Sure this image of the turkey bumping Uncle Sam from the throne has its place, but updating it would likely mean including Sam Walton…

Yep, the holidays are here, let the shopping begin…

What was once Black Friday is now Black Thursday night – as many of us take to the malls for those elusive bargains. Sure, we’re off-put by holiday commercialization, we may even wear one of those ‘Jesus is the Reason…’ lapel pins, yet we participate fully.

Many of us will waver between feelings of compulsion to buy and spend more, often times for people who don’t need it or won’t long remember it – and feelings of guilt knowing that our relentless consumption isn’t really helping me, them, or us.

It’s the irresistible allure of a kingdom. It is a kingdom that tells us that things make us happy, that possessions bring true contentment, that a new dress, gadget, or car, will quell my feelings of inadequacy. And we all buy into it to one extent or another.

This Sunday is Christ the King Sunday. It is the last Sunday of the liturgical year (as the Christian new year begins with Advent). We celebrate this feast because you and I desperately need the reminder that there is another Kingdom out there.

This is the Kingdom that tells us we are loved just as we are, we do best when we reorder our desires instead of running with them, and that our deepest contentment is not found in things or experiences, but in God.

Friends, we are members of a counter-cultural movement that will never ‘fit in with the crowd’ - our king is not here because our kingdom is not here. Our challenge then, is to live more fully into this reality – to deepen the embrace of our belovedness and rest in the peaceful promises of God – that all will be OK, we have nothing to worry about, and nothing to fear – promises from a King who will never be tossed from the throne.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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Reading

God is Red – Liao Yiwu

The Passionate Jesus – Peter Wallace

Parting the Waters – Taylor Branch