Christ the King?

The recent engagement of Prince William and burgers aside, I really don't care much about royalty.

I may pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America (though not much since 6th grade), but I don't think very often of any governmental power over my life, let alone being subject to someone's reign. I have a feeling most 21st century Americans are in my proverbial boat.

So, it's with an aura of oddness that we celebrate Christ the King Sunday.

Wouldn't it be better to celebrate Jesus is God or Christ Our Savior, or even Jesus Rules! Sunday? I'm thinking Buddy Christ could be our mascot that day, smiling down from the altar.

I mean, most of our thoughts connected with kingship are negative: the king getting fat while the subjects starve, or brutal: the king in the midst of a bloody battle, or just plain out-dated: a scene ala Monty Python--armor and horses and castles and all. It just doesn't seem fitting in our day of political-correctness, modernity, independence, and democracy to talk anymore about Jesus as Christ the King.

Or is it just entirely perfect?

In a time when we look to no one but ourselves as our greatest authority;
In a time when kingship has become an absurdity;
In a time when the world seems subject to anything other than God...

It is the perfect time for a king whose authority in love compels us to look outside ourselves, who rules in the backward absurdity of the way of the cross, who promises that all of Creation--in spite of how it may appear to our eyes--is under the reign of a God who calls Creation "good" and is working to restore it in its very goodness.

One of my favorite seminary professors and WorkingPreacher guru, Dr. David Lose, had helpful words about the concept of Christ the King, and I looked to his wisdom in preparation to preach this most awkward, yet most beautiful of Sundays. He says,

"The kingdom of God (or of heaven, in Matthew) is not simply about supplanting an earthly ruler with a heavenly one. In heralding the coming kingdom of God, Jesus was not advocating regime change. Rather, Jesus was announcing the advent of an entirely different way of being in relationship with each other and with God. It's not the ruler that changes, but the realm in which we live."

Now is the time of Christ the King.
Thy Kingdom come.


Want to hear more?
Listen to my sermon from this past Sunday: Kingdom Vision

Tradition, tradition...

"...And who does Mama teach to mend and tend and fix,
Preparing me to marry whoever Papa picks?

The daughter, the daughter! Tradition!
The daughter, the daughter! Tradition!"

The congregation I’m serving on internship this year has been doing a lot of work around Faith Formation using the resources provided by The Youth and Family Institute and their Vibrant Faith Ministries, including some coaching by Paul Hill. Their language has been super helpful in giving the congregation a common vocabulary around Faith Formation and the way we support families as they form faith in their homes.

Their Vibrant Faith Frame includes “Four Keys for Practicing Faith.” Our staff and members have been busy taking steps to incorporate the “four keys” in all sorts of ways in the ministry of our congregation. In fact, the Youth Room has recently had an Extreme Makeover to become the “Four Key Soul Schopp.” Check it out in this video if you’re curious. It's awesome.

One of the keys is “rituals and traditions.”

In the world of Faith Formation, rituals are viewed primarily in a positive light. It’s assumed that the things families or faith communities do in an intentionally repetitive way are seen as fodder for building faith. However, conversation in my Education I online course this week (yes, I'm taking online classes while on internship...I'm a crazy person) has also opened my eyes to something that I already knew, but had not quite formulated in this way: rituals can be negative. They can lose their meaning, or become harmful if we aren’t careful.

Rituals, with their potential power, must be handled with care. And reassessed often.

How can we balance the potential positive power of ritual in faith communities with the possibility of those same rituals having a negative impact? When is a ritual helpful? When is it harmful? And when has it simply faded into the background so as to become scenery? And then, finally, even if a ritual has faded into the background, how can it still continue to have an impact even when we may not name it or claim it?

Consider, as my classmate suggested, Fiddler on the Roof. What a great example of ritual functioning in every possible way: the good, the bad, and the ugly. I played a villager in Red River High School's performance of Fiddler my freshman year, so of course it holds a special place in my heart. But good thing some traditions are not universal or eternal. Heaven only knows how my life would look if I were to depend on my ability to mend and tend and fix. Let's not even consider if I had been condemned to marry whoever my Papa picked!

Snow no!

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

It's way too early to be singing Christmas carols. In fact it's against my strictly enforced rule of "nothing Christmassy until after Thanksgiving." But the (very large) softly falling snowflakes outside the church windows are putting me in a roasty toasty winter snuggle up mood.

And then on the other hand, that same blanket of fresh white stuff is also putting me into winter panic mode. You see, I come from a land Up North. Where the first snow fall signals the onset of six or seven months of frozen tundra survival. In fact, I grew up learning how to drive on ice (a handy skill actually), since the streets were never really plowed down to the concrete from December through March.

But my friends in the church office assure me: winter in Denver is different. I ask them over and over, unable to hide my anxiety, "So, you're sure this stuff won't stick around?" And they laugh and say I could probably be swimming outdoors next week. I'll believe it when it happens. Although it is reassuring that no one else around here seems to be fretting about the fact that that white stuff is accumulating out there.

So I guess I'll do my best to sink into the snuggle up-ness of this first wintry night, and avoid ordering a UV lamp and signing up for the Seasonal Affect Disorder support group just yet. A tv dinner, cozy pajamas, a mug of Tension Tamer tea, and season 3 of Mad Men on dvd are on tap for me tonight. As for that snow, I'll enjoy it while it lasts...and I won't be sad to watch it melt...hopefully sooner than later!