The recognition of Truth is a matter of awareness, not information

Today is the last Sunday in the Church Year, 

            commonly referred to as Christ the King Sunday.

 

Our devotion wants to honor Jesus as King,

            ascribe to him power and majesty,

            elevate him where before he had been lowly,

            reflect our gratitude and love 

                        for the way he gave himself for us

 

Now, honestly, I just plain don’t like this title of king.

            It’s just not the Jesus I know 

                        either in my own experience or from the witness of scripture.

 

It was only a few Sundays ago, in fact, that we had the story

                                                                        of the disciples James and John,

            asking Jesus about sitting on his right and on his left 

                        when he ascended to that throne as the Messiah King.

And Jesus put them in their places very clearly and firmly,

            letting them know that if they wanted to be on his right and his left,

            then that would put them on their knees with him 

                                                serving everybody else.

 

King is certainly not a title that Jesus ever applied to himself.

Not even when asked directly, 

            such as when Pilate, in today’s gospel reading, asked,

                        “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”

 

Pilate is questioning Jesus to find out if he is making a claim to be king

He asks, “What have you done?”

            meaning what have you done to get yourself arrested,

                        to get into this situation – on trial for your life.

 

Jesus points to two different ways of looking at kingship:

            as the world does, as a political-military ruler,

                        and if so, he would have had attendants/servants/bodyguards

            acting to protect him,

            but that is not where this kingdom is from.

This kingdom is something very different.

 

For an earthly kingdom

            we can think of characteristics of it such as

                        a king ruling autonomously,

                        an up-down power differential,

                        servants waiting on him,

                        and the king having all the wealth.

Jesus then doesn’t look like a king.

            He has no wealth,

            no servants, but instead he acted himself as a servant 

                                    – such as in washing feet.

He had no need for a special status so as to have power.

Instead he expressed a natural, spontaneous authority

            that was far more powerful 

                        than any title or position can give.

 

Jesus’ Kingdom was not an artificial political construct

            with borders drawn on a map,

but kingdom as the reality of God’s creation operating as it naturally does

            without the warped overlay of

                        the imaginations and ambitions of the human heart

 

Kingdom of God/Heaven can be defined as 

“that array of life where the way of being is righteousness 

and is everywhere exhibited, 

it is where everything is living utterly spontaneously.”  

If you live this way, 

then life will respond because you are so ecologically integrated. 

See Isaiah 11, about the Peaceable Kingdom to get what I mean.  

 

Think also of all those parables about the Kingdom of Heaven/God 

            that start with the words: “the Kingdom of God is like…”

 

See how in those parables there are no borders, boundaries, 

            but a limitless expansion of life.

 

AND the kingdom and the King are the same

 

Remember Luke 17:21

“The kingdom of God is not here or there, but within/among you.

 

-       God’s all pervasive self-revelation

-       creation born from the beginning, continuing ongoing creation

 

When Jesus speaks of the Kingdom, 

                                    it is not his own kingdom he is talking about.

It is his Father’s Kingdom, where God reigns,

            and what Jesus perfectly reflects and witnesses to with his whole being.

See the Kingdom of God as all divine, omnipresent self-revelation.

Jesus is a walking parable of the Kingdom of God and how it works.

            

Remember Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying to his Father,

                        “Not my will, but yours be done.”

Jesus as the revelation of the Kingdom, which is liberating love.

 

In Jesus the full will of God is expressed transparently.

 

But Pilate doesn’t get it.  He says,

            “So you are a king?”

And Jesus answered, “You are the one saying that I am a king.”

            BUT for this I was born, and for this I came into the world,

                        not to be a king,

            but to testify to the truth, to be a witness to the truth, to what is real.

Everyone who is of the truth is able to hear my voice, to hear my witness.

            And Jesus puts his life on the line for the sake of testifying to the truth.

Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, 

            as he is described in the reading from the Book of Revelation for today.

                                    Did you notice that?

 

But Pilate, having been put on the spot

            and needing something to pin on Jesus to justify a crucifixion,

isn’t able to hear his witness or recognize the Truth standing right in front of him.

