King of Kings

I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

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We have moved from Perry Mason, and Law and Order, to watching real people take real people before a judge in hopes to get a judgement against them and hopefully have restitution made for wrongs done. The world was fascinated by the O.J. Simpson Trail and the Scott Peterson trails - where both men were accused of murdering their wives - one got away with it and the other didn’t.

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Our Gospel takes us in to the court room today. Pontus Pilate is the supreme judge. He is the right hand man who collects taxes for the Emperor. He is a ruling authority figure of Rome. He alone decides if a person will live or die.

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As Pontius Pilate entered the headquarters again, he summoned Jesus, and asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" ) I hear Pilate asking this with a bit of a sneer, as Jesus is bound, beaten and bleeding as he stands before Pilate. - He certainly didn't look like a king.)

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Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?"

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Pilate reminds Jesus that he is not a Jew, but the authority of Rome. Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?"

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Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here."

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Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?"

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Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

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As so we have the clash, the collision of two kingdoms. The Kingdom of Rome, where the Emperor often claimed the status of God, and this man Jesus, born in a place known as Garbage City, Nazareth, who also claimed to be God, and whose Kingdom was not of this world. Two kingdoms on a collision course.

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When one looks at the evidence, it is pretty damning against the man from Nazareth. First of all, it would appear, that the man who raised him was not his ‘real" father. There was more than a hint of scandal that surrounded his birth.

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When one looks at the evidence of this man from Nazareth, it would have been so easy on the one hand, give his background and scandal surrounding his birth to just dismiss him as a madman. However, there were those who believed him to the Messiah - sent by God - and how could one discount the miracles, healings and all the other things this man from Nazareth was said to have done.

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Pontus Pilate was not sure that Jesus was guilty of anything. He knew that the religious leaders were envious of Jesus and wanted Pontius Pilate to do their dirty work for them. But Pontus Pilate was smarter than that. He was in luck - because of his position of authority he could pass the buck and did so, by sending Jesus of to Herod. Pilate quickly washed his hands of the whole thing.

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There was some talk some thirty years before of a baby born in Bethlehem, and how some kings from far away countries had come to worship this baby born to be King of the Jews. The then ruling king of the day, King Herod, a suspicious man who had murdered his own sons, ordered the deaths of all male Jewish babies, under the age of two, in an demented attempt to eradicate the threat to his throne. However, it’is unlikely that this Herod knew about such events so long ago. This Herod too was concerned about any threat to his seat of power.
From what Herod had heard about Jesus, he was greatly pleased to meet Jesus, and was hoping that Jesus might perform some miracle. Herod plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave no answers in return.

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The chief priests and the other religious leaders where standing there vigorously accusing Jesus. Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked Jesus. They dressed him in an elegant robe, then after they had their little bit of fun, dehumanizing him, and mocking him, Herod sent him back to Pilate. Its not so easy passing the buck. And so Pilate, who began the dialogue by asking Jesus if he was a king, ended by wanting to please the crowd, and secure his hold on power, had Jesus flogged and then handed him over to be crucified.

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We often name the name of Christ and either do not accept or comprehend or believe what we are saying. For example: a recent Gallop Poll revealed that more than 86% of those asked and who considered themselves Christian, less than half knew who preached the Sermon on The Mount. when asked.

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The same Poll showed that 60% of those asked were in Church last Easter, but one out of four did not know what Easter celebrates. So when we name Jesus as King, when we call him Lord, do we know what we are doing? Do we accept it and believe it? And if we accept it and believe it, do we understand it?

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In the published diaries of Joseph Goebbels, the infamous Nazi Propagandist, there are two or three references to Mahatma Gandhi. Goebbels believed that Gandhi was a fool and a fanatic. If Gandhi had the sense to organize militarily, Goebbels thought, he might hope to win the freedom of India.

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He was certain that Gandhi couldn't succeed following a path of non-resistance and peaceful revolution. Yet as history played itself out, India peacefully won her independence while the Nazi military machine was destroyed. What Joseph Goebbels regarded as weakness actually turned out to be strength. What he thought of as strength turned out to be weakness.

