“If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones.”  So wrote John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath, in 1939.  The Depression was deep and wide, and the battle for the soul of a great nation was as yet, undetermined.  Unemployment had come down but was still twice today’s rate.  Joining a union could cost you your life.  So, who do you go to if you’re in need?  Other poor people! 

Jesus had wandered the hills of Galilee and Jerusalem, Samaria and The Decapolis, and most of those he gathered into his mission were people like Steinbeck’s Joad family, save Matthew and Zacheaus, who had some means. 

There was no middle class in Jesus day like we have in our country, shrinking though it is.  And Jewish custom kept the disparity between rich and poor relatively small.  But other societies like Egypt and Rome harbored a ruling elite that lived in a whole other zone of royal abundance.  

But does the politics of money have anything to do with faith?  Yes and no.  Nothing to do with nurturing the gift of faith.  Everything to do with organizing people for mission. 

The bible, for better or worse, doesn’t come with a Chicago Tribune or Newsweek subscription to tell us the social or political back story of Persia in 500BC or Palestine in 30AD.  The scripture writers just kind of assumed their readers would know that stuff, which they did at first, but not so much anymore. 

Pontius Pilate, a kind of governor of Judea, appointed by emperor Augustus, and dispatched from Rome, served about a decade, and had every resource at his disposal to enforce order and  collect taxes in the Jewish province.  He lived in the opulent roman coastal palace most of the time, but always came to the equally upper-class Jerusalem headquarters during festivals.  And it was there he had a long back and forth encounter with Jesus, according to John’s gospel.  After beating around the bush to answer Pilate’s question, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus finally told Pilate, “my kingdom is not from here.”   Up until then, Pilate was having a hard time getting his head into this particular game.  Looking at this wandering peasant from rural Galilee, he thought the Jewish leaders were wasting his time bringing him to his headquarters.  He looked more like an artist or earnest teacher than the leader of national movement that could in any way threaten Pilate’s firm grasp on power.  But Jesus piqued his interest, just a bit, when he claimed, he had a kingdom.  “So you are a king,” he asked Jesus?  But it quickly devolved again, and so Pilate tries more than once to release Jesus, finding no claim to the charges of sedition. 

Nothing says power, of course, like the use of military, clandestine or coercive, force and intimidation, and Rome was a master at all three.  Many empires have reproduced this sure-fire, and ultimately tragic recipe, even the nation we are members of today.  And in some ways we have become better at it, than all our predecessors. 

So as followers of Jesus, we too take notice of Jesus’ words, the same ones that Pilate did, only, for a different reason.  It’s not the threat of a rival king and his kingdom that will fight to the finish, that piques our interest and perks up our ears, but the vision of a kingdom, or realm, or reign of Christ, that is not from this world. 

Jesus’ reign is born anew, from above.  It is of God, and full of truth for the life of the world.  And so artists have delighted us with paintings of a kingly Christ sitting on a throne in the clouds of heaven, though it will turn off some people today, or at best confuses us, as it no longer fits our 21st C cosmology.  But it still paints, in broad strokes at least, a picture of a sovereign one whose reign is everlasting, and who originates from a holy, just, and truthful place. 

The church has sometimes misused it, however, whenever it portrays this kingdom as finished and fixed, insisting that the next step is simply climbing our piously holy ladders up to heaven to join him.  For then it has forgotten the beautiful, earth-shattering, yet hopeful, apocalyptic description in Revelation:

“Look! He is coming with the clouds;
Every eye will see him,
Even those who pierced him…
So it is to be. Amen.”

The reign of Christ is forever, but the promise to come down and enter our lives, and our world, and make a difference, is immediate, and dawning among us in our midst right now.  The apocalyptic language of the coming of the Human One in Daniel, and the coming of Christ, not to take us out of this veil of tears, but to come down to redeem the whole world, was born out of some of the deepest grief’s the people of God had to live through – the worst depressions, deportations and occupations – and as such, was a holy gift of Hope. 

