Sermon: Christ the King
22 November 2020 – Archdeacon Mark Long
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Psalm 100; and Matthew 25:31-46; NRSV
Today marks the end of the Church’s liturgical year as we celebrate the reign of Christ, a year that I have described in recent days as the shortest and longest year of my life! And in true Anglican style at this time of year, we are combining this celebration with our Dedication Sunday and the celebration of our 125th Anniversary as a Parish.
The Corona-19 pandemic, subsequent lockdown, and the subsequent Alert levels have all contributed to the feeling of a short year; short in the sense that we haven’t yet had the time to live our lives. Our Easter celebrations were lost in the suddenness of Lockdown at the end of March and in our scramble to explore other means of worship, and for myself the rush to get my mind around what online worship might and could look like! For many of us, plans for holidays and overseas trips, weddings and big birthday celebrations were all put on hold or cancelled as we were forced to embrace this extraordinary time of great uncertainty. But it has also been a long year; long times of waiting, of being locked down, of being unable to socialise as we were used to, of time alone or time with just one or two others, of a tangible fear of this virus, of struggling with illness and the death of those we have loved, and the death of strangers, of statistics and numbers and disaster regulations that have all changed our lives so dramatically.
The celebration of our Dedication Sunday, which at St Andrew’s focuses particularly on our financial commitment to not only keep our lights on, but to increasingly be about the mission and growth of God’s purposes in our world, fits well with the celebration of God’s kingship in our lives as we gather thankful for the resources that continue to sustain us and others in these difficult and tough economic times. The gift of this year has been the funds we were able to set aside last year to sustain the outreach work we do through our Ministry to the Needy programmes, and we have been able to add to these funds and extend the reach of our food parcels beyond just our support of Fikelela, but also via other means and also into our local community where unexpected needs have arisen. While our primary focus may be on our financial commitment, we know and value the gifts of time, skill, ability, and know how and wisdom that our also part of our commitment to seeing this Parish sustained and our mission and ministry continuing to thrive. This broader commitment is visible in the beautiful flower arrangements that adorn our Church building today, the ongoing commitment of Layministers and musicians, Churchwardens and Parish Councillors, attendance at Bible Study and the resilience in facing the challenges this year has wrought.
As we also celebrate 125 years of being a Parish today, we do so with great thanksgiving for the lives of committed people who have gone before us; thankful for our roots in outdoor worship in Newlands in the early 1850’s, and for our first Church opposite Forries, designed by Sophie Gray, a space for worship and education in this part of Cape Town that we were first able to call home; our second Church further down Palmboom road, the is beautiful building in Kildare road that has been our home for just on 126 years, so beautifully filled with flowers today in thanksgiving and celebration of all that we stand for as Christians and as Anglicans in Newlands.
But all of this is nothing without vision and purpose. The pandemic has asked us to dig deep this year: to experience what it has meant to be exiled from our physical worship space for a period, to explore a virtual presence online, to begin to reengage with physical worship now dictated to by a limit on numbers and an insistence on physical distancing and all that goes with living in this changed reality; and in the midst of this to continue to forge a way forward. Scripture is always a gift in this space, reminding us that the principles of life and faith, despite our own particularities, have sustained God’s people through the millennia and generations, and give us the assurance that this may be our experience, too. Today’s parable, one well known to us, has the recipients of God’s favour and judgement quite perplexed, their expectations turned upside down in reminding us that our actions speak louder than words, and that it is the living out of care and justice in our world and society that makes all the difference. Throughout the ages it has always been the temptation to think that because we’ve embraced the religious expectations of our day and done our duty in this regard that we’re ok, and our lives are acceptable to God because in some form we have followed the rules. In today’s reading from Ezekiel Gods care is implicitly and explicitly associated with justice[1]: in the Biblical story the shepherd metaphor shapes the expectations of the proper use of power and the manner in which power is excercised, as it is not about the use of power for its own sake or for personal enrichment, but there to be used to support the flourishing of the flock; an image that emphasises the ruler’s responsibility to establish justice in order that the flock, the people, may flourish. Today’s parable in Matthew embraces this narrative, which is the cause of the perplexity expressed: our world too often disconnects care from justice, and the people are disregarded in our rush to embrace power and all the benefits power accrues to those who rule. Life in Southern Africa today emphasises this reality, as does the world stage where in the USA we see Trump failing to admit defeat and struggling to hold onto power despite a clear loss in the elective processes. On a faith level, too often our commitments are cerebral and don’t reach down into our hearts and embrace our lives. We trust too fully in the ritual itself – as an end in itself, not a means of embracing the fullness of relationship with God and each other, even strangers, that we are called to – and not sufficiently in the transforming and renewing power of God that a full life commitment brings, and to which we are called by God.
As we look back today in thanksgiving to those who have gone before us, as we ourselves acknowledge our faithfulness in the present, we can be hopeful for the future existence of this community because, despite the temptations, we have and do embrace a fuller experience of life and of relationship with God, and are resourced by the Holy Spirit in our midst to be about the purposes of God in this place, in our time, and in our generation.
Let us pray,
God of yesterday,
we knew you then:
your promises; your word;
your walking among us.
But yesterday is gone.
And so, today, we are in need of change.
Change
and change us.
Help us see life now
not through yesterday’s stories
but through today’s.
Amen[2]
[1] Margaret Odell https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/christ-the-king/commentary-on-ezekiel-3411-16-20-24
[2] Pádraig Ó Tuama Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community
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