Wondering and Wonder

Wondering and Wonder

Wondering and Wonder

a Trinity Sunday sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING

Audio from worship at the 10:00 AM Worship Service May 31, 2026
at St Peter’s Episcopal Church, Carson City, Nevada

edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.

Scripture read on Audio: Matthew 28:16-20

  Sermons also available free on iTunes

Stained Glass Symbol of the Trinity at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Carson City, Nevada.

photo by J. Christy Ramsey

Hey, it’s Trinity Sunday. Thanks for coming out of your family events and gatherings and celebrations. I’m glad you’re all in your Trinity finest gear. That’s wonderful. Great, great. It’s a really bad Sunday to preach, on Trinity Sunday. There’s nothing. There’s nothing there. I don’t blame Donna for leaving the state. I mean, I’d get far away from the pulpit, too, if I could. Trinity Sunday is about as exciting as looking at your phone and say, “Spam likely.” That guy again. They’re always calling. Or, you know, worse is, “This is your insurance company. We’d like to talk to you about some explanation of your benefits.” Oh. That’s right up there with Trinity Sunday preacher, I’ll tell you.

Hey, I bet you didn’t know something. Trinity Sunday is with us every Sunday. I bet you didn’t know this. I bet up here, you know, way before we had these screens – whoo, nifty neat-o, we had screens in church for centuries. We just called it “stained glass.” So I just wanted people saying, oh, I don’t like this new stuff, hey, stained glass has been around for centuries. I don’t know what you’re talking about. So up here – I don’t know if I’m allowed up here, I’m destroying things – I don’t know if you can see it. This is actually a symbol of the Trinity. Everything’s clear now; isn’t it. No, it’s not. But here they’ve got God in the middle. Come up later, if you’re allowed. I don’t know if you’re allowed. But come up later.

Árni Dagur, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

They’ve got a dais in the middle, God. And then they’ve got Holy Spirit here, Father up there, Son up there, Father over there on the three. And then they’ve got little connection things. Spirit is not the Father, Father is not the Son, Son is not the Spirit. And then they all go to the middle, they’re all “Is God, Is God, Is God.” Okay. We can pack it up. We’re done. Everybody understands the Trinity now. That’s great. Super. Don’t be telling people you’ve got a fidget spinner in stained glass at your church. I mean, well, unless you want to. People think, oh, that’s pretty cool. I think I’m coming, yeah. Not a fidget spinner. All right.

Way back in the 5th Century, there was a guy, his name was Augustine of Hippo. I don’t know. I don’t know, you know, if he was a portly man. But they called him Hippo. I think that’s where he lived. Unfortunate if he was portly. That would have been bad. He said this: “Si comprehendis, non est Deus.” And what that is translated from the Latin is,

If you think you understand God, what you understand is not God. - Augustine of Hippo

Well, that’s helpful, Augustine. He’s saying if you understand something, then you don’t understand it. The parts you understand about God is not something you understand. 

The difference between stupid and intelligent people — and this is true whether or not they are well-educated — is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations — in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward. - Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer (1995).

And we have a quote up here from a more recent philosopher. Good old Neal Stephenson, author of “Snow Crash,” any classic science fiction – no, nothing. Oh. No, you’re just scratching. Okay. The difference between stupid and intelligent people, and this is true whether or not they are well educated, is that intelligent people can handle subtle – Bill, what’s that word?

BILL: Subtlety.

PASTOR RAMSEY: Subtlety. Thank you, Bill. That’s why I brought him in here, roped him up to give me that word. Thank you. Subtlety. And they are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations. Whoo. In fact, they expect them. And they’re apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward. Yeah. Intelligent people are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations. In fact, they expect them. And they’re suspicious if things are too simple. You’re all intelligent people now; right? Okay. Because you all heard Trinity stuff, oh, the shamrock thing. Who’s heard of the sham – don’t put your hands up. Who’s heard this? Because that’s a heresy. I don’t want you to put your hands up, then let it go, ooh.