There’s a parish in Chicago that is trying something new today, for Christ the King Sunday.  They’re using the prophetic voice of one of America’s most popular recording artists to amplify the message of Jesus our King.  I doubt it will become very widespread, but there’s no doubt a number of the songs that Grammy winner Bob Dylan has written, make imaginative use of biblical imagery, which ring a distinctively apocalyptic note.  In the Dylan’s ballad, A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall, for example, it’s the innocent youth who speak the prophetic truth,

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Though one of his earliest songs -50 years old now- it could easily describe the signs of our times today: tsunami’s, the drum beat for continuous war, the despair of the poor and derision of the rich, the under appreciation of the arts and their place in our culture, and the tragic irony of morality turned kitsch. 

But the purpose of apocalyptic is always to point us to the hope of our king, whose reign is not from this world, so that we may learn to let Christ rule in our hearts and minds, with all our strength, in the here and now. 

If you are in need, ask a poor person.  Jesus, who feeds both body and soul, bids us to be filled with the holy spirit, the clandestine blowing of the wind answer, my friend.  For the world will be healed and the truth of our reigning Christ the King, grows from one believer to another, and is never dependent on the top down kingdoms of this world.  It is us, those captured by faith, poor or rich, and us alone, who are called to bear God’s truth.  We have an amazing faith-story to tell and a passion to share. 

As the followers of Jesus grew and stayed true to his mission, the heart of their makeup was poor people supporting one another, and when they had to change or reorder social structures, they organized people and money, from the bottom up. 

As a king with a specific mission, Jesus has come into the world to testify to the truth. The truth may use other political purposes, though it never becomes an instrument of, or identified with them.  Jesus does not need us to prop up his power or authority, as he reigns from the right hand of God.  But it is us, the followers of Jesus, who have been empowered to be “of the truth” rather than “of the world.” 

Truth is one of God’s deepest desires for us, and the language of apocalyptic is a faith-tool that literally pulls back the curtain, the veil that hides the truth, to reveal God’s hope and will for us, empowering its citizens to be sent out into God’s creation that we may build partnerships with all those, ready to work for the new kingdom and realm of God.  Now, we are kings and queens, in Jesus’ name, and nothing can oppress us, no hard rain can deter us!  We seek help, whether from poor or rich, from whoever is of the truth, rather than of the world.  By the power of the holy spirit, we come together for the truth and beauty of the reign of Christ, here in this world, and forever.  

I came late!  That’s always the first thing my mom says when I ask her about when I was born.  You were late, she says, but when you came, you came really quick!  Apparently, after waiting for days, weeks maybe past her due date, my mom barely made it to the hospital in time, though, in time enough, that she got the prescribed drugs of the day that blocked all the pain of birth.  There was no talk of natural child birth going on in the 50’s, no doula’s, and very few mid-wife’s, even though that had been the norm just 50 years earlier.  When I was born, it was just her and Dr. Kleger, with my dad out in the waiting room, pacing the floor and smoking a cigarette, a cigar at the ready in his pocket.  My mom suffered little pain in her birthpangs – she can hardly remember it she says. 

Timing is everything, of course, and that’s the question Jesus’ closest disciples have near the end.  When will it be that the Temple will be “thrown down?”  They were awe-struck with the temple’s magnificence, which was said to glimmer with its gold inlay, and its stones blinded, because of their rare snow-white color, as the sun struck it from above, the highest structure, on the highest hill, in Zion. 

The disciples in Mark’s church were being recruited, as were all the Jews in the late 60’s, by the patriots who had beat back the mighty Roman army, all the way to the Mediterranean coast, to save the mighty and magnificent kingdom, at least the one they had romanticized in their minds, which its temple stood for.  Was God raising up the Davidic kingdom once again?  Was the Messianic age about to come?  Was Jesus, this long awaited Messiah? 

“This is the beginning of the birthpangs,” Jesus said about the wars and rumors of wars that filled the days’ headlines.  The victory in 69 would be relatively short lived before Rome’s best warriors returned and the large stones were all thrown down in 70 AD. 

