One Sabbath
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving is a gathering day. Thanksgiving gathers memories, some wonderful, some tragic. Memories flooded to mind on Thursday as we saw Arlene's daughter and son-in-law and their girls off on their long drive home. The girls were bundled in their night clothes and snuggled in blankets, furiously waving goodbye. The sight took me a long way back when, half asleep and drowsy with turkey, I rode home with my family from Grandma and Pap-pap's house, crossing from one side of Pittsburgh to the other.
The drive seemed endless, but the sights were wondrous: the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers each shivered with bright light reflected from the high bridges, roads, and long river banks. The sparkling movement of the dark rivers held me tight. With lights as far as I could see, above and below me, I felt safe yet tiny, one small light free-floating in a universe of lights. Miniscule. Miniscule but a part of something wonderful.
We are each of us parts of something wonderful. As we celebrated our gratitude for God's many gifts on Thursday, today we celebrate our gratitude for being parts of the vast kingdom of God. Twenty-six weeks ago we welcomed the Holy Spirit to move within us on the great feast of Pentecost. We celebrated the day Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, equipping us fully for our life in Christ. We celebrated becoming one in the Body of Christ. No longer isolated, but one. Miniscule, but joined together as something wonderful.
In all these weeks since Pentecost we have had opportunities to grow in our understanding of being Christians. We have learned so much of our frailties and our striving. There have been days that we have forgotten Christ's purpose, to embrace us as his beloved ones, reconciled and made whole. As Paul wrote to the Colossians, "through [Jesus], God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things…." We know it, we've experienced it, we've studied it, and yet we forget, time and time again. But today we celebrate that the Holy Spirit, God's action in this world, is here for the taking. The Holy Spirit is here to replace our doubts with hope and our fears with faith. The Holy Spirit is here to reconcile, to replace self-hate and self-doubt with humility and love. The Holy Spirit is here to guide us in forgiving others and in embracing forgiveness offered to us by others and by our reconciling God. This is the Kingdom of God. This is serenity. It may not be dull, but we will have peace.
Today we celebrate Christ the King Sunday. This day has many names: Christ the King, the Realm of Christ, Sunday of Fulfillment. We end our liturgical year with a great celebration of the kingdom of God available to us now by living as Christ has taught us to live. We celebrate being the Body of Christ, one, with Christ as our head. We celebrate that "reconciliation" means that we are welcomed back when we lose track of what matters most. We are still beloved.
These 26 weeks of Pentecost have been our Christian primer. What have we learned? What do we do? How do we become Christ?
There is no trick answer here. There is no new answer either.
We have quite a few characters in our Gospel today. We have Christ, dying a miserable death rather than recanting his teaching to love all, no matter how undesirable they may be. We have leaders who expect Jesus to fulfill their worst nightmares and raise up a vast army to save himself. They jeer at Jesus, heaping humiliation. We have Roman soldiers who taunt him, scoff at him. We have two criminals, one who joins in the vicious fun and the second who admits his fault and defends Jesus. Last, we have a crowd of people who stand by, watching. Who are we in this scenario?
I have no doubt that I've been each of these characters at one time or another in my life. Most often, I think I hope to be seen as the "Good Thief", the compassionate bad boy. After all, he's promised heaven for his belief.
But visualize Christ crucified. What Christ is teaching here, even here on the cross, is how much it matters to be here for another. Unlike the "Good Thief", who is hedging his bets for eternity, Jesus has nothing to gain by loving the thief. Still, he does it. Still, he teaches us to love even when there is no apparent reward. We give for the sake of being Christ.
I'd like to be like Christ, of course. Selfless and love incarnate. But what scares me is that I am most likely one of those people who stood by, watching. Doing nothing, saying nothing, forgiving nothing, loving nothing. "The people stood by, watching…." – watching the horror of Christ's crucifixion. Watching as Christ explained with his life what it means to be Christ. Loving even when loving seems so improbable to us.
Our community of faith is joining faithful people nationwide to celebrate ONE Sabbath today. ONE Sabbath gives us the opportunity to decide if we are those who stand by, watching, or if we will engage for the suffering of the world. You may have heard of the ONE Campaign. It is an effort to focus the attention and action of millions of faithful people on the suffering poor and sick. It is an effort to help us to see how to live in this kingdom, how to focus on the needs of others rather than our wants. How to do something for those who have no clean water, who are ravaged by starvation, tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. The good news is that the situation worldwide has seen improvements. Bill and Melinda Gates noticed the difference in a medical clinic that was well staffed and supplied today rather than the patchwork effort it was 10 years ago when they began to focus on poverty and AIDS. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has provided life-saving drugs, salaries for staff, and a prefab building for a clinic in Durban, South Africa. Even tiny little groups, like students at my seminary, have raised enough money vacating their parking spaces for Cal games to build a new well in Nigeria, to send supplies to a hospice in South Africa, to feed people through a contribution to an international non-profit food bank, and all for the price of football fan's parking.
Life is better for many. But Bill Gates noticed people who were walking, sick, for fifteen to twenty miles to locate health care. A friend of mine spent several weeks expecting to work in an AIDS hospice in Africa, but instead worked with the orphaned children and with the grandparents who struggled to care for them. There is much work to be done.
There won't be a second collection today. Instead, I ask you to let your hearts reach out to those who suffer, to the least of these, by choosing an organization to support, or by forming a small group to consider what you can do as part of the kingdom of God for the kingdom of God. You might consider giving donations rather than gifts this Christmas. No effort is too small. None of us, as part of the kingdom of God, is miniscule. Instead, we are one, one body, led by Christ and for Christ to embrace one another as beloved. Our psalmist today wrote, "Be still, then, and know that I am God." Let us know God in the millions of twinkling souls we see around us. Let us share hope during this holy season.