Pastoral Letter 238
Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,
Grace and peace to you all in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Hope you all well.
One more week and we will welcome the Christmas and Advent Season. We will have several programs and services as we say farewell to the year 2024 and prepare to welcome the new year 2025. As we look back, let us give thanks to God for being with us and leading us on the way and as we look forward to the new year, let us pray seeking God’s care and protection and never lose hope in the Almighty.
This Tuesday we are going to screen the third and the final and the most recent documentary of the Trilogy “The Map of Gratitude” “The Golden Chain of Mercy”. Don’t miss! Come and join us! We are glad that Uniting Church Australia President Rev. Chariss Suli will be in attendance and hopefully many other UCA leaders and members.
On Wednesday 27 November we will have our Bus Trip to Mount Annan Botanic Gardens. If you want to join, this is the last chance to put your name down on the registry sheet, just few seats are left. The bus will leave the church latest by 9:00 am. Thanks to Rev. Gaby of Bankstown Uniting Church for providing and driving the bus. I am sure we will have a great time on the day, as we have had in the previous Bus Trips.
On Sunday 1 December, which is Advent 1 and the beginning of the Christmas Season, we will be privileged to have with us a special guest preacher, Rev. Bill Crews, from Exodus Foundation, who will preach during the morning service. Also, on the same day we are going to celebrate our traditional St. Andrew’s Day during the Morning Service followed by St. Andrew’s Day Lunch. Please secure your tickets for the lunch latest tomorrow.
On Sunday 8 December will have our Annual Congregational Meeting after the Sunday Morning Service. Please have the date in your diaries and plan to join us.
On Sunday 15 December we will have our traditional Carols Service during the Morning Service and on Tuesday 24 December, Christmas Eve Service at 7:00 pm, hopefully on the lawn weather permitting, and on Wednesday Morning 25 December Christmas Service at 9:00 am.
We have commenced collecting Christmas gifts and food for the Exodus Foundation. All should be in by the 15 December 2024. Please be generous and give as much as you can to help the needy and for the glory of God. Thanks in advance.
If you are not able to join us for worship tomorrow, please light a candle and worship with us following the attached Order of Service.
Here are some prayer points for this week:
- Pray for Lebanon, Israel and Palestine, as the situation continues to escalate, and many people die.
- Pray for the displaced people, the homeless who need shelter and the hungry.
- Pray for the sick, the poor and those who are recovering from surgery or ill-health.
- Pray for those who are lonely and have nothing, while many have in abundance.
- Pray for Virginia and those who have not been well.
- Pray for our next congregational meeting and the future plans beyond 31 May 2025.
In Christ
Krikor
MESSAGE
King’s Day
John 18:33-37
Welcome! This is the last Sunday of the Christian year – traditionally recognised as the feast of ‘Christ the King Sunday’.
Next week is Advent and Christmas Season – the start of a new Christian year, but this week we conclude the old church calendar year with a proclamation of the kingship of Christ, and a call upon all of us to decide where our allegiances in this world lie; on Christ or something or someone else.
‘Christ the King Sunday’ is a ’traditional’ feast, but it’s actually only a tradition that goes back almost 100 years – to 1925, when the feast day was proclaimed by Pope Pius XI. 1925 was a dark time for our world. The world had only just emerged from the war, which was supposed to end all wars, and the signs were everywhere that it was racing towards another.
The world was in the grip of a worldwide economic depression, and desperately looking for answers. There were some outspoken leaders who believed that they had answers to those questions, such as Mussolini, Adolf Hitler and many others. The world was watching, waiting for answers, and listening to these powerful men competing for the attention, and the Pope felt that it was time to call on Christian people everywhere to declare their allegiance to the rule of Christ.
Unfortunately, the years that followed showed that not enough people took Pope’s call to Christ seriously and they failed to understand that they couldn’t follow both Christ and the earthly leaders. It’s easy to be wise in retrospect, but we still find it very difficult to understand how so many pious, churchgoing, Christian people supported and even fought for them, got it all wrong and mixed-up politics with religion and faith.
How did they get it so wrong? How did they fail to see that they can’t follow Christ while they are following earthly leaders. They were in the dark and confused.
There was another dark time – some 1900 years earlier, in the Roman province of Judea – a region that was also heading towards war. And once again there were various voices competing for attention – military leaders, politicians and charismatic figures who would arise from the rank and file of the suppressed local population, promising to throw off the yoke of Roman oppression.
Pontius Pilate was the character with the unpleasant job of keeping the province of Judea in line, and he was, according to the Jewish historian Philo, a ruthless overlord: “By nature rigid and stubbornly harsh. . . of spiteful disposition and an exceeding wrathful man. His career was marked by … bribes, acts of violence, outrages, cases of spiteful treatment, constant murders without trial, and ceaseless and most grievous brutality.”
