Lord Jesus, help us to recognize that the way of the cross is the way of abundant life. Amen.
If we had to name what the most pervasive and pernicious idol in our culture is we’d have a lot of contenders because there are so many things that we allow to define us, that we end up serving, that we pursue instead of the living God. But if we pay close attention to our modern society, it becomes clear that the idol we struggle the most with is control. It’s the one thing that we just can’t imagine giving up. Sure, if we can have some control over our circumstances, we might be willing to give up money, rightness, or reputation. But our need to be in control has taken such deep roots in our hearts and minds that it’s an idol that we gladly serve in exchange for some sense of predictability and stability.
Whether it’s in terms of parenting, managing finances, business negations, mitigating risks, or navigating personal relationships, we constantly chase control. Either we want to be able to control what others do by putting boundaries and restrictions around them, even if it is to keep them safe. Or if we can’t control the people, we try to control the situation with things like rules and threat assessments. And if we can’t control the people or the situation, we’ll try to control the outcome with brute strength, manipulation, or willful ignorance. So much of our modern world and our daily lives are focused on getting and maintaining control.
The problem with control is that closes us off to surprise, which is one of God’s favorite modes of meeting us. And the quest for control turns our relationships with people and the world into objects to manage instead of wonders to encounters. We strive to always be in control of the scope and speed of transformation, instead of finding ourselves transformed. All this is to say, control closes us off to the uncontrollable God, the transforming love of Jesus, and the wildness of the Spirit.
Today, churches across the world mark what is commonly called “Christ the King Sunday.” In the 1920s, after death and destruction of World War I, as dictators were coming into power across Europe, the Church recognized the problems that come when we wrestle over control. Though we think of Christian Nationalism as a modern problem, which it is, it is not unique to our time period. The heresy of Chrsitian Nationalism is nothing new and the Church has had to contend with it for centuries. In the 1920s, one response was to establish the Feast of Christ the King – a day on which the Church would clearly proclaim that “Jesus Christ is Lord.”
I know there’s a lot of talk these days about “no kings,” but our witness today is that we, indeed, have a king and his name is Jesus. And if Jesus is our king, then it means that no bishop, priest, parent, governor, general, or president can have a throne in our lives. It was a radical message in the 200s, in the 1770s, in the 1920s, and remains one today. Since Christ is our King, it means that no one else, including ourselves, is in control of our lives.
The Gospel text from Luke though tells us that Jesus is not like the other kings that we know who hoard control and lord it over us. No, our King’s throne is not made of gold, velvet, and diamonds. Jesus’ throne is the hard wood of the cross. His court is not made up of top generals, billionaires, and advisors, rather he is enthroned between two criminals, himself being sentenced to a humiliating, shameful, and excruciating execution by both his religion and government, having been abandoned by most of all of his disciples.
There are usually three times in the Church Year when we think about the Cross. The first is on Good Friday, when we typically talk about how the Cross demonstrates the fullness of God’s saving love for us. The second is on September 14, the Feast of the Holy Cross, when we remember the day in 335 when the church that sits on the site of the Crucifixion in Jerusalem was dedicated. And then there is Christ the King Sunday when we are faced with jarring juxtaposition of the Cross being the throne of King Jesus.
The book of Philippians records a hymn of the ancient Church that says, “Though Christ Jesus existed in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself... and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.” Christ is our King not because he holds onto control and forces his will upon his subjects. No, Christ is our King who empties himself, who gives up control, who is the servant who suffers for the sake of his subjects. Christ’s kingship is gloriously and graciously different from what we expect of someone who is in control.
And while we might like to say, “Bravo, Jesus. Thank you so much for giving up control and suffering for our sake so that I can have the life that I want,” whether we want to admit it or not, we know that Jesus said “Anyone who wants to follow me must deny themselves and take up their cross.” If we are bold enough to claim, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” if we dare to follow Jesus, we follow him into uncontrollability.
But we live in a scary world in which there are terrorists, natural disasters, and diseases. Like a security blanket, control helps us to cope with the unpredictability of the world. I’m not suggesting that we all cancel our life insurance policies, that we stop going for annual physicals, or that throw away all of our umbrellas. But there’s a simple truth that we enact every time we come forward for the Eucharist – we stretch forth our empty hands and receive the gifts of God for us, the people of God. But that action is only possible because we open our hands to receive. If we come forward with clenched fists, holding onto control, we will not be able to receive.
I hope you’ve had the chance to read the article in the November newsletter about the practice of intinction at Communion. Starting next Sunday, self-intinction, meaning dipping the wafer into the wine for ourselves, will no longer be practiced. I know it might not seem like it, but drinking from the chalice is far more sanitary than having a few hundred people accidentally dipping their fingers into the wine. But the main reason for this change, other than it being the norm of the Church for generations and having clear Biblical precedent, is that the Eucharist is always something received, never taken.
