November 2024

Sermon 11/24/24 – Christ the King Sunday

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

John 18: 33-37

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?”

Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom belonged to 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.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” 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.”

Sermon Text

Christ the King Sunday began to be celebrated ninety-nine years ago. Beginning as a Catholic Feast celebrated in October, the feast was meant to be a response to several problems in this world.[1] Pope Pius XI saw a growing secularism in the world, Christians – and in his specific world, Catholics – were not putting Christ at the center of their lives. Ideology, greed, and personal gain were taking over where the teachings and work of Christ should have power. Specifically, Pius cited the following failings, among others:

“… the seeds of discord sown far and wide; those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder so much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage…”

God’s people have always struggled with how to balance faith in God, devotion to God’s kingdom, and human authority. In the days of the Judges, rule was spread across tribal leaders who rose to power as needed. Throughout the book of Judges, however, a lament is raised again and again, “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.”[2] This lament was short lived however, as Kings fixed nothing for the people of God.

The prophet Samuel was the first to consecrate Kings to rule in Israel, and he did so under duress.[3] His warning to the people is long and varied, telling them that they are turning their back on God by taking up a ruler like what other nations have. Samuel said the King would take their money, their crops, their children, and as a reward for giving all this to the King the people would receive trouble after trouble after trouble. Saul failed as a King, David began in earnest and then failed repeatedly to do God’s will. Solomon was a “great,” king but also a slaver, a lecher, and a hoarder. His son, Rehoboam, would be the last to rule a united Kingdom, building on his father’s sin and not his virtues.

Kingdoms have risen and fallen, many claiming to be “Christian,” in their government and leadership. None have succeeded in bringing the Kingdom of God into the world. Following the Protestant Reformation, nations began to exist in a way they had not before. Each nation had a king, and each king claimed to worship God in the right way, and to serve God through their rule. None had a monopoly on what was right, nor on proper leadership.

In the United States, we were born of the English Reformation. Christians in England first rejected the Papacy, then for a time the monarchy, but settled back into a Church run by the King or Queen of England. When the revolution came, we made the bold decision to be a secular democracy, with no leadership by kings or claims to divine right to rule keeping us from progress. We were born out of the enlightenment, and because of that our founders had a dream of a largely secular government. Individual religious devotion would push the people to do what is right, and a detached government would ensure they had the right to do so, while not being caught up in the religious wars that had destroyed Europe again and again.

Brief history of our religious lineage established; I have to ask you all. Do you look at government, at our political climate, at anything we do and think, “That sure is a Christian.” I think the answer across the board is a pretty sharp, “No.”

Violence, greed, and selfishness dominate our world. Criminalizing the poor, prioritizing profits over people, and placing national pride above God’s call are deeply un-Christian behaviors, and yet they seem to rule the day. Reinhold Niebuhr, the last great public theologian in America, argued in Moral Man and Immoral Society that individuals can act morally, but groups—whether governments or societies—struggle to uphold Christian principles. Fear, greed, and the desire to “win” often override faithfulness to God’s values.

We just had an election. Some of us feel that the outcome was good, others that it was not. I will not equivocate the two parties and pretend their identical, nor will I take an explicitly partisan stance. Instead, I propose this reality. No matter who would have won – the Church has a duty to challenge those in power to embody the virtues we claim to put above all others – the only difference is in how that challenge would need to be offered.

The virtues we claim, by the way, are not the following – GDP, stock prices, the price of any consumer product, racial superiority, or vague sentiments of “civility.” Instead, they are as follows: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The things we should promote are the things that actively help others – to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, care for the sick, love the prisoner. We should remember all those in need, for Christ faced all human troubles to live alongside them – the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the migrant, the abused, and the murdered.

There is a problem in the Church. We have failed to understand when it is our duty to be political, and when we become political we are unfailingly partisan. In some regards it’s impossible not to be. Every two to four years we are given two parties to choose from and picking one or the other affects things greatly. A side often has to be taken, and sometimes the side we take will reveal itself to be the wrong one. Democracy is a beautiful thing, but it is dangerous. An old Latin Proverb explains the problem simply, “… those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.” Democracy is a crowd seeking after the voice of God, and so often we give into madness rather than Godliness.