Not TrinityShamrock, you know, the three in the Trinity, one plant, three things. Sometimes even I said this, and I was wrong, that’s modality, that’s a heresy. This is, like, should be called Heresy Sunday because it’s so easy to slip in heresy when you’re trying to talk about the Trinity. When you’re talking about, you know, oh, it’s like steam and liquid water and ice, you know. No, it’s not. It’s modality. And it’s not even Father, Son, Holy Spirit, you know. As much as Presbyterians love committees, love them, God is not a committee. It’s not like they vote and come together, two out of three goes, you know, none of that.

It’s not like, you know, like loving, loved, and beloved, or all these other things that people try to make into some kind of social community rolling around kind of thing inside a God, and that’s Trinity. Just about anything – just like our friend Augustine found out. You know, every time you try to describe a Trinity, you’re probably not describing the Trinity. You’re not describing God. If you think you understand it, you got it wrong. What are we to do? What are we to do? Well, we’re intelligent people. We can handle things that are contradictory or complex or not clear or not simply explained. We can handle that. I mean, you know, they just don’t let anybody in the Episcopal Church; right? There is a little test you’ve got to do before you get in; right? I’m sure there is. They haven’t caught me yet. Ha.

It’s like when I go to Trader Joe’s. Does anybody go to Trader Joe’s? I go in there. I am not good-looking enough to be at Trader Joe’s up there in [totsy?] land. They’re going to kick me out because I go, wow, what are these people? Wow. Everybody comes down from Tahoe, and they’re nice? But we can handle it. And we’ve got stories here. We’ve got scriptures here that tell us about complexity. And you can come to these scriptures and be confused. You can come to the Trinity and be confused. And what confused? Well, I don’t understand it, and I should. It’s not good for me. I’m upset. Well, then you’re not intelligent. Here’s a thought. Instead of being confused, be in awe. Instead of being upset you don’t understand something, be in wonder of the glory of God.

Because you look at the creation story, and was that a big creation story? You know, I was talking to – that’s a lot of scripture. You know, that’s a big hunk there. And, well, you know, he created the entire universe, you know, give him a chapter. You know, come on. So you look at that, and we’re so familiar with it that we just blow it on by; you know? The first creation story, you know, there’s a – every now and then, God created the Heavens and the Earth, and it was so. You know, that “and” is doing a heck of a lot of work. You look all the way through it, he says something, and it was so. Says something, and God said it was good. Said something, and God said it was good.

You know, that “and” is like a billion years of time and space in that “and.” I mean, we’re just skipping over a whole lot of stuff that we would like to understand in that “and.” I’m telling you, all of our scientific endeavor is trying to figure out that “and” bit, between God says it’s going to happen and then he said it was good. We want to know between the “and.” We don’t have to. We don’t have to be confused by complications. And that’s why we had the whole big, you know, some people say, well, you have the Trinity in there because, you know, in the story of Genesis, God is referred to as “we,” in the plural. So that’s the Trinity there.

Okay, that’s kind of a reach. I mean, you know, when the King of England or Queen of England says “We are not amused,” they’re not talking that they’re the Trinity, you know, there’s a “royal we” kind of thing. But I like to think they picked that out, the little lectionary elves picked that up because here’s another thing we don’t understand. You’ve got the Trinity. Everybody’s confused. Let’s throw in the creation story, too, just so long as we’re doing a confusion Sunday. But it doesn’t have to be confusion. It could be wonder. Saying, look at all those wonderful things God’s done.

You know, God just didn’t do it. I think it’s very important in our times. God said it was good. So when people tell you other people are bad or these people aren’t good enough or these people are below us or beneath us or don’t have the right to be here, or don’t have the right to exist, or should pull themselves up by their own – remember what God said. God said it was good. It was good. People are good. God doesn’t make trash is what they used to say. But not only that, God makes people good. That’s complex. That’s wondering. That’s confusing. We want to understand it, want to dissect it, want to have the PowerPoints. But nope. Just got to go with God is good. God made the world good. God made people good.

