Christ the King Sunday
Colossians 1:11–20
May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from God’s glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Creator, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. God has rescued us from the power of evil and transferred us into the realm of the beloved [Christ], in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. [The Christ] is before all things, and in [Christ] all things hold together. [Jesus] is the head of the body, the church; the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross.
Year of Hope
Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent, and I’m reminded of our Advent theme from last year: Season of Hope. A year ago was a wild time: we were still wearing masks to church because of covid, and I had only just arrived a few months prior. I was fresh out of the hospital, still really weak, and gearing up to face the first real winter of my life. The Worship Committee settled on the theme Season of Hope because we knew it was a message that everyone, including those of us on the Worship Committee, really needed to hear.
And, we were right to be hopeful. Hindsight is always 20/20, but this last year at Plymouth has been truly amazing! This church was so full of life, full of laughter, full of love. Our Social Justice and Outreach Committee led the charge in helping to welcome our new neighbors from Afghanistan, and we had that wonderful ping pong celebration here with the mayor and the state ping pong champions. There were so many people here, and we all raised enough money to make sure that all of the Afghan kids would have warm coats this winter.
And, it was just about a year ago when we helped to raise money for the Jewish community here in Helena, so they could buy back their historic synagogue. I went to their Sukkot festival not that long ago, the festival of shelters, one of their first events after buying the building back. And, there were so many people from the community there, 200 people, or more. The outpouring of support from the people of Helena was actually quite a surprise for our Jewish neighbors, and they were especially grateful for the solidarity that Plymouth showed for them.
We had a beautiful joint Maundy Thursday service with First Christian, and many of you took part in our Fishing Tips book study this summer, which inspired so many ideas, ideas that we’re still thinking about and developing, and which will hopefully lead to exciting new things here at the church.
Our Buildings and Grounds Committee made sure that we got the new boilers installed to keep us warm this winter, and we are so close to wrapping up the installation of our new fire alarm system, so close! Our Pastoral Care Committee continued their faithful work, ministering to our members who can’t join us in person, and the Finance Committee, the Stewardship Committee, the Fellowship Committee, and the Women’s Group all helped to make sure that all of this could happen.
All of this is to say, that we put our faith in God, we put our hope in God, and we allowed the Holy Spirit to come into our midst and lead us. And, because of that, we got to be a part of all of these wonderful things. We were right to be hopeful.
People like to say that God works in mysterious ways, and one thing that I’ve noticed lately is that people will often say something that ends up being so much more profound than they intended. Sometimes it’s because they misspoke, or they used the wrong word. Sometimes it’s because they say something without thinking about the implications of what they were saying. That’s what happened to me a few weeks ago; I wrote about it in the last issue of Waymarks, so you might have read about this.
Susan Butler was sitting down at my desk for a meeting, and as many of you know, I keep a tiny plastic baby Jesus, right there on the middle of my desk. Susan asked on it, because she had an armful of things she needed to put down, and I just said, “Oh, if he’s in your way, just push him to the side.” And, I immediately froze, and my eyes got really wide, because I realized that I had just told her that if Jesus was in her way, she should push him to the side! We both laughed, and I said I was going to save that for a sermon someday, and here we are.
There was another incident of profound misspeaking at a webinar I was invited to speak at 2 weeks ago. The webinar was on Faith and Creation Care, and one of my fellow speakers was a seminary student named Noah. He was supposed to speak about how we can stay hopeful despite all of the scary things that are happening in our world. While he was speaking, he said, “When I have conversations with hope…, I mean, about hope…” and then, he continued on, but I had another one of those “frozen in my tracks” moments. “When I have conversations with hope…” What an interesting thing to think about; I couldn’t stop thinking about it. What does it mean to have a conversation with hope?
Hope is about looking towards the future and imagining that it will be better than the present. Paul outlines his vision of hope in his letter to the Colossians. He tells them to be patient, and to stay strong because God is with them. He writes about God’s absolute power, God’s authority over sin and all of creation, and how everything was created through Jesus. Paul tells them to put their trust in Jesus, and to have faith in the miracle of the cross. He tells them to hope, and gives them good reason to hope, cosmically good reasons in the grand majesty of the eternal Creator and in the “firstborn of all creation.”
Here in the present day, we have just as much reason to hope, because the eternal presence of the Creator, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit are still with us. And, even though sometimes things might look a little bleak, we have to hold on to the hope that God is working to make things better. That God is working through us to make things better. We can look towards a future and work for a world with clean air and water, with enough food for everyone to eat, and where we live in harmony with all of creation. We can hope for that. We can look towards a future and work for a political system that treats everyone fairly, in which the voice of the people matters, and laws are created and enforced with an eye towards justice, rather than revenge or greed. We can hope for that. We can look towards a future and work for a community in which everyone has a home, where no one freezes to death in the winter, with good schools, and good medical care, where neighbor takes care of neighbor. We can hope for that.
What does it mean to have conversations with hope? I think it means considering what living into hope might look like. How do our lives change, when we have hope for the future? How do we change as people, how do our actions change, how do our choices change, when we have conversations with hope? Having a conversation with hope means opening ourselves up to the possibility of hope. We have all of the proof that we need, right here, that hope is real and valid. A year ago, in spite of medical issues and upheavals in our lives, in spite of challenging relationships and a worldwide pandemic, we reached out and grabbed onto hope. We opened ourselves up to the movement of the Holy Spirit among us and God helped us to be a congregation filled with life and love, helped us to be a congregation that cares about and supports each other and the wider community. We are a congregation that listens to each other and to our neighbors, and we do what we can to make sure that everyone can live with dignity and joy.
That’s what it means to have a conversation with hope. That’s what it means to let Jesus into our hearts. We have had a beautiful year, filled with joy, and love, and excitement, and fun, and hope. Let’s keep the conversation going with hope, and let’s see what the next year will bring. Amen.
~ Rev. Charles Wei
