The Reverend Barbara K. Briggs
November 22, 2009
The Feast of Christ the King
(The Last Sunday after Pentecost)
Proper 29, Year B

Jesus said, “my kingdom is not from here…I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

The Gospels are full of stories about the kingdom of God.  Jesus’ whole mission could be summed up as bringing the kingdom of God into our lives.  We pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done.”  So, although a definition of the kingdom in the Gospels is only offered through parable, it has something to do with letting God be in charge of our hearts, minds, and bodies.  It is about putting our hope in God and then putting that hope into practice.

How do we put our hope into practice?  We begin by listening to God as God is revealed in Scripture, worship, work and life together.  We choose not to just hear the good news, but to live by it.  We can say to God:  “If you are really a God of love, and if you only want our greatest good, then I can trust you and your ways rather than the ways of capitalism, which are based on competition, fear, and greed.”

When the Church was young and fervent, there were those who felt that they could not live according to the Gospel message and the Christian way if they remained in the city.  They sought a radical expression of their faith in Jesus, and so fled to the desert and built small huts which they called cells.  The desert fathers, as they came to be called, lived a life of work, prayer, celibacy and fasting.  They are the fathers of what became the monastic movement.  They were sought after because of their wisdom and perseverance in prayer.  They lived holy lives, and often city dwellers would come out into the desert to ask a desert father for a word of life.  Although they were ascetics, they were intimately in touch with their own human-ness.

One day a traveler came by and saw two monks just sitting and talking outside a cell.  He reproached them for being so lax.  So, abba Anthony told him to stretch his bow and shoot an arrow, which he did.  “Do it again”, said abba Anthony, and the man did.  Each time he had shot an arrow, abba Anthony asked him to shoot another.  Finally, the man said, “abba, if I always keep my bow stretched taught, it will break.”  “So it is for the monk,” answered abba Anthony.

A monastic community is comprised of those who desire to live according to God’s love and to pursue a life of work, prayer, and study in community.  Monks and nuns make vows whereby they promise to remain in the monastery, obey the one in charge as if he or she were Christ himself, renounce any personal property, and live a life of simplicity and charity with one’s self and one’s fellow community members.  They seek to listen to God’s voice, personally and corporately.

A parish is not a monastery, but the call to live a radical life of faith and listening in the midst of the city is not less challenging and holy than the lives of those early desert fathers.  The diocese of Jerusalem has taken that call seriously and has put its faith into practice through initiatives in education and health care in the midst of war, strife, suffering and violence.  Those initiatives began when a few Christians put together their resources and invited other professionals to join them in the project.  I love the story of the parish that began its health care clinic in the basement of their church.  They began with the means at hand and trusted they were serving God.  They are living the Gospel in the midst of the city, right there where people need them most.

As Christians in the midst of the city, we can be always asking:  “What are the needs of the people?  How can we bring hope there?  How can we serve in such a way that the grace of God in Jesus Christ becomes visibly and palpably present?” Amen+

Copyright © 2009 by the Reverend Barbara K. Briggs