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The Two Passions of Jesus

3/27/2015

 
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I’ve had it with war—no more chariots in Ephraim, no more war horses in Jerusalem, no more swords and spears, bows and arrows. He will offer peace to the nations, a peaceful rule worldwide, from the four winds to the seven seas.
                                      - Zachariah 9.10 (The Message)


READING:
When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, “Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”
                                    - Matthew 21.1-11 (NRSV)    


REFLECTION:
When I was a child in the Deep South, I had no inkling of the passion of Jesus in any real sense. The southern-fried religion that reared me always jumped plum over the passion of Holy Friday and the execution of Jesus; straight from the glory of the Triumphal Entry to the Glory of the Resurrection; there was no conflict, vulnerability, suffering, and execution in between to raise disquieting questions and challenge the theology of triumphalism. With the Resurrection of Jesus, according to triumphalism, the Roman Empire was replaced by another; the Christian Empire. It’s Lord and Master would someday consummate this dominance on the battlefield of Armageddon and the violent destruction of God’s enemies. In fact, the only vague trace of passion was referenced in the abstract notion of Jesus’ blood shed for our sin.

This interpretation replaces passion with triumphalism, and in so doing obliterates the intimate connection between Holy Week and the ministry of Jesus. This connection is important, because the meaning of Holy Week becomes visible only when interpreted through the ministry that preceded it, and in a real sense caused it. You see, Jesus had two passions, and they shed light on each other. The first passion of Jesus – the one that inspired his vision and drove his every action – was the Reign of God (sometimes called the Kingdom of God); not an empire to replace Rome, but an alternative vision to challenge the very notion of empire.

Empire – in Jesus’ day represented by Rome - is based on dominating power, repression, violence, and exploitation, especially against the peasant class whose cause Jesus championed; while Jesus’ vision is based on liberating humility, recognition of the worth of all, and fairness toward all. Empire? Not so much; say rather anti-empire. It was this first passion that inevitably led Jesus into conflict with Rome, and brought its swift retribution of Jesus’ second passion: humiliation, scourging, and crucifixion.

On Sunday we will examine the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the light of its connection to his entire life and ministry, and his challenge to the notion of empire. It very well could be an eye-opening experience. I hope you will join us.

Christ Reigns in Our lIves

11/14/2014

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“If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to born both within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what we all of us hunger for above all other things even when we don’t know its name or realize that it’s what we’re starving to death for. The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers." - Frederick Buechner

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Scripture: Revelation 1:4-8 (CEB)
Grace and peace to you from the one who is and was and is coming, and from the seven spirits that are before God’s throne, and from Jesus Christ—the faithful witness, the firstborn from among the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To the one who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, who made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father—to him be glory and power forever and always. Amen.
Look, he is coming with the clouds! Every eye will see him, including those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him. This is so. Amen. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “the one who is and was and is coming, the Almighty.”

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Reflection:  Can you believe November is half over?  Can you believe we are coming to the close of another year?  Can you believe the end of that year is just a couple weeks away?  

What's that you say?  The end of the year is more than just two weeks away - that can't be right!  Well, no, when we are talking about the calendar, we still have about 6 weeks until we begin a new year, 2015.  However, within the church, we begin the celebration of a new church year during Advent, November 30.  That also means that on our last Sunday of "Ordinary Time" within the church calendar, that we recognize The Reign of Christ Sunday, THIS Sunday, November 16!

Reign of Christ ends our marking of Ordinary Time, worship following Pentecost, and moves us to the threshold of Advent, the season of hope for Christ’s coming, both as a babe, and again at the end of time.

The day centers on the crucified and risen Christ, who God exalted to reign over the whole universe. The celebration of the lordship of Christ takes us back to look at the ways that Christ rules in our lives both in seasons of life, and in seasons of the church year.  

Christ reigns supreme in all parts of our lives.  As the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, Christ is the center of the universe, the ruler of all history. In Christ all things began, and in Christ all things will be fulfilled.  As ruler, Christ calls us to a loyalty that transcends every earthly claim on the human heart. Christ calls us to stand with those who in every age, and in every season, confessed, “Jesus Christ is Lord!”

How does Christ reign supreme in your life?  Join us on Sunday as we ponder the ways that Christ rules in our lives, and the ways that we can more fully seek Christ's sovereignty in our lives.

