CHRIST IS IN CONTROL - HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

By

Eldridge E. Fleming, Ph.D.

New Hope Presbyterian Church

Rienzi, Mississippi

November 21, 1999

Our Old Testament reading for today comes from Ezekiel. Ezekiel. If you remember your history and if you remember the popular song, Ezekiel is the one who saw the wheel. Ezekiel saw a lot of things. Ezekiel was a prophet who tried to communicate to Israel and the people of God the message of God that really made a lot of difference in their lives. So we today read from Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24. This sort of sets the pace for what we will read in the New Testament.

The New Testament reading is from Ephesians 1:15-23. This passage takes on a new meaning for me today. Martha and I will be leaving on Saturday to go to Turkey. We will be leaving New York on Sunday afternoon, entering Istanbul Monday afternoon, and then flying on down to Izmir for the night. Then on Thursday or Friday of next week, we will be in the city of Ephesus. We will be at the location next week where the church was to which this was being written. So, let us connect up our thoughts, if we can, with that as we listen to the words from the Apostle Paul to the church at Ephesus.

The gospel reading is from Matthew 25:31-46. If you can and will, would you stand with me as we hear the gospel?

The word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

Today is a special day in the church calendar. It is "Christ the King" Sunday. It is that time toward which the whole church calendar builds during the year. Next Sunday will begin the season of Advent in the church calendar and that will be the period of time, as you know, when you begin to hear sermons and readings and doing things in preparation for the coming of the Christ Child. It is that way that the church has had through the centuries of readying itself for understanding and receiving the Christ -- God's Christ, the Son of God -- coming to be born in Bethlehem of Judea. Those preparation days are there beginning next Sunday and that means that next Sunday will be the first Sunday of Advent. And then after Advent, the coming of the Christmas -- as we say it -- after that will come Epiphany, the coming of the wise men. Next there will be the season of Lent in preparation for the crucifixion, and then will come Pentecost. And after Pentecost there is a long season through which, for week after week, we prepare in our minds and hearts as we listen to scriptures read every Sunday that ready us for the Christian life. Then at the end of the season of Pentecost, comes Christ the King Sunday. It is the time to think about Christ the Savior, Christ the King, pointing to the day -- like building from the birth of Jesus all the way up to the point when Christ is King over all of our lives. So today is the day when Christ is King.

But then you and I know it as a different kind of Sunday, do we not? We know it also as Thanksgiving Sunday. In our country it is a time of preparation for the big day that's coming on Thursday, when we as citizens of this country offer thanks for the country we have, when we express to God our appreciation and our thanks for what has been provided from sea to shining sea. In preparation for that, there is the Sunday before when churches take advantage of that because it is a good time to talk about Thanksgiving.

A lot of communities prepare community Thanksgiving services in this week. In the Tupelo area the churches have their Thanksgiving services tonight or Wednesday night and then on Thursday itself there is a Community Thanksgiving service. In Booneville this afternoon at four o'clock there is a community "Unity Thanksgiving Service." It will be at the Presbyterian church if you want to come down.

We have those community Thanksgiving services because as communities, we want to be grateful. Thanksgiving is a special season with special services. As we look at that we can join together from different denominational backgrounds and be thankful to God for this special country in which we live.

But as we look at the country, as we look at the international scene -- where we are internationally -- we have some concerns. This past week and the week before, our president was visiting in Turkey and Greece -- places where Martha and I will be going in the next few weeks -- and as he was visiting in those places there were demonstrations and protestations about the behavior of our country. And as we look at those things we wonder about who's in charge here.

Who's in control? Is Christ in control? If he is, it's a funny way of doing the controlling, isn't it?

We think about the furor that was created when information leaked from the National Safety Board about the possibility of a pilot being suicidal in the cockpit and killing 217 people -- 216 besides himself. And the Egyptian furor that comes from that and strains our international relationships. People who don't have the whole story don't always feel it the way the facts are. You feel with your emotions regardless of the facts. So in the world around us as we look at all the chaos and confusion, we wonder, "Is Christ in control here in this situation?" In our country, certainly we have a lot of things that give us cause to pause and think about that question.

