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Sermon at The Church of
the Holy Apostles, New York City,
November 26, 2006, The Feast of Christ the King: Year B
The Reverend William A. Greenlaw, Ph.D.
Daniel 7: 9 - 14
Psalm 93
Revelation 1: 1 - 8
John 18: 33 - 37
Welcome to Christ the King! The feast day that marks the end,
the divine telos, the final summation of a drama that began last
Advent, the consummation of all that has gone before, where
everything finally comes together, where doubts and ambiguities
are resolved, where wrongs are righted, disease and death, wars
and tumults, poverty and famine cease, the ruination of our mother
earth is ended, and everything but everything is set right—and
it’s going to stay that way! What we would seem to have here is a
sort of universal heaven and earth, a sort of post-historical,
post-critical Garden of Eden, or rather, City of God, on the far
end of the telescope. Everyone but everyone will behave and be
generous and loving and all life shall flourish.. Christ is
King. The Kingdom of God is a reality, and all shall be well for
ever and ever. The final consummation writ large. That’s the
theory anyway, but as usual, things are just a little more
complicated. Just what is going on here?
This past Tuesday there was a very important article on
the second page of the Metro section of the Times. In it, Verna
Eggleston, New York City’s Human Resources Administration
commissioner, acknowledged that hunger was worsening in New York
City, that emergency feeding programs were pressed to their
limits, and that even many employees of the HRA needed to avail
themselves of emergency services to get by toward the end of the
month. Yet we just had an election—and we heard nary a peep from
any candidate anywhere about hunger and homelessness in our
city—or in urban America. On the contrary, our federal support
through the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (run by FEMA) has
been cut by a staggering 21% this year.
This past week, I also spoke with some potential
funders in the ever more difficult task of keeping the soup
kitchen afloat when public discourse has marginalized hunger and
homelessness almost completely. In our conversation, it hit me
for perhaps the first time that this coming October 22, 2007, we
will mark the mark the 25th Anniversary of the Holy
Apostles Soup Kitchen. And we began musing on ways we might use
that milestone to increase both the soup kitchen’s visibility and
its viability in the coming years.
That discussion caused me to do a little digging, and I
found some remarks I had made on the occasion of our 15th
anniversary—and the contrast with our present day was startling.
I want to share with you a couple of paragraphs from a sermon back
then.
“On October 21, we commemorated 15 years of the Holy
Apostles Soup Kitchen, having served three and a quarter million
meals during that time. And as many of you know, Ruth Messinger
came and spoke. [Remember Ruth?!] It was just a couple of weeks
before the mayoral election. And what we got was vintage Ruth. A
vision, a sensibility that things are not good, but that we can
and must do something about them—and it is the proper role of the
government to help those who have least. That we cannot and must
not tolerate the notion that soup kitchens and homelessness are
simply now a normal part of our urban landscape. That we have the
capacity and the real possibility of taking back a larger vision.
We really do. Most of us who were here cheered lustily. And it
was wonderful.
“But then the following Sunday there was an analysis of
events like the one we experienced on the front page of the Metro
section of the New York Times. The general theme of the article
was many were getting good doses of vintage Ruth all right, but
these were almost quaint in their old-fashioned Upper West Side
liberalism and assumptions about the role and function of
government. The audiences may cheer, but what we had here was
nothing less than a throwback to something that was clearly on its
way out, whose day had passed.”
Of course, in the election that was held just a bit
later, Ruth Messinger was completely crushed by Rudy Giuliani.
For it seems we live in a different era, a different world, with
different sensibilities.
Even back then, I mused on feeling not just a little
disoriented, for even then the Soup Kitchen was painted with the
brush of being out of synch with the times, at least popularly
speaking. For some, it would seem to be a throwback to an earlier
era, now considered passé. Photo ops at soup kitchens no longer
seem to help in elections as they seemed to do in the early years
of our history. People who are hungry and homeless are supposed
to get it together, and if they can’t, then they will simply have
to get out of the way. It would be best if they would become
invisible. Some of you may remember that it was the harshness of
the Giuliani administration’s policies toward the homeless and
hungry of our city that caused a great many demonstrations in our
city, particularly from our religious communities. Our own Social
and Economic Justice Committee was born in this era and was
galvanized over this issue.
Now I know I am being more than a little cynical. I
would think that most people, whatever their political viewpoint,
would agree that there will likely be neither soup kitchens nor
homelessness in the Kingdom of God, when Christ is truly King.
Now, the soup kitchen is, of course, merely one example, one
symbol of the countless seemingly intractable problems our world
faces, all of which are addressed when all is fulfilled. But the
real question is, what does it take, how do we get from here to
there? What role can we play that can really make some
difference?
I need to tell you that I think this question is one of
the most serious and one of the most difficult questions we face.
And there is no easy or obvious answer. It is something with
which all of us must struggle to find our way.
Part of the difficulty stems precisely from the notion
that we are to celebrate on this feast of Christ the King
Christ’s ultimate triumph, the triumph of good over evil, of hope
over despair, of consummation over disintegration, of Christ
exercising a kingship, an authority that is for real. And
further, and most importantly, the assumption is clearly that this
world in which we live is somehow tied up, caught up, ultimately
fulfilled in this transformation. It is not simply some
otherworldly phenomenon by which we are simply saved out of this
world into something entirely different. And as good Anglican
incarnationalists, we do believe that creation is good and worth
preserving, that in the incarnation God intended to save and
redeem and renew and transform the world, not simply to junk it
and everything that is in it, saving those whom he will out of the
world.
