will come to an end. No matter what this life throws at you, God is with you and will be with you through it all.
Every Sunday this month, our affirmation of faith has been from Paul’s letter to the Romans. Every Sunday this month, we have reminded each other that nothing can separate us from God’s love: hardship, distress, death or life, angels, rulers, things present or things to come, powers or principalities, nothing at all will be able to separate us from the love of God. This is all true because of the Lordship of Jesus.
Whereas other places in the New Testament describe Jesus’ future return and triumphant victory over the forces of Evil, Paul in Ephesians uses the present tense. It is not that we are forced to wait for a future savior. We have a savior now and his name is Jesus. The forces of evil, the powers and principalities of this world that threaten us and cause us to live in fear, they are already defeated. Christ is already sitting at the right hand and everything is under his feet.
The question then becomes, if Jesus Christ is Lord, how do we live in the present chaos? Paul gives us a glimpse of this in the beginning of his prayer. “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…”
As followers of Jesus, we need know the truth. We need to know that the violence of our world will end in peace. We need to know that the oppressed and forgotten people of our world will receive justice. We need to know that the political debates and back and forths pale in importance to the message of the Gospel. We need to know all of these things because we know that Jesus Christ is Lord. This is not only the end of the story – this end is alive and well in the here and now.
Our task is to turn our eyes so that we can see it. Every week in our staff meetings, we share with each other where we have seen God at work in our lives. Each Sunday in the Connect, we highlight one place where our church and its members are living into our vision to be a “grace-filled family of Jesus followers.” These regular habits help us to make sure that we are paying attention to all that God is doing. It is too easy to get caught up in our lives and the frustrations, difficulties and routines that fill our days. The more difficult life gets the more we retreat into our selves and lose focus on God’s presence with us and distance ourselves from those around us. Worse yet, we try and dull the pain. Some people distract themselves with food or shopping. These options can be all the more tempting as Christmas approaches. Others turn to the internet, gaming, or other diversions. Still others use alcohol or drugs to try and escape. Each of these distractions may seem to work in the short-term, but over time they all fall short because instead of trusting in God’s power to lift us up and carry us through the chaos, we have turned to a lesser power.
By trusting in the power of Christ who is our King, we begin to live into Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians. Instead of keeping our gaze on the darkness around us, Paul asks that they would lift their eyes beyond their present circumstances and that God would give them eyes to see the world as it is with Jesus on the throne. By shifting our perspective we see that there is hope. Not only are we not alone, but the one who is with us is the only one who can see us all the way through to the other side.
When our eyes are Kingdom focused, however, we do not turn a blind eye to the struggles around us, but instead we see them in their context within God’s active presence in our world.
In this way, we can walk through the storms of life with the One who stilled the waves, we can face the threats of death with the One who defeated the grave, and we can engage with the broken places of our world knowing that our God is the One who is making all things new.
My prayer for each one of you is that God would give you the same spirit that was given to the Ephesians. That your eyes would be able to see the world as it truly is and that God would give you the grace to know that all things are under the lordship of the one who is Emmanuel, God with us. And he is with us still. Thanks be to God. Amen.