Jesus is Lord
- 2 Samuel 23:1-7
- Psalm 132
- Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
- Psalm 93
- Revelation 1:4b-8
- John 18:33-37
His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.
from thence he shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
Our Fundie friends, looking at the book of Revelation hear mention of the “Thousand year reign” and they imagine that something will happen on earth… and that kingdom will last 1000 years. And then things will change again. This millennialism (as it is called) has given rise to a bunch of nuts, really, throughout history; from the Montanists to Tim LeHey, fringe preachers and cultists have missed the numerological point: a thousands years is forever. It’s the day of the Lord. It’s now. That’s why the church, first in AD 230, and again later condemned millennialism as a heresy. That’s why the church added the line “whose kingdom will have no end” to the Creed!
The fun thing was, in most of my life (including for some time in Orthodoxy), I was a millennialist. Specifically, I was a pre-millennial dispensationalist. I had to read more than a couple of Orthodox writings – including some very early texts by St Andrew of Caesarea and a commentary translated from Russian by Fr Seraphim Rose
The Church is the Kingdom of God, here, present. And now is the millennium. Now: here. The Kingdom of God grows on the earth…
But what does it mean to say “Jesus is Lord” if the vast majority of Christians get hung up on some local leader, Caesar, Governor, Potentate, Satrap, or President? You may not offer a pinch of incense, but you do idealise and nearly worship the folks you like and demonise the ones you hate. And, sadly, trust the lot of ‘em to do what you want as if they can’t be expected to do what you do: do exactly what it takes to keep your job, continue earning your pay, and keep just enough people happy to stay employed, feed your family and pay your bills.
And you wonder why they fail, over and over again, to legislate our morality.
To proclaim today – or any day – the Kingship of Jesus is to disavow any connection with the rulers of the world…
To proclaim the kingship of Jesus is to confess that your passport/citizenship is nothing to you save as a tool to further the kingdom of heaven.
To proclaim the kingship of Jesus is to announce to your neighbours and the local civil authorities that you can’t be trusted.
A lot of my brothers and sisters are signing something called “the Manhattan Declaration”. It says they reject divorce and gay marriage and insist on religious freedom. While I disagree with them on the second item, they are right on numbers 1 and 3. I think they should go further: Churches should reject any cozening from the state. CHurches should burn the flags they have in their buildings. Churches should reign in soldiers they have in their midst (as the CHurch did through the first few centuries until the Roman Empire co-opted the Church) urging them to repent and go AWOL.
To proclaim the kingship of Jesus means to reject the machinations of empire.
To proclaim the kingship of Jesus means that the messages of fear, hate and violence that empire sends to you, on a daily basis, must be ignored, subverted, thwarted.
To proclaim the kingship of Jesus means to eat with your enemies, even if they killed your family destroyed your towers and burst your bubble.
To proclaim the kingship of Jesus means you are not bound by the laws of the nations around you.
To proclaim the kingship of Jesus means to die rather than submit to earthly empires contrary to God’s will.
It does not mean that we are to take up the worlds methods, however. Politics, protest marches, petitions, declarations are not the way of the kingdom of Jesus. We become the world when we do so: just another political movement, another option on the smorgasbord of culture. We co-opt the message of Jesus and turn it into right or left-wing political drivel.
We sell out.
Proclaiming the Kingship of Jesus means there is no boundaries you will not cross to love. And there is no border you will not cross to heal. There is no space you can be kept out of. There is no act you can not do (even death) to continue the process of reconciling the world to God.
To proclaim the Kingship of Jesus means realising – in the first person – that we fail daily in all of this. That we can never do it fully until Jesus is, again, reigning in our own hearts, that that will never happen until the End, that our sisters and brothers in this kingdom are also going to fail.
And that we love anyway.
Tags: kingship, RCL, sermon notes | Category: contemplation
Discussion: You came too late to this party
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“The fun thing was, in most of my life (including for some time in Orthodoxy), I was a millennialist. Specifically, I was a pre-millennial dispensationalist.”
I gave this up when I was a student at Moody Bible Institute, where I had the chance to examine it in more detail. I don’t think I could’ve become an Anglo-Catholic, much less Orthodox, if I still held on to pre-millenial dispensationalism.
“To proclaim today – or any day – the Kingship of Jesus is to disavow any connection with the rulers of the world… ”
I’m not sure I would agree with you on this. I understand the spirit of what you’re saying, but it sounds unpractical to me – a little too tidy. How else are we supposed to get things done if we don’t engage in the political process? Maybe we could reduce our engagement and instead rely more on the personal persuasion of holy lives shining forth the light of Christ, but you can’t rely on this alone. The work of government must go forth, and God forbid we completely leave it in the hands of the pagans. I think I would be with Luther on this one and not the anabaptists, as you seem to be.
“Churches should reign in soldiers they have in their midst (as the CHurch did through the first few centuries until the Roman Empire co-opted the Church) urging them to repent and go AWOL.”
Once again, too idealistic. As a veteran, there are times when I wish someone would’ve reigned me in. Nevertheless, I am proud of my service and only wish my country was more responsible in its use. As the Orthodox say, there is no such thing as a just war, but sometimes war becomes a necessary evil. For this reason, I’m thinking about becoming a military chaplain so that I can go where the evil is and perhaps bring a small piece of God’s grace to a wounded soldier who needs healing. That’s what the incarnation means to me – living within the ambiguity of history and not running away from it(though I wouldn’t suggest your more pacifist approach is a running away from history either).
“do exactly what it takes to keep your job, continue earning your pay, and keep just enough people happy to stay employed, feed your family and pay your bills.”
Aint that the truth!
I think I like being called too idealistic: provided I don’t judge you for trying to be more prosaic.
Depends on what you mean by prosaic. Realist? Definitely. Uninteresting and humdrum? Maybe.
NO more comments posted after taking my melatonin!
My “idealism” was (in my head) to be paralleled with poetry in preaching. And then contrasted to “realism” in preaching as prosaic in its colloquial meaning of prose = boring. It was not intended to dismiss your realism as flat and dull, although, perhaps, it is too hard to draw such a line in preaching.
Also, my sermon notes were missing the “invitation to discussion” usual in my community: which invite you took as a given, so, for that I thank you.
Again: I like the idea of being called “too idealistic” if we can see that as visionary or poetry. Maybe “mystical”? It’s a good contrast to your realism – which I see “where the rubber meets the road”. I agree with the Orthodox on this point: even following the words of the founder in a strict sense will cause harm (sin) to happen in this fallen world. A lifestyle of violent defense of what is “right” can cause harm to others. A lifestyle of pacifism as “right” can cause harm to others. There may be some times when one choice is more or less harmful than the other.
I think the job of the evil one is to make choices sinful in their consequences.
But I also think it interesting that at a time when conscription was by force and service was life-long and AWOLness punishable by death, the Church suggested AWOLness and provided community support for it pointing to the words of her founder. (I love the stories of ROman MIlitary martyrs engaged in acts of insubordination in the name of Jesus!) But at a time when conscription is nearly universally absent and there are many options for many lifetimes of pacifism and service, the church blesses military service.
The world needs both poets and realists. Sometimes I consider myself both, depending on my mood. I also agree that the church should preach and support a more pacifist ethic. Nevertheless, it shouldn’t hold back those who are called to serve in the military. It should bless those who make such choices, but in a non-celebratory manner. The church should especially call on the government to use the military only as a last resort. The church should provide alternatives to selfless service other than the military too.