**** One of the things I am thankful for this year is the opportunity I had to travel to Slovenia.
When I made the decision to go to Slovenia, I knew nothing about Slovenia. I wasn’t even sure it was a real place.
It wasn’t a real place, when I was a kid in school, learning about the world, drawing and labelling maps for geography class. Slovenia didn’t become an independent nation until 1991.
But once I decided that Slovenia would be my destination, I started learning what I could. I watched some YouTube videos about Slovenia: where to stay, what to see, what food to eat. One video taught me a few words and phrases in Slovenian… and another was all about the people and the culture.
That video let me know, for example, that people in Slovenia are generally friendly, but they tend not to waste words. Don’t take that personally, or as a sign of rudeness, the person in the video said. People in Slovenia just tend to say only what is necessary, and nothing more.
So I wasn’t surprised when I heard someone at an information center ask: “Is this where I can buy my ticket?” and the person behind the desk said: “No. This is an information center.”
And that was it.
Now, being an information center, one would think that the person behind the desk would give this person the information they wanted, which, obviously, was: where and how to buy a ticket.
But the person didn’t actually ask where or how to buy a ticket. They only asked if they could buy a ticket here.
And the person behind the desk, having answered that question, spoke no more.
There were several more encounters like that in Slovenia. I was thankful for the YouTube videos I had watched, which had prepared me to think like a Slovenian, at least a little bit, before I ever left home.
Because I was watching those YouTube videos and learning about Slovenia, my mind was already set on Slovenia, before I ever left. I was mentally preparing myself for my trip. A part of me was already living in Slovenia.
In the same way, all of us are living here on earth, in this world, in this time. This is where we are. But ultimately, our home is in heaven.
And we are called to live out the values of the kingdom of heaven even while we live here on earth. We are called to speak the language of the kingdom of heaven. We are called to practice the ways of the kingdom of heaven. Now.
And when we read our Bibles; and when we go to worship, or Bible study; and when we pray, and listen for God’s voice… these things work the same way as the YouTube videos I watched before going to Slovenia. These things help us live in the kingdom of heaven now, before we ever get there.
And Christ the King Sunday reminds me of that.
**** As I said at the start of worship: Today is Christ the King Sunday. It is the last Sunday of the liturgical year. Next Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, is the first Sunday of a new liturgical year.
Some churches, not wanting to sound too patriarchal, call it Reign of Christ Sunday, or the Festival of Christ the Cosmic Ruler. I am thankful for their “re-branding,” even though I tend to use the traditional language.
Whatever you call it, this last Sunday of the Christian year just prior to Advent celebrates the anticipation of Christ completing God’s work of reconciliation of all things in heaven and on earth.
Or, to put it another way: it celebrates the day when all things will be made new in Christ.
Or, to put it another way: it celebrates life in the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom where Christ reigns.
If you have been baptized, you have made the decision to live in Christ’s kingdom now, even while you live on earth.
**** In baptism, what is old is stripped away, and we are made into something new. For some Christians in the early church, the way they practiced baptism, this was done literally: the one being baptized would strip off all their clothes before entering the water, to symbolize the stripping away of all that is old: all the allegiances they had to this world of darkness.
And then, upon emerging from the waters of baptism, they were given new clothes to wear, clothes that were pure white.
All this symbolizes what it says in chapter 3 of Colossians: “You have stripped off your old self with its practices – its greed, its anger and malice – and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. So clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience,… and above all, love.”
These are the ways one lives in the kingdom of heaven: with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and love.
The purpose of the letter to the Colossians is to remind the letter’s recipients just how different life in Christ is from life in the world. They had been baptized! They had stripped away their old selves, and put on their new identity in Christ.
But the Colossians – like us – needed to be reminded of the significance and the implications of such a radical lifestyle change.
Today, instead of a letter to the Colossians, perhaps we’d have a YouTube video to the Colossians (like the videos that helped me get ready for Slovenia), reminding them that they have been made new in Christ; reminding them of their future home in heaven; and helping them embrace the values of Christ’s kingdom now, even while they live on earth.
