Today, we celebrate Christ the King Sunday....this is the final Sunday in the lectionary calendar – next week, we will start the season of Advent and await the birth of Christ at Christmas.
On this Christ the King Sunday, our scriptural focus of the day comes from the book of the Prophet Jeremiah. Prophets were often called into service during very tumultuous times for the people of God, and Jeremiah is no exception. He was a prophet in Judah for more than 40 years. When Jeremiah started his prophetic career, Judah was a vassal of the Assyrian Empire....they had a little independence but had to pay taxes to the Assyrians and their men had to serve in the Assyrian army. The Assyrian Empire weakened, and the Babylonians conquered them. This meant that Judah had to then serve the Babylonians. The kings of Judah rebelled, and the Babylonians punished the people – the elites and royal family were exiled to Babylon and the Judens lost all independence.
Jeremiah was a prophet while all these events occurred. He warned the kings of Judah not to rebel against the Babylonians, but they dismissed Jeremiah and God’s warnings.
This morning, we read a portion of the book of Jeremiah – in this reading, Jeremiah tries to warn the king not to rebel against the Babylonians. The king was not appreciative of Jermiah’s warnings. Listen to how the story unfolds as we read first from Jeremiah 36, and then from Jeremiah 31.....Listen now to the word of God....
The Scripture Jeremiah 36: 1-8, 21-23, 27-28; 31:31-34
In the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord:
2 “Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah and all the other nations from the time I began speaking to you in the reign of Josiah till now.
3 Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about every disaster I plan to inflict on them, they will each turn from their wicked ways; then I will forgive their wickedness and their sin.”
4 So Jeremiah called Baruch son of Neriah, and while Jeremiah dictated all the words the Lord had spoken to him, Baruch wrote them on the scroll.
5 Then Jeremiah told Baruch, “I am restricted; I am not allowed to go to the Lord’s temple.
6 So you go to the house of the Lord on a day of fasting and read to the people from the scroll the words of the Lord that you wrote as I dictated. Read them to all the people of Judah who come in from their towns.
7 Perhaps they will bring their petition before the Lord and will each turn from their wicked ways, for the anger and wrath pronounced against this people by the Lord are great.”
8 Baruch son of Neriah did everything Jeremiah the prophet told him to do; at the Lord’s temple he read the words of the Lord from the scroll.
-- So, Baruch read the scroll to the people of Judah who had gathered at the Temple to worship God. The king heard about Baruch reading Jeremiah’s prophesies of God’s words....and the king did not like what he heard.....
21 The king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and Jehudi brought it from the room of Elishama the secretary and read it to the king and all the officials standing beside him.
22 It was the ninth month and the king was sitting in the winter apartment, with a fire burning in the firepot in front of him.
23 Whenever Jehudi had read three or four columns of the scroll, the king cut them off with a scribe’s knife and threw them into the firepot, until the entire scroll was burned in the fire.
27 After the king burned the scroll containing the words that Baruch had written at Jeremiah’s dictation, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah:
28 “Take another scroll and write on it all the words that were on the first scroll, which Jehoiakim king of Judah burned up.
--This is what God told Jeremiah to prophesy to the people of Judah and to the king....God says:
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to[a] them,[b]”
declares the Lord.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
Here ends this reading of the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Let us pray....
The Message God Promises a New Covenant
Today is Reign of Christ Sunday or Christ the King Sunday. It is a day when we consider God’s rule over the earth, and that Jesus is the ultimate role-model and leader of humanity. As God-incarnate in a human, Jesus exemplifies the best of humanity for us. He is the model ruler, leader, and human.
On this Christ the King Sunday, our focus scripture of the day includes an example of a very bad king: King Jehoiakim. Ironically, his father, King Josiah was considered by his subjects and by Biblical scholars to be a very good king. The scribes who wrote down the histories in the Bible tend to describe kings as good rulers if they are loyal followers of God and lead their subjects to worship God and practice the Jewish faith. In contrast, the “bad” kings of the Bible are the ones who worship other Gods and encourage their people to practice religions other than Judaism. King Josiah led his people to more faithfully follow God – he removed official sanction of worship of other gods. After his death, Jehoiakim became the king.
In our reading, King Jehoiakim was upset when he heard the prophet Jeremiah’s prophesies.... instead of listening to the prophesies, and changing his ways, the king cut up Jeremiah’s words and burned them in a fire. The prophesies were more complicated than the snippet we just heard – they also told the people of Judah not to antagonize the Babylonians and to repent and listen to God. King Jehoiakim burned up God's words and didn’t tell his population to repent. Later, King Jehoiakim's armies rebelled against the more powerful Babylonian armies—his choices led to his land being conquered, his own death, and his people being exiled.
Sometimes it is good to listen to warnings and take heed of them, even if we don’t like what they say.
King Jehoiakim was a bad king....in contrast, Jesus is the kind of king we all need.
In our lives, we want our leaders to have many positive traits. When we choose who to vote for to serve in our government, we want our politicians to be smart and honest, compassionate and morally upright, confident and yet willing to make compromises for the greater good of their people. Sometimes we feel like our elected leaders do a good job of embodying these traits; other times, we feel our leaders have room to grow.
Earthly leaders are never perfect.... but, Jesus is the kind of leader, the kind of king, we need.
Jesus embodies the traits we want in all leaders. In fact, all Christians must work to imitate Jesus. Jesus is compassionate – he turned towards people who were suffering – he saw their real needs and tried to help them – he healed people who were physically ill, and he restored to wholeness those who were spiritually ill.
Jesus is a servant leader. He wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty and literally washed the feet of his friends (which was a servant’s job.) Jesus had the power to make everyone bow down and serve him; but he used his power to serve other people.
Jesus is loving. He needed that love to have a compassionate, servant’s heart. He cared for the people he met and even loved the people who were persecuting him.
Jesus forgave the sins of others. He forgave the people who persecuted him. Jesus forgave the people who killed him. Jesus forgave.
Christ the King Sunday was first conceived as a response to both secularism and secular nationalism. Today, we remember that our loyalty is to God and to our faith as Christians. We are followers of Jesus first – Jesus sets the example with traits we want in our leaders and in ourselves – to be compassionate, humble, loving, and forgiving. We are called to treat others the way Jesus treated others – with love.
This day is also a reminder that God calls us reach across borders and imaginary boundaries to care about people who live in other places. We may live in Pennsylvania, but we care about people who live in Arizona. We may be citizens of the United States, but we care about what happens to people in Lesotho. As people of faith, we must remember that our faith is a Global faith, our God is the god of all people, and when any of God’s children are suffering, it is our opportunity and responsibility to help. Jesus is the king of all, and we look to him as our role-model of how we are to treat each other – love is our priority.
Let us work to be loving in our communities, in our nation, and across borders.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment