"Still, We Hope" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday November 19, 2023 (Reign of Christ)
Scripture:  Matthew 25:31-46

 

 

As I mentioned earlier, the Christmas letter is at the back of the church for you to pick up on your way out if you haven’t picked it up already. I wrote this letter back in October, because Elaine needed to print it for me to sign before I went on vacation. (I told this story to the Official Board on Wednesday night, so my apologies to you if you have heard it before.) So I wrote the letter and sent it off to Elaine, but then the next time we were both at the church at the same time, she summoned me into her office. She sat me down and gave me my letter to read. A couple of minutes later she asked if I was done yet, and I said “almost.” She asked how I was feeling.  “Fine…” Apparently I wasn’t fine, and that first letter I had written was far too gloomy to be sent out as a Christmas letter.

 

Because I trust Elaine’s judgement, I re-wrote the Christmas letter the next day; with thanks to the Summerville quilters who offered to be my test audience – they approved version 2, which I was then able to send to Elaine who also approved version 2 and printed it so that I could sign 300 copies of it before going on vacation.

 

The challenge with writing the Christmas letter this year is that the world feels so full of doom and gloom at the moment.  As I was writing that first version of the letter, the fighting in Gaza was intense… well, I guess it’s still pretty intense… it was the day that the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine had happened; Covid infection rates were surging; and my list could go on and on and on. Poverty is increasing as inflation increases. This time of year brings longer nights and shorter days.

 

With all of this going on, it was really hard to write a cheerful Christmas letter this year!

 

Don’t get me wrong – the underlying message of that first letter was exactly the same as the message of the one that was printed, but apparently I spent too long in the first draft expanding on the woes of the world.

 

The message of both drafts of this year’s letter is that we, as the church, are in the “Business of Hope.”  We, as the church, trust that the grief and the pain and the fear of the right now isn’t the end of the story.  We trust that God dreams of a world that is radically transformed, so that all of the grief has become love, so that all of the pain has become joy, so that all of the fear has become peace.

 

And we trust that this dream, that this vision of God will one day be the only reality.

 

Which brings us to today.  Today is the day when we celebrate the Reign of Christ, or Christ the King Sunday. It is the last Sunday of the church year – next week when we enter the season of Advent, we will begin a new year. As we move through the church year, we travel through Jesus’s life story – from the anticipation of his birth, to the birth itself, stories of his teachings and his actions, the story of the last week of his life, his crucifixion and death, and his resurrection. We read stories about the very early church, from its origins at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came to the disciples in force.  And today – this last Sunday of the church year – this is a day dedicated to looking forward in time.  Today we look forward to that time that will come when God’s dream for the world will be complete, will be fulfilled, will be perfected.  And we trust that this transformed world is going to come some day.

 

As we said in our Prayer of Awareness today, we tend to want the “not yet” to be the “right now.” We want all wars to end right now. We want all poverty to end right now. We want all grief and suffering to end right now. We want the transformation of the world that began with the birth of Jesus to reach completion right now. It’s hard to be patient.

 

But because we trust that this transformation has begun, that the transformation began when God took on flesh and blood in the person of Jesus; and because we trust that the transformation of the world will some day reach completion, we can keep going, one step at a time.

 

I heard an interview earlier this week on CBC radio with two women, one Palestinian and one Israeli, both actively working towards peace by building relationships, one person at a time. When the interviewer asked how they avoided becoming despondent, one of them replied, “we have to hope.”

 

We have to cling to hope.  Without hope, we would be paralyzed by despair. But because we have hope, we keep on going, one step at a time, one loving act at a time.

 

In today’s bible reading, we heard Jesus’s very last public teaching before his crucifixion. He has some private teaching time with his disciples after this, but this is his last public teaching. And in this teaching, what does he say?  He says, in a fairly direct way (and we all know how Jesus can sometimes talk in circles, but this time his instructions are pretty concrete):  feed anyone who is hungry; give water to anyone who is thirsty; welcome strangers; give clothing to anyone who needs it; care for anyone who is sick; and visit people in prison.  And why should we do all of this? Because whenever we do this to another person, we are doing it to Jesus himself.

 

If Jesus were giving us concrete instructions in 2023, what might he say to us?  “For I was being bombed, and you cried out for peace. For I was a transgender student and you advocated for my rights and gave me a safe space. For I was a child in a refugee camp, and you supported my schooling by donating to Mission & Service. Truly I tell you, just as you have done it for one of the least of these siblings of mine, you have done it for me.”

 

Sometimes when we read stories from the bible, a good question to ask ourselves is “where to I see myself in this story?” but with this story, an even better question might be to ask, “where do I see Jesus in this story?”

 

Jesus is the one sitting on the seat of judgement, separating the sheep from the lambs.  Jesus is also present in anyone who is hungry, in anyone who is thirsty, in anyone without clothing, in anyone who is sick, in anyone who is in prison. In other words, Jesus is present in anyone who is vulnerable or marginalized.

 

But I also think that Jesus is present in the helpers in the story as well – Jesus is present in the ones giving food and water and clothing, Jesus is present in people who care for the sick and visit the incarcerated. Because when we, as the church, do these things, we are able to do them because we are the Body of Christ, carrying out God’s mission in the world.

 

Which brings us back to where we started.  We serve the vulnerable people in the world because the Holy Spirit is transforming us into the Body of Christ. And we keep on serving, even in the pain of this world, because we know that the world as it is right now isn’t the world that God dreams of. And we keep on serving, without falling into despair and despondency, because we have hope, because we trust, because we are confident that the world will eventually change.

 

We as the church – we are in the business of hope.  Everything that we do as the church should proclaim this hope to the world, especially in times like right now.

 

And when my hope falters, I know that your hope will carry me through. And if your hope falters, I pray that my hope might carry you through.  And together we hope.  Still, we hope.

 

Amen.

 

 

 

Signing Those (Revised) Christmas Letters

(With Help from my Favourite Christmas Movie)