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Who could blame Pontius Pilate or Herod for treating Jesus as they did. They had all the power, Jesus had no power, or so it seemed. They both held positions of great authority, but Jesus was a homeless nomad who moved from town to village to city. He had caused a stir while in Jerusalem, by first riding in on a donkey, as if claiming to be some sort of king, and then by causing a scene in the temple, when he overturned tables and chased people out of there by using a whip. He accused them of being robbers and theives.

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In today’s readings were are being asked to "look through eyes of faith" Pilate and Herod only saw a man, a very ordinary man at that. The only saw a man who should be crucified. Little did they know that the crown of thorns would be symbolic of the fact that Jesus is not only King of the Jews, He is King of Kings.

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How could they know that the cross, an instrument of torture would become a symbol of triumph? How could they know that the cross would become a throne?

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You see, all those involved, especially Pontius Pilate and Herod, all they could see was the end not only of this man’s ministry, but of his life. They thought they had silenced him for good.
Even the disciples thought it was all over. They were so afraid at this turn of events that they immediately went into hiding. They thought this was the end.

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Even the woman who followed Jesus, they thought this was the end. Did they not see his lifeless body, borken and bleeding, taken down from the cross and placed in the tomb? What else could they think, but think this was the end.

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Even his own mother, standing there at the cross, her tears and cries for all to hear. Her child, her son, now nailed to a cross. He was put to death as a common criminal. How could Mary think anything else that this was the end.

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But when we only see an ending, God sees a beginning.
When we think it is all over, God begins something new.
When we think all is hopeless - God offers us hope.
We now know, that the crucified Christ is the Risen Christ.
As yes, we know that Pilate got it right. Jesus is indeed a king.

Jumping to conclusions

It ought to be a time of joy and celebration. But a woman weeps. Each year, at this time of the year, she is filled with heaviness. Her heart is overflowing with sorrow. While everyone around her is enjoying the celebrations, she, Hannah, is depressed and full of sadness. While everyone around her celebrates, Hannah does not.

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On this day, we join Hannah as she prays. She is pouring her heart out to God. There are many things that have conspired to make Hannah not only deeply unhappy and sorrowful, she is also depressed to the point of no longer eating. A bitterness has filled her soul.

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Hannah finds herself unable to conceive a child. Her husband has another wife who bears children easily. ( Bigmany was common among this people - a people, the Bible reminds us were given to doing their own thing - even though it was against God's will for his people.)

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This "other" woman in Hannah's life made life miserable for her. This "other" woman ridiculed Hannah and would provoke her to tears - especially at this time of the year, when the whole family made it yearly pilgrimage to give thnaks to God for the blessings of freedom and peace. There was no peace in Hannah's life. To add insult to injury, the old priest, as he watched Hannah pray, though she was drunk and the proceeded to tell her to sober up as she was leaving the temple.

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Hannah does not fly off the handle or get angry with this old priest. The author of the story gives us a glimpse into Hannah's personality as she quietly explains that she was "pouring out her soul" to the Lord. Hannah's great pain is also her great shame - she is unable to bear a child.

Now the old priest could be forgiven for making such a pastoral blunder. However, we must remember that Hannah lived in a time when everyone did their own thing, neglecting Godly things. Why, even the old priest's two sons, both priests themselves will be involved in a scandal involving sexual impropriety at the temple itself.

Perhaps the point of the story is that like the old priest, we are quick to jump to conclusions and judge people. Perhaps the old priest saw only degrading behaviour everyday from among the people who came to worship at the temple during this great festival. Perhaps he only saw people feasting and drinking to the point of over-indulgence, and engaging in activities that they would not dream of if they wer "back home" and all of it done under the disguise of a religious celebration.

