[Propertalk] Fwd: Christ the King - Proclaim sermon

[Joe Parrish]

Hospitality



                             
  Writer Kathleen Norris was a guest at a Catholic monastery during the week in 1997 when the members of the “Heaven’s Gate” cult all committed suicide based on their strange belief about events connected with the appearance Hale–Bopp comet. Norris heard the news in the monastery and noted that the members of that cult had referred to themselves as “monks.” But she later wrote that the Heaven’s Gate devotees didn’t seem much like the monks she knew, for she found the monasteries to be hospitable places, welcoming to guests, whereas the cult did not tolerate outsiders. Norris noted that St. Benedict said, “A monastery is never without guests,” and added, “What Benedict says might be seen as a way to define a monastery – if it regularly exercises enough hospitality so as to attract guests, it is a monastery. If it doesn’t, it is not” (Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace [New York: Riverhead Books, 1998], 262–263). And a similar definition could be used as part of what it means to be a church. If it regularly exercises enough hospitality to make newcomers and regular attendees feel welcome, it is a church. If it doesn’t, it is not.







11/20/2011
                                           Reading: Matthew 25:31 - 46                  
                   RCL: Christ the King LFM: Christ the King BCP: Proper 29 (Christ the King) LL: Last Sunday (Christ The King)    	              
           
         
      
   
      
       
         
            
                
                  
Summary
				  
The king is the one asking the questions here, and the questions have very little to do with faith and a whole lot to do with works.
			                           
What King Is This?
                     
            There’s nothing ordinary about the end of ordinary time. This day, this Sunday, is New Year’s Eve in the Christian calendar. We’re about to start the wonderfully off-kilter church calendar, as the anticipation of Advent gives way to the birth of the Christ child. And before it all begins, on Christ the King Sunday, we recognize who’s in charge — yes, it’s Jesus, of course. But it’s Jesus the way we see him in Daniel 7, and Revelation 1, and most of all, in Matthew 25. This is the Sunday when Christ is recognized as King.
            This is not the shortest day of the year, but it sure seems awfully dark, and it stays dark an awfully long time. 
            This is the time of the year that started to scare the ancients. Those people who believed in gods that might be immortal but weren’t all powerful, gods who seemed powerless against fate and chance, and especially the primeval forces of chaos, these people got a little worried this time of year.
            The onset of winter brought on a lot of fear — what if it never ended? What if this was the winter where the days got shorter and shorter and shorter — and never hit rock bottom, to start getting longer and longer again? What if this was the year chaos won? 
            That’s why there was so much merry making when the tide turned and the days finally got longer. That’s why, even when there were plenty of cold days ahead, people still celebrated, exchanged gifts, and hung the holly. They’d dodged another bullet. For another year.
 
The Lord God
            By contrast, God’s people knew God is not only immortal, but also all powerful. The stars? Fate? Chance? No problem. It was God who set the stars in the heavens. Chaos? It was God who brooded over the face of the deeps in the first chapter of Genesis, dispatching the monsters of chaos without even having to look at them. This is the God who, in Job, makes it clear that Leviathan, monster of the waters, is a plaything.1 The monster Behemoth?2 Are you kidding? God opens the heavens at the time of the great flood and closes them up again.
            What’s the guarantee after Noah lands the ark? “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”3






Christ is king
 ...approximately 1,574 words remaining.


http://www.proclaimsermons.com/viewSermon.asp?title=What%20King%20Is%20This%3F



 
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