Christ the King/Last Sunday of the Church Year, Series B. Daniel 7:13-14, John 18:36-37. “A King Like No Other” November 23, 2003. Forest City Lutheran Mission, Forest City, IA
One of the longest running debates in the history of Christianity, and one that is probably just as hot today as it was in the days of Jesus, is the debate of Christ and Culture. So much so, it was actually the title of a book on the subject written by theologian Richard Neibuhr and was a required text to read as part of my pre ministerial studies at Concordia University, St. Paul. In a lot of ways, you can say that many of the debates within Christianity today somehow boil down to Christ and Culture. Essentially, the debate is something like this. Do we as Christians accommodate the culture we live in, change what we do, how we act, what we say, in order to “fit in” or fit with the times in which we live, or do we seek to transform our culture, bringing it to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, in order for Him to make it a new creation? That is a question that has plagued Christianity for centuries and is just as hotly debated today as it was centuries ago.
This debate really seems fitting to examine on this day, the Last Sunday of the Church Year, which many often refer to as Christ the King Sunday. Think about that title for a moment. Christ the King. At first you may not think too much about it, other than perhaps think of a favorite Christian song, or our opening hymn I chose for this morning “Crown Him with Many Crowns”. Others might think of this phrase as being a nice name for your church. My aunt and uncle in Spencer once belonged to a Christ the King Lutheran Church. I’ve also worshipped at a church named King of Kings Lutheran Church in Minnesota. I’ve also heard the name King of Grace used for a Lutheran church. I am sure you can think of some other ones along those lines, and they seem like original names that will stick with you, which may be part of the reason why they chose to name their congregation that. But let’s look at the name Christ the King as not just theme for a nice hymn or as a name that catches the eye on a church sign. That title brings us into conflict with our culture. We don’t live under the rule of a king; in fact, we’re often led to believe that a monarchy is a bad thing. Our culture tells us that a king is a tyrant, they should be overthrown, and democracy is the right way to go. Our culture tells us the only person we should serve is not a king, but ourselves and what’s best for us in this place and time. Or at least what we see to be in our own best interests, forgetting about anyone else. Although our language and culture holds high the idea of democracy and freedom, the practical application ends up being everyone is a king or queen of his or her domain. How better is this demonstrated by the old phrase “A man’s home is his castle.” Or in many households that the kitchen is often times someone else’s domain?
With this mindset, our culture demands that we as Christians accommodate our faith to the culture’s world view. It would look at us celebrating Christ the King as something horrible! Our culture would tell us to forget all this silly nonsense about kings, and who your Lord is, that kind of stuff went out with feudalism and we don’t live in the middle ages anymore, this is the 21st century! The culture will try to tell us how we can talk about Jesus. Culture tells us its okay to talk about what a friend we have in Jesus, you can talk about him as Savior, and as the Good Shepherd. Those are nice, warm, fuzzy images of Jesus, and put him at our level and don’t threaten the culture. Honesty compels me to report that yes, it is true, Jesus is your Savior, Jesus is the Good Shepherd who searches for the lost sheep, and Jesus is an amazing friend. Honesty also compels me to report that many churches out there today will speak of Jesus in these culture friendly terms and simply leave it at that. And why do they do this? They want to be at peace with our culture, and they don’t want to make waves or upset anybody. They willingly bend to culture’s demands to not talk about Jesus as a King or Jesus as Lord, because that language offends people. It offends people because us having to be a slave or servant for anyone is pretty much slavery! We agreed slavery isn’t good, isn’t that why we fought the Civil War in this country? No one today would say that it’s good to be slave to anything or anyone! It also offends people because in our culture’s view of freedom, anything goes. You’re the king, you’re the queen, you make the rules! That means whatever you want for your life, is fine. Jesus can then be presented as equal to other false gods and religions. I have even spoken with some pastors who have gone on record as saying “I don’t talk to people about Jesus being THE WAY to heaven, but I present Jesus as A WAY to heaven, because our culture doesn’t allow for us to talk that way.” That, my friends, is how our culture wants it. A King in the culture’s view, enslaves us, a friend lets us do whatever we want and have freedom.
In case you haven’t seen it by now, there is a problem when it comes to accommodating our culture as Christians. When we accommodate the culture in order to “fit with the times”, we cover up our own slavery to sin. In the gospel of John, the Jews argued that they had never been slaves to anyone. So how could Jesus be their king? Jesus’ response is that anyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. That is, if you sin, you are not free, even if you think you are. Does that sound familiar? It should. Every time Christians make a concession to fit in with the rest of the world, no matter what it is, be it denying God’s Word is absolute truth, or claiming that as times change, so should our definitions of right and wrong, of who Jesus is or what marriage should be, or what the qualifications are for someone to hold a high office in the church, we allow ourselves, and the church, to become a slave to sin. Our culture only gives us half the story; it conveniently leaves out the other parts that are important. Jesus makes a remarkable claim, only He can set us free.