So if something’s bad in the world, guess what? Guess whose that is? That’s us. Enough of that. Let’s go on to the psalm. Psalm’s great; isn’t it? Psalms? Psalm is great for wonder. Because, you know, you go out there, and you don’t hear the quantum mechanics and the astrophysics of how all the stars are made and move and go and come and red shift and dopplers and all this other stuff. Psalm just goes out there and says, why is God caring about me? In all this, God cares about us. In its infinite vastness of the universe, God cares about us.

That’s wonder. Not confusion. It’s living in the joy and in the wonder. It’s a wonderful time. Not a confusing time. I’m angry because God didn’t check it out with me before God went on and did God things. God did explain everything to God. And that goes right on. We’re running now. Keep up with me. That goes right on to the epistle where Paul says – gives it grace, and says, “Grace of the father,” and “Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,” the love and fellowship. And you say, how do we get together on that? Does one come, and then they do like a costume change or put on a different mask or get on a collar? Instead of an open-collar shift they put on a collar with a thing. And then they come out and do the other thing, but it’s the same person.

You know, Christy’s sitting in the pew saying Christy up in the collar. No, that’s all heresy. You’ve got to approach that with wonder and say, wow. Look at all that. The love, the grace, the fellowship. It’s all there. I don’t know how it all works, but I’m sure glad it does. Kind of like the way I treat my car. I don’t know how it works. I’m sure glad it moves and goes places.

And then the last one, the gospel. In the gospel, don’t you love the disciples? You’ve got to really look at the disciples because they’re a bunch of bumbling fools; you know? And I feel better about myself the more I read about the disciples because I said, if those guys can make it, I’ve got a shot; you know. I’ve got at least a shot. Because they’re in there, you know, here they are, they’re in the end of the ministry, been hanging out with Jesus. I mean, you and me think, oh, if we had met Jesus, we would be onboard. We would be 100% Jesus; you know? But, you know, the disciples, they were there the whole time. And they said, hey, we’re worshiping him. But some doubted. I go, what’s with these guys? You know?

And I said, “I feel better about myself because sometimes, you know, maybe I have a doubt or two; you know? Things happen.” But it wasn’t like, okay, Jesus didn’t say, oh, let me explain it all to you and answer all your doubts. We’ll have a town hall. You can all yell at me about how you’re upset about the way I’m running the church, and I’ll explain it to you. We’ll all come into a wonderful happy agreement, and I’ll tell you all the things.

No, he said, he knows he had doubt. He says, “Go therefore and go out and do good things. Go out there and make disciples of all the nations. Tell everybody to love one another. Tell them to love their enemies. Tell them to love the stranger.” Oh, no, you’re getting political. “Tell them to love the stranger. Tell them to love the soldier in your land. Tell them that God loves everyone. Tell them that God made everything good. Even countries that aren’t ours are still good.” [Gasp] Political again.

He didn’t wait. He didn’t explain it. He didn’t give them the why. He didn’t answer their doubts. He just took them. He just expected them. Show up, doubts and all. Come on in. Come as you are. And these people were disciples. I mean, you know, they’ve got logos and stained glass and people praying to them and stuff. Still doubts. There’s hope for us. We don’t have to be sure and understand everything and remember our good old friend, Fat Man Augustine, that says, “If you think you understand, you don’t understand.” Huh. Huh. I feel better about that.

 And remember about our favorite science fiction with Neal there, Stephenson, said, “We like to think of ourselves as intelligent people. We don’t expect to understand stuff. We’re okay if things are contradictory.” You know a contradictory thing is, it’s when a teenager – anyone had experience with teenagers? Been a teenager? I was talking to someone, there’s a church that’s misbehaving. They called me in. Ah, there’s a wonder. I’ve got to tell you. Saying come in. And he said, “What are we going to do about this person?” And I go, well, you know, they’re doing everything we asked. Everything we told them to do, they’re doing. They’re just yelling and screaming about it and writing letters about how horrible it is.