                        You know how Pilate responded to what Jesus said

                        about testifying to the truth -- 

 

                                                Pilate said, “What is truth?” 

 

And that is the main question of the whole Gospel of John:  What is Truth?

 

What is Truth?

 

The answer to this question 

                        will not be found in any academic pursuit,

            because truth is not captured in a grand unified theory

                        or any intellectual understanding,

            but in knowing, in experiencing, in encountering 

                        what is REAL in our lives.

It is a matter of consciousness, awareness, 

            and the realization that comes out of lived experience.

The recognition of truth is a matter of awareness, not information.

 

Jesus said, “You will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free,”

and Jesus, pointing to himself in terms of full realized union with the Father, 

            could then say, “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

 

“Everyone being of the truth hears my voice.”              John, chapter 5

            being of the truth – that is, reality

            hears my voice – experiences that inner recognition

 

Our ideas about the coming kingdom may be very limited!

So we need to look at King Jesus who embodies the Kingdom –

                        which is freedom, abundance,  and life itself.

 

For us when hemmed in by our own frustrations

            over political systems

                        when we see injustice or abuse or exploitation

                        and we feel powerless to change

                                    the human system of government

                                    into something under the Reign of God

            or in our family systems

                        when we would yearn to see greater compassion            

                                    or love or forgiveness or healing or reconciliation

knowing the Kingdom hasn’t come there yet,

then surrender in trust to Jesus,

            the Truth of the Kingdom of God,

            the Living Revelation of the Kingdom.

 

Looking to Jesus putting all things right – shifting our perspective

            until we can see the Kingdom come.

 

Stick with Jesus,

because failure to trust him with your woundedness 

            limits the coming of the kingdom within your awareness

 

So let us praise the King of Glory,

            the Uncreated Light,

            the Word through whom all was created.

 

Let us offer him our hearts and minds and strength and all our being,

and let him work within us

            the healing of our inner deafness

                        so that we may have ears to hear,

            the opening of our eyes

                        so that we may recognize 

            and the expansion of our awareness

                        so that, as the collect for today says, 

“we may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule.” 

Dead Saints

 This is the Sunday when we celebrate All Saints Day, 

            and when we remember all those, 

                        regardless of their acknowledged sainthood, or their obscurity, 

            all who have died in the faith,

                        the capital letter Saints and the small letter saints,

                        the obvious Saints and the quiet, hidden and forgotten saints,

a day especially for celebrating all the saints 

            who don’t have their own day on the church calendar.

 

And then there’s the next day, November 2, All Souls Day,

            when we remember all the faithful departed, 

                        our own Memorial Day.

 

Well, it has been a difficult year, 

                        especially with delayed funerals and memorial services,

            which makes this time of pausing and remembering particularly important.

 

So this is a time to be reminded

            of the common theme of our mortality.

 

All these Saints, capital letter Saints, we may note, were often martyrs, 

            and all of the Saints we commemorate are dead.

 

Now Saints are different from heroes.

With Saints it’s not all happy endings and success stories.

 

The reading from the Book of Wisdom states:

“In the eyes of the foolish … their departure was thought to be a disaster,             and their going from us to be their destruction …

in the sight of others they were punished”

 

The passage then goes on to say 

            that they were being disciplined and tested by God, 

            refined like gold in the furnace, and like a sacrificial burnt offering.  

This is the discipleship process 

            that anyone who is a Saint is called to go through.  

This is the spiritual process that Jesus called his disciples into.

 

To follow Jesus faithfully is not just a one time altar call, 

            and being fairly regular in church attendance 

            and keeping your nose clean.

 

Be assured that simply by being initiated into the household of God in baptism 

            we are now susceptible to this refining process in our lives. 

It goes with the territory, part of the deal when we’re baptized.

 

Jesus, the spiritual master, is mightily present with us 

            as Resurrection Spirit, Holy Spirit, 

            doing spiritual housecleaning within us.

