Sermon from 11/23/25 Christ the King Sunday

 

Luke 23:33-43. Colossians 1:11-20

“Expectations”

          Today is Christ the King Sunday. This means it is the last Sunday of the church year. Next Sunday Advent begins and with it a new church year. So today is the culmination of the past year. It began with waiting in anticipation of a birth, then Christmas, and then the events of the life of Jesus, a journey to the cross, an empty tomb, resurrection and then the building up of the community of Christians beginning with Pentecost and tongues of fire. Then we journeyed through the teachings of Christ and now today … Christ the King Sunday.

          An entire year of build-up- story after story, parables, miracles, teachings, prayers, healings, doubts, conversions, baptisms, promises, revelations all leading up to this. This moment of recognizing Christ the King. It’s as if we have been turning the pages of this cosmic story, sitting on the edge of our seat, surprised, delighted, frightened, wondering what will come next. The pages remaining becoming thinner than the pages read and our excitement building … how will it end? As we turn the pages with anticipation we come down to the very last one and with hands shaking with excitement, eyes opened wide prepared for wonder and awe, we come to this … this lesson read today from Luke’s Gospel. The words painting the picture on this final page of our church year and the picture is of Jesus, hanging from a cross, being mocked.

          Is this what we were expecting? Is this the glorious image we hoped for when we pictured Christ the King? Perhaps you find yourself slumping into the seat you once sat on the edge of, loosening the wide-eyed gaze of excitement and shaking your head with a puzzled brow … asking “is this it?”

          It is a very unflattering picture. Jesus has had his clothes taken, he has been beaten and he has been hung on a cross for all to look at. He is next to criminals. This passage that was read is not one of celebration and praise that one might expect for a king, but rather one of mockery. The heart of the passage is teasing, humiliation … let down. Instead of a royal banner pronouncing him king, the only titles we hear are said with cruelty. We hear it from the people who say “let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” Then the soldiers saying “If you are King of the Jews, save yourself!” And then one of the criminals next to him saying “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” This embarrassment, this cruelty, this heartlessness … is this what you were expecting on this Christ the King Sunday?

          Expectations can be a beautiful thing, an opportunity to live in the excitement of anticipation, something to hang our hope on … or they can be a painful and disappointing thing. Expectations may come from our convictions and hopes. Or they can come from our fears and insecurities.

           My husband is in a position of leadership; he is the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany. This means that he oversees 105 churches and represents the Diocese to the wider church. A few weeks ago he got a very well-written letter full of sincerity and passion. The writer of it laid out all that he saw happening in the country that was upsetting- people living in fear, violent arrests, injustices and dangerous language deepening divisions. He then asked “Bishop, what will you do?” and implored my husband to “do something” to use his position and voice to speak against the President, the leaders and make a change. That very same week my husband received another letter that was again full of sincerity and passion. This writer laid out what he saw as the upsetting things happening in this country- people attacking the president, violence against Christians and dangerous language deepening divisions. He too implored my husband to “do something” to use his position and voice to change things, only this writer believed that means speaking for the President and fighting for the actions that the other person is so horrified by. As I looked at these letters from my position as spouse to my husband, I felt the weight of expectations on him. So much expectation on what he can do, what he should do. And I understand because I too wish there was a hero to come and save the day, but I also recognize that placing that expectation on one single human is likely not the best bet.

          It brought up a memory for me from some time ago, I was a newly ordained pastor, about 25 years old and serving in my first appointment. I was an associate pastor and the senior pastor was out of town. We received a request for a funeral and I responded. I met with the family and felt that something was “off” as they looked at me and barely said a word, but I was grateful for an “in-law” who was open and shared all kinds of stories and memories of the loved one who had died. On the day of the service, I walked into the funeral home and it was like one of those moments in a movie where someone walks into the bar and the music stops and everyone turns and glares with suspicion at the person who walked in. It was me, I was the one they were glaring at. I didn’t have to wonder long because some folks were thoughtful enough to whisper loud enough for me to hear as they expressed their disappointment that the pastor was a woman … and even worse … a young woman. I continued on, telling myself that the expectations were so low that surely I could disappoint no further. But the weight of expectations … crushed expectations was felt.

          We all live with the weight of expectations. And, let’s be honest, the heaviest of them all are the ones we likely put on ourselves. We walk around under the weight of our own expectations of the kind of employee, parent, spouse, friend, Christian, human we should be. And then also the weight of our own disappointment when we, of course, cannot meet those … because we are human and we are not perfect.