And that’s kind of like the teenager that you tell them to go up to their room, and they’re going up to their room yelling and screaming at you the whole way. You know? “Why is it so unfair?” They’re going to their room, you know, so you they’re kind of sort of getting it. You know, moving toward obedience, even though they’re yelling about it. And we can handle that as intelligent people. As adult people we can say, “Yeah, that’s kind of messed up, mixed up, crazy there. But, yeah, pretty good mostly. We’re all right. We can handle the creation story.” How did all that happen in one day? That “and” thing is just really blowing my mind between the I’m going to do this, now it’s done.

Wait a minute. What’s the middle? We’re okay with that. Mostly. We’re okay with I have some doubts and don’t know everything. Well, that’s okay, go out and tell everybody to love everybody, and that God loves them. Even with the doubts? Yeah, even with the doubts. Do ahead and do that. We so much want to understand stuff. It’s why we keep making heresies out of the Trinity because we try to understand it, we can’t understand it because it’s the basis of God, and we get all upset and try to make it simple. Try to make it into a shamrock, or try to make it into a, you know, the ice cube tray in the refrigerator, you know, the automatic ice cube stuff. How does that work? It’s not what we should do. We’re not supposed to understand it, and that is kind of a little scary for people that aren’t intelligent.

I’m complimenting you here now. I’m believing you’re all intelligent people, and you expect to not know everything and be okay with that and be in wonder. Well, how does that work out in a romcom from the 1990s, Christy? I know that is a question everybody asks. Everybody asks. Sure, he’s a good preacher, but what about a romcom from the ‘90s? I need that romcom. I want you to take a look at “Groundhog Day.” This is Rita. Rita is going somewhere between confusion and wonder here. She has questions of she thought she knew this guy, Bill Murray, who’s playing Phil Connors. Thought she knew this guy. And then things happen. And then she has a choice about whether she’s going to get the long or short version of what everything is. Or whether she’s going to commit herself and all that she has to the wonder that is Phil Connors.

Rita didn’t need all her questions answered, either the short or the long version, to commit $339.88, her total net worth, I imagine, to be into the wonder of Phil Connors. We do not need the long or short version of the Trinity to know when something good has been created, and that we are invited into relationship with. Take that as your Trinity Sunday sermon. Amen.

Wondering and Wonder

Locked Room

Locked Room

Locked Room

a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING

Audio from worship at the 10:00 AM Worship Service April 12, 2026
at St Peter’s Episcopal Church, Carson City, Nevada

edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.

  John 20:19-31

 Sermons also available free on iTunes

The disciples were in a locked closet for fear of the government authorities that come and take non-citizens, torture them, and then kill them. Now, the scripture said Jews; but we know better, don’t we. We know it was Romans, not rabbis, that came and took Jesus away. We know it was Romans, not rabbis, that put him on the cross. The government killed Jesus. Like to smooth that over and blame the Jews. Or maybe the religious authorities.

Where was Thomas? Did you ever wonder? What in the heck was he doing? I mean, it’s going to be like 2,000 years before they have kids’ soccer on Sunday morning, and I don’t know what else. I’m thinking maybe, maybe he was like a closeted Presbyterian, and he was off at some Presbyterian church somewhere. They go, “Where is he? Oh, he’s doing Presbyterian.” I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe he didn’t want anything to do with what the disciples were doing, hiding from the government in a locked room, in a closet, if you will. I don’t do politics. I don’t want to meet with those politics. Doesn’t affect me. I’m good. I’m fine. I’m wonderful. Doesn’t affect me. Nothing to fear. Long as you do right, don’t cause trouble, you’ll be fine. You don’t have to lock the door for fear. Wasn’t in the room.

How many rooms do we stay out of? How many places do we not go because we’re afraid of what we will find there? Worried that it’s going to challenge our biases, our expectations, our beliefs. You know, it’s really easy to do, stay away from people that are suffering, that are oppressed, that are under the heel, and say it doesn’t exist because I didn’t see it. Doesn’t affect me. They must be doing something wrong because I’m fine. And I’m not talking politics. I’m not talking about rules and regulations, laws and elections. I’m not talking about political party. I’m not telling you who to vote for. I’m not talking to you about any of that stuff. I am talking morality.