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Working in God's Field

2/14/2014

 
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The moment’s depth is greater than that of the future. And from the fields of the past, what can you harvest again? The soul does not understand the word seasons. The petals on the sun can only be touched now.
                                           - Rabia (c. 717-801)    

Reading: But for right now, friends, I’m completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God. You’re acting like infants in relation to Christ, capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast. Well, then, I’ll nurse you since you don’t seem capable of anything more. As long as you grab for what makes you feel good or makes you look important, are you really much different than a babe at the breast, content only when everything’s going your way? When one of you says, “I’m on Paul’s side,” and another says, “I’m for Apollos,” aren’t you being totally infantile? Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us—servants who waited on you as you gradually learned to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment. I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. It’s not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow. Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages. What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God’s field in which we are working.
                                   - 1 Corinthians 3.1-9 (The Message)

Reflection: God’s field – from the unplowed soil in which seed is sown to the bountiful crops awaiting harvest – is a familiar biblical symbol for the Reign of God. It is, indeed, a rich and fertile symbol, but it would be a mistake to attribute to God’s Reign all the characteristics of agriculture in the everyday world of the farmer, ancient or modern. Every farmer depends on the regularity of the seasons, from the cool, fresh days of seedtime; the warmth of the sun and adequate rain; to the mature days at season’s end when the crops mature. For every thing there is a season, Ecclesiastes asserts with confidence, and the farmer depends on such regularity.

In God’s Reign, however, there is real, impenetrable mystery in the transition from seedtime to harvest. Jesus makes this clear in his parable of seed & harvest found at Mark 4.26b -29. The farmer sows and, at the appropriate time, the farmer harvests, but in between the fields grow secretly, mysteriously. The farmer neither tends nor watches over the fields. He neither weeds nor fertilizes. The crops’ growth to maturity is dependent upon God and God alone, and always arrives as a surprise.

Paul understood this mysterious aspect of God’s Reign; it is evident in the humility with which he speaks of his role working in God’s field. It’s not the one who plants or waters who is at the center of the process. Rather, it is God who makes things grow. He compares his role (as translated in the Message) as a menial servant job at minimum wage. Recognize this mystery, he exhorts the Corinthians, and live in humility, and your eyes will see clearly the vision of ministry God offers.

This message of humility before the mystery of God’s Reign should not be overlooked as we at OPCC attempt to discern God’s vision for our future ministry. We can neither create this vision nor bring it to fruition. While our role is and will continue to be significant because God always chooses to work with and through God’s people, this role is also humble. We can only stand awe-struck before the mystery of God’s Reign that grows secretly and mysteriously. Even in periods when no progress is visible and things seem to be at a standstill, we can know that the Reign of God is growing, maturing. Joachim Jeremias expresses this aspect well when he says, “The fruit is the result of the seed, and the end is implicit in the beginning. The infinitely great is already active in the infinitely small.” Let us begin in humble faith, knowing that the end is present and active in our efforts. 

The Christ Who Reigns - 11/17 in 9:30 Worship

11/15/2013

 
Picture of a statue of Christ under construction
Piously we produce our images of you till they stand around you like a thousand walls. And when our hearts would simply open, our fervent hands hide you.
– Rainer Maria Rilke

Readings: Psalm 46
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns. The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Come, behold the works of the Lord; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. ‘Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.’ The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Luke 23:33-43
When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’ And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!’ The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, ‘If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!’ There was also an inscription over him, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’ One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.

Reflection: I find it ironic that the liturgical church year begins and ends with a sense of waiting and yearning. From the waiting through December’s darkness for Emmanuel – God with us – to be born to Mary and Joseph; to the yearning for the fulfillment of all things in God’s exalted Christ, we seem to spend much of our time scouring the horizon for something we don’t yet have. On one hand it is appropriate to wait for God’s final redemption because, let’s face it, we ain’t found the promised land yet. There is still plenty of brokenness in our world; plenty of darkness, greed, and corrosive spirit. 


On the other hand, however, we spend our time scouring the horizon because we are so polished at ignoring the presence of God in our midst, so practiced at thwarting God’s efforts to work in and through our lives, so insistent on putting off until eternity what we can begin to enjoy today.In my estimation, Rilke describes precisely how we are able to perform this feat in the poem cited above. We insist on painting over God in our own image, so that we control how we interact with God and determine what God is to do for us. We can wait forever, for example, for God to bring our enemies down in utter defeat; because that’s our vision… not God’s. The psalmist is beginning to glimpse something of this God who, rather than using the angel armies to ravage and destroy, employs them to make war obsolete. 

Yet this is nothing compared to the Jesus on the cross described by Luke responding in compassion to a convicted thief. “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” This one who has rejected violence altogether in favor of the power of Love in its many refractions: grace, peace, compassion, forgiveness, gentleness, kindness, patience, generosity… and more. I have a suggestion for a fresh approach to Reign of Christ Sunday. Instead of focusing on when the Christ will usher in the final fulfillment of all things, let’s focus on the nature of the Christ who Reigns… not the Christ spoken about in apocalyptic literature, but the Christ revealed in the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. This might lead to a few surprises.

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©2013-2025 Overland Park Christian Church
​7600 West 75th Street
Overland Park, KS  66204
(913) 677-4646
[email protected]
Sanctuary Worship Schedule:
10:30am Sundays In-Person
and Online Live-Stream Worship
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4:30pm Sundays In-Person
​in the Fireside Room