Who Are You—Anyway?
A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Susan Allison-Hatch

Barbara Lundblad, a Lutheran pastor, preacher and teacher of preachers, tells the story of a black church in which, Sunday after Sunday, the minister would shout out, “Who is Jesus?”  From the choir a loud response, “King of Kings and Lord Almighty.”  But the choir didn’t have the last word on Jesus.  That belonged to a little old lady who, every Sunday, would whisper as loud as she could in response to the choir, “Poor little Mary’s boy.” 1  Today, the church sings with that choir, “King of Kings and Lord Almighty.” Today, the church celebrates the Feast of Christ the King, and so do we.  Yet there’s a part of me that chafes at this Feast of Christ the King.

I worry that this Feast of Christ the King plays into old (and not so old) versions of the Church triumphant, the imperial Church, the church not of Christ but of the Emperor Constantine—an  insider’s Church.  So often over the years, the Church has fallen into the arms of the Constantines of this world.  So often over the centuries, the Church has adopted the trappings of power and privilege that poor little Mary’s boy inveighed against when he chastised the scribes and the Pharisees for burdening the poor and for focusing on the externals of power while ignoring the core of their faith—justice and mercy and walking humbly with God.  

There’s a part of me that worries that if we focus too much on Christ the King—the King of Kings and Lord  Almighty-- we might just miss “Poor little Mary’s boy” and in the process overlook Jesus of Nazareth standing bound before Pilate.  For there he is—Jesus of Nazareth, “Poor little Mary’s boy”, an outsider, challenging one of the most powerful people of his day and place.  There he is—“Poor little Mary’s boy”—calling into question all sorts of notions of what it means to be a king

There’s a part of me that worries that if we turn our gaze to Christ the King we’ll look past the questions Pilate poses—to Jesus and to you and me as well.  To Jesus Pilate  says, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  When he doesn’t get a straight answer, he asks again.  “So you are a king?”  I hear Pilate asking Jesus, “Who are you?”  and  “What am I to do with you?”

Those are important questions.  Questions we need to be asking too.  Questions this Feast of Christ the King asks the Church.  

“Who are you?” Pilate asks Jesus.  

No wonder Jesus sidesteps his question.  The answer to Pilate’s question comes not in words spoken under pressure but in a life lived—a life of loving God in things little and big—tenderly lifting a young girl from her death bed with the words, “Talitha cum”, healing a frail man pushed aside from the healing waters of the pool of Siloam, giving sight to a man blind from birth, challenging the religious leaders of his day to live up to their faith.

Today, the Feast of Christ the King asks us “Who do you say Jesus is?”  and “How do you say it?”  Sometimes the Church answers in a loud voice, “King and Kings and Lord Almighty” and then acts as if it is the King of Kings. Sometimes the Church falls in line with voices of privilege and power. Sometimes the Church brushes past the widows, the children, the outsiders, and the poor in its path. Sometimes the Church gets it wrong.

Then there are the times the Church, in a quiet but determined voice, answers, “We say you are ‘Poor little Mary’s boy’” and goes about the work of feeding the hungry, healing the sick, freeing the oppressed, and bringing good news to the poor.   “Poor little Mary’s boy”—that’s the answer we at St. Michael’s give through Casa San Miguel, our food pantry.  “Poor little Mary’s boy”—that’s the answer  we give when we feed the homeless at St. Martin’s and serve ex-con’s at Dismas House.  “Poor little Mary’s boy”—it’s the refrain we sing when we work with the people of Navajo Land.  

This Feast of Christ the King poses the question—“Who do you say that I am”—not only to the church but to you and me as well.  That’s the kind of question folks answer at the kitchen table, in line, at work, on the road in the hustle and bustle of their days.   That’s the kind of question you and I answer time and again throughout the day.  That’s the kind of question we answer in the living of our lives.  

It’s not an either-or kind of answer.  It’s a both-and kind of thing.  “Who do you say that I am?”  When we answer “The one we follow—the one around whom we order our lives,” we answer “King of Kings and Lord Almighty.”  When we reach out to those others overlook, when we struggle to forgive, when we stand up to the bullies of this world, when we resist the relentless pressure to consume, we answer “Poor little Mary’s boy.”  