And if you say any talk of morality is subject to politics, well, then, we disagree on that, too, because I believe there is more things to life than politics. I believe there are more important things in life and faith than politics. I believe that politics does not feed to what we get to talk about or what we believe or who we love or what we support or what we say is not allowed. I believe in going into locked rooms that politicians say stay out of there. Don’t talk to those people. You can’t trust them. So stay out of them locked doors and don’t listen to the people that are imprisoned. Don’t talk to the people.

America has 5% of the world’s population. Five, 5%. But of the total population of the people in prison, we have 25%. Are we that much worse than every other country in the world? Are we five times worse than every other country in the world? I do not believe that. I saw that’s a moral issue, not a political issue. We lock up people and then say, well, I didn’t see it. Must not be happening. There was a saying about doing your own research, you know. But does doing your own research often just mean watching some – going down some rabbit hole on YouTube and as the algorithm takes you more and more to what you like more and more, and you don’t hear anything else, you don’t go in a locked room.

Or it might be just your limited bias, your limited experience as a person growing up, and you don’t see anybody else. It might be that social media echo chamber where you just like the people that say what you like, and then suddenly all you hear is yourself echoed back through influencers and posters and content providers. But you don’t see any of that. Heck, now we’ve got AI. AI will tell you anything you want. AI will hallucinate if it needs to, to tell you what you want to know, how you want to know it. We’ll never get to that room where Jesus is. We’ll never be in that room where people are scared for their lives. We’ll never be in that room where people are suffering. And I tell you what, we’ll never see scars. And we say there is no pain. I haven’t seen any scars. Unless I see them, they’re not there. They don’t exist.

I can drive through town and not get shot dead, so it didn’t happen. Renee Good, Alex Pretti must have been doing something wrong. Because I don’t want to go in there where I think that people are shot dead in the streets. I don’t want to go that route. Might be scars in there. Heck fire. I might get some scars. Oh, no. You know, church has always been about experiential, where we’re all about the experience and the belief and the overwhelming and the feelings and all that. That’s great. But, you know, the church never stopped there. The church has always been experience plus.

You know, like Alexa+. You get the extra AI on your little talking thing? Oh, my god, it’s just annoying. And then, or Amazon+ or whatever plus. Where religions, where experience plus. And that plus is testimony. Which is a limited subset of what a plus really is. Testimony to people talking about their experience, what they believe, where they’ve been, how they’re doing. Sure, that’s a plus. But the real plus includes the testimony, but it’s actually something called empathy. Empathy. Where we feel the other people. Where we’ve gone into that locked room and found out what other people do to those that preach peace and love and acceptance of others.

Thomas almost got it. I don’t know, maybe he did. But Thomas seems to think that the scars and the holes and the wounds are some kind of ID, you know, like a passport or the CLEAR ID or some kind of TSA program where you have to have biometrics in order to figure out who Jesus is. But that’s not what Jesus showed him, I think. I think what Jesus was saying goes, yeah, you’re not hurt. Yeah, you don’t have scars. Yeah, they didn’t crucify you. But they do it to other people. And you should recognize that. You should feel that. You should know, feel, be empathetic with those that are suffering and are full of scars.

Not to say that Jesus exists, but to say that suffering exists. Other people exist. Other people matter. Oh, my gosh, you’re saying that’s so close to black lives matter. Other people matter. Not just what I feel and think and experience and know. ICE isn’t coming to Carson City. We’re fine. Been told that. Really? We’re all out there with Thomas. There’s places I don’t want to go. Oh, my gosh. I can’t think of any. One thing I think about right now is telling my daughter how to parent. Oh, man. Don’t want to go in there. That’s awful. That’s a dangerous place. But, you know, I know about her pain and her suffering. I see it. Trying to navigate a 10-year-old that, not really, that she suddenly got. Not from her significant others.

I remember talking to a really gifted and competent church leader. And I asked him why he hadn’t been moderator in a presbytery, you know, a leader in the church. I forgot he was gay. At that time, gay people couldn’t have leadership in the church. I was kind of embarrassed. I was running around in my white cis male privilege everywhere, unaware of who was hiding in locked closets, looking at each other’s scars, telling tales of oppression and heartache that I just skip on by.