          We look in the mirror and ask ourselves “is this what I was expecting?” And we probably also look at our world and ask the same thing. And there is pain in that. I look around and see a world I was not expecting or hoping for. A world of inequality, fear, pain, discrimination, hatred, violence, environmental destruction and war. This is not the world I hoped to raise my children in. This is not the world I thought we were working toward. This is not the world of realized hopes of peace, love, kindness and justice. And sometimes that is scary, sometimes it breaks my heart and sometimes I want to cry out for a hero. So I too sit with hope and longing as we turn the page to find our Messiah, the one promised by God, longed for, the chosen one, the Savior.

          But what I find doesn’t look anything like the story book expectations I have for a hero. Actually, it’s so much better than that. Jesus dying on the cross is not a pretty picture. It is painful and it is heart-breaking but it is real and it is exactly how he told us it would be. It is a divine act of love to bring each of us into a restored relationship with God. A divine act of love for our broken and violent world. A violence and brokenness that Jesus knew deeply and yet, he still came for us. As Jesus was hanging from the cross being mocked as the air left his lungs, one of the criminals beside him said “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” This criminal knew he had done wrong, he knew he was a criminal, he saw Jesus on the cross next to him, saw the mocking, saw the pain and yet he asks for Jesus to remember him. And Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

         The one being mocked says these words to the one who is being punished for crimes, showing us that there are no barriers separating us from God’s love. Jesus gives assurance to this criminal, this man who surely did not meet the expectations of others. Christ the King is not a hero just for the lucky few, the privileged ones, or those who are perfect, he is a savior for the world. He knows that we are human, that we sin, that we make mistakes, that we fall short, that we get lost in the pain of the world and yet, he assures us of salvation. He calls us to lift our gaze from the hopelessness and despair to a place called Paradise, to a restored relationship with God, to a peace that cannot be earned.

          And living in that love we are called to hold on to that hope, to persevere in the darkness, to bring light into the world. We are called to make this earth look like the kingdom of God and have courage to live not for the expectations of the world, but for the love of Christ.

         As the reading from Colossians says, “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

          Perhaps not what we expected …but so much more.

"Simple Answers" Sermon from 11/9/25

 

Sermon from First UMC East Greenbush, Luke 20:27-38

          It’s an absurd situation … intentionally. Even for back then when life expectancy was shorter and there were no resources for family planning, even then, it’s an absurd situation. Seven brothers, each one dying one at a time, without children and then marrying the same woman until finally all seven have died and the widow remains. It is intentionally absurd because there is no genuine curiosity behind it. We are told in the first line of this passage from Luke that those asking it, the Sadducees, “say there is no resurrection.” So we already know they do not believe what Jesus is teaching. So they come up to Jesus with this scenario to see what he will say. They aren’t looking for enlightenment, they are looking to prove him wrong, to make him look foolish, they are looking for a “gotcha” moment.

         A gotcha moment is when someone seems to be asking a question but is really just hoping to trick you, puzzle you, or make you look stupid. People love these moments. They love to see people stammer, stutter or admit that they don’t know something. I can imagine that if this scene was taking place today, there would be a big group of people standing around with their cell phones up, hitting record and hoping to get a big moment to post on Instagram. It’s like all those cameras positioned around the plane, watching as a president descends down the staircase, hoping to catch a trip, a stumble, anything that people will click on or laugh at or use to prove a point about weakness. That’s where Jesus is standing in this scene from Luke, he is at the top of the stairs, about to walk down and the Sadducees are sure hoping he will miss a step.

           But he doesn’t. Like so many other times in the Gospels, Jesus avoids the trap and not because he sidesteps it, but rather because he faces it with the truth, a deeper truth. Jesus answers this question by taking it to another level. He will not engage with their premise because he knows they lack understanding. It’s like the Sadducees are looking at a map of their neighborhood and thinking it’s a map of the earth. They aren’t seeing beyond what is in front of them. They are caught in the details, the legalities, the day to day existence they see and trying to apply that to eternity, to the ways of God, to the great Divine mystery.

           I believe that questions of faith are important. I know that in my own faith journey, questions of faith have deepened my relationship with God and strengthened my faith. There are many examples in the Bible of people wrestling with God, crying out their doubts, digging deeper, and coming out changed … renewed, lit from within by a burning desire to stay close to God. But there is a difference between asking questions to dive deeper into a relationship with God and asking questions to put up walls and barriers on that relationship.

