Proper 29, Year B
Sunday, November 25, 2012
St. Mark’s, Bay City
2 Samuel 23:1-7
Psalm 132:1-13 [14-19]
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37
I used to hate playing guitar. I liked the idea of it, and I wanted to be a
great guitar player. Unfortunately, I
wasn’t very good and so I didn’t like playing.
My desire was simply to be great, and since I wasn’t great, I was a
constant failure. I couldn’t mess up or
make mistakes if I was going to be great, and I couldn’t enjoy playing because
I couldn’t do what I wanted to do…didn’t even have a clue how to get
there. So, I stopped playing. Finally, after years of hardly playing, I
realized what I truly wanted was to make music.
I didn’t have to be great to make music.
I could mess up a lot and still
make music. No one else might have
wanted to hear it, but I enjoyed it.
Mediocre and halting as it may have been, I began playing almost every
day simply out of a desire to play and make music. I loved it.
I wasn’t great. I’m still not
great, and it doesn’t matter. Playing
and practice isn’t drudgery. It’s joyous
because whenever I play, I get to make music.
When I mess up or get to something I don’t know how to do, I can take a
lesson or ask someone for some help and try again. Perfection is not important. The beauty of making music is.
The perfection of Jesus’ kingdom is
rather unattainable. Jesus told Pilate
that his kingdom is not of this world.
In Jesus’ kingdom, there is no unrighteousness, no evil, bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling, slander, or malice. (Ephesians 4:31) Considering that there is a lot of those
things in this world, the thought of Jesus’ kingdom can be somewhat
threatening.
Even during Jesus’ days on earth,
people were threatened by him. Feeling
that Jesus was trying to be king of Israel, the religious and governing rulers
of Israel were threatened by him. Rome
was threatened by him. To be fair, they
didn’t much care if he was king or not, but he did mean insecurity and unrest
in Israel and therefore he was a threat to the Pax Romana. Rulers of this world thought Jesus was a
threat to them and so they crucified him.
They just couldn’t handle him being around.
Of course, Jesus is also a threat
to us in as much as we want to rule our own lives. Jesus can be a threat to us when we want to
rule our own lives in our own way, so much so even that at times, we might want
to crucify him too…or at least get him to stop bothering us with his truth to
which he wants us to listen. Jesus’ way
is hard, and he can be such a killjoy at times with all his, live righteously
talk. Jesus’ and his kingdom can feel
threatening, but only when we see living in his kingdom as some call to
perfection to which we cannot measure up.
In Jesus’ kingdom, there is no
unrighteousness, no sin, no evil, no malice, or bitterness, etc, but Jesus’
kingdom isn’t fully here yet.
Jesus’ kingdom coming – “…the heart
of the earth’s inhabitants shall be changed and converted to a different
spirit. For evil shall be blotted out,
and deceit shall be quenched; faithfulness shall flourish, and corruption shall
be overcome, and the truth, which has been so long without fruit, shall be
revealed.” (Esdras 6:26-28) Esdras
speaks of God making two worlds, the world that is and the world that is to
come. Jesus is king of the world to
come. In the mean time, Jesus is still
king for us, and we’re asked to be his followers…more than that, his stewards.
We’re stewards of Jesus’ kingdom
until it arrives. As such, we needn’t
wait for him to arrive to live righteously.
We know we’re not going to be perfectly righteous, but we’re not going it
alone. We act with God’s help, and God
gives us the ability to live righteously and to seek forgiveness and amendment
of life when we don’t. As it is written
in Ecclesiasticus, “If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act
faithfully is a matter of your own choice.
[God] has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for
whichever you choose.” (Sirach 15:15-16) With God’s help, we can choose life. We can follow the commandments of God, living
God’s life of love.
As stewards of Jesus’ kingdom until
he comes again, we are called to live God’s life of love. Imagine life without hatred, without fear,
without anger, jealousy, malice, bitterness, etc. Imagine such a life, and then live as though
it were true. I don’t think any of us,
in our heart of hearts wants to hold on to bitterness, anger, fear,
unrighteousness, etc. It’s just hard to
believe we can live without those things.
Yet Jesus tells us that to live in
his kingdom, we should cut of our hands and pluck out our eyes if they cause us
to sin. Once again, I’m going with
metaphor and hyperbole on that teaching and would say, “If you want to be who
you want to be, you have to give up who you are.”
There is no unrighteousness, in
Jesus’ kingdom, so to live in Jesus’ kingdom, we would need to rid ourselves of
those things. Remove the anger, slander,
envy, fear, bitterness, malice, etc, from you, Jesus is saying, and live as
though my kingdom were already here, with my help.
We’re not going to be perfect in
this endeavor, but so what. We don’t
have to be perfect. Perfection is not
our goal. Life in God’s kingdom is our
goal. I hated practicing guitar so long
as my goal was to be great. I wasn’t
great, therefore I hated playing.
Finally my goal became making music.
Now I love playing guitar.
If goal is to be sinless, to be
perfect, then living as stewards of God’s kingdom is burdensome, because we
will never be good enough and will always berate ourselves. If, on the other hand, our goal is to live
beautifully, live well a life as a steward of God’s kingdom, then we can find
beauty in such a life, because we do have the ability to do so. We can choose life. We can follow God’s way. We can live with love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and
self-control (Galatians 5:22) We
won’t be perfect, we’ll play some wrong notes along the way, but then we’ll
seek God’s help, we’ll take some more lessons, and we’ll seek to play better
next time.
Even though Jesus kingdom is not of this world but of the world to come,
we can still live into his kingdom if we want to. Jesus’ kingdom is the kingdom of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, forgiveness and self-control. We belong to his kingdom anytime we listen to
his truth and live according to the way of his kingdom. Jesus’ kingdom is not from this world
but of the world to come, and yet but Jesus came to this world to testify to
the truth, and everyone who belongs to the truth listens to [his] voice. (John
18) We don’t listen to his voice in
order to be great or perfect, but in order to enjoy making music, to live
beautifully with peace and love. Amen.
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