“Co-creating a New World”

Christ the King Sunday, November 26, 2000

Lectionary Scripture: Psalm 96, Isaiah 52:7-10, Revelation 1:4b-8

Today is the last Sunday in the Christian calendar. We’ve come to the end of the year of Mark. Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent, and with that we begin a new calendar. This last Sunday, is set apart as the Festival of Christ the King – to affirm as a worshipping community and proclaim to the world that our God reigns.

 

Let’s begin by asking ourselves a very basic question. If God is indeed reigning, wouldn’t it be reasonable to expect that everything will be all right with the world? Wouldn’t it be reasonable to expect that Palestinians and Israeli’s wouldn’t be killing each other, that there wouldn’t be poverty around the world or here in our neighborhood, that people wouldn’t die of cancer or AIDS, that people wouldn’t go around trying rob others at gun point, that the kind of disorientation that we as a church had to face during the past couple of months wouldn’t happen, that the good guys will always win, that Al Gore will be president? But we know that that’s not the case. Even Al Gore is likely to lose. And when bad things happen we get depressed and discouraged, and wonder if God is there at all, let alone reigning. But when I read scripture I am amazed to find that however difficult the circumstances were, people of faith continued to affirm that Christ is king.

 

The lectionary takes us to the book of Revelation today. As I pointed out last Sunday, the apocalyptic books, like Revelation were written at times of great persecution. Christians suffering the tyranny of Roman emperors were typically fed to the lions for refusing to worship the emperor. Gathering to worship in house churches was a very dangerous business. At anytime, there would be a knock on the door, and the Roman soldiers would come in arrest adult Christians, generally the men. Their wives and children knew that they may never see them again. The early Christian community had many widows and orphans.

 

It was at this time that John, possibly the disciple of Jesus received a revelation from God. He wrote down these visions. As you know they are couched in heavily symbolic language it is hard for us to see the real historical and political context behind it. But if you look at them carefully, you will notice that they are deeply rooted in his context of the horrible suffering people were going through. A somber, sad and depressing book may have reflected the mood of those days. Instead, Revelation begins with great shouts of joy. In fact, Revelation is noted for its outbursts of exuberant joy and praise. The vision begins, not in despair, but in doxology, in praise, in cadences that scholars believe were taken in from some of the hymns of the early church. Listen to today's Scripture again:

 

“Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen. "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

 

The book that begins with praise ends in a loud exclamation of hope. "Then I saw a new heaven and new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals, He will dwell with them as their God, they will be his peoples. And God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning, and crying and pain will be no more; for the first things have passed away. And the one who was seated on the throne said, “:See I am making all things new."

 

This week, I am going to participate in the National Leadership Assembly of the Gamaliel Foundation. Some 520 people are coming to Chicago – leaders of Gamaliel related organizations from many regions of the country and from South Africa. These pastors and lay leaders have formed congregation-based community organizations because they see the tremendous human suffering that goes on in their congregations and their communities. They are in the trenches. Its bad enough here, but in some communities it can be downright depressing. They know the lack of jobs and housing, lack of opportunity of education and adequate health care, drugs, alcohol and gambling that keep people who are already vulnerable addicted, and ever-present threats to human dignity because of racial profiling. These are real and serious issues that we face every day in ministry. In each of the 28 regions in this country where Gamaliel organizations are active, there are areas of concentrated poverty and other areas of concentrated wealth. And rather than become depressed together with the communities in which they live and serve, these leaders have come together to say, enough is enough. If God is sovereign, this situation is totally unacceptable. There was a time, when we said, lets pray to God, so God will intervene from heaven and somehow magically make this right. Then we looked closely at scripture and found that the way God works is through real people, in real situations. We’ve come to understand something about God that we really knew all along, and that is that, when we pray, the miracle that God does is that God works in us to make us powerful so that we can be the ones that creates the change. So we said to ourselves we’d better get together with like minded servants of God to attack the scourge of poverty in America. .I’ve been involved in planning for the opening worship at the NLA. That’s going to be a dynamic event. 70 pastors from MAC are going to come together to affirm with all our hearts, the good news that God reigns. And as we will see from the biblical story, to all those who suffer the indignities of concentrated poverty, there is no other good news that’s more powerful and empowering.

