The following sermon was delivered on Christ the King Sunday,November 26, 2006 at All Saints Anglican Church, Barboursville, WV. It is based on: Daniel 7: 9-14; Jn 18: 33-40
Speaking to the Observer Music Monthly Magazine recently,Sir Elton John said religion lacked compassion and turned people into "hateful lemmings".The PRESS ASSOCIATION reports: In a candid interview for a dedicated Gay issue of the magazine he shared his views on topics as varied as being a pop icon to Tony Blair's stance on the war in Iraq.He said there was a lack of religious leadership, particularly in world politics, and complained that people do not take to the streets to protest any more.Sir Elton said: "I think religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people. Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays."Organised religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate."
"But there are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion. From my point of view I would ban religion completely. (drudgereport.com: 11/11/2003)
So…Sir Elton shows his compassion by desiring to ban religion and instead he would give us protests in the street and the following philosophy:
“From the day we arrive on the planet, and blinking, step into the sun,
There’s more to see than can ever be seen, more to do than can ever be done.
There’s far too much to take in here, more to find than can ever be found.
But the sun rolling high through the sapphire sky keeps great and small on the endless round.
Chorus:
It’s the circle of life. And it move us all , through despair and hope,
Through faith and love, ‘til we find our place
On the path unwinding in the circle, the circle of life.
Some say eat or be eaten, Some say live and let live
But all are agreed as they join the stampede
You should never take more than you give.
Some of us fall by the wayside and some of us soar to the stars
And some of us sail through our troubles
And some have to live with the scars.
"The Circle of Life" Lyrics by Tim Rice.
Mix this rich theological formula with a little Hakuna Mattata and you’ve got the stirring life philosophy of Tim Rice and Elton John, composers of the music for Disney movie, the Lion King. (Sir Elton, we should say, who recently has pronounced that churches and religions are dangerous and ought not be allowed to exist!)
Yes, it’s the circle of life – and it goes round and round in an endless cycle of birth and death. There’s no particular reason for it, it just happened to evolve that way by random chance – but nevertheless we have to make sense out of it. We believe that life is sacred, even though we scorn anyone who takes the Sacred seriously – and we know we all have a holy obligation to not take more than we give and to recycle our waste – because after all, we’re all part of the circle of life.
And can you feel the love tonight? It is where we are.
It’s enough for this wide-eyed wanderer That we got this far
And can you feel the love tonight How it’s laid to rest?
It’s enough to make kings and vagabonds Believe the very best.
There’s a time for everyone If they only learn
That the twisting kaleidoscope Moves us all in turn
There’s a rhyme and reason to the wild outdoors
When the heart of this star-crossed voyager Beats in time with yours.
Yes, - it’s enough to make kings and vagabonds believe the very best.
And that, of course, was the lyric to the life-changing song, “Can you feel the Love tonight?” by the same duo who gave us the previous stirring philosophy.
What a load of happy hogwash! And this from the man who brought you:
His wise pronouncement that religion is dangerous and ought to be abolished!
Friends, our readings for today couldn’t be more opposed to Mr. John’s stress-free philosophy, but they do make for good sermon illustration material. Because we live in a world that has cast off the burdens of belief in a Supreme King and Judge, the inhabitants of planet earth are faced with the unenviable task of trying to figure what the deuce this life is about.
Without a notion of a transcendent God who created all things and who Rules and upholds all things by His power, what we are left with is the current New Agey, goopy, quasi-worship of the Earth, - known as GAIA to the religiously minded. For those who have tossed aside the ‘worn-out’ doctrines of the church with all the talk of Jesus as the King of Kings, blood sacrifices, the end of time, etc, there is little choice left, but going back to the old philosophy of an endless round of seasons, which never culminate in anything, but which must be valued and respected because of their ancient inevitability. Also, without a notion of a Creator God who stands apart from his creation, the world and everything in it becomes the subject of worship.
Again, GAIA is the personification of Earth, our mother. But keep in mind, that GAIA isn’t really understood as a personal being in the same way the YHWH is. She is more like the Greek Gods, who basically personify all human vices writ large. No, the worship of GAIA is more akin to Pantheiem – the belief that all things are God, or perhaps a little more technically Panentheism – the belief that God is IN all things.
This is very akin to what we call ANIMISM – the belief that all things have a spirit and must be respectfully treated because of it.
Disney has done us the great service of illustrating this last belief system in the movie Pocahontas – reminding us that the trees have spirits.
At any rate, (post)modern world is in a fix. Humans know there is actually something that makes them different from animals. Intuitively, they know that Man is Noble and has a unique place of mastery over the world and everything in it. But at the same time, humans also know there is something very wrong with humans. We don’t live in harmony with each other like the animals do. Oh, yes, there is the endless cycle of birth and killing other animals to survive, but this is orderly, instinctual and amoral. Animals obey the Law of the Jungle. There is a Lion King who reigns for a season, and then is deposed when another younger challenger comes along. The whole creation operates in a vast well-ordered cycle in which there is an amazing economy and presesrvation of everything. It’s bloody, true , but predictable and efficient – unlike Man, who wants more than he needs, rapes the land and the forests for what he wants, and doesn’t clean up after himself. I tell you, it’s enough to drive a Mother (Earth) to distraction!
