December 5, 2010 (2nd Sunday of Advent)
1. It’s only been two Sundays now since our celebration of Christ the King, but the image of kingdom, of a just and timeless reign of God’s love, is pretty much a constant in the scriptural witness. We can’t just talk about kingship of Christ once a year and be done with it. In fact, Advent continues to be a great time to discuss the promise of Christ’s eternal reign since in Advent we wait for Christ to come again and usher in the justice, peace, and love of his kingdom. Of course, one of the other reasons we like to think about Christ as a leader—at any time of year—is because our own leaders, even the good ones, could really stand to improve drastically. In this vein, Rev. Tod Mundo writes:
George Washington's likeness appears on our dollar bills and our quarters, and he is revered as the Father of Our Country. George Washington owned slaves. Andrew Jackson was one of the most popular presidents in U.S. history. Andrew Jackson promised the Choctaw and Cherokee peoples, "they shall possess [their land] as long as Grass grows or water runs"; when gold was discovered on their lands, his forgot his promises and drove them from their lands so that the white people could prosper. Theodore Roosevelt was a man with a reputation larger than life, and his face is carved on Mt. Rushmore. Theodore Roosevelt pushed the notorious Platt Amendment into the Cuban constitution, thereby stealing a measure of Cuba's sovereignty under the pretense of caring about the Cuban people. Great leaders sometimes have great faults. Poor leaders sometimes have even greater faults. Jim Hightower quips, "If God had meant for people to vote, he would have given us candidates."
The leaders in the Bible, with the one obvious exception of Jesus, are not too hot either. King David is an adulterer and a murderer, his son Solomon has absolutely no self-control, the other kings of Israel and Judah mostly betray God and the religion of their ancestors. In the New Testament, we have King Herod and Pontius Pilate not to mention all the other Roman authorities who keep Paul in and out of jail.
Since the Bible, we Christians have long had a problematic relationship with our earthly leaders. Worship professor Christian Scharen suggests that, “The worst moments in the long history of God’s people across history come to pass when leaders throw their lot in with the politically powerful. Solomon and Herod are obvious examples, but so are church leaders in Germany during National Socialism or in Chile during the reign of Augusto Pinochet. Year after year, people watch their rulers again succumb to corruption, greed, and power—some more, some less.”
2. Psalm 72 must have been written by a poet that knew very well that earthly kings and leaders—and any collaboration between faithful people and those leaders—was usually marked by sinful missteps, faithlessness, and subjugation of the powerless. The psalm, however, takes a hopeful approach: instead of bemoaning how bad almost all kings have been, it focuses rather on a perfect future king who governs with justice for the poor and commitment to the well-being of all people. The psalm itself is wonderfully positive about the king, and the son of the king. Hearing this psalm with Christian ears, one immediately thinks of Jesus sitting on the throne of heaven. In the words of the psalm, this king judges the “people with righteousness and the poor with justice.” Under his rule, “the mountains yield prosperity for the people.” It’s an amazing vision. The king we await in these darkening days of December will finally be a good leader, the best leader. One commentator on Psalm 72 wondered wistfully, What would it be like if all of our leaders today had to pass this acid test to be considered good leaders? What if they had to bring justice to the poor and prosperity to the people? It’s all too easy in today’s world to forget that we can and ought to expect more from those who aspire to serve us as leaders. And continuing on a theme I started to discuss last week, wouldn’t it be amazing if we measured prosperity not in terms of gross accumulation of wealth but in terms of true and equitable well-being for all people? Way back in 1968, Bobby Kennedy made this appeal. He said:
Too much and too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product…--if we should judge America by that--…counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl….Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures…everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.
3. Psalm 72, as well as the other scripture readings we heard this morning from Isaiah and from Matthew’s gospel describe a future leader, a Christ, who will not measure prosperity or justice in the corrupt and limited terms of wealth and greed. He will bring with him a peace and justice that far surpasses our meager expectations. He will be like the “rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth. In his days…righteousness will flourish and peace [will] abound, until the moon is no more.” The question of Advent is: How do we wait? How can we wait for Jesus to come and make the words of promise in Psalm 72 come true? First, we look at the gospel of a Lord who has already come. We pattern our lives after Jesus’ life and ministry while we wait, and we hope for a future where what God has started in Jesus comes to a final and beautiful fullness. Two great Methodist thinkers, Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon encourage us to do just this when they write, “The church is on the long haul, living in that difficult time between one advent and the next. In such times, we are all the more dependent on a community that tells us we live between the times, that it is all too easy to lose sight of the way the world is, now that God has come. Because we know something about the direction in which it is moving, we are encouraged by that picture and guided by the shape of its depiction of the way things are now that God has redeemed the world in Jesus.”
As John the Baptist teaches in our gospel reading from this morning, one greater than all of us is coming, one whose sandals we are not worthy to carry. But in the meantime, as we await this wonderful incarnation of God, John reminds us that is our job in the here and now to “bear fruit worthy of repentance.” In other words, while we place our ultimate hope in the coming Christ, in the interim we do his work. We love as he loves, we ally ourselves with justice and mercy, we serve the needy, the oppressed and the poor, and we look to Jesus as our moral exemplar.
4. To do that, we need to go to where Christ is now. Jesus, from his birth, lived with the poor, the sick, and those in need. Psalm 72 asks that the king “defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.” We consider Jesus to be this king because he did and will do just that. South African pastor Peter Storey was once addressing a group of well-off American church people. He said something to them that I’m sure had to sting, but it is utterly true. He said, “Those…churches struggling in places of poverty and injustice are fortunate—they are already where Jesus is. Those who have become prosperous must find Him again.” In our prosperity and comfort, our challenge this Advent is to go to where Jesus is, among the poor and the downtrodden. What can you do in this season to find him? How can you move yourself to a place where you can encounter the king of justice among the poor? Can you give from your abundance to the needy? Can you write letters to our leaders to encourage them to enact legislation that protects Jesus’ beloved? Can you pray that the world will be transformed? Can you pray that Jesus come and really want it, for your own sake and for the sake of all those on this earth who desperately need deliverance? I’ve said it from this pulpit before but allow me to say it again: God doesn’t help those who help themselves. God helps those who can’t help themselves. And you have been called to minister in Jesus’ name. Find way to serve the poor, find a way to serve the lonely, find a way to share your prosperity, and you will find the king of peace. You will find Jesus. Amen.
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