Since we belong not to this world but to the kingdom of heaven, we start learning the language of the kingdom. Now. We start living the values of the kingdom. We start practicing the ways of the kingdom. Now.
Because the time to start practicing those kingdom values is right now. God has already transferred us there. As we heard in our scripture reading for today: “He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son.”
The relocation papers have already been completed, filed, stamped, and whatever else is done to make relocation papers official. In a way that’s even more real than my experience of being in Slovenia before I actually arrived in Slovenia, we are living in the kingdom of God right now, in the present.
And because of that, our lives are changed.
Day by day, we learn to set aside the language and the customs and the traditions of the world of darkness.
In the world of darkness, we look for power in things that can be handled, tasted, or touched. We look for power in wealth. We look for power in fame.
But in the kingdom of Christ to which we have been transferred, power is practiced very differently.
The new clothing that we have put on after our baptism shows the source of our power. That power is found in compassion, kindness, humility. We see that power practiced through bearing with one another, forgiving one another, rather than judging and ridiculing and belittling others.
We see that power is most of all expressed through love. Love has the power to bind all things together in perfect harmony.
It is Christ’s kingdom. And Christ rules with love. Look at everything he did. Look at how he treated people, including his enemies. Especially his enemies. And look at how he had compassion on those who suffered from the prejudice and hatred and fear of society…
Love guided everything he did. You never had to question his motives. What was his motive?
Love.
**** So the question that the letter to the Colossians asks is this: If you have a present and future home in the kingdom of heaven, why do you live as if you still belonged to this world? If you have been baptized in Christ, why have you gone back and put on those old clothes that you once wore? If you are living in the kingdom, and Christ the king rules over the kingdom with love … where is your love?
Dick Hamm, former General Minister and President of our denomination, once wrote that too many church people could work in an office, sit right next to the same co-worker for 25 years, with that co-worker not even knowing that there was anything different about them.
Not a thing!
But don’t you think there should be something noticeably different about a person who so fully lives in the kingdom, and so fully practices the kingdom value of love? Don’t you think that a person who has stripped off the old and put on the new would look at least a little different? Something that might even look a little strange to other people?
Dick Hamm also told the story of a church elder “who was sitting in a board meeting one night while a discussion was going on about some matter of importance in that congregation. Someone said something that sparked his anger. As the conversation proceeded, he could feel his anger rising until he could stand it no more. He jumped to his feet, ready to tell them all what he thought about their ‘stupid idea.’ … But just as he was about to open his mouth, he remembered something. He slowly sat down and mumbled, ‘I’m sorry, I almost forgot. Dead men don’t speak.’”
In that moment, he remembered that he had been buried with Christ, and raised to new life. He remembered that, in Christ, he was a new person, clothed in compassion, kindness, humility, patience, and love. The old person that he once was, who was quick to tell others how stupid they were, had died. And now he had to let it be dead.
There are a lot of Christians today clinging to the ways of earthly kingdoms. There are a lot of Christians today who have forgotten that they have been buried with Christ, and raised to new life. There are a lot of Christians today who have forgotten that they, too, have been made into something new, and clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, patience and love.
And they are quick to let loose their anger, and to insult anyone who disagrees with them. Instead of lifting others up, they seek to throw down all those with a different opinion.
And this includes those who subscribe to Christian nationalism.
Christian nationalism is a form of Christianity in which people claim to follow Christ, yet they have failed to strip away their old selves and embrace the new being that they are in Christ. They’re too attached to power in this world, too blinded by this world’s power, that they think Christ’s power is the same as power in this world; when in reality, Christ’s power is a completely different thing. The power of Christ is power in weakness. It is power is love. It is power in forgiveness and sacrifice.
This kind of power is, as Paul says, a stumbling block to so many. They don’t get it. They only know of the type of power that exists in this world. Power of coercion. Power of force. Power of domination.
That’s the power that Christian nationalists cling to.
But God has stripped all that away from those who have been made new in Christ. We have died to the old ways, and we live as if we are already in the kingdom of heaven, clothed in compassion, kindness, humility, patience and love, following the way of Christ our king.
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