I can only give these few precepts for how we should conduct ourselves as Christians who are, by necessity, forced into scenarios in which we must engage in political and civic life. First, we must pray—for our nation, its leaders, and even those we see as our enemies. Prayer opens our hearts to God’s guidance and softens animosity. Second, we must reject bad faith arguments and misinformation, holding truth as sacred. Finally, we should speak, act, vote, and advocate for policies that reflect Christ’s love, even while accepting the imperfect nature of democracy.

Christ’s Kingship means that, in all things, we answer to him. Someday, every ruler will kneel before God’s throne and have to give an account for what they did with the power they had. I do not envy them that heavy responsibility. We as members of a democracy will likewise be held accountable for our participation in enacting policy, electing rulers, and promoting the good – I know that I will have things to answer for when I get there.

Christ is King, Lord of all Creation, and yet the Kingdom he built is not like others. His followers are told to put away weapons and take up tools to make the world better. We are told not to hate, but to love again and again. We are called to serve as slaves rather than ever allow ourselves to be called “kings,” and “rulers.” No wonder no truly Christian nation has ever existed – only one kingdom, and one King could ever truly achieve that status.

In Advent we look forward to what God’s coming into the world will do. On Christ the King Sunday we acknowledge that while the Kingdom of God is not fully existent yet, it still has begun. We as Christians, in democracies, dictatorships, and monarchies all, are called to serve one King above any other. May God guide us, as we enter the hope of Advent and the joy of Christmas, to remember what it means to live in our present, imperfect age, and still be called “the people of God.” – Amen.

[1] The full text of the Encyclical Quas Primas, which established this feast, is available here: https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius11/p11prima.htm

[2] Judges 18:1, and others

[3] 1 Samuel 8

Sermon 11/10/2024 – How Easily we Brag

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Mark 12:38-44

As [Jesus] taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Sermon Text

Pride is one of the most dangerous things that exists in this world. We’ve talked before about how our language does us a major disservice in not separating out, “pride,” as a sinful state of being from “pride,” as having high esteem for something good in our life. I think, however, that the two are more related than even I would like to admit. There is not a huge leap between legitimate feelings of happiness about something good in our lives and an unhealthy fixation on it. Sometimes even legitimate pride become an unwillingness to acknowledge our individual and corporate failings or even our to see our dependency on God.

Throughout scripture one of the most consistent opponents to God’s good work are prideful people of faith. The prophets were usually up against the priests and fellow prophets they had worked with their whole life. Ezra and Nehemiah were heroes and villains in their own time – butting up against other members of God’s people who they did not think had the right pedigree to be part of the exilic community. Jesus most of all is documented as fighting against some of the most important people in the religious community of his day. He opposed scribes, pharisees, and sadducees. These groups were not inherently evil, he did not oppose them out of principle, but because of what they so often let themselves become.

Scribes were the literate in society, and held power as legal recorders and lawyers. Pharisees were the pastors of their day, giving God’s word to the people and instructing them in daily life. Sadducees were tied to the Temple, and they provided a moderating presence – ensuring the Torah was respected and clung tightly too. Yet, in each of these positions, with power and influence on the line, people would often begin to sin simply by investing importance in themselves and their way of being and doing that ultimately only served their own interests. Pride snuck in, pride made them self-interested, and pride led them to destroy their community.

Jesus talks about the scribes in particular in our passage. He says they wear long robes – why does that matter? What do you think a long robe indicates? Besides having a lot of fabric, therefore being expensive to make – long robes make it impractical to do manual labor. To wear one in public makes it clear that you are not someone who has to dirty their hands. Long sleeves added to this affect, and it is widely believed that the “coat of many colors,” which Jospeh wore was meant to show his brothers that Joseph was too good for the maula labor they were made to do out in the fields.[1]

Scribes are also described as praying long prayers in public, seated with the best people in worship and at parties. This is a criticism levied at the Pharisees as well, who are also described as wearing large phylacteries known as tefillin. These boxes containing scripture tied to the wrists and forehead.[2] Jesus is not saying it is a sin to pray, or to dress in robes, or to wear outward signs of faith like the tefillin. The sin came in doing these things for the sake of appearances rather than faith. If you ask me, the average offender probably didn’t realize when the things they had done changed from something they were doing for God and what they were doing for themselves.

As Christians today, we often read these warnings with a quiet nod. We know what its like to meet those overblown, holier-than-thou types. They’re insufferable! There’s no way we would ever do anything like what they do… Unless, we already do it without thinking. Unless we’ve become so accustomed to our faith being a badge we wear to congratulate ourselves rather than a way of life we embody, that changes and challenges us.