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How ever, the old priest was quick to jump to conclusions. When Hannah explained her pain, then nthe bold priest pronounced a blessing on Hannah and sent her on her way. The story has a happy ending. Hannah conceives and gives birth to a son. She names him Samuel, because she "asked the Lord for him". Samuel will be the one to anoint David as Israel's greatest king.

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Perhaps, the point of the story is not about jumping to conclusions, although it might serve an old priest better if he at least asked the woman who she was doing before jumping in with both feet. Perhaps the point of the story is that after many years of pain and desolation that had led to her depression, God would finally hear her prayers.

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For me though, the point of this story, like the story of Ruth before it, is that God is at work in and through our pain and suffering. God is at work even when we go off and do our own thing. God is always at work.

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Perhaps as a priest I need to remember not to jump to making quick conclusions.

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We all need to know that God hears our prayers.

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And that God is always at work in and through our lives.

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Unswerving, selfless devotion

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For nearly a decade, women in the eastern Congo have endured

unimaginable acts of sexual cruelty, leaving them shamed,

abandoned by their families, shunned by their villages,

and ignored by the world.

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Before the conflict, Seraphine Bulonza M’Mirindi, 42 sold fish.

Her husband went to the market three years ago and was

presumably captured by rebels; she hasn’t seen him since.

When the Interahamwe entered my room and raped me in January

of 2003, I was sleeping next to my 3-year-old boy. He tried to cover

me with his little body, but despite his size, they beat him.

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Four of them raped my oldest daughter until she was bleeding from

everywhere: the vagina, ears, nose, anus. She died two weeks later.

My son died the following day. After these events, I lost hope in life.

I’m living now with my surviving children in Bukavu.

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We spend some days without eating. The church gave me a small place

to stay, but they told me they must demolish it: I have nowhere else to go.

The kids are kicked out of school because I am unable to pay the fees.

I am trying to find a way to restart my life.

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It is the consummate story. Three women united by tragedy and grief. in the midst of their suffering, God is at work. It is a story told with the skill of master story teller. There are no jobs to be found. Food is scarce. There was a drought in the land for many years. It has been so long that the people cannot remember the wet feel of falling rain. And so a husband and father makes a difficult decision. He will take his wife and two sons and move to the land of promise.
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No sooner had they arrived in this new place, so full of promise and hope, the father died. No warning - his was a sudden death. Many years passed, and his widow, Naomi, was left with her two sons who had both married. Their wives were from a different background and culture. The wives were named Orpah and Ruth. After Naomi and her two sons and their wives had lived there some ten years, both sons died. There is some scant evidence that perhaps the husband of Ruth was not very healthy, probably both sons had inherited a heart condition that claimed the lives of all three, a father and both his sons.

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As you can imagine, Naomi was devastated. She had left her homeland full, a husband and two sons, but now life had taken a terrible turn, and Naomi was left feeling destitute, vulnerable, insecure and with out hope - Naomi, in her own words said, "she went away full, but the Lord had brought her back empty."

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As you might expect, in her grief and in the midst of terrible loss, Naomi, again using her words "was bitter’ for the Almighty had brought misfortune upon her.

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What is perhaps hard for us to grasp, is that in the midst of such terrible tragedy and human suffering, God is always at work. God’s plan and purpose is always the music that plays in the background of our lived. As the story unfolds, the author skillfully weaves a love story of unswerving devotion, loyalty and trust.

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These three women, brought together by life’s circumstances now share together, the mantle of widowhood. They are a support for one another.

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As we gather today, we remember those widows of the soldiers who laid down their lives in two great wars, in the Korean war, and today in Afghanistan.

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As these three women struggle with the loss of their husbands, and because of their culture and the time and place in which they live, they must each return "home" to their families, as they as women of their time and place have no visible means of support. For many women today who find themselves in such situations in the Congo, Afghanistan, the Sudan, Iran and in Iraq, they are often reduced to living as prostitutes or beggars unless their families take them back.

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Naomi knew that she must return home. She gave her daughter-in-laws permission to return to their homes again and perhaps even be married again. This is where Ruth comes to the fore. She simply refused to be separated from her mother-in-law. Ruth is totally devoted to Naomi and will not leave her.