Thomas, you know, something, you know, he started out kind of denying and doubting, and we kind of make a little fun of him. But you know what? That guy went into the locked door. He went into the locked room. He risked his bias, he risked his belief, he risked that everything’s okay, and I’ve just got to live my good life and think good things will happen. He risked all that and went into that locked room because he believed the testimony of others. He did not just research, but a real search. He went to find the people that were hurting and were telling him things he didn’t believe and went where they were and checked it out and experienced it and found some scars.

So when people say, well, I’ve done your research, I’ve done my research, how about doing a real search? How about talking to some real people? I bet you whatever research you did you didn’t talk to one single real person that was affected by whatever you’re talking about. How about doing that? Next time someone says they’ve done their research or you do your research. Harder to do.

Just did a schedule for – I’m in the 12-Step group, and I did a schedule for our region, and I noticed how over the last five years we’ve pretty much moved to Zoom. I’m how thinking how much we lost that, you know, the time before, the time after. I think those are the times that we show each other our scars and our wounds. And we can touch them and say, yeah, you really got hurt. It’s real.

Apple TV series “Shrinking,” love it. It’s almost worth buying. You can get like a month free or something, you can just do them all, three seasons. It’s about some psychiatrists and counselors working away. The finale was there, I’m not going to spoil it all, but there was one. Harrison Ford’s in it. Harrison Ford’s fans, okay, cool, he’s very much so. So Harrison’s in there, and he’s the lead psychologist. And he’s talking to Jimmy, the other main character.

And Jimmy’s had some rough times through the series, really rough times with his wife dying, his father issues, his daughter, all sorts of relations. And Harrison Ford as Paul comes and tells him, meets him where he’s at and says,

Letting go of the past just means you don’t allow your scars to hold you back anymore

I’m covered in them Paul. 

Good. What a shame to be 42 years of age and not completely covered in scars. They are the evidence of a life fully lived.

That means you’ve been with people, that means you’ve reached out and you’ve loved people. That means you’ve been in relationships. 

And he had arranged that the relationship he was scared to continue was sitting right over there. And he says, “Your breakfast isn’t with me.” Okay. It’s a spoiler. “Your breakfast isn’t with me. It’s with her.” And he says, “Go make some more scars.”

Gee, Christy, that was really good. But it was kind of a downer. I mean, really, we usually have some ‘90s romcom, you know, to bring us a little up, you know. Well, guess what? Warning. The word “gay” is seen a lot in this clip. So much gay. So buckle up.

This would be a room without doubt. Be gay.

Clip from In & Out 
© 1997 Paramount Pictures Corporation

Locked Room

Advent New Year

Guest Preacher and Canon Chuck McCray speaks about Advent

10 AM Service December 1, 2024

St Peter’s Episcopal Church, Carson City Nevada

Audio Recording

posted by permssion

Surprise Judge

Surprise Judge

Surprise Judge
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

Text from 8 AM service Worship Service Novmeber 26, 2023

at St Peter’s Episcopal Church

edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.

  Matthew 25:31-46

 Sermons also available free on iTunes

Surprise. This scripture’s about surprise. And you may think, which one? Because there’s many. Some of you, and I’m trying not to look at you again, some of you are shocked, dismayed, perhaps threatened that he said to those on the left are cursed and go to hell. The left go to hell? What? What? That doesn’t sound like us. But calm down because remember he was facing them. So the left was on the right, and the right was on the left.

That’s not the surprise. Well, what’s the surprise? Well, there’s a big surprise there, two surprises, in both groups of people that come up to the judgment. One, they were surprised; and they said, what, us? When did we see you hungry or thirsty or naked or in prison or thirsty, and we did not care for you? When did that happen? It’s so surprising that that happened. And the other group said, when did we do that? And we did take care of you. Even the ones who took care and did the work are surprised. Why are they surprised?

