A Vulnerable King, A Transforming Rumble

The Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King Sunday, Year C, Proper 29         

Sermon for November 23, 2025

Dear God, take our minds and think through them. Take our hands and work through them. Take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.

As my successor has been known to say at the beginning of a sermon, good morning Epiphany. I like that. Now, give me just a second. I'm trying to get my iPad to function here.

Well, recently, quite a few of us here, and millions of other Americans, have participated in No Kings protests, protests against the possibility that a king or a would-be tyrant, I will say, would rule our country. Given where we find ourselves as a nation at this time, the feast we're celebrating this morning has impact beyond even what we might normally expect or experience.

The feast of Christ the King, now formally called "The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ King of the Universe," in the Roman Catholic Church - how's that for a grand title? - this feast was established, as some of you will know, in 1925 by Pope Pius XI as an antidote to the growing secularism of that day.

Today, during a time of growing authoritarianism, it calls us to remember and to affirm that the only king to whom we owe homage is King Jesus.

This might almost seem too obvious for us to need a reminder, were it not for the millions of Americans who call themselves followers of Christ, but who, rather than making all else subservient to following Jesus, actually follow a kind of narrow so-called "Christian" nationalism. This day is full of irony. Irony which doesn't end with contemporary Christians confusing who or what belongs on the throne.

Reflecting on Luke's gospel passage, just look at the throne on which Jesus is seated, or, should I say, is hanging. Some throne.

Luke doesn't only lead us to question who is king, but also what kind of king this Jesus is. It seems that everyone in the Gospel story wants to know the answer. But the answer Jesus gives them isn't the one they want to hear. We may find unacceptable the answers that many of today's evangelical Christians give. I do. But these answers are essentially no different from the ones that the people who surrounded Jesus on the cross wanted him to provide.

Listen to what Lutheran preacher David Lowe says about this. "In one sense, the question Jesus puts before those who crucify him is this. What kind of king do you want? Keep in mind," he says, "that just days earlier, the crowds of Jerusalem had greeted Jesus as their king, rolling out the red carpet, as it were, by spreading their cloaks on the road and receiving him as the one sent by God."

And now he is rejected, he is derided by the leaders of the people, then the soldiers, and even by one of the criminals hanging next to him. They mock his titles, asking why, if he is the Messiah, the chosen one, the king, why he does not save himself. What kind of king do you want, Jesus asks them, and they reply that they want a different king, one who is powerful, one who can save himself and others, one who can take vengeance on his enemies and theirs.

If we are honest, there is a part of each one of us that wants the kind of security that comes from a strong (or seemingly strong) leader. This is true whether we are considering the leader of our family or our church or our nation. It's no wonder our country is in such a mess right now.

And I dare say it's not only evangelical Christians who got us there; no doubt plenty of others who don't even believe anything got us there by their greed and other attitudes, rejecting others.

But this kind of strong secular leader is emphatically not the leader Jesus is, nor does he have any intention of being such a leader. Far from choosing to be invulnerable, he comes to us in utter vulnerability. Far from seeking vengeance against his enemies, even those who have just crucified him, he offers forgiveness and an open door into his kingdom. Instead of saving himself, as those nearby him dare him to do, he remains in the most miserable, even desperate state of humiliation we can imagine, identifying not with the powerful, but identifying completely with those who have no power. Far from using his office as a way to make himself richer, sound familiar, he gives away all that he has, even his life, that we might gain our lives. He rejects claiming earthly power, that we might discover a deeper power, a power which is made perfect in weakness.

Those of us who participate in the parish book group, Searching Spirits, have just finished reading Brene Brown's excellent book, Rising Strong. How many of you have read Rising Strong? ...Well, not a lot. Well, that's just as well since I'm going to tell you what it's about.

If I could summarize the book's message in one sentence, I would say that anyone who wants to rise strong must first be willing to experience vulnerability. It's what's described by Richard Rohr's wonderful term, falling upward. In Brown's parlance, we all come to moments of reckoning. "Time to make a decision." Most of us repeatedly. And in those moments, we have to decide whether or not we are willing to enter into what Brown calls the rumble.

I love that word, "rumble," as a synonym for vulnerability. It reminds me of my youth, where rival gangs would rumble at midnight in front of Mr. T's drive-in restaurant.

The concept of rumbling is so important in Brown's book, that I had to count the number of times that the word is used in the book, and I went through it, and I want you to know, I'm not sure this is accurate, but I found it 103 times used throughout the book.

Early on, she elucidates. Here's what she says. "You may not have signed up for a hero's journey, but the second you fell down, got your butt kicked, suffered a disappointment, screwed up, or felt your heart break, right then it started. It doesn't matter whether you are ready for an emotional adventure. Hurt happens, and it happens to every single one of us, without exception. The only decision we get to make is what role we will play in our own lives. Do we want to write the story, our own story, or do we want to hand the power to do so to someone else? Choosing to write our own story means simply getting uncomfortable, or we might say becoming vulnerable or entering into the rumble. It's choosing courage over comfort."

In addition to being the feast of Christ the King, at Epiphany today is, also, as I think you probably all know, the day we hope to conclude or conclude as nearly as possible our annual stewardship campaign. I imagine that is why Father John asked me to preach this morning. I like to preach about stewardship! I like to talk about money, as has been observed by many.

Well, having said that, to be honest, I began writing this sermon feeling uneasy about how I would arrive at a message about stewardship. I was into it, and I was struggling with the text, and I thought, how is this going to get me to where I need to go?

Well, the more I wrote, the clearer it became. And it's really very simple. It's all a matter of generosity. What Luke proclaims in today's gospel is God's ultimate act of generosity toward us. As we sing here at Epiphany every week just before we receive Communion, "you suffered death, our lives to save. Have mercy now, we pray."

Many of you here today have already made your pledges for 2026, but I still trust, hope, this message isn't wasted on you. However, if you haven't yet made your pledge, or if you've never made a pledge, or if having heard this sermon, you want to reconsider your pledge, either increasing it or decreasing it, as the case may be... I hope that the generosity which God extends to you, which fortunately is boundless, and never ever depends in the least on your response, I hope that this generosity will inspire you to make a generous pledge, whatever that may be, given your circumstances.

If being stretched this way makes you uncomfortable, I can only hope that you will discover, as so many of us have, that taking a risk and embracing the rumble really will lead to your transformation. It really will lead to your rising strong.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.