Faced with this dilemma and adrift without any moorings of absolute Truth today’s ‘postmoderns’ are naturally drawn back to more primitive times and places where people seemed to be able to get along better with Nature. Native American Culture, Native African Cultures, the philosophies of the East – all appeal to the inward awareness that Man is out of sorts with himself and with the natural order. If something isn’t done, we will all die from Global Warming! Not that it really matters much, of course. Again, keep in mind that we’re all just random products of chance who stumble through the world vaguely trying to come up with some sort of meaning to hold our lives together. It’s an endless cycle – and really rather depressing when you stop to think about it.
So much so, in fact that the Buddhists and the Hindus are driven to great lengths to try to escape the endless cycle of birth, suffering, death and reincarnation. Cant’t say that I blame them, for in a way they are right: without a Creator who has a Goal or Telos in mind for the universe, Life is essentially meaningless, an endless Circle.
And this is where we part company with Hindus, Buddhists, Earth Worshipping GAIAists, Wiccans, pantheists, panentheists, animists and plain old pleasure seekers. Instead of this random cycle of accidental life, we do in fact believe that God, the Father, the Ancient of Days Created the World and Human beings for a purpose: namely to live in harmony with our creator and all the created things. That’s why postmoderns have such a hankering for order and harmony – it resides with the human heart as a latent aspect of the Image of God within us. Also within us is the terrible knowledge that we have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God; that left to our own devices we will and have destroyed everything good around us through our own greed and ignorance.
Postmoderns have a real sense of guilt about their role in the downfall of the world. That’s why they are so concerned about Global Warming. They know that we are responsible for our own downfall and that we have also taken the physical world down with us. Therefore, we need to do something to redeem and save the world. Enter Earth Day, extreme environmentalism, mandatory saving of resources, and the popular outrage over the unconscionable use of the earth’s resources. It’s an attempt to atone for Original Sin and to restore the physical order to rights.
But that attempt is doomed to failure because it tries to do something that only God can do – to Save the World from itself, to Judge the failures of the Human Race, to bring this whole bloody mess to a conclusion and to recreate the world anew, sinless and pristine, restoring Harmony with other living beings and God again. This is the reason why we talk about Christ as King.
In the Judeo-Christian conception of Reality, God, YHWH is the Ancient of Days. He is Holy or set-apart from the universe. As Creator and Sovereign sustainer of all things, He asserts an ultimate demand of fealty from his subjects. In our rebellion, we seek to shake off his Claim on us and live according to our own whims. This we call ‘Freedom’. But the pursuit of that Freedom leads us away from our Creator and shuts us up in an endless cycle of death, which, despite the croonings of Elton John, is not glorious, but is rather something to be escaped.
Because we are creatures, we don’t have the wherewithal to save ourselves and thus it was necessary for God Himself to prepare and send us a Savior – His own dear Son, Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, the Lion of Judah, the True Lion King.
Bless our God, for he has not only provided us a means of salvation from our sins, but he provided us the way to end this whole cycle of futility through the establishment of the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God was something Jesus talked about a lot. But the Kingdom he described was an odd thing, for unlike the kingdoms that we know about , his was not of this world’. His purpose was to usher in the Kingdom of God, but not to rule over the political landscape as we know it. Instead, Jesus asserts that wherever a human being recognizes the Ancient of Days as Lord, and human beings as rebellious enemies in need of saving through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, then the Kingdom of God comes to earth within the soul of that person, and Jesus begins his Kingly reign in the heart of that redeemed person.
Because Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, ‘to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. Daniel 7: 14.
Now to be sure, there are those who do not recognize the Lordship of Christ in our time. The Bible is very clear that these unrepentant people are enemies of God who will not escape punishment, perhaps not here, but surely in the great summation of all things when Jesus is presented to the Ancient of Days, the court sits down for judgment, the books are opened and every one comes before God to receive the just punishment or reward for their actions – either to blessedness because of their faith in Christ, or to eternal separation from God because of their rebellion.
Again, we who name the Name of Jesus as our Savior and King, already enjoy the benefits of the Kingdom of God operative right now. Through the blood of Christ we are cleansed from our sins, adopted into the family of God, given the family Visa card, changed into the family likeness (just like our older brother) and given the promise of spending eternity in unbroken fellowship with that same fearsome Ancient of Days – now transformed into a loving Father through His own atoning work on the Cross.
Pretty Grand stuff I’d say. Lots better than an endless cycle of Elton John songs. Surely that’s evidence for the existence of Hell right there!
So the conclusion is: Make Jesus King of your life as well as Savior. That means bowing your knee to him and submitting everything to Him in worship and praise, and receiving back eternal Life as your reward.
If you can never point to a specific time when you have bowed the knee of your heart to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, I invite you to do so now saying the words of the so-called Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” If you can say those few little words in sincerity, then you have become a citizen of the Kingdom of God, an heir to the Throne and a brother or sister to all believers everywhere. If you’d like prayer or counsel, please write to me at andrewcounts56@msn.com AMEN.
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