What do we do with all this? For at least a few clues,
I would like to suggest that we look once again at the dialogue of
Jesus and Pilate that we heard in our gospel lesson, a lesson that
of course was specifically appointed for this day. Pilate: “Are
you the king of the Jews?” Jesus: “Do you ask this on your own,
or did others tell you about me?” Pilate: “I am not a Jew, am
I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to
me. What have you done?” Jesus: “My kingdom is not from this
world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be
fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it
is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate: “So you are a king?”
Jesus: “You say that I am a king. 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.” Pilate, just after our
gospel ends: “What is truth?”
What kind of a strange going-on is this? It almost
feels like two people are playing a word game that is going
nowhere. Except that it clearly isn’t. The stakes are way too
high. Why didn’t Jesus speak more directly to Pilate, who clearly
had his doubts on the charges against Jesus? Jesus might well
have been released. I am not sure we can ever know the answer to
that question. But what is going on here? Clearly, Pilate was
not about to enter into a philosophical interchange with Jesus
about the nature of kingship and truth. Not just now, anyway, for
a cosmic drama was being played out.
Consider the larger sense of truth that Jesus is
speaking about. It seems clear that Jesus is not talking about
anything immediately at hand or empirically verifiable. Rather he
is reflecting on the character of ultimate reality, of the
ultimate power beyond all things and yet which undergirds all
things.
He is speaking of faithfulness, of covenant, of
confidence, of reliability, of hope. He is speaking out of his
sonship to the God he knows as Father. From this perspective,
truth is not found in any contemporary principalities or powers,
but rather in seeking the inner meaning behind and underneath the
outer world. It is where we hear the still small voice, or in the
darkest night of the soul, we find a gentleness and a peace which
transcends understanding, but which is as real as anything we can
know in this life, if only we will open ourselves to discovering
it. For there, the yoke is easy and the burden is light.
It is right there that perhaps we can also discover a
new meaning of kingship, of Jesus the Christ who is our king, our
Lord and master, who does not Lord it over us, but who rather
shepherds and guides and directs us in a love and tenderness which
is simply awesome, but which the world seems only to disdain. It
is a kingdom into which we are invited which is eternal, yet which
is integrally bound up with this world for which our Lord died.
Jesus’ kingship embraces and yet ultimately transcends this world.
The world in which we live, the lives we live and
choices we make are of the profoundest and deepest significance,
and yet they are taken up and accepted and transformed in ways
that remain elusive and mysterious. But what matters is that they
matter, and we matter.
That means that our efforts and our strivings matter as
well. To return to our earlier example, the Holy Apostles Soup
Kitchen may or may not solve the problem of hunger in our city.
It may or may not “succeed” in worldly terms. But we are not
opportunists here. On a certain level, we do what we do here
every day because we simply cannot help ourselves. We are simply
being who we are.
A ministry, a work was started here that none of us
could possibly have known where it would lead. But, at least in
my opinion, that work has happened and continued and has prospered
only because it was of God. I make that assertion at least in
part because it is so wildly improbable on any other basis.
And what we do here is we feed people. And at least on
occasion we help some of our guests get off the line permanently.
Even if it feels like we are drowning with all the new people who
come to us and that the problem is too vast for us. Occasionally
we may need to remind ourselves that feeding one person who is
hungry is doing God’s work, is serving Christ. Being with,
listening to, counseling one person who has come to us in need is
doing God’s work, is serving Christ. Being a sign, being a
testimony, being a witness to a different set of priorities than
the world would offer is doing God’s work, is serving Christ. It
is connected however mysteriously with the Kingdom of God. It is
connected however mysteriously with Christ the King. It is
connected with being of the Truth.
Where or how this will end, or how this work fits into
the total scheme of things would seem not to be ours to know.
What we can know is that we have been given our life back at least
in part because of and through this work. We have tried to be
faithful to the one we would follow. And our work is accepted
whether or not we are ultimately “successful” in the world’s
terms. It is accepted and of enormous significance even if this
world is no longer willing or able to sustain this work, for the
task of keeping this program alive is particularly daunting just
now. But in the meanwhile, day by day, for 24 years now, we have
never missed a beat, never missed a serving day, and never turn
the hungry away from our doors during our opening hours.
How can I assert that the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen is
so connected with the Kingdom of God, and with Christ the King?
Quite simply because I see reflections of it in the faces and in
the friendliness of our guests. Who again and again startle and
take me aback in expressing their thankfulness that we are here
for them. Who are concerned and ask about how I’m doing.
In the countless number of guests who say “God bless you” and
“thank you” that I hear whenever I come down here during our
serving hours. The tables are so very often turned, and I find
myself being ministered to by our guests.
I even see it in the faces of the visitors I take
through here with some regularity. They sense something wonderful
and transformative going on here, that is powerful and attractive
and palpable. The vibes are good. And again and again, they are
moved to respond to keep this work going. This is the reality
that gives me hope even when the going is rough. And all this
gives me a sense of what the Kingdom of God, of what Christ the
King is all about.
I of course speak of the soup kitchen because it is the
example most immediately at hand and because it has affected this
parish so dramatically. But each of us could find other, equally
poignant signs of the Kingdom of Christ. Our task is not to solve
everything, not to understand everything. It is to be faithful,
faithful to the Truth that has been revealed to us.
Pilate: “So you are a king?” Jesus: “You say that I
am a king. 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.”
Amen.
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