Jesus had been clear about the temple.  It was a place he returned to, not to adore, but to gather with others seeking the presence of God in their lives, to worship, and to teach and debate the meaning of scripture.  It was also coming to its end, he knew, the end of an era – and the patriotism that sought to defend it to the death, was not what Jesus was offering in the ministry and message of his life, a life he gave for the world, to turn around, and move it into a new realm and reality – which we, today, know and rejoice in, in this life we have in the Spirit, a life that is empowered to distribute, and eagerly shares, justice and mercy, without violence and the demonizing of others. 

Jesus was clear about the temple.  He had been called to be a new temple, and like the beautiful stones, destroyed and thrown down, he would be raised up just three days later, to fulfill God’s mission.  Jesus would be the Messianic leader reigning in the hearts and minds and strength, of every believer who believed in the Way of nonviolence and beauty and grace.  Just as the synagogue would become the new home of the presence of God for Jews in those days, so the church, and its people of God, would become the receptacle of the Holy Spirit which Jesus would send to them, which lives in us now. 

Just this weekend, as we see images of war erupting in Gaza and Israel, children crying and reports of children dying, we are reminded of the uselessness of war, the death of innocents, as leaders dig in to their pompous positions of power and privilege.  When will we learn?  Labor pains are hard enough, but their purpose is to end in new life, instead of the numbness of war’s wounds, harboring tomorrow’s new violence. 

Today, compared to my mother’s time, women more often brave the pangs of birth, drug-free.  Women partners, female friends and doulas, understand it intuitively, or first hand, and are historically the more traditional and natural supports in the birthing room.  Men cannot quite understand pregnancy and birthing, but they can seek to take a part in the wonder, and pledge a measure of support, defining what their role can be, in the face of its death defying danger and beautiful miracle.    

No one knows if the “birth-pains” Jesus talked about were the early pangs of warning, as in a kind of false-labor, or the final throes of delivery, just before the coming.  And probably he meant to keep it ambiguous, for the one rock-solid constant in this Little Apocalypse monologue in chapter 13, is that the timing of the coming of Christ, cannot be known down to the day and the hour.  There will be signs, and, signs and warnings are meant to be helpful reminders of ‘being ready.’  So, keep awake, Jesus says – which is just another way of saying, believe, and live as if God is already here among you, every day, for the rest of your life. 

Better than the "end of the world" apocalyptic language of escapism and destruction, which we usually hear of today, says N.T. Wright, is to use the more helpful ancient-contemporary phrase "earth shattering."  The stars falling to earth sort of imagery was also used by the great prophets to prophecy about "earth shattering" events -- real, historical events, like the sacking of Jerusalem in 70AD -- that would befall the people of Israel if they didn't turn around from their ways of injustice.  This is precisely the meaning of Jesus’ "earth shattering" prophecy in Mark 13, as he spoke privately to his closest disciples about the folly of joining the military rebellion as the way to freedom from enemies.  (ideas and quotes in this paragraph from: http://girardianlectionary.net/year_b/proper28b.htm)

What Jesus was advocating was taking up their cross and following him, not into battle, but being born into a whole new realm of life.

Curiously, this term, the beginnings of birthpangs has a double meaning!  It can mean either, the pain of childbirth, or the pain of death, as in Jesus’ death, for the life of the world. 

I hesitate to say this, for it is more than just metaphorical, but we could say, couldn’t we, that Jesus’ death was birthing-in the new realm of God – I hesitate, because it is gender backwards, a queering of a straight sensibility of our sexuality!  But more than that it was a birthing, not outside history, but precisely by entering into the history of his people, the world that Jesus was called to save.  By the birthpangs of his death, he ushers in new life.  The Innocent-Victim offered up, now lives, and the world has been redeemed and made new – Jew and Gentile alike, male and female, oppressed and oppressor set free!  

The life of Jesus, and our lives, are wrapped up together, as in bands of new born clothes.  And the birth of new life, of course, is sometimes messy, sometimes painful, but through that birth canal is the only way forward, a baptism of new life that God calls us to. 