Think though, of what Christian culture is so often about. We wear hats on our heads, bracelets on our wrist, loud and proud declarations of our faith. T-shirts convey messages that let people know that we are Good Christian folk. Everything we see on Facebook that tells us we need to share it or else we’re secretly ashamed of God has to be shared! We have to let people know we’re Christian and that we’re not like all those other people in the world! We’re better through our faith, we’re more proper and we believe exactly what we should.

Is it wrong to wear a Christian slogan on a hat, or a bracelet, or a shirt? No, of course not. As long as it’s an actual good sentiment and not something antagonistic or improper. Is it wrong to share a prayer you read on Facebook that moves you? Absolutely not. Like the Pharisees of old, a Christian who shows their faith publicly is doing exactly what they should… Until they switch to showing off to people and not showing up for God. The shift from one to the other can be simple, slow, and yet it consumes us entirely.

How do we prevent that? How do we know which box we fall into? Firstly, I would say that self-awareness is always the first step to proper action. If we are willing to ask ourselves why we do the things we do, we will have a good answer. I’ve written out long posts on Facebook about my strong conviction as a person of faith… and then deleted them. Sermons likewise that I’ve thrown out, because I realized that I was not writing them for the good of God, but out of some strange sense of pride. I wear very plain clothes, only breaking out my clergy outfit when it matters that people know who I am.

True faith, true piety, true holiness that a person can be rightly proud of is self-evident. Prayer in public that comes from a natural belief God listens to our prayers and acts on them will be different than something we do to let the people know at the other tables around us that we’re good Christian folk. Sharing our faith for the purpose of glorifying God will look different than chasing down people and beating them with scripture.

Finally, I think that anything that truly inconveniences us bears the mark of an action that is hard to do out of selfish pride. If you have to give of yourself, and in ways that you truly find unpleasant, but you persist out of love of God and neighbor than it is hard to do that work out of pride. Christ humbled himself to the point of dying on the cross, and did so while actively dreading the terror ahead of him. While we do not face a cross, when we give till it hurts, that is a mark of our true faith.

The widow is at the close of this story, not to give us an excuse to give less to initiatives the Church is working on, but to remind us that there is a proportionality in faith. The widow gives very little to the offering, but to her that offering was a huge part of her livelihood. She felt that coin dropping in the plate, it was a real sacrifice that meant she had to go without. The rich who gave lavishly still had plenty to live off of, they didn’t feel a thing when they cut the cheque. How often are we willing to give till it hurts? Of money, of time, of resources. To do that is to humble ourselves, and to establish that we are doing the kind of work that is without pride, that is rooted in what God would have us do.

Thankless and difficult, that is often what the work that God calls us to do looks like. It does not demand others to look and laud us for it. It is quiet and humble, it does not insist upon itself. While others may see it and praise it, true pious action is often kept quiet. Seek to live a life that is full of God, full of actions that you can be proud of. Yet, do not let your hand slip from the pulse of your work, the authenticity of it, the true reason why you are embarking upon it. Let your piety be true, let your heart be humble, and do away with the parts of you that demands the approval of others. You will find Christ closer than ever in this. – Amen.

[1]

[2]

Sermon 11/03/2024 – All Saints’ Day 2024

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Isaiah 25:6-9

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.

And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the covering that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.

Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “See, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

Sermon Text

Lately I’ve been thinking more about legacies. I guess part of having a child is thinking about what you are raising them to be – even if the most substantial thing you do most days is feed, change, and maybe read a storybook to them. Even in these early days, I’m becoming more and more aware that I have a new purpose in life, on top of anything else I do, and that is to leave something for my children to take up. Not necessarily the exact thing I devoted my life to, I hope they can find an easier way to be than being a minister. Not necessarily an inheritance to benefit from, they’ll be lucky to get a dime at this rate. No, the thing that we have to leave to those who follow us must be more significant than more work to do or more money to buy things with.

The reality that we have a finite amount of time on this earth is something that slowly grows in our hearts. As our bodies get weaker and our bones begin to strain against the weight of each day. As our friends become fewer around us and our ability to do diminishes. As time wears on, we are made to number our days with the knowledge that eternity stretches in front of us. We are left to either become frustrated or hopeful, to see in the limited time we have a great deal of potential or to see it as something taunting us. The choice has to be ours, whether we will lean toward one or the other, and scripture gives us a clear answer which we should dwell upon. I’ll cut the anticipation and tell you, hope and generativity have to win out over our concern for what might be.

