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The famous line missing from today’s Gospel is also missing from our naming and claiming the cost of discipleship that challenges all Christians in one form or another. This line is Pilate’s cold serve, cynical retort to Jesus speaking of the Truth as voice heard in the heart: “What is Truth?”
Well, what is truth? Especially when we live in our own
dream land drifting in and out of our indecisiveness (spinning our wheels…) as
well as our own denial of the truth that action does indeed speak louder than
words (indifference). Our actions can
either be graceless and founded, grounded only upon the self and its unknowing
path of destruction or can be a reveal about our persevering capacity to make
the best out of anything the worldly Kingdom throws our way to be dealt with.
Sometimes the power of the truth of God and His saving
integrity blanketing our bewildered world can be too much for us since we
always want to control where we are on the journey—where we think we ought to
be. Sometimes we need to hear from our “visiting
angels” to know, think about what we must do.
What is a visiting angel? No this isn’t about the senior
care company though I am back caregiving for them. A visiting angel in this sense is an amazing
voice, sometimes a pair of voices that trail off disembodied ambers of thought
and have been for the last four years within the unassuming walls of a “haunted,”
Mundelein townhouse on the cusp of the house boat canal to Diamond Lake.
Water is the conduit of the Spirit so it is said but even
more of a revelation around this visiting angel is that the concept of God’s
Time—Kairos time is given a tangible sense of reality. “All in God’s time…” has made many of nice
tee-shirts, mugs, key chains & bumper stickers but do we ever ponder fully
the truth to God’s timing, plans for us & just what that will be like once
we cross that dimension between this world to the next?
Yes there is an element of God’s timing that revolves
around Good and Evil; but God’s timing reveals something even greater to
challenge us with & it’s more or less dealing with what we Do and don’t do
motivated by the spirit of a heart shaped for the Gospel—while we are in this
world! This gets to the heart of what Jesus’ battle plan is for us all.
We cannot deny the spiritual aspect of ourselves because
the ruler of this world does indeed battle for the control and oppression of it
daily. My visiting angel is one of my grandmothers, who lately has been even
more concerned for me & my family to hear her gentle faint crackling
whispers in the dead of the night. From what I could gather in to understand
her, she is now able to see the future, has met the Lord and knows of things
that are of mystery. Is she in the
Kingdom of God or is she in limbo? She’s in another dimension of time, space
and understanding better left to be revealed when we come to a finite material
end.
It is as if, as the Gospel calls to us all ordinary
people to embrace the hope and promise of faithful living into the priesthood
of all believers. Who are we to say, as
well, that our call to service stops when our physical frame does? We return to
creation as the fertile soil to a new generation, turn of the world into the
future!
What I have been talking about so far however has focused
on the literal concept of life and death in light of the sovereignty of God
& the marker of His Divine activity in this world—His timing. We must now turn the spiritual page over to
talk about a being force in the world that Jesus gave us—our New Nature, New
Creature with the potential to bear the fruit of the Kingdom of God—Love, peace,
mercy, compassion, unity and understanding not “tolerance,” “politics,”
intellectual progressivism but faith alone built by grace alone and given by
Christ alone who is the very center of the Kingdom and our goal.
The waves of attacks in the world by the evil known as
ISIS and related allies has shifted from an ideological attack and persecution
upon Christians & non-conforming Muslims to now an attack upon the culture,
way of life of others. It has been haunting
to me to recall what my friend in the Paris Metro area was telling me for weeks
through his near daily chats with me through social media. Basically he would say over and over how it
seemed as if he and his wife were surrounded.
It was no longer the Paris they knew but one that festering to become
the calm before the storm of diabolical death, destruction and evil waiting
& planning to take action.
Bombs, bullets, knives, swords, torture are the markers
of a wave in the world of profound evil.
We saw this pattern before with Hitler and the Nazis did we ever thought
history would try to once again begin to repeat itself? Has it really? Perhaps to some degree or
another but as we talked about in this in our Saturday text study think about
the amazing transformation of the Romans during the time of Jesus and to the
formation of the early established church!
They went from mass crucifixions, oppression, torture and various crimes
to Constantine turning the tide to establishing what would eventually become
the modern Christian church.
It’s a change that took centuries but maybe doesn’t
always have to. We are a world in
transition but we are still too much into denying our true calling as well as
denying our role in living for and through Christ, the Sovereign King. We have firmly established islands unto
ourselves that not only circumvent owning up to our sins but turn the Kingdom
of God and all its righteousness into merely being relevant and useful to our
own agendas, “game plans.”
Instead of seeking out to join in aiding your neighbor to
better serve their neighbors to Love and grow with God through the Holy
Spirit… Some people play games of power,
corruption and are anything but living faithfully into truly hearing Christ
Jesus voice speaking to them to live into change for a much greater purpose!
They are motivated in bandaging a dying “body” that they have sewn together on
the broken hearts and dreams of others who don’t fit their mold. Are they just as bad as ISIS? That’s really a stretch but the evil and
intention is there.
Whether you are a Pastor for Christ or faithful member of
the priesthood of all believers…. It is the living by giving or as Pastor Eric
would say doing the do’s versus the don’ts of the Gospel imperative that
reveals that wonderful construction of the Kingdom’s reality in this world
through our persevering, unwavering faith.
Fighting the good fight is going to be so much more than
boots on the ground to defeat the wars of man & its diabolical evil… It is a painful battle to be waged in the
soul of the believer to realize victory through the glory of the cross in one’s
life. It is a reconstruction,
resurrection from the past and living, breaking away from that chrysalis to fly
into the horizon of a New Hope the love of God and His “visiting angels” can
reveal to us.
Those words whispered within the calm of deep night were
of comfort and love: “Nicole…. What I know now…God has another plan for you” or
“Nicole… I believe in you, you need to….” Or yet another disembodied message
from my grandmother was: “Nicole… not now… be careful…only God can…” God’s
message from her spirit’s voice reaching through God’s time into the here and
now of mine speaks volumes just how far and just how powerful our God and His
presence in our lives truly is!
None of those fragments are finished statements but what
they are statements of is where God needs me to sojourn, be strong to move
forward into. He is doing this as well,
whether you realize it or not in your own lives—daily! Who said living into the
lifestyle of Grace would ever be easy?
Faith is NOT easy nor should it ever be taught that it is.
On a final note, I have been doing some wonderful
spiritual preparation towards my postulant journey into the Lutheran Franciscan
Order of Divine Mercy by daily reflecting, confessing, repenting and renewing
to Psalm 51. If you recall, this is the
heavily repentant Psalm of David owning up to his sins against Bathsheba and
her husband who David killed.
Here’s a snippet that I felt I heard God connecting for
me to this week’s texts:
Psalm 51
1Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast
love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
2Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me
from my sin.
3For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever
before me.
4Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what
is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless
when you pass judgment.
5Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother
conceived me.
6You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach
me wisdom in my secret heart.
The Psalm continues as a
beautiful hymn of the heart seeking to deconstruct the evil and construct a
positive, right and New spirit. Yes, the
Lord still does desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach us all Lord,
enlighten our darkness with a beautiful wisdom we must not feel we must explain
but have faith and live into!
AMEN
November 22nd,
2015; Christ the King Sunday; Proper 29; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon By:
Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm 93;
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; Revelation 1:4-8 & John 18:33-37
Below is a link to the sermon being delivered at the Grace Hub house church service at 8am
https://youtu.be/_wFPAp94aSI
https://youtu.be/_wFPAp94aSI
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