God Among the Shadows.

December 3, 2017 – “God Among the Shadows” from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on December 3, 2017.

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Mark 13:24-37
and Isaiah 64:1-9

It was literally the day after Thanksgiving

That day most of us nowadays call Black Friday
The day I’ve learned to avoid going out at all costs, if I can help it.
Who wants to, anyway, when there’s all that left over pie to eat for breakfast.

But I was sent out, to get replacement cream for the coffee.
We used it all up over thanksgiving
And some of us (me) can’t drink our coffee without it.

I was hoping that the grocery store might be spared
From all the Black Friday madness.
It was early, maybe 8 or 8:30
And I hoped I’d sneak in and out and get home unscathed.

I did. Don’t worry.
It wasn’t too busy.
None of the reports over fighting over the cut-rate price for strawberries were true.

I survived.
But I did notice something, right when I walked in the door.

Or better, I should say, I heard something:
Oh! You better watch out,
You better not cry,
You better not pout,
I’m telling you why:
Santa Claus is coming to town.

Christmas music, on the Grocery Store sound system, the day after Thanksgiving!
All the oranges and browns of Thanksgiving had been put away.
Greens and Reds were everywhere. And now the music, too, was in the air.
Its time for Christmas! Or, at least, waiting for Christmastime to get here, and soon!

///
The thoughts of John Buchanan,[i]
former Pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago,
have helped me get a hold on what is going on here: this feeling of hopeful waiting.

Like him: I can see it most strongly in children around us. The waiting.
To be a child in December is to know the most exquisite kind of waiting—
impatient waiting, waiting in hope.

Lights are hung.
Trees displayed prominently in many a window.
We had a brave crew festoon the sanctuary last Sunday
So Eryn and James could cabaret our way into the season.
Someone even decked the stop sign on the corner of our house with
Flashing lights all the way up and down the pole.

Something big is about to happen,
and when you look around it seems like it is already happening.

That’s kind of the paradox of this time of year.
Its already happening.
But IT isn’t here yet. It will be, but not yet.

To be a child, or frankly to be an adult, too, in these weeks before Christmas
is to experience existentially the great theological paradox of “already but not yet.”

The kingdom of God is present, but it is also coming.
The world has been redeemed, but it is not yet what it can and will be.
Christ has come; Christ will come again.

In the meantime, in our meantime: Christmas is all around us
Cities have holiday lighting festivals
The Plaza on Thanksgiving
Prairie Village, the town I live in, this past Thursday
Or the one on Friday in Mission, Kansas
Where Tessa’s elementary school choir sang in a gymnasium
As kids ran around with balloon animals, all loaded up from the sweets.

It’s like a switch gets pulled
And somehow everything gets going at full speed: [Read more…]

To Follow a Different King.

November 26, 2017 – “To Follow a Different King” from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on November 26, 2017.

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
John 18:33-37
and Ephesians 1:15-23

Brook started watching Game of Thrones this week.

We’d finished Ozark. She caught up on Stranger Things.
The Royals aren’t on,
We don’t watch much football
so Game of Thrones it is.

Now, I’ve watched it twice so far, once as it came out
Season by aching season
And then once again, to catch myself up for season seven that aired earlier this year.

Mainly so I can make “You know nothing, Landon Whitsitt” jokes
With comedic precision.

The show isn’t for everyone.
Its rough and violent, crass and misogynistic
And I get it if you think that this world
is plenty rough and violent and crass and misogynistic enough as it is
so as to not need any more of it in your life.
You’d probably be right.

But as a case study for the ruthless pursuit of power, Game of Thrones is spot on.
It may be set in a fictional realm,
modeled in a way off of the English Wars of the Roses
But its not that hard to follow, or to understand for its modern implications.
The show describes powerful, wealthy families
fighting to rule the fictional continent of Westeros.

“Who will be king?” is the unspoken question that drives the plot.

The families have names: Baratheon, Lannister, Stark, Targaryen, Grayjoy
Other families take sides, by oath or because they’re poor pawns and have no choice.
Battles ensue, and it feels as if you’re watching an epic drama from medieval history
Knights on horseback fighting it out in the mud
Only with dragons and white walkers and strange plot twists too.

The show has grown so popular in our modern imagination that,
Not too long ago, the Royals themselves used the show
As its theme for in-game presentations on the jumbo tron
Lorenzo Cain, Mike Moustakas, and Salvador Perez
All sitting on their own-game-of-thrones-like royal seat
But made out of baseball bats, not swords.

It was a baseball wide promotion,
So I won’t show you the picture of Evan Langoria in a similar pose
But it fits the Royals particularly well, don’t you think?

Who will be King?

In The Game of Thrones, the show argues that
The King is the one who rules without qualification
Who controls through strength and fear and ruthlessness, when necessary.

The King is the one who is in charge. Limitless power.

Sure, some of those aspiring to be King, or Queen,
Do so out of a conviction that they will be a kinder, gentler ruler,
But most of them don’t.
To a one, these claimants to the throne strike fear through strength
And often wreck havoc on their way to try to empower their rule.

///
It works, as a television show, because we understand all of this.
We can look at human history and see it for ourselves.

And It’s the kind of ruthlessness that led,
in our own history, giving it the best reading
That led our American ancestors to try out a different sort of government
With powers separated and checked
And rooted in the power of a well-educated and informed citizenry

(We can look away, for the time being
that this meant wealthy land-owning white male citizens at the time,
and just make mention, for now, that in our better moments,
our nation has constantly expanded that sense of who participates, who has a say
not just to those who own a bundle of dollars,
but to those who work
and to women, and to people of color,
to people of varied faiths and traditions,
to all citizens who call this nation home.)

We’ve been blessed to be free from much of this nonsense in the modern era.
Haven’t we?

Can you imagine if we had to rally off to fight because the king of Missouri
Wanted to invade into Kansas
and half of Kansas was off trying to conquer Colorado?

We’ve been fortunate to rally, at most, behind the proxy of our favorite sports teams
And not the bannermen of a lethal struggle for someone else’s power.
Rock Chalk, or Go Mizzou. Take your pick.

But this question: Who will be King still matters for us.

///
For a long time,
I’ve not appreciated this Sunday on the Church Calendar as much as I might have.
Today is Christ the King Sunday,
or the Reign of Christ for some who don’t like the patriarchal overtones.

It fits, quite well, theologically.

The scriptures have many names for Jesus:
Wonderful Counselor
Mighty God
Prince of Peace.
Lamb of God.
Son of Man.
Lord of Lords.

One way to read the Gospels is to see them answering the question
Who will be King? [Read more…]