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And so they both return to Naomi’s home village, a place called Bethlehem. Perhaps you have heard of it. It has a certain familiar ring to it. God is at work.

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When Naomi and Ruth both arrive in Bethlehem, the whole town is abuzz. and the women of the town ask, "Is this Naomi?" for as you might expect the events of the years have left their indelible mark on Naomi. Who among us could bear to lose both husband and sons? You can imagine the questions being asked.

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When the women of Bethlehem enquire what has happened, Naomi expresses her loss and grief in the words "Don’t call me Naomi, call me Mara, because the Lord has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty." The loss of both her husband and then her two sons is a great loss perhaps too great for any to bear without bitterness. But lest you have missed it, even though Naomi is bitter, and who wouldn’t be given the magnitude of her loss, Naomi still acknowledges that the Lord is still working in her life.

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Naomi is too old to remarry, but by trusting in the Lord, even in her bitterness, and who among us could say she did not have the right, she returns to the land of her birth. by so doing Naomi, unwittingly sets in place a series of events that will lead both her and her unswervingly loyal daughter-in-law from emptiness to fullness, for destitution and despair to security, hope and fullness once again.

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ven when we do not understand why we must endure the pain and loss of tragedy - my thoughts go out to the children of the parents killed in a terrible accident earlier this week. We cannot for the life of us see how God might be working there as the magnitude of the tragedy is overwhelming to our minds.

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But Naomi in returning to her country and hometown of Bethlehem, affords an opportunity for Ruth to meet a male family member named Boaz. God’s at work.

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With masterly skill, the storyteller weaves his incredible story. Ruth and Boaz meet and they are married and together they have a child whose name is Obed.

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Now Obed is not a name perhaps all that well known. Yet, he is the father of Jesse, who in turn is the father of David, who will one day become Israel’s greatest king. Our Lord Jesus Christ is descended from the line of David.

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God is at work. To our eyes we often only see the tragedy of any situation. We only ever can see the pain and suffering and are frightened of the loss. However, through the eyes of faith, there is another picture God wants us to see.

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There was a great article in Tuesday’s Daily Gleaner about a modern day Naomi who, through the eyes of faith is able to give witness "that God doesn’t give us more than we can bear." Let me quickly add, only faith helps us to say that.

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It is how even when terrible things happen, and we all know that bad things often happen to good people, God wants us to know that through faith, God can take even the most awful of tragic event s and use them for his own purpose and plan

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God took Ruth, a foreigner, a person of another faith, an emigrant and used her selfless devotion to give us a glimpse into the mysteries of how God works. But then God does that, if you take a look at the genelogy of Jesus there are several people there who if they were on our family tree we might want to keep them a secret. Like Tamar, who posed like a prostitute, Rahab, who was a prostitute, Bethsheba who committed adultery while her husband was away fighting a war,
And then there is Ruth, a foreigner, but who unswerving loyalty and selfless devotion would model the selfless devotion of our Lord Jesus Christ. God does indeed work in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.

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I began this sermon by telling the horrific story of Seraphine Bulonza M’Mirindi. Perhaps you have forgotten already. Her husband was abducted, presumed murdered, she and her daughter both raped and her daughter later died as a result, as did her 3 year old son.
Sometimes we wonder out loud about sending our soldiers off to far away lands and to fight against an enemy and die for people they do not know. Already too many of our soldiers have died in Afghanistan. However, in these countries women are nothing. In some places cattle have more value than do the women.

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When we wonder out loud about soldiers dying, perhaps we need to remember that perhaps they are willing to fight and die so that others might enjoy the freedom and peace that we enjoy here in Canada. Our soldiers know better than anyone that the freedom and peace we enjoy was bought a terrible price.

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Well, perhaps the widows and mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters of those who have died in war know better than the soldiers - but all they know, like Naomi knew - somehow God’s at work. They need to know .... otherwise none of it makes sense.