Here at Unity for example, the gestation period of preparing for our Space Sharing initiative is revealing.  The waiting for it, was sometimes messy, sometimes painful!  But new life, has emerged!  And amidst all the hard work of nurturing this new life, there is also a smile of joy for the blessing we receive.  Some people liked to tell me during that pregnant period of waiting, that, in the words of, Field of Dreams, “if you build it, they will come.”  But that is a statement to be taken on faith, and, well… you never know, being a parent for the first time is unpredictable!  But now that the child has arrived, many children in fact, every room we have is getting more and more use from members of the community we serve, and, our family is growing fast!  What seemed like a long wait, suddenly has come quickly upon us, and has been placed in our arms to hold!

There is still much more to do, more years of parenting are required of us, both for the partners we are developing, and for the faith-gathering we are building here.  And the last thing we want to do, of course, is to medicate the pain of this birthing process.  No, we want to be ready, to stay awake, and so we learn to pick partners who fit the Assets of our congregation, for the mutual support we can give one another, and the building up of the body of Christ, in the world. 

For, the pains of death, we know as Christians, can be the same as the pains of childbirth, only because they bring new life, to a faithful people, who trust in their God: the giver of life, and Prince of Peace.  

God weeps with us at the graves’ of our loved ones, as Jesus wept with Mary and Martha at the stone cold tomb of Lazarus.  God invites us to partner with God, in unbinding the power and stench of death in our lives, as Jesus invited the crowds to unbind Lazarus’ stinky grave clothes, to set him free.  This seventh and last sign, a raising akin to his own resurrection, that Jesus performs – requires few words.  Besides his prayer addressed to God, Jesus only says two things: “Lazarus come out,” and “unbind him, and let him go.”  

Stephen Colbert, of the Colbert Report who invented the term “truthiness” on his first show 7 years ago, continues to remind us of the folly, and funny bone, of words in our politically charged environment.  “Truthiness” is the curious failure of facts to hold up against, how we make decisions based on the gut feelings we have.  Which explains a lot about campaign elections!  None more so, than this current one.  Political ads, which have saturated TV commercials in Ohio, and other swing states, are shining examples of this “truthiness.”  Often debunked by fact checkers as either, ‘somewhat false,’ ‘false,’ or –everyone’s favorite- “Pants on Fire” false, none-the-less they resonate with their core voters, appealing to the gut reaction of those who’ve already made up their minds, despite the facts.  But, as crazy as this “truthiness” is, what’s truly Halloween scary is, that apparently many undecided voters watch these ads, to make up their minds how to vote!  And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 30+ years of presidential voting, it’s that the process of campaigning, and the candidates governing once in office, are two very different things! 

With the public sign of the raising Lazarus, Jesus in not campaigning for anything, but simply living out the calling God’s already given him as the Christ, and our Messiah.  “Lazarus come out,” is all he says in the face of the stench of death, at the door to the stone cold grave.  When Lazarus walks out, “his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth,” Jesus’ promise to be the resurrection and the life, is kept.

In the classic children’s tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” – adapted from a story by the Spaniard, Juan Manuel – Hans Christian Andersen exposes the vainglory of the Emperor, when two swindlers pretend to make him a new special suit of clothes, that will be invisible to those who seek his throne.  Everyone plays along with the joke, until a child suddenly calls out, "But he isn't wearing anything at all!"  The collective denial, social hypocrisy, and hollow ostentatiousness of the king  *and crowd!* are exposed by the child’s unknowing candor with just a few words. 

Clothing is important in defining the truth and life of who we are.  Whether expensive or hand-me-downs, flashy and attractive or less-noticed, clothing weaves a story about our identity.  Even in death, clothing matters.  My dad, as he lay in his casket at the visitation in my growing-up church, wore a favorite coat and tie, picked out by my mom.  She knew what he liked, and it fit him, and helped to make him look like himself, as he lay there in his apparent four day slumber. 

My dad was the kind of guy who wore a suit or a sport coat to his work place for like, 35 some years.  He had a closet full of them.  None of them, however, fit me or my youngest brother Bill, but my middle brother, Dave, who’s slightly bigger, took a couple home, before my mom decided to give the rest away.  I kept a few shirts and fleece sweatshirts of my dad’s, that did fit me.  I like wearing them, and somehow feel closer to him when I do.  I think I did it at first because I didn’t want to let go.  But now I do it because he gets farther from my grasp all the time, and I just want to remember, as best I can.  It still doesn’t make sense completely, but, as I pull on his dark blue fleece pull-over, I realize it’s an exercise in sustaining a relationship that I know is important, a family responsibility to something that has a claim on me, and can and does, like every other family relationship, make demands of me, that I wrestle with still – as I try, like all of us do, to conquer the power of death in my life. 