           Before I moved to New York about a year and a half ago, I was a youth pastor at a large church. I got to walk alongside young people as they challenged, questioned, wondered at and celebrated their faith. I loved sitting with teens and young adults as they started asking questions about what they believe. The questions showed that they were taking their faith seriously, they were figuring out how to apply it their lives, their goals and their decisions. They were making sense of the world and inviting the Holy Spirit into that. And, at a certain point, they had to decide whether to dive in to the mystery and accept that we can’t understand everything, we can’t always make sense of God’s ways- and embrace faith or decide to pull away. And honestly, that’s a decision we probably make over and over in our lives as we grow, mature and encounter new struggles and new questions.  When we have asked all our questions, will we embrace faith and accept Divine mystery, or will we keep trying to figure it all out for ourselves?

           When Jesus answers the Sadducees, he tries to explain to them how God’s ways are different than what we see in the here and now. He talks about things that defy laws and defy maps and defy what we can experience in the here and now. He talks about being “like angels” and the dead being raised and being “children of the resurrection.” For those of us living here and now, it’s difficult to understand these things. Difficult to wrap our minds around God’s love that never ends, even when we die. Difficult to imagine a time when all of this will be no more and we will be made new in a resurrection with Christ. Death is such a harsh reality and we spend a lot of time trying to wrap our minds around it, run from it, avoid it, worry about it and plan around it. It’s hard to imagine a time when death will be no more.

           Since we moved here, my favorite place to walk my dog is a cemetery. I live near Albany Rural Cemetery and my dog and I have had the opportunity to explore its many paths, look at its many colorful trees and listen to the many sounds of the creeks and waterfalls. It’s a place where I go when I want to clear my head and just be present in the moment. I don’t listen to music or talk on the phone, I just hear the sounds of the birds, the rustling leaves and my footsteps. I look at the distant hills, the flowers and blue sky. And I also look at the graves. I think about the stories behind them. I look at the grave with the life-sized statue of a curious three-year old boy looking at a book and think about the mother who had that made, the mother who still wanted to see her son standing there, innocent and present. I look at the big fancy towers and marble buildings and think about the family patriarchs and matriarchs who decided on materials that would last, stones big enough to be around for a long time, structures sturdy enough for whatever weather may come. I look at the freshly placed flags by the graves of veterans and think of the people who placed them there, people who are devoted to doing the research, finding the graves and carefully placing the flags so that the legacy of courage, sacrifice and dedication isn’t forgotten. I look at the graves with matching benches next to them, benches made by loved ones who couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them there and wanted to make a spot where they could still be together.

          All of it out of love. In the hospital I sit with families as they try to soak up every last second, every last breath before the machine stops beeping. Death is a harsh reality. And it is hard to let go.

          So I get it. If a man marries a woman and she doesn’t have children and he dies and then she marries the brother and he dies and the next brother and the next and the next … who will she be married to in “the resurrection?” It’s almost a way of asking, how do we keep this life going? How do we hold on to the attachments we have here? How to we make sense of things and feel safe? How can we make what is unknown feel predictable?

          Like the beautiful stones placed with love, we want a way to still experience the ones we love here on earth.

          But Jesus says, it’s not like that. And maybe that sounds scary, maybe that sounds like something we don’t understand or can’t predict or control or buy or purchase insurance for, but Jesus says …. It’s so much better than that. Jesus says that the dead are “children of God” and that even though they are dead . . . to God “all of them are alive.”

          We are God’s children. God’s love continues across all space and time, it is more than the here and now. God isn’t letting us go. God has got us, even if that isn’t the “gotcha” moment the Sadducees are expecting.

          So breathe easy, it’s ok if we don’t understand it all. We are God’s children and that will never end. God’s love is so much more than our attempts to make sense of things.

           When I am working as a hospital chaplain, I often do rounds in the post-partum unit. I give new parents some time and space to process whatever thoughts, feelings and emotions they are having and then I ask if they would like me to pray. And each family has different things they would like me to pray for, like health or happiness- and I do, but every single time I look down at those tiny little brand new lives, those little toes and soft shoulders, my heart feels overwhelmed by how beloved they are. So innocent and so new, so clearly God’s children. And I pray that every day of their lives they will know how much they are loved. As their skin wrinkles, their bones stretch, their minds deepen and their joints crack, even then, that they will know every moment of every day that they are God’s beloved children. And that is my prayer for you. The Sadducees brought Jesus a complicated question, and he gave them a much deeper, much bigger answer, but also a much simpler answer … it’s love … God’s love in this life and the next.