           

Such praise is one of the fundamental functions of worship. Now, we often think of praise as what we give to God in response to something we have received. However, as I’ve told you before, it is important to know that praise is also proactive. That is, before God has done anything to make us praise, we must praise. When we do that, an amazing thing happens. Our orientation changes from despair to hope, from discouragement to courage, from helplessness to strength, from powerlessness to power, from victim to victor and from defeat to victory. And with that we begin to participate in God's creative activity. We become co-creators with God.

           

The Psalms of Enthronement give us some insight to this phenomenon. In the early days of the Jerusalem Temple, the king sponsored a New Year festival in which Yahweh was once again enthroned as sovereign for the coming year. They assumed that many gods battled for the kingship and that in the end, Yahweh, was victorious. The festival culminated in a procession of celebration in which Yahweh ascended the throne and was acclaimed as king. The king played the role of Yahweh, in this dramatic liturgy and was enthroned on his behalf. The festival gave very significant legitimacy to the king. Who would dare to do or say anything against the representative of Yahweh?

           

Of course, everyone knew that this annual ceremony was only a dramatic ritual. It was not Yahweh that they were enthroning but a human king. They knew that even though they sang about the battle between the gods, that battle was not something that physically happened in their midst. This enthronement therefore was an act of faith and hope. It affirmed their faith that, in spite of the pain and the suffering they felt, Yahweh was already victorious and was enthroned in the heavenly realms, and affirmed their hope that this fact would have a direct bearing on their physical world. It was not religious piety that brought them to the festival. Rather, it was a profound sense that something was seriously wrong with the world. It was a shattering critique of the way the world was run and a powerful hope that when Yahweh reigns, it will indeed be a liberated world. I don’t imagine the king looked forward to this annual event, do you? Its an awesome thing having to represent Yahweh every year. I think it would make it very difficult for the king to be oppressive. So, you see, the enthronement liturgy was a process where people got involved in co-creating a new and liberated world, with Yahweh as king.

 

            Now when I say, co-creation, I don’t mean that they thought of this creation in concrete terms: like through the liturgy the priest would create the rocks and trees. The Genesis story of creation was ingrained in their minds. But they knew that the world making done by Yahweh, was not of a world that was already fixed and settled. Israel understood worship and praise as a way of engaging with God in the continuing creative and transforming processes of this world that God made perfect but human beings messed up.

 

            Now think about how this impacts us. If we were to understand worship and praise as not just responsive, but as creative and transformative, wouldn't that have a profound effect on our attitude towards worship and praise? Wouldn’t we have to be intentional and focused in our worship? If we understood worship this way, we wouldn’t come to church simply because our parents dragged us to church since we were kids or because we think our kids need to go to church, or even because Cornell is such wonderful worshipping community. Every time we engage in worship and praise we will do it because we have a responsibility to God and to our world to be engaged in God's creative and transformative activity.

 

            How does liturgy or the act of praise do that? There is a Hebrew word called basar, usually translated tell, proclaim, tidings, that will help us to get a handle on this. It also means the evangel, the goodnews or gospel. One of the places where basar occurs with regularity is in Second Isaiah; the section in the book of Isaiah between chs. 40-66. Here, basar, evangel, goodnews is proclaimed to the exiles in Babylon – people who were in deep distress. Things were not all right in their world, and that meant only one thing to them, God was not reigning anymore. Otherwise this could not happen to them. In Isa. 41:25-29, Yahweh says that he dispatched to Jerusalem a messenger, announcing the basar that Yahweh had summoned Cyrus, the Persian emperor – “the one from the North.” The people did not know it at the time, but deliverance was enacted when Cyrus the Persian emperor was chosen and a herald was sent in ch. 41. But it is only in Ch. 52, that the runner seems to be nearing his destination and there is a call to rejoice. "Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion, shake yourself from the dust and rise up, O captive Jerusalem." Look, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings goodnews, (basar) who announces salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns!" What did you say? They look. Their mouths open with surprise when the basar came in the word of the messenger. “Your God Reigns” he said, and that can mean only one thing – liberation will follow. His feet were a bloody and muddy mess after that long run. But they say, "How beautiful are those feet." In these days of instant news on CNN we may not appreciate this – but notice: deliverance was enacted and a deliverer was chosen in ch. 41. But it took social significance only when the tidings were delivered in ch. 52.