Martha and I are going to Istanbul and on down to Izmir in the middle of what we used to know in bible study as Asia Minor, and then going from there to different sites, we'll end up at Ephesus and Smyrna and Philadelphia and all of those places that are listed in the Book of Revelation. The seven churches of Asia Minor. We'll be spending six nights in Turkey and then we'll be going across the Dardanelles on a ferry boat over to Greece. We'll go up into Thessalonica and spend the night there and then have two other nights on our way down to Athens where we'll spend our last three nights. It was in Athens yesterday that there was a riot and protesting over the U. S. Policy. Stores were damaged and the pictures I saw of it reminded me of South Los Angeles. But yet, we're going and trusting that a small band of Christians -- eleven in number -- will not be enough to get the stones and the sticks.

When we went with a large group in 1992 to Israel, we were leaving Jericho one night after having walked down through the Wadi Kelt with our leader and seeing the ruins of Herod's palace at Jericho. As we were leaving in the buses in the late dusk just before dark, stones pelted the top of the bus, and so we know what it sounds like to have stones thrown at us. We were reassured by the person who was in charge that had they wanted to hurt us, they would have hit the glass and not the top of the bus.

There is a protestation about our behavior worldwide, so let me raise the question: "Who is in control? Who is in charge?" Everything that we know, everything that we understand in our faith, everything that we understand from the New Testament tells us over and over again that regardless of what we see around us, regardless of what happens in our area, there is one who is in charge. There is one who is in control. The people around us may act as though that didn't exist, but it is still the truth. Christ is in control. Christ is in charge, and we have to remember that truth.

Recently I've been trying to put myself mentally in the picture of being in that area of the world in the day when Paul was writing to the Ephesian church. Since we're going to Ephesus I wanted to try to get my mind to think in terms of what it would be like to live in that society, and what it would be like to live under those governmental rules and regulations. And as I see the chaos and the stress and the fighting between groups -- Arabs and Greeks and Cypriots and Turkish and others -- and I think about the way people were treated in the Old Testament era. They're still treating one another the same way.

It was nothing, you know, for someone who was a conqueror to have killed everyone that he conquered. That was a common sort of way of getting rid of the people that he had to contend with. All he had to do was dispose of their bodies. On one occasion, you remember that the king said, "Pile them up and burn them." A despicable thing to do to someone, someone who says that the body is important to the spirit. But that's what they did. And so, in that world where the conqueror could do whatever he wanted with you, there was no Geneva agreement, nothing like that. Into that world came the Spirit of God dwelling in Jesus of Nazareth, and that Son of God came so that he might save the world.

Wait a minute. There's a better way. We don't need to be killing everybody; that's not the way to do it. There's a better way. There is the way of love. And instead of taking up arms and fighting for those things and principles that Jesus thought of, he didn't fight with a sword -- he fought with a word. The word is mightier than the sword? I know the pen is mightier than the sword because it writes words. Jesus didn't write them down, he spoke them. And the people listened.

Who is in control here? That Son of God who came to that manger in Bethlehem and escaped the torture of Herod came one day marching down from Nazareth, down the valley into Jericho, and across and up that hill to Jerusalem. And he brought with him a whole different philosophy of life, a whole new revelation of how people should interact with one another, how governments should govern, how rules should be made and how they should be enforced. He came with a theme that said, "Feed the hungry. Take care of those who are in pain. Visit those who are sick. Go to see those who are in prison. Clothe those who are naked. Take care of the orphans." He came preaching that and it was with that kind of preachment that he ended up walking through the streets with a bar across his back -- and ended on a cross. But in spite of that, as he rose from the dead he began a journey of a different sort, and those persons who were fascinated with him before now became committed to him as never before. You and I sit today to hear his story told again and again. Because he came with a better way. It seems to me that Pilate -- who ruled with a hand of iron with Rome backing him -- did not have the power of Jesus Christ who rose from the dead. Never shall. Who is in control? Jesus is in control. It may not appear to be so, but it really is the truth. Christ is in control.

What are you going to do on Thursday? How are you going to spend your day? Martha and I always go -- have been for years -- to meet with her family on Thanksgiving Day. We meet with my family sometime during the Christmas holidays and because they live 200 miles apart, we can't do them both in the same day so we have one at one time and the other at another time. Thanksgiving Day is the day we meet with her relatives. We've been meeting recently at her brother's house and he has changed from being the headmaster of the Mid-Delta Academy in Inverness to living out next to the city limits of Isola. Now I know, you may not know where Isola is -- but Isola is between Inverness and Belzoni, and if you want to get right down to where he is located, it's right across the slough from Isola. That's where his house is and we're going there for Thanksgiving Day. There's something special about sitting down and eating together.

