Sermon for 11.22.09

Scriptures for this week are found here: http://www.io.com/~kellywp/YearB_RCL/Pentecost/BProp29_RCL.html

SERMON NOTES FOR 11.22.09

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of the year. It’s a low-pressure holiday – no gifts to buy, no lights to string. But wonderful things will happen this week.

In Fountain Hills, where I live, as morning dawns all the clubs in town will be gathering for the annual Thanksgiving parade, which in my book is much better than Macy’s. Shriners will drive their little cars, veterans will proudly walk along wearing the uniforms that still fit them, the high school band will march, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts will be wearing coordinated costumes and singing pre-rehearsed songs (well, at least the Girl Scouts will be doing this, the Boy Scouts will be ambling along darting glances at the girls). Soccer teams of 5-year-olds will scamper along together, churches will create floats on the back of pickup trucks with their choirs singing beautiful music to the crowds, the mayor will ride in the back of a convertible, and Santa Claus will bring up the rear, expressing the hope that all of our holiday shopping will take place in Fountain Hills. Neighbors will wave and talk and sit on the curb together, and children will run into the street to catch candy thrown from the floats. And then we’ll come in from the cold (because the temperature will barely be above 70 degrees) to warm up with hot chocolate.

Elsewhere, on playing fields, burly men wearing large shoulder pads will run into each other at high speed in contests of athletic skill, while the gathered crowds yell and have a great time (I can’t speak for whether the players are having a great time; I think their fun comes when they cash their paychecks).

Later, people will sit down together for hearty meals with the best tablecloths and candles and china, gathering in large extended families or small nuclear families or groups related by affection rather than genetics, to remember that one of God’s greatest blessings is the love of the people around us.

Groups who are passionate about helping others will seek out the hungry and will bring them into warm buildings to have the best feast of the year.

In hospital emergency rooms and police cruisers, and in foreign countries on military bases we won’t ever know the names of, some people will be about their work of keeping us safe.

And in all those places, people will pause before taking their first bite of turkey to remember that all these blessings come from God. And God will bless us once more with what Episcopal priest Charles Hoffacker calls “the Dream of the Table”: “A dinner where all people share, and all people feast, and all people give thanks. We dream this dream for a single afternoon each year as we gather around the Thanksgiving Day table. For it seems then that our entire nation offers a single prayer and sits down to a single meal. The dinner is shared in the homes of the wealthy, the middle class, and the poor. It takes place in soup kitchens and suburban restaurants, and happens with studied formality and with casual folksiness. It feels as though all our people eat together today. On this one afternoon, we dream, however fitfully, "The Dream of the Table." And for a moment we see what God wants for us and for all people.”

How beautiful it is that we live this Thanksgiving dream for one day a year. For one day a year, there is plenty for all to feast on. No one is hungry, no one is alone – at least, that’s the dream. For one day a year, families are brought together, old arguments are put aside, grown children return home, and we live around a common table.

But how sad it is that Thanksgiving dream is true for only one day a year. God’s dream for us remains a future hope, that we experience from time to time, for short moments of laughter and love and sharing with our families. When we pray “thy kingdom come” in the Lord’s Prayer every week, we are praying for that dream to come true on earth, not only in small snippets or rare holidays, but as the ordinary dream of life for all, where there is plenty of love, laughter and life to go around – it is the dream of God’s kingdom.

Jesus stands before Pilate today, dreaming a dream of God’s kingdom. But it is safe to say that Pilate does not share the same dream. People who read the story of Jesus’ confrontation with Pontius Pilate are often struck by how nervous Pilate is through the whole thing: Jesus responds to each question of Pilate’s, so that it seems as if Pilate is on trial, not Jesus. Jesus comes before him accused of “subverting the nation, opposing payment of taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King." Pilate knows that the threat of this ragged prophet is nothing compared to the might and power of Rome, but he is also confronted with an angry mob . Fearing a riot if he doesn’t do what the mob demands, he does what he would prefer not to do, and puts Jesus to death for the crime of being a king. Even though Jesus has no intention of being any kind of king that Rome would recognize – even though Jesus’ way of being a king is of another order altogether – so different from any recognizable earthly leader that Jesus can only say, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

We sometimes assume that when Jesus said “My kingdom is not of this world,” that he meant only life after death. We do believe that Jesus promises eternal life to all who believe. But Jesus taught us to pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” – the kingdom Jesus wants to bring is right here and now. And I think if we want to understand what that kingdom might look like, there’s no better place to look than our national “Dream of the Table” – a dream of God’s kingdom of justice and love and sharing and plenty, lived out here and now, with family and friends and those who love us.

