The Last Sunday after Pentecost - November 23

The End of the Story
Ephesians 1:15-23
Matthew 25:31-46

For the last couple of days St. John’s delegates, alternates and I have been at Diocesan Convention. We were there Friday afternoon and most of yesterday. For this annual gathering of the Diocese, this year the theme was “stories.” More specifically, the importance and power of telling stories. So in the keynote address, in the Bishop’s sermon, we heard a lot about stories.

Stories.

Now we as a parish are gathered here for worship on the Last Sunday after Pentecost. This day is also known informally as Christ the King Sunday. It is the end of the church year. Stories and the end of the year. Stories and a day that challenges us to think about the end.

This got me thinking about how stories end. There are different ends we could talk about. It is the end of the church year. There is the end of time to consider… But I want to talk about our end. How will your story end? How will the story of my life end? How will the stories of our individual lives end?

There is a theological distinction between the end we face at death and the end we may face at the end of time, but I don’t think most people worry much about that distinction, and today I’m not going to either. Whenever, however, each of us encounters the end just beyond the time of our knowing in this life, how will that end be written?

Sara Miles was the keynote speaker at Convention. She is an adult convert to Christianity and a writer. One of the things I heard her say is that we like stories that end neatly. We prefer stories that end neatly. The underdog wins. Children find happiness. Bad guys are defeated. People fall in love with someone who returns their love…

But she also pointed out that most of our life stories really aren’t that neat. The stories of our lives are complicated and messy. Victories are fleeting. Bad guys are not completely bad, and good guys are not completely good. Human love is never pure.

But God is in those messy stories. God is part of the messy, complicated stories of our lives.

How would you write the story of God’s presence in your life? Not your life story. Not the story of your accomplishments, but the story of God’s presence in your life. (For me, that’s a more important question than how each of our stories ends… if today didn’t really push us to ponder the end.)

One image came to mind for me. An image, or a metaphor, that might illustrate how we would describe God’s presence in our lives. It’s a parent on the sidelines or in the stands at a child’s athletic event. (Or it could be a recital or play or whatever.) Not one of those obnoxious parents, that you sometimes find at Little League games, but a loving, supportive parent. In this image, God is the parent, of course, and we are the child. The parent cheers, offers encouragement… is waiting with a band aid if we get a scrape, but basically on the sidelines. Wanting the best for us, but mostly an observer. On call, if we encounter some trial or trauma in the midst of whatever the activity may be, but generally on the sidelines.

I have certainly seen God that way at times in my life and I wonder if many of us don’t have something like that as the primary image of God in the story of our lives. Cheering. Wishing us the best. But not directly involved.

Then when the game is over, the parent is waiting to give us a hug, maybe tousle our hair, praise us for more or less doing our best. Put an arm around our shoulder. When the end comes.

Christ the King Sunday challenges us to think about the God who will face us at the end of our story, not as a parent with a cheerful hug, but as a king with unimaginable power. Or as Ephesians says, power of immeasurable greatness. And this king is not on the sidelines, but is in our face. A king of unimaginable, immeasurable power.

I don’t know for sure how God will use that power at the end of my story.

Jesus himself talks about judgment, the power to judge. In today’s Gospel and in the parables of the last few weeks, Jesus has talked about judgment. In today’s Gospel, the King judges between those people who will gain eternal blessing versus those who face eternal condemnation. Depending upon whether or not they offered a sip of water to someone in need. The power of judgment.

But mercy and judgment are inseparable. The power to judge come with the power to offer mercy. They are the same power. Two sides of the same coin. The power of judgment always implies the power of mercy. And the power of mercy is of the same unimaginable, immeasurable greatness. God, the King, has the power to offer mercy and reconciliation that overcome sin and evil of such magnitude where we might see absolutely no possibility of hope. God has that power, too.

I don’t know for sure how God will use God’s power at the end of my story. And you don’t know for sure either. But I do think all of us should take God’s power more seriously. God’s power of immeasurable greatness.

And not just when we are pondering the end.

God is present in all of the complicated and messy stories of our lives. The stories of our lives as we are living them before the end. And God is not on the sidelines, but is actively involved. With unimaginable power. Power that can restore and transform the stories of our lives in unimaginable ways. Those are the stories we should be looking for in the world around us. Those are the stories we should be living. And the stories we should be telling. The end.