From the time humanity left Eden we were aware that there was something broken with the world. It took less than one generation for humanity to go from simple disobedience to murder. It took only a handful of generations for the violence of the world to be so great that a flood was needed to set things right. The Flood didn’t do it, nor did the reign of the patriarchs or of the judges or of the kings and the prophets. No leadership ever fixed the problems in this world, never completely at least. Because of this, hope was born anew every generation for something new to happen in the world.

Our scripture today follows a promise that bad times were ahead for God’s people. Isaiah describes the complete destruction of the land around God’s people. It will be like in the days of Noah, where creation seems completely erased. Death will reign and no one will be able to rejoice again. Wine and songs will not cheer anyone up, disaster will be all that anyone knows. People will cry out to God, and they will feel in their bones that God just isn’t listening. This prophecy was fulfilled in the days of Isaiah when Babylon came into Judah and destroyed everything in front of them. Death was supreme, joy was nonexistent, God seemed far away.

Yet, as soon as God tells them that this disaster is on its way, there is a promise that follows for something different. The people will not always know death, because all the world will be brought together again. There will be food in abundance, there will be songs and joy and dancing again. Death, the specter that haunted the people since they had left Eden was going to end and life stretch on forever. There was hope that could not end, and it was coming just down the line. A day when Moab would be no more…

Wait… what was that last part? Moab? There is no Moab anymore, and yet there is still plenty of trouble. What’s the deal? Clearly this earthly kingdom was not the end of trouble for God’s people… So why is it mentioned at the end of a prophecy that promises an end to the troubles that all people face. The answer, comes down to perspective.

We cannot conceive of what stretches beyond ourselves. We sit and we fret and we worry about things that the generations after us don’t have to worry about. My father-in-law had a sister who had polio, and Grace and I live in a world where Polio is all but extinct. Measles, mumps, childhood diseases that once posed an existential threat to children erased by progress. Likewise, the daily anxiety of the Cold War ended and no longer does the fear of the USSR loom above the USA. Time has made problems that seemed all encompassing, as the only trouble that could possibly fill the horizon, simply disappear.

New problems, it is sad to say, have filled the void. The USSR is no longer an issue, but boy is Russia working hard to follow its legacy. Measle, mumps, and rubella may not be an issue, but we lived through a pandemic that proved diseases still can take us down. Wars and rumors of war rage all around, an election is to be held in two days that has filled all people with anxiety. Each era brings with it new problems, new opportunities, but somehow the same hope.

God promised the people deliverance in terms they understood. The people who threaten you, won’t anymore. For us today, God speaks in different terms of hope, but with the same basic promise under it all. There will be an end to all this trouble. There will be an end to death and destruction. There will be life for the people of God long after the last vestige of death has been wiped away from our tear stained eyes. The darkness that is, cannot withstand the light that is to be.

The thing that we pass on to our children and grandchildren, and to anyone who follows us ought to be how to better perfect the eternal qualities of life. We are brought into life to be taught three things that remain when all else fades. To have faith in God, to hope that there is an end to the present troubles, and that love equips us to help each other through this world in the meantime. I don’t mind what Jack will grow up to be, but I do want him to perfect these aspects of himself. I want him to have hope in the future, and to have faith in God, and to love all people as God first loved him.

Today, as we celebrate the Saints, the people we love who have left us for glory, we have a great many memories of them within ourselves. Think of them and notice that the things that stick are often the things that brought something deeper than just a smile or some tears into our life. Sure, the day my grandfather couldn’t find his clothes and wore my grandmother’s moo-moo around the house stands out in my mind. Yet, far more than any thing he did I remember the love he showed me, the love he taught me to show others.

The reality of our lives is that only a few generations will know us by name. Our money that we make will be gone, at best, within our children’s lifetime. Businesses we worked at will close or else forget us as soon as our desks are emptied. Most everything in life is extremely fleeting. If we want to invest our time smartly and really make a difference – we need to invest in things that last far beyond the material reality around us. We must invest in loving each other, in inspiring hope, in holding tightly to our faith. These things are what we received from the Saints we honor today and these things are what we too will pass on. Give richly to those who follow after us, give the gift of these eternal gifts of God. – Amen.