Jesus of Nazareth—Christ the King.  One we follow.  The other commands our loyalty.  

In the name of Jesus of Nazareth.  In the name of Christ the King.  Amen.

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1Barbara Lundblad, A Different Kind of King: John 18: 33-37, http://odysseynetworks.org/news/onscripture-the-bible-john-18-33-37.

Bound Together:
A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Susan Allison-Hatch

There they are.  Two people moving slowly towards one another.  One emerges from the wilderness in search of food.  There’s a purposefulness to his gait.  God has sent him on this journey assuring him a widow will provide.  The other walks slowly to the edge of town.  She, too, has a purposefulness to her movement.  Yet hers is more tentative.  No assurances from God to her.

He sees her first.  There she is—hunched down under the weight of her burden.  There she is slowly placing one foot in front of the other.  The weight of each step almost too much to bear.  What thoughts cross her mind as she makes her way to the edge of town?

    --The look on the face of her boy as his belly swells and his cheeks turn hollow?
    --Memories of better days.  
        *Times when the flour jar was full and the oil jug over-flowing
        *The smell of his baby skin when she bathed him
                        *The sound of his laughter

Perhaps.  But I suspect she has no time or energy for that.  She’s caught up in the pressures of the moment.  Maybe she’s casting about figuring out what to say when her son asks for more to eat.  “That’s all there is.”   How hollow those words are.  No solace there.

Lost in thought, lost in pain, suddenly she hears the stranger’s feet crunching the stubble in the fields.  Focused on her grim task, she feels him coming toward her long before she sees him.

He stops.  He calls to her, “Woman.  Bring me water that I may drink.”

She breaks her focus.  Stopping her work of looking for sticks, she turns and goes towards the well.  She can’t refuse a drink of water.  That’s no way to treat a stranger.

Then he calls again.  He’s asking her for more.  Not much.  Just a morsel of bread.   But far more than she can provide.  

Wearily, she stops and turns to face him.  “I can’t do that,” she says to the stranger.  “I have barely enough for one last meal for me and my son before we die of hunger.”  

In that moment, in the silence that follows her words, everything changes.  The ground beneath them shifts.  The prophet Elijah hears not only her words but also her need and her pain.  

It’s her deep need and gnawing pain his words now address.  “Do not be afraid,” he says to her.  “Bring me a little something to eat.  Then fix something for you and for your son.  God will provide.  The jar of flour will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not run dry.”

Scripture tells us, “She went and did as Elijah said....”  Taking the risk.  Trusting that God—a God foreign to her—would provide.  A gamble that saved her life and Elijah’s as well.

Elijah’s words, the nameless widow’s risk; his faith, her scant resources.  The two—Elijah and that nameless widow—bound together in need, bound together in hope.  Think of it—it took both of them, working together, to ease her pain and to save their lives.  Two people bound together in need.  Two people bound together in hope.   How different from the prevailing spirit in our day—a spirit that says, “My way or the highway!” A spirit that says, “Me first.”  A spirit that says, “I’ll do it myself.”

And yet we can’t really go it alone can we?  We need one another.   The Christian life—and I would venture to say simply life—is not a solitary journey.  It’s journey we make in community.  It’s a journey we do together.  

Today we are baptizing two people—a newborn baby, Harper, and a grown man, Scott.  In a few minutes I will ask you, “Will you do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ?”  I hope you’ll replay with a loud, “We will.”

Authentic Christian life is hard.  We can’t do it on our own.  We need one another.  We need Harper’s voice—her gurgles, her shrieks, her cries of pain and hunger.  We need the sheer joy of life  we feel when we see her face.  We need Scott’s searching questions.  They push us to think more deeply about why we’re here, who we are, and what we’re called to be.  We need his tender earnestness about this new life he’s entering.  Scott and Harper  need us too.  They need our love.  They need our faith when theirs begins to lag.  They need our stories of life along the path of faith.  We need each other to grow more deeply into the body of Christ.

In his book, No Future Without Forgiveness  Desmond Tutu writes, "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours." We belong in a bundle of life....A person is a person through other persons."  Harper and Scott, “We belong together in a bundle of life.  Our humanity is bound up in yours.  We are because you are.  Welcome to this bundle of life we call the Christian path.”

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