This is why we do not grab for the wafer when it presented to us – we receive it into our open and empty palms. In the same way, we do not help ourselves to the wine, rather we receive it by drinking it. If you are unable to drink from the chalice due to an illness or other reason, the clergy will dip the wafer into the wine for you and then place it on your open and empty palm for you to then consume. The meaning follows the action – we receive, not take; we are not in control. And, truth be told, not being in control is something that we all need more practice with, and the Eucharist is a great way to do this because here, we always receive the gracious love of Christ our King.
What happens when we are not willing or able to give up control is aggression. Situations that we don’t like become roadblocks, people who aren’t following our plan become obstacles, and surprises become not moments of grace, but of frustration. If there’s a word to describe the state of our society right now, it might well be “aggression.” Our politics are aggressive. Our interactions with others on roads and at airports are aggressive. Our world and lives are often viewed as problems to be solved rather than gifts to be received. Our need for control and our aggression in the face of being out of control is what led the people around Jesus to say “Crucify him!” They, like us, can’t stand the uncontrollability of God.
On the Cross, Jesus was tempted to grab control. People mocked him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God.” When our backs are against the wall, and when we feel threatened, we grab for control instead of trusting that our Good Shepherd is with us in those dark valleys of the shadow of death. We try to find a flashlight our pull out the modern talisman of control, the cell phone, to ask a search box what we are supposed to do instead of waiting for our Good Shepherd to guide us and protect us with his rod and staff.
Because most of us believe the lie that time is money, we aren’t very comfortable waiting for God to act. Instead of watching for God, we forge our own path forward. We think that if we’re not growing, we’re losing. That’s a particularly destructive belief in the Church. The very place where we can trust that God will show up and surprise is the very place we worry the most about decline and grab on to any program that promises to give us control over the beliefs of Millennials and Gen Z. Never mind if it is true and faithful, will it bring more people through our doors? This is why so many churches turn to fear-based tactics to attract new members, because it gives them a sense of control.
But as CS Lewis says of God in the Narnia series – Aslan is not a tame lion. Or as Jesus describes the Holy Spirit, “The wind blows where it chooses.” How much time do we spend putting barriers around who God will accept and who God will reject? How much energy do we waste trying to control things that we simply can’t control? How much effort do we put into taming God?
When we try to control things, people, and God, we end up commodifying them. We turn them into objects to use instead of blessings to encounter. The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber wrote about I-it and I-Thou relationships, and it’s a helpful way of thinking about how our inability to give up control leads to estrangement instead of encounter. I-it relationships are functional – we use a hammer to pound a nail, we use a person to introduce us to a friend, we use a child to make us feel like our lives are worth something, we use a church as a way of assuaging our guilt we use God as a way of damning our enemies. In these sorts of the relationships, we attempt to control the “it” to get something we want; and we miss out on the beauty, wonder, and surprise that comes through truly knowing someone else and allowing ourselves to be truly known.
That only happens in I-Thou relationships, relationships in which we are not in control because we are open to what the other will bring us into. In an I-Thou relationship, like the Eucharist, we are open, which means vulnerable, to receiving and encountering the other not as tool to control, but as an Other to bless and be blessed by. Notice this is exactly Jesus’ response to the temptation on the cross to grab control – to the criminal who asks to be remembered, Jesus, who certainly had the power to call down legions of angels to conquer Rome, says “Truly I tell you, you will be with me in Paradise.” The criminal didn’t ask to be given control; he didn’t ask to be saved from his predicament. Instead, he simply asked to be remembered, to be embraced by Jesus.
Beloved, Jesus, who is Christ our King, stretched out his arms of love wide on the hard wood of the cross that all the world might come into his saving embrace. Can we allow ourselves to be embraced in his love? That means not seeking to be in control all the time. We will need to set some things down so that we can receive and hold fast to the peace, joy, and mercy that Jesus alone can give us.
Those of you who have found healing in the Twelve Steps know that the process of transformation comes first by admitting that control is an illusion, that we are powerless, and by surrendering that control to a power greater than ourselves. Maybe you’re addicted to a substance, maybe you’re not. But because we are all humans, I know that each of us is addicted to control, which makes our relationships utilitarian, frustrates us as we try to catch the wind in our fists, and leads us to aggression as we try to grasp what we can never have.
I don’t know what emptiness, frustration, and anger you are carrying because you are not in control – I only know the specifics for myself. But I encourage you to join me in admitting that we are powerless and that we are not in control. And with our hands that are unclenched, we are free to receive and hold tight to our forgiveness, our belovedness, and that peace that passes all understanding. If you forget this, or struggle to believe it, we’ll have chance every Sunday to practice emptying our hands and receiving tokens of the love that makes all things well. Christ is our King, which means, thanks be to God, that we don’t have to be.