Whenever Jesus tells a story – and this is more of a story than a prediction or a prophecy, it’s more of a story – you always look for the weird part, the surprising part, the part that doesn’t make any sense. Because that’s the part that’s God, when it doesn’t make any sense. How in the world do people not know how they live their life? I mean, America is all about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You know, I have a personal relationship with my savior, Jesus Christ, and he is my personal king. You know, the whole king thing. You know, I have a king, and that’s a surprise, as well, the king stuff. What? King? Wait a minute, Christy. That sounds political. Can’t have any of that. Can’t have any of the nations and all that. That’d be political.

Well, yeah. It is political if and only if your politics are that the sick should suffer, be in prison, should languish. The hungry should starve. And the thirsty shall go without water. If that’s your politics, if that’s your platform, if that’s what you run your candidates on, well, then, yes, taking care of those in need is political. But if it is, we’ve got a long way to go. Because taking care of those that need care shouldn’t be a political debate. But that’s not the surprise. None of that’s the surprise.

The surprise is that this scripture isn’t talking to me and thee. It’s talking to we and us. What? It’s not about a personal king and salvation that is my personal lord and savior? And we can’t just say to Jesus when we go up to heaven, and say, hey, Jesus, I did a good life, I didn’t oppress anybody, I didn’t do any racial profiling, I didn’t hold down anybody, I didn’t throw anybody out on the street. I didn’t make anybody – I am going to heaven then. No, the surprise is it’s everyone who’s gathered, the nations of the world and the peoples are judged, and everything in here is plural.

That’s a surprise. What? We’re not going to be judged on our personal relationship with Jesus Christ as our lord and savior? Apparently not. How did y’all, be nice if we had that plural, how do you y’all treat the ones that need the most care? That’s how you get judged. Wow. That’s a surprise. I thought I just had to keep myself, you know, reasonably a good person, and I have a reasonable chance of going to heaven, with everybody else on the left who are on Jesus’s right. But it turns out not. The whole Christ the King Sunday is not about a personal relationship between me and a sovereign.

And if you think about it, a king thing, everybody doesn’t get their own personal king. That’s really not how the king thing works, royalty works. The king, the royalty, the sovereign is for the whole nation. It’s for all the people. It’s not just for, well, I have a king, and then that person over there has another king, and that person has another king. We all have our own kings. We would like it to be that way, individualistic and just dependent upon ourselves.

But oh, my gosh, that whole love one another as I have loved you, do unto others as I would do unto you is actually something he expects us to do. That’s the surprise. That’s a surprise. We can’t get away from it. We live and participate in a society that doesn’t help the imprisoned. You know in prisons they can’t make phone calls? They have to stand in line, do the old collect call and pay hundreds, pay bunches of dollars and fistfights and all that, when they all have tablets, and they could just call on their tablet and actually see their loved ones. But that’s not allowed. That’s us. That’s not the prisons. That’s not the politicians. It’s us, according to the scripture. Us.

When were you in prison, didn’t let people visit you? Oh. Every time it happens within the group we’re in? That’s a surprise. When are there times when people can’t get the care they need when they’re sick because of politics of sickness? Why is it okay for the government to do healthcare for those over 65, that’s okey-dokeys, but those under 65 it’s terrible, awful communism, I don’t know what political thing. What is it?

What if we had Medicare for all? What if all the insurance companies who I have a hard time finding anybody that says, you know, I love my medical insurance company. They are a source of joy and comfort in my life. No. And you say, well, that’s not my worry. That’s not my concern. I help out. There’s a guy with a cardboard sign, I give him five bucks. You know, I helped someone to the hospital the other day. I looked out on my neighbor. Nope. Nope. I’ve got a surprise for you. It’s how the whole group talks.

Gee, Christy, I just talked to you about – you were talking about kings today, about maybe flags in the sanctuary, maybe about who gives our – we give our allegiance to. Unh-unh. Not that easy. It’s not individualistic. It’s communal. This scripture is surprising. And I urge you to be surprised by it and go out and work for peoples and nations and lands where those that need care are taken care of. And it’s not political. It’s religious. Amen.