In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus is appearing before Pilate and Pilate asks him point blank, “are you a king?” Jesus tells Pilate “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.” Pilate responds “You are a King!” to which Jesus answers “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Jesus is a King, but not in the way our culture would want us to believe. Jesus’ kingdom is like no other. It’s not a kingdom of tyranny; it’s not a kingdom of slavery to sin or anything else. His Kingdom, unlike any in our world, was not built on terrorist acts or by military might. It was built on his living the life that was not of this world, the perfect, sinless life that we were unable to live. Jesus didn’t compromise himself with our culture; he kept God’s commands and was not a slave to sin as we are. Jesus soon after this account in our Gospel reading is handed over to be beaten, mocked, spit on, and to be crucified. He did this so that we can have true freedom. Not freedom as the world understands it, but freedom from sin, from death, and the power of the devil. It’s the freedom our culture fears, because, our culture is of this sinful world. When we entered God’s Kingdom through the waters of our baptisms, we became citizens of Christ’s Kingdom, the Kingdom not of this world. A kingdom where in joy, because we have been set free by the blood of our King, Jesus Christ, we are able to joyfully acknowledge Jesus Christ as our King, as our ruler over our lives. We are free from living in fear of judgment, because we know our sins were taken care of by our King on the cross, and we live in that forgiveness, not the guilt that our culture would want to throw on us.
So I guess its time to ask the good old Lutheran question, “What does this mean”? More specifically “What does this mean for us as a new Lutheran congregation in this community?” Over the last few weeks, I and maybe some of you have heard this question as well, why do we need another church in this community? What are we as members of Christ’s Kingdom doing here? Last Sunday, I mentioned that the readings that are appointed for the last three Sundays of the church year are devoted to the end times, and both our readings today from Daniel 7 and Revelation 1 begin with the image of our King’s return. The reading from Daniel illustrates Christ’s second coming, Jesus’ kingdom is one that will not be destroyed. Last week, we talked about getting ready, getting ready for when this day comes. We live in a time where it’s very tempting for the church to give in to what culture demands. This happens in a lot of ways. We’re bombarded every day with our culture trying to tell us as Christians how the church should be, because it isn’t relevant to culture anymore. Culture tries to tell us how to be more attractive to the world, to “fit in with the times.” Some will say the church’s stands against abortion, homosexuality, our definition of what marriage is just to name some issues are either none of the church’s business, or that it’s just plain out dated. Sadly, some churches have decided it’s easier to accommodate culture and concede rater than continue to stand firm in God’s unchanging Word. When this starts to happen, the church will not listen to Jesus any more, it won’t listen to the truth, because that is what culture wants it to do. It becomes a place people go to feel good about themselves and hear only half truths about Jesus. Eventually, you no longer hear why you need a savior in the first place, and that takes Jesus off of his throne, and puts ourselves in his place and in the process, takes our freedom from sin away from us and makes us captives to sin once again.
This is also evident in the so called “Worship Wars” if you follow such trends. This was a hot topic in my outreach classes at Concordia University. For those of you who don’t know a whole lot about me, I did an Outreach minor as part of my pre ministerial studies at Concordia, and a couple of the classes I took were on church growth and worship. This whole idea of Christ vs. Culture was never more evident to me than in this struggle. So called “Church Growth Experts” try to tell pastors and lay people alike that Christians need to worship in “less hostile environments” and water things down in order to make it more palatable to the culture, to the non-Christian. These experts argue that people won’t come to church unless you make it marketable to them, strip away any sense of it being “divine” and make it more entertaining. Make it something that the worshipper can do to feel closer to God by doing something that appeals to them. One Lutheran pastor I spoke with a year and a half ago once said that “the liturgy is dead and useless, no one understands it anymore, it has no relevance to our culture. The church needs to be in line with culture.” For many, worship then becomes “what can you do for God?” or “what’s the show going to be about this week” than what God is doing for us here. We don’t come here to be entertained, (although that doesn’t mean I have given you a license to take a nap during my sermons here, sorry), make you feel good about yourself; cooperate with a sinful society, or anything else. We’re here to be fed by God through His unchanging Word to us and through the sacraments, so that our faith may be strengthened, hear our sins are forgiven, and we are equipped to transform this sinful culture through the person and work of Jesus Christ! It’s through the worship service that we hear God’s Word; so many portions of the historic liturgy we use week after week are taken directly from scripture! It’s a part of the Christian culture, the Christian language so to speak. To water down God’s Word and to make worship more palatable to get an unbeliever here, is to deny that the Holy Spirit works through the spoken Word and that the work of converting a non Christian into a Christian is our work, like somehow you or I could convince anyone that we can come to faith in Jesus Christ when we all know, that’s not possible because of our sinful natures, and that it’s the Holy Spirit that calls, gathers, and enlightens God’s people. I’m sure you remember that from your Confirmation class and reading Luther’s Small Catechism.
So why are we, this Forest City Lutheran Mission congregation, here? I’ll tell you why we’re here and what we’re all about. We’re a place, and family of faith that’s all about proclaiming the full truth of Jesus Christ, the King. We’re here to learn what God has done for us through the suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, so that we may serve him and be freed from the slavery that is our sinful nature. We will have pressure on us from the culture to be more like the world, we’ll hear excuses like “the church up the street does it and people like it, so why can’t we do it too?” We will remain faithful to God’s unchanging Word. We will keep our Christian freedom by being in this world, but not of this world. Every Sunday, we will gather here to grow in our understanding of God’s Word, be fed and strengthened in our faith through Word and Sacrament, and equip ourselves to reach out to this community and to the world. Our mission field is not in Africa, its right outside these church doors. We have been called to bring this unchanging Word to this community. I hope and pray that you continue to invite your neighbors, family members, friends, classmates, co workers, and newcomers to this community to come and hear this message that sets us free. In the end, Christ will return as triumphant King. A King like no other the world has ever known. Let’s go forth, and prepare this community for His second coming. May God grant this for Jesus’ sake, Amen.