 

And I have learned from experience over the years

that if I don’t attend to what needs attention in my life

            - spiritually, emotionally, behaviorally, relationally -

life is going to hit me up side the head - over and over again,

                        as much as it takes,

            until I get the lesson, 

            until I awaken to my need for God’s incomparable grace,                                                                                                             unconditional mercy and healing love,

and I start cooperating with, 

            instead of frustrating, this process of refinement.

 

You see, I have the belief that we are all saints,

            and I don’t mean goody-two-shoes kinds of people

                        who are always sweet and smiley and self-effacing.

 

We are people upon whom Jesus has put a claim 

            and now there’s no use resisting.

 

You want life to work better for you?

Stop resisting and pay more attention to Jesus.

 

Remember he was the guy 

            who told Peter, Andrew, James and John 

                        to push their boats out into the deep

            after they had been fishing all night and not catching anything.

                                                Remember that story?

And now when he tells them to cast their nets

            all the fish in the lake make a bee line for the boat,

                                    coming at the call of Jesus,

            and they had more fish than the nets could hold.

 

But then we humans aren’t half so cooperative as the fish

            so that it often takes a lot more to get us to realize 

            that the One we call Savior actually can save us,

                                                sometimes even save us from ourselves.

 

Lazarus died.

He was gravely ill when his sisters sent the message to Jesus,

            but Jesus had purposely stayed away 

            and he even informed his disciples that Lazarus was dead 

                                                                                    before he started back to Bethany.

And indeed by the time he gets to Bethany 

            Lazarus has now been dead long enough in that climate 

                                                                                                            for significant decay.

There could be no disputing of the fact that he was dead.

 

Jesus was being very intentional in his delaying

            and this was to serve a purpose in the school of discipleship

                        for Mary and Martha and those with them and his own disciples.

This was to refine their faith in a severe way,

            through the intense personal experience common to all humanity,

                        the death of one we love.

 

For when we have come face to face with death

            and discovered God with us, 

            discovered that nothing can separate us from the Love of God, 

then we know that faith is simply trusting that reality, 

            and this will carry us through anything 

            and reveal our nascent potency as saints.

 

Jesus came to raise Lazarus from the dead,

            the brother of two women who had great faith in him,

            coming with disciples who by now ought to know what he could do.

And he encounters 

            “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 

Here was the Resurrection and the Life 

                        standing before them personified in Jesus, 

            and they couldn’t look up from their tears 

            to catch even the possibility of hope 

                        that Jesus’ presence at that moment might make a difference.

 

It was enough to make a grown man cry.

And, of course, these tears that Jesus wept were more than frustration.

This was also Jesus taking within himself all their grief,

                                    all their sorrow, all their hopelessness and despair.

 

“Take away the stone,” he tells them,

            and when Martha protests 

                                    because she anticipates the corruption of the body,

Jesus’ rebuke must have come like a bucket of cold water 

                                                                                                splashed in her face.

“Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

 

The only one present realizing faith in Jesus at that moment 

            was Lazarus – and he was dead.

But the voice of Jesus is not to be resisted,

            and like the fish swimming into the net

            Lazarus responds to those words shouted into the cave tomb

and bound as he was, the burial cloth wound about both legs,

            he somehow managed to hop up out of the tomb,

            so powerful was that voice.

 

What they all went through, Mary and Martha, their friends, the disciples,

            from grief 

            to what must have been a huge fright

                                    seeing a dead man emerge from his tomb

            to unspeakable joy.

Such an occasion will change a person – most profoundly.

 

That’s how saints get formed.

 

Jesus says to each one of us, 

“Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

 

            If we would believe, if we would trust, 

            if we would not resist quite so much,

we could see the glory of God being worked right here in us

 

We would be Saints.

The potential is there.

We can be so much more than we are right now.

That is always the case.

God sees in us all the unrealized potency that is there 

God sees us as great Saints,

            ones who have gifts and ministries 

                        that can bring living water to thirsty people,

                        that can unbind people, 

                        that can loose them from all the various ways 

                                                in which lives can get bound up in death.

 

We’ve been baptized.

Jesus has put a claim upon us as his own.

He wants to disciple us,

            so that we can be of some good use for the rest of a world

                                    that is struggling in darkness.

 

We would be Saints.