Sermon Summary, November 22, 2009
Reign of Christ Sunday
Hebrew Lesson: 2 Samuel 23:1-7
Epistle Lesson: Revelation 1:4b-8
Gospel Lesson: John 18:33-38a
Sermon Title: “Doink Doink”
As we read through our gospel text this week, like a TV drama, you can feel the tension building. Pilate, the powerful Roman Governor, is interrogating Jesus and in typical Jesus fashion, he responds to the questions with questions.
In the end, Pilate’s last question, “What is truth?” Is the critical question that each of us must answer. If we’re gonna say, “The truth is that Christ is king,” then how do we show it?
Today is the end of the season of Pentecost. It’s the day we celebrate the Reign of Christ. It’s the day that we acknowledge Christ as the sole head of the church. It’s the day that we respond to Christ’s question, “Who do you say that I am?” By saying, “You are king.”
However, while that may be what we say and celebrate, is that what we show with our actions?
As John writes in Revelation, Jesus is our faithful witness, the model sacrificial servant, the one who loves us and freed us and made us to be. On this Reign of Christ Sunday, don’t just declare Christ as King with your voice, but show it with your hearts and hands. Be a faithful witness for him, take-up your cross and model his life of service, love one another, work to free others and be all that he made you to be.
Amen.
From the November 2009 Newsletter:
Jesus said to them, “Come away with me, by yourselves, to a quiet place and get some rest.”
Mark 6:31 (NIV)
It seems like every time we turn around, there’s a new gadget out there that is supposed to make our lives simpler and easier and make us more productive.
While to some extent, that does happen, often times our lives get busier and more complicated.
We’re more connected, so we can take things with us and get things done anywhere we go and anytime of the day. We can transmit information faster and more easily than ever before and we have machines that produce things much more quickly than was ever humanly possible, therefore we can take-on more and more and more, because we can get much more done in a much quicker amount of time. Plus, if we aren’t willing to do it, someone else will and their company will get the contract or they’ll get the promotion.
While that may be the way of the world in which we all live and work, it should not be the way of the church. The church should be a sanctuary, a place where we can find rest and be renewed spiritually for our discipleship in Christ’s name.
Our work in the church should not be one more thing that we have to get finished as quickly and efficiently as possible so that we can check that task off our list and move on to the next one. Instead, it should be a place of fellowship, prayerful discernment, spiritual fulfillment and mutual support in the furtherance of the mission and ministry of Christ’s church.
Therefore, I have decided that beginning with the new calendar year in January; I will begin all the meetings that I attend at St. Paul’s with the lighting of a candle, to acknowledge Christ’s presence with us, a reading to remind us of the need to pause and rest and an extended moment of silence during the time of prayer.
If you don’t already do so, I would encourage each group, committee and organization at St. Paul’s to do some or all of these things at the beginning of each of your meetings and
activities as well. Let’s seek to make St. Paul’s a place where we know that we can come away, to a quiet place and get some rest. That it will be a place where as the Psalmist says we can, “Be still and know...God.” That it will be a place where we will find the peace and rest we seek from the frenzied world.
Peace and blessings,
Brad
