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Here is the greatest message of those endless Sundays in the season of Pentecost—the reign of Christ. This is the end of the church calendar, the end of the line, but, the Advent of something wonderful to begin! We are at the precipice of a brand New spiritual year. Just what do each church calendar year try to teach us? Why do we follow this? How does it help us as disciples of Jesus? Short answer first, we get to move within the greatest story ever told, from life to death to New life. The longer answer is what I’ve said before, we are in discipleship school and every new church calendar year we are learning and growing into New things. Remember, we will always be students of the Gospel.
The seemingly endless Sundays in the season of Pentecost
have a lot of things to teach us and our greatest teacher, Jesus, guiding our
every step! Sounds like a wonderful system, but we are obviously in an
imperfect world and our greatest challenge is accepting the One who’s trying to
reign us in, reign over us and Shepherd us.
Truth be told, but the more I contemplated today’s texts, the more I
wondered how much we have lost in still being connected to the hope and
promises of the Resurrection of Christ and our task to reap that New Creation
instilled within us. Today’s texts are
complex and very symbolic. St. Paul
especially, challenges us to realize that Christ Jesus is the New Adam—our
perfect example, the New Creation itself, after Grace has triumphed. And the Gospel is Christ defining the last of
His beatitudes—those disciples who live into responding to His great
commission, will not suffer the judgment of those who want to live for the
world.
This could sound cut and dry, but it really isn’t, and it
shouldn’t be over simplified for that would go against my hopes for you as your
pastor to help you hear and truly grow in understanding, reaping a lifestyle of
Grace. This isn’t just about tuning up your sense of ethics or morality, as
been the finger-pointing accusations against Christianity… This Sunday’s texts
are to jar your hearts to realize that gift given—the New Nature. Are you
living a lifestyle worthy of the Gospel?
Do you realize that you have been commissioned by Christ to spread and
live into the Good News? Here’s maybe
where our disconnect is. If we can’t or are unwilling to think about our New
Nature potential within us, then what is our life truly about?
I had to start this morning’s message with these
provocative questions because I don’t think the “institutionalized church” is
doing justice in helping others to see what discipleship really is and what
Christ and His gift of New Life really means. We are truly in an age that has
many kinds of sheep and many kinds of goats and if Jesus were to retell this
parable to us today, we’d even have a harder time connecting because we have
grown too successfully into being autonomous individuals barely covenantal to
our few responsibilities, we have, in the here and now.
Regarding accountability and being, reaping the New
Nature; the world news stage has been overflowing with sordid scandals it
seems, one after another targeting various politicians, journalists and the
like, over sexual ethics. The
divisiveness and graceless behavior has hit a new low for me. Are all these case after case reports of
partisan politicians, journalists and celebrities really what they seem, or are
they the brunt of sordid agendas of control, power and self-righteous
justice? If you were to ask me, I would
say who’s ruling the world these days is not Christ, but evil itself. These are hard words to hear, but I will
certainly never be a pastor who hides the reality of Satan and his work in the
world corrupting our nature tempting us to justify sin, willfulness over and
above God’s will!
We are children of the Resurrection and are to realize
the face of death from the gift of New life, Grace. Our crucified Lord rose to reset and replant
humanity into a right relationship with God, our heavenly parent. I think we’ve gone beyond being rebellious
teenagers, and have perhaps these days especially, have become lost to where we
really are, whose we really are and what purpose our lives are truly to mean,
come to bear. ‘The judgment of the Nations,’ as is the subtitle, to today’s
Gospel from Matthew, isn’t hell fire and brim stone but a spiritual calling for
us to wake up and smell the coffee. We are more than comfortable however being
our own judge and jury living and tending to the Gospel of our own individual
worlds.
We are children of Grace and we are children of
promise—something that shouldn’t be broken especially if we profess to be
disciples of a god who came down to us, died and rose for us to have New
Life! In thinking about New life, I was
reminded of a sad story of a former Chicago poet leading a mysterious double
life. Jay Jay as he liked to be called,
was a well-known local poet whose writings were regularly published and
performed all over the city. His style
of writings was like that of E.E. Cummings. You could say that Jay Jay was truly
a flower-child era poet. His gritty
style and persona set him apart however, from others on the scene, and this was
a mystery for several years until his secret life finally broke open.