Jesus is the king who wants that Dream of the Table to come true for the whole world. And Jesus is the king who works through us, empowers us, inspires us, makes it possible for each one of us to touch the world around us and begin making God’s dream a reality.

When we talk about Jesus as a king – maybe it’s a hard concept for Americans to relate to. The royalty we know are people like John F. Kennedy Jr., killed 46 years ago today, whose brief and shining moment is now thought of as the impossible dream of “Camelot.” But we post-Watergate people know that none of our politicians fully live up to our hopes for them – no one is perfect.

Or maybe, when we think of royalty, we think of the Queen of England – easily recognizable, waving that odd back-handed wave, respectable but old-fashioned, shielded from expressing genuine emotion or genuine thoughts, interesting (when the occasional scandal erupts) but quaint and irrelevant to anything in our real lives.

And so when we think of Jesus as our king, my question is, is he more relevant to our lives than the Queen of England? Do we really believe, and live as if, Jesus is the king of our lives? Do we really believe that he stands before the kingdoms and powers of this world, powers that keep so many people in poverty and suffering, kingdoms that allow people to be oppressed and hopeless, and challenges them with the dream that the Kingdom of God can become a reality, right here on earth as it is in heaven? Do we live as though we want to put that kingdom in practice here and now?

That Kingdom of God has been a long time coming – and still we wait and hope, still we pray for those in need and those who suffer, still we ask God to work through us and transform us so that we can transform the kingdoms we see around us.

That transformation can come in small ways, in ordinary ways. It can come when two people decide to get married, and bind themselves to each other in a covenant of love – a covenant that means they will each promise to put each other’s needs in front of their own. It can come when a father sits down with his child and teaches her to read, and while he teaches her, he also shows her what love feels like, and trains her to live that love in her life. It can come when a business person looks at the way the people in her company live, and realize that they are so busy competing, gossiping, backstabbing, and angling for promotions that they have forgotten how to live happy and productive lives – and decides to live differently.

It can come when people decide to form communities of faith that reach out to others with the good news of that kingdom, teaching children, guiding young people, sharing God’s care with each other, and following Jesus . It can come when a group of people in a community of faith decide to follow Jesus in all aspects of their lives, and make it a priority to put time, money and resources into helping the needy: donating food to feed the hungry at Thanksgiving; buying Christmas gifts for children who don’t already have them; giving money to feed the poorest of the poor in Mexico; spending Saturdays building houses for people whose homes are inadequate – all things that this Nativity community is doing – and many more.

Every time one Christian takes a stand to follow Jesus in his or her life – Jesus is standing once more before Pilate – putting the kingdoms of the world on trial. And with every action to bring God’s kingdom to earth – the kingdoms of the world lose a little bit more.

In the Prague demonstrations that sparked the Czech Revolution on Nov. 18, 1989, 20 years ago this week, students began chanting to the Communist party leadership, "You have lost already! You have lost already!" Though victory was in the future, a participant commented, "We knew we could win. We knew it was unstoppable. At the point that we committed ourselves to the struggle, we began to understand that victory was ours."

Victory belongs to Jesus Christ. It's not here fully yet, but bit by bit, Jesus Christ, our king, works through us to make his dream a reality. This table that Jesus invites us to every week, this table of Eucharist, is a Thanksgiving table. Eucharist is a word that simply means “Thanksgiving.” At this Thanksgiving table, we offer ourselves, our souls and bodies, to Christ, and Christ offers himself back to us. This table of Thanksgiving is a table where everyone is invited and welcome, and there is enough for everyone, for all time.

The kingdoms of the world have lost already, in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus – and one day, God’s kingdom will come fully on earth, and the world will change, and the Dream of this Thanksgiving Table will come true. Thanks be to God. And Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.