 

            So what does the proclamation have to do with the creative function of praise? Let’s take a quick look at Psalm 96, one of the six enthronement/ praise psalms. The crux of that psalm is vs. 10: the proclamation, the basar, "Yahweh is king." This cannot be uttered as a somber, rational, matter of fact statement. It is a cry of victory and a shout of joy. The fact that Yahweh is king, was true before the enthronement ceremony. But it becomes reality for the worshippers only at the liturgy. Let's imagine that we are at the enthronement ceremony. The Psalm begins with a call to worship: "O sing, to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name; proclaim his salvation from day to day." They invite us to sing, sing sing, bless and tell. In the singing and the blessing the worshippers themselves are praising God and are being awestruck by Yahweh's kingship. Now, at last, life is going to be different. It is not going to be business as usual. The liturgy and praise have announced this remarkable victory and the announcement itself makes a new social reality possible. There are more commands. Proclaim (basar) his salvation and declare among the nations, the good news, the evangel. Vss. 4-5 reflect that the victory is already accomplished. And vs. 6 reflects that Honor, majesty, strength and beauty are now not in the battlefield, but in the sanctuary. So, Vs. 7-9 commands that the praising creative activity happen in the sanctuary. Ascribe, ascribe, ascribe, bring an offering, worship, tremble before him. Why, because "Yahweh is King." There is rejoicing and praise and the whole world will hear the message because of that powerful proclamation. So, "Let the heavens be glad, and the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult and everything in it. Then shall the trees of the forest sing for joy." Everything in the whole creation will be liberated and can become who they really are, because it has been announced that Yahweh is King. And this king will not be like any other king, "He will judge the peoples with equity He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with his truth."

 

            Now, the fact of the matter is that before this liturgical celebration, Yahweh was king. But people did not know that because it was not announced. So the experiences of suffering make them feel like Yahweh is not king. But when the liturgical announcement is made by the worshipping community through praise and singing and dancing, the dynamics change. People begin to live as if God's kingship had an effect on our lives and the world. Now when God's Kingship begins to take on a social reality within the worshipping community, it begins to be felt in the world beyond it as well.

 

            Like 2nd Isaiah, like John of Patmos, we live among a people who are deeply exiled. Its not only that some of our neighbors are forced to live in areas of concentrated poverty, others of our neighbors are disheartened, discouraged and stressed out for a variety of reasons. Now, we know, do we not, the reality that Yahweh is king? And therefore there is hope for liberation from the exiled condition, even though it is really hard to imagine? But someone has to proclaim it. The fact will not take on social reality, until it is announced and accepted.

 

            So what can we do. If we know in the depths of our hearts that Yahweh is king, then our praise will be authentic. If our praise is authentic, and we know that this proclamation can take on social significance, and bring about liberation for those who are exiled; we cannot participate in this liturgy in a sober, controlled, rational manner, now, can we? This praise must make us get up and dance for joy. And it will carry us through to a lifestyle of praise that will impact our work places and school during the week, and we can fearlessly and confidently, proclaim Yahweh is king to our own neighborhood. We then become the bloody footed, messengers whose feet and actually beautiful that come to the exiled community and proclaims, "Your God is king." There is no greater world transforming evangel than that.