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;” says John of Patmos, in his Apocalyptic letter to the seven churches.  “And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her [partner, her] husband.”  Like Jesus in his resurrection, and here in this vision of the renewal of the earth, God’s precious and magnificent creation is dressed in the splendor of a bride, on the threshold of walking down the aisle, and saying I do.  Did they wear white back then in Jesus’ time, like many brides still favor today?  Some say it was ivory or a royal yellowish-gold, like the flame of a candle.  Which would be appropriate, actually, for Revelation, and for the promise that we won’t have to worry about having enough oil, to keep our lamps lit anymore, for in the new earth, the new Jerusalem, Christ will be our light! 

What will we wear?  That is the question!  Are we wearing the Emperor’s new clothes?  Are we struggling with the clothes of this world’s demands and grief’s?  Or, are we putting on our white baptismal gown? 

Jesus had stayed away from going to Mary and Martha’s house in Bethany an extra day instead of rushing on over when he heard that his friend Lazarus had died.  Timing hangs heavy in the exchange between them, Martha and Mary both kvetching that if Jesus had been there earlier, their brother would not have died.  But, Jesus wasn’t late because he couldn’t decide what to wear!  Jesus came late intentionally, on the fourth day, when it was past the time of hoping for revival or a miracle, and when the stench was growing, an embarrassing sign of Jesus’ tardiness, to “gird his loins” and take the proper action, which was fueling Martha’s anger with Jesus.  So, the thing that was supposed to happen with Lazarus, and all the dead of 1st C. Palestine, was happening: wrapped in clothes and laid in the rock hewn tomb, his body was left to decay, and then after a year’s time, when everything but the bones had been decomposed, as they always did in that climate, the silent bones, not rattling together, would be reverently transferred to his ossuary and permanently buried. 

So when Jesus calls to Lazarus to come out, there might be snickering at, or possibly sympathetic bewilderment, for Jesus.  But, as Lazarus makes his way out, bound in strips of cloth around his whole body and cloth wrapped around his face, this sign of God’s glory begins to unveil itself.  Jesus, in tandem with the one to whom he addresses his prayer, makes it possible for the community to arise now to the occasion.  Not as we might think, with a round of applause, like at a Barnum and Bailey circus, or with a collective gasp, as at a Houdini escape, but we are enabled and invited to enter into a partnership with, the creator and redeemer of the whole universe and author of all life.  And so Jesus tells the gathering, you “unbind him, and let him go!” 

The grave cloths, which wrap and cover over the power of death that separates us from our loved ones, and the wholeness we seek as community, must be removed.  Jesus, however, doesn’t do it for us, but invites us as church, the people of faith, who are not bound up in the “truthiness” of grave clothes, but live already with one foot in the new Jerusalem, to be the ones to, unbind him and let him go.  God invites us to partner with God, in unbinding whatever masks the stench of death in our lives: And so, we support one another when our friends lose loved ones, a mother or father, a brother or sister, a child before its time.  We are called as community to unbind the “truthiness” of privilege and prejudice that are stinking up the neighborhood, and killing the opportunities for new life, which all too often target the same peoples, over and over again.  We are called as community to be empowered by the Holy Spirit, to unwrap each strip of cloth, and unbind every impediment, to the resurrection and the life Jesus offers us daily, and forever.

Jesus calls us as community, not to put our trust in, just one vote, on one day, but to put on our baptismal robes for the work of the long haul, the daily call, to unbind Lazarus, and be the public church in the world, that lives by the power of the Spirit.

We live this All Saints Day, already with one foot in the new Jerusalem, and, in the promise of the day when our grave clothes will be exchanged for wedding garment s, and God “will wipe every tear from [our] eyes.”