Today’s Gospel reading portrays him as a weak and hesitant man – torn between his external fears and his inner doubts. He is also a cynic – “So you are a king?” he asked Jesus sarcastically, as He threatened Him from his position of power.
It is a dialogue that is masterfully told by John the evangelist, as it is portrayed as an encounter between the powerful leader of the government, on the one hand, and the apparently powerless figure of Jesus, on the other. And yet, as the story progresses, we realise that it is Jesus who is in control, whereas Pilate seems to be quite powerless. He wants to release Jesus but can’t. His job is to administer justice, but he is too scared to do what he knows is right. And so, he moves back and forth between Jesus and his accusers, eventually washing his hands of the situation, in a desperate attempt to excuse himself from responsibility.
What we see here is two kings (of sorts) – two competing kingdoms, two contrasting types of power. On the one hand we have Pilate – the institutional authority, whose power resides in the army that stands behind him. On the other hand, we have Jesus, whose power comes from the fact that He tells the truth.
This is indeed Jesus’ response when Pilate asks Him whether He is a king: “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” (v.37)
There are two sorts of power on view here: institutional power and charismatic power.
Institutional power is the sort of power Pilate has. It is power that comes from the top-down.
Charismatic power is power that comes from the bottom up. It is power that is not imposed on anyone, but a power that people give you. When the people said of Jesus, “He spoke as one who had authority, not like their scribes and Pharisees”, this is charismatic power – authority that you recognise because of its intrinsic value.
Jesus says: “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice”, because they recognise that He speaks the truth and so they hold Him as an authority and listen to Him, regardless of whether He has any official position given by the institution.
This is the difference between the power of Jesus and the power of His clerical contemporaries, who had the uniforms and the salaries and the titles, but not the support of the people.
And this is the difference between the kingship of Jesus and the Kingship of Pilate, if we can put it that way – one an institutionalised rule, imposed by the occupying army, and the other a charismatic authority, where people come and put themselves under the rule of Christ because they recognise that He speaks the truth.
Now, this is what Jesus means when He says: “My Kingdom is not of this world”. He’s not saying that His Kingdom is located on another planet. He’s saying that His Kingdom is qualitatively different from the Kingdoms of this world. It is not of the world because it is not based on institutionalised power.
Indeed, the Kingdom of God that Jesus speaks about is different in almost every respect from the kingdoms of this world. In Mark 10:42-45 Jesus tries to get this through to His disciples when they are arguing about who will have the most power in Jesus’ government: “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.”
Jesus’ Kingdom is not like the societies we know, as the power structures we are familiar with are turned on their head. Instead of the biggest and toughest people lording it over the weak, greatness in this Kingdom is established through service!
Jesus’ Kingdom is one, where little children are valued as highly (and maybe even more highly) than clever and accomplished adult people.
His is the Kingdom where might and money mean nothing in terms of a person’s value, but where humility and sacrifice mean everything.
His is the Kingdom where the weak are not despised but loved, and where 99 healthy sheep are left on the hillside while attention is given to one who strays.
Jesus is king of the upside-down Kingdom, where the first is last and the last, first, and so He says to Pilate, “My Kingdom is not of this world”, for He has no interest in competing with Pilate at his level. His power is not that sort of power.
The fact that Jesus is not competing with Pilate for political power does not mean that Jesus was not a revolutionary. Jesus was a revolutionary, and in a sense, His countrymen who presented Him to Pilate as an insurgent were quite correct. For Jesus was starting a revolution, and it was a revolution that would change the face of the planet. It just wasn’t a revolution that used force of arms to achieve its end.
His Kingdom is not of this world, but that doesn’t mean we can follow Jesus and still serve the earthly leaders. For we likewise are not of this world. We too have to reject the power struggles, the darkness, and the barbarisms of this world if we are to be subjects and servants of Christ the King.
Our world seems to be sinking into increasing global violence on all levels. Terror, war, oppression, displacement and so many things. We find ourselves in conflict with this world and its rulers. We too are questioned, mocked, belittled, defamed, injured, and wearied by constant attacks. But we continue to take our stand with Christ – holding fast to the truth and declaring our allegiance to our King!
Christ is King! That is our proclamation this morning. He is the one who we acknowledge as our ultimate authority. His is the Kingdom that we are subjects of. His rule is the one we recognise above all others and so we will not serve the leaders of this world who would turn us against our brothers and sisters in hatred and violence. We will not play their games, and we will not compete with them on their level. Our Kingdom is not of this world. Their ways are not our ways. Their goals are not our goals. We do not want their power. Their kingdom is not our Kingdom.
No! We have chosen Christ as our King, and so we refuse to recognise the ultimate authority of anyone whose power grows out of military power and might. Rather, we stand by Christ, holding fast to our belief in the better world that is to come, and together with our King, we move forward through sacrifice and service.
Amen!