A Fresh Perspective

On the church calendar, and I don’t mean our church calendar that appears in your Connections, I mean the ecumenical church calendar that follows the Christian year as reflected in the Revised Common Lectionary, today is called Reign of Christ Sunday. The question I want to address today is asked in the title: What does the reign of Christ look like? What is it about? What are the primary characteristics of the reign of Christ? These are very important considerations. In our text today Pilate questions Jesus about his kingship. And in response Jesus says, “My kingdom is not from this world.” What does that mean? I’m sure we all realize that words have multiple meanings. A trunk could be a box-like container, or it could be the back part of your car that holds your luggage, or it could be attached to a tree. What the word means is determined by the context in which it is used. Biblical words are no different. Consider the word “world.” When Jesus says my kingdom is not of this wo...

Ann Lamott tells about the time she and her two year old son were staying in a condominium at Lake Tahoe. Because the area around Reno is such a hotbed for gambling the rooms come equipped with curtains that block out every speck of light so one can sleep during the day. One afternoon she put her son to bed in his playpen in one of those rooms where it was pitch black. He awoke, crawled out of his playpen and was at the door knocking. Somehow he managed to push the little button on the doorknob and locked it from the inside. He was calling out to her, “Mommy, Mommy” but she couldn’t open the door. She called out to him, “Jiggle the door knob, darling.” It soon became apparent to the little boy that he could not open the door and panic set in. He began sobbing. So his mother also in a panic ran around like crazy doing everything she could think of trying to get the door open, calling the rental agency where she left a message, calling the manager where she left another message, and r...

The question of the scribe is not unusual at all. It is the kind of question typical of the kind of things that the teachers of the law discussed and debated in those days. They had come to a consensus that there were 613 commands in the Torah (the law), so naturally they would try to find some way to summarize them or get to the essence and core of the law. Here the scribe is inquiring as to which of the commands is the chief command, the most important command that takes priority over all the others. It’s a legitimate question. In response Jesus first references the opening words of the Shema, known as such by the first word of the Hebrew text of Deut. 6:4. It is a call to complete devotion to Yahweh – to love God completely with one’s total being. That Jesus appeals to this commandment would have been a surprise to no one. It was recited by faithful Jews daily. Now, what would have been a surprise is what Jesus says next. Jesus refers to a second command found in Lev. 19:18 – ...