J. J. Jameson, we would all come to find out was in
reality, Norman A. Porter, Jr, “the Killer poet.” On March 22nd, 2005, he would be arrested
by the Massachusetts State Police, Illinois State Police and the Massachusetts
Department of Correction in Chicago at the Third Unitarian Church, where he was
a member of the congregation and sometimes worked as a handyman. Jay Jay was
then transferred under armed guard to Massachusetts where he faced charges of
escape from a penal institution.
Here, he pleaded guilty to charges of second-degree
murder in the 1960 fatal shooting of 22-year-old part-time clothing store
clerk, John Pigott, at the Robert Hall clothing store in Saugus, Massachusetts
with a sawed-off shotgun. In 1961, while awaiting trial on those charges, He
was involved in the fatal assault in and shooting of the head jailer, David S.
Robinson, at Middlesex County jail in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He managed to
escape from prison only to be captured while holding up a grocery store in New
Hampshire. Jay Jay also pleaded guilty to charges of second-degree murder in
that case, and was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment.
While in prison, Norman Porter/ Jay Jay, earned an
undergraduate degree from Boston University, started a prison newspaper,
published poetry, and founded a prison radio station. One of his life sentences
was commuted by Governor Michael Dukakis in 1975. In December 1985, while being
held at a prerelease center, he escaped by signing himself out for a walk, and
never returned to the facility until he was caught on March 22nd,
2005. Since his escape, he had been Massachusetts' most wanted fugitive, ahead
of mobster boss James "Whitey" Bulger.
Jameson was connected to this double life when
fingerprints taken during his 1993 arrest were matched against Porter's
fingerprints in an FBI database after a police officer saw his picture as Poet
of the Month on ChicagoPoetry.com. On October 14, 2005, Porter was sentenced to
three years in prison for his escape. He had a parole hearing Tuesday, October
6, 2009. The 2008 film, ‘Killer Poet,’ was produced by Northern Light
Productions, documented his double life. Jay Jay would be denied parole by the
Massachusetts Parole Board on January 12, 2010. Despite the support of prison
officials and members of his Unitarian congregation, the parole board rejected
Porter's request because he showed "limited remorse" and
"continues to minimize his criminal activity."
Here is an amazing example of someone who was truly lost
in a graceless wilderness, “hell” of his own making. Sounds like one of those goats Jesus talks
about. Life had to be shaped on his own
terms, a grand delusion of control, where the boundaries between good and evil
were blurred, broken and somewhat beyond repair. I remember counseling his publisher who was a
very nice man, who befriended Jay Jay and was now in deep shock, feeling
betrayed by someone he thought he knew and called a friend. Jay Jay tried to rule his life as he saw fit,
and didn’t feel any sense of accountability towards anyone. His participation
in a local church, perhaps was a small part of a side of himself, contemplating
a better life, but his passions reigned over and above God’s calling to him to renew
his life for the better.
When I saw, all of the blips on the news, and all of the
people coming forward from his secret life; I was saddened to see his
hopelessness and unwillingness to change. I actually met and read at several
poetry venues with Jay Jay… He tried to
live into his life as a poet and erase the past. Now he is slowly dying from brain tumors in a
Boston area prison never to return to his artificial life again. The above story details, actually, of all
things, came from Wikipedia. Hard to
believe, that will now be his sordid claim to fame. I’m sure most of us here haven’t
experienced or knew someone with such a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde lifestyle, but
just replace that image with the Old Nature (which we all received from the
fall of Adam and Eve) and the New Nature (which we all have received from the
Good Shepherd, Jesus). Death and
Life. We, as St. Paul says, must die to
the past and LIVE most profoundly into that New Life, New Creation within us
waiting to be reaped by our faithful obedience. Through our faithful obedience,
we bear the fruit of a gracious life, well-lived and flourishing in a fullness
that brings eternal joy for all the world to see from your witness! The Victory Christ gave the world is the hope
of a resurrected life through the reaping of the New Nature. It is only through realizing His reigning
Grace that we awaken to the truth and live into it!
Let Us Pray,
Gracious and ever-Reigning Christ,
Help us to die to our Adam or Eve’ Old Natures
And rise through Your abundant love
To truly care for our lives and the least of these, our
neighbors
Help us to find our true selves through being accountable
and obedient
To Your Living, internally and eternally shaping Word of
Joy and Promise
Your victory is our glory in the light of Your Grace. AMEN
November 26th,
2017; Christ the King; Year A; Proper 29; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon By:
Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, OSST
Psalm 95:1-7a;
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; 1 Corinthians 15:20-28; Matthew 25:31-46
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at First Congregational Church at 9:30am