We have a special kind of communion when we sit together.

We have a special communion in our service here from time to time. We sit around the table; we sit in the pews, but we sit around the table. Bread is passed and wine is passed and we partake of that in a special way because this is how we commemorate, how we remember Jesus on the night before he was crucified, on the night he was betrayed by Judas. On that very night he took a loaf of bread and broke it and gave it to his disciples and said to them, "Take, and every one of you eat of this. This is my body which is broken for you."

Oh, bells didn't go off, they didn't remember what he was talking about, but later they remembered what he said. He was alive and well with them when the words were spoken, but the next night he was not alive and well in their sense. "But this is my body which is broken for you. Take and eat." And each time we take that wafer or that piece of bread at communion, we take it remembering that this is Jesus' body. And then we pass the cup -- the cup is now filled with grape juice instead of wine -- in some churches still wine -- we pass that at the end of the meal. Jesus took the wine goblet and held it up to his disciples and he said, "This is my blood of a new testament -- a new testament. It's for the forgiveness of sin. Drink of it, all of you, and remember me. Every time you drink, remember me." So we take of the cup and we remember that his body was broken and his blood was spilled -- not poured out in the sense that it came out of a whole cup -- but split or riven by spear and the blood and water rushed down together. And because of that, when we take of this meal we remember the price Jesus paid for your sins and mine to have us be able to be forgiven. So we eat and drink at this table.

But there are also times that we eat and drink at another table. We eat and drink back in the fellowship hall and we eat and drink around one another's tables at home. Meals are always special. Very special. When we sit together. We were watching this morning one of those squibs on TV about the fifties. I don't know if you watch that early show on NBC early in the morning. We watch it as we're preparing to come here. This morning they were talking about the fifties and how the fifties brought with it TV. One of the comments from one of the persons on the show was, "And the meals were moved from the dining table to the living room so we could watch TV." It was a sad commentary on the era because at that point, we lost the meals while sitting at table.

My father was not a church-involved person. He was a Baptist. If you asked him, he'd tell you he was a Baptist. He'd been baptized in the Baptist church, but he didn't go to church very often until his later years. When I was home he seldom went to church. But somehow or other in his upbringing and from my grandfather, he had been taught well that before you eat, you say a prayer of thanksgiving. So my father who was limited in education had memorized a prayer that he said before every meal, and we didn't sit at the table and eat until he had the prayer. He called it a blessing and he said it every time. I can still hear it: "Now, Lord, let us be thankful these and all our many blessings. In Jesus name. Amen." He instilled in us the need to say a table prayer before eating and with this analogy, I guess, he said, "Even the pigs and the hogs grunt before they eat, and you can, too."

What is so special about such meals? Well, we look at one another in the face. We talk with one another. We fellowship with one another. It is a blessed time when we sit at table with one another. Yes, we commune with one another. We eat together. And that's what we're going to be doing on Thursday. I hope that each of you have a great and glorious day, and as you sit at table and as you give thanks for the life that you have and where you are, and what's happening to you now, that you will remember that Christ is in control. It doesn't matter what happens around us, that is where it is. Christ is in control.

I'm a pilot and I love to fly. I look forward to the flight going across to London and Istanbul, but when the thought of Flight 990 runs across my mind, I wonder about that and you might, too. All those families that lost their loved ones on that flight, I'm sure they are distressed, and we want to continue to pray for them.

So there is the question, "Is Christ in control of that, too?" Ultimately, yes, Christ has control of everything! And if you remember in my reading from Matthew, we are told plainly that there will come a day when he will call everyone before him and then he'll make the decision of which one did and didn't do his will. We take those things that happen to us in life knowing that in spite of what it appears, Christ is still in charge. Christ is in control. Our charge is to do those things that Jesus said to those in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew: "Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and those in prison -- and on down the list." And with that, we should have a great and glorious life -- and have a happy Thanksgiving.

Christ is in control! Happy Thanksgiving! Amen.