November 21, 2021: Reign of Christ - Proper 29 (34)
Note: Lectionary
Opening
When I was young I was well aware that the imagination was important at least in school and classes like English. I thought of myself is not very good at using my imagination. I was an oldest child, the namesake of my father, and for my early education I was intent on doing what I was told. It was really not until I was in my 20s that I came to realize how much using my imagination was something that fed me. Even then I thought of imagination as kind of luxury item. At that point the most important thing for me was finding a job and learning how to support myself. By the time I was in my 30s life itself was getting pretty complicated. I came to learn that using one's imagination was an important tool in the therapeutic setting. A healthy use of imagination could help one get well or to cope better with life.
Later still I was introduced to the spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola. His conversion to Christianity was built on his remarkable imagination.1 Later, in his Spiritual Exercises he integrated the use of “imagination” into an entire life of growing into maturity as a Christian. I have come to see imagination as an absolutely essential part of discerning what it is that God wants us to do with our life.
Imagine that we had been there when our normal sleeping arrangements would have been in an underground cavern: the catacombs of Rome for instance, or in the subways in London under the blitz?
- What is your sense of the goodness of God?
- Do you believe in love?
- What do you want to do when you get out of the darkness?
Imagine that we had been there looking at Jerusalem from a drone's eye view as it burned, as the stones of the Temple fell with an enormous crash onto the pavement below, and as the blood flowed in the streets.
- Would it look like God’s kingdom was at hand?
- What kind of Kingdom would that actually be?
- Would you be tempted to despair? Or to rage?
Imagine that we were there before the cross, as Jesus hung there, gasping for air, finally breathing his last?
- Would it seem as if Jesus was “Christ the King”?
- Would that question itself seem more like a bad joke?
- What do we imagine with a “king” afterall?
- Why did the people of ancient Israel clamor to God that they wanted a “king” like everybody else? And why do people today clamor for the same thing?
Whenever the feast of Christ the King comes around, my imagination travels to images like I have just sketched. I ask myself questions I don’t have easy answers for. I wonder how I’m going to get through the rapid events crashing onto our horizon.
- Thanksgiving ... then in rapid succession ...
- Christmas ... Calendar year ... tax year ...
The busyness of life tends to speed up as the Church turns a corner. One church year ends, another begins.
Agenda / Calendar
The church year comes to an end and the end of the calendar year gathers steam as we approach endings and new beginnings. Each year as I enter this time, I am especially aware that the church follows a different model of time compared to the rest of the world. It is the difference between linear time and circular time. The rest of the world counts off the years, one year after another, after another, …
The church, in contrast, follows time through a series of interconnected circles. The unwobbling center of the church’s time is the Resurrection – Easter. By secular time that varies from year to year. By sacred time, everything else is measured by that anchor.
“Christ the King” is proclaimed in that context. Jesus is “king” in that place and time where the Resurrection is the only thing that matters, where it is the measure of all else, ### Apocalyptic The weeks surrounding this final Sunday of the Church year are marked by images of the end times. We saw that last week. We will see it in the weeks to come as Advent begins. Last week we identified elements of “apocalyptic”. This week we hear from the epitome of New Testament “apocalyptic,” The Revelation to John. Next week, even as we begin to hear the promise of the fulfillment of God’s promise, Jesus will acknowledge “People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”
This week, we have heard the dramatic and vivid beginning of the Revelation to John. The greeting is as if Christ is entering the universe on a royal coach, fit for the king of the universe. “The firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.”
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
Look! He is coming with the clouds …
The Purpose of Apocalyptic is to encourage and build up.
You heard me make that claim last week. There is even more vivid evidence for that claim this week. The dramatic entrance of Christ as a “king of the universe” is followed by a breathtaking claim of the purpose of this king figure:
The king has made us to be a kingdom of priests to serve the godly purposes of our world.
The encouragement intended for each of us in these opening words is to boldly claim that each of us is given an essential role to play in the building up of the kingdom. Each of us is anointed and ordained to contribute to the purposes of the “king.”
Gospel
If I allow myself to imagine myself in the presence of Jesus before Pilate, as we have heard from the Gospel of John, I encounter a “king” unlike what the world expects. "You say that I am king."
But just as the church’s sacred time is not what the world expects, so too “Christ the King” is not what the world expects. Jesus responds that the whole purpose of his life had to do with what was true.
For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.
My imagination allows me to rest in the affirmation that in Christ there is no variable or uncertain truth. The world expects “truth” to serve the demands of whoever carries the power of the moment. Pilate could not recognize the truth because he served the demands of power.
Listen. Listen to the Truth today. Listen with your imagination and test the truth in your heart. If it is Christ that you see and hear, you can be assured that it is true.
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