Surprise Judge
Christy Ramsey
Surprise Judge
Surprise Judge
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey
Audio and text from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service November 26, 2023
at St Peter’s Episcopal Church
edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.
John 8:12-19
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Surprise. This is a surprise scripture. Most everybody in the scripture was surprised except the king. They were all going, “What? What’s going on here?” Remember that, that’s a surprise. Today is Christ the King Sunday, difficult place for us. One, we’re not fond of kings in the United States. Two, we’re not fond of having politics in the church, and you can’t get much more political than talking about a king. You get in trouble with that. We don’t like King Jesus. We’d rather just move right on to Advent, you know, maybe a Thanksgiving Sunday, even stewardship, Christy. But not king. And when we do, we’d like to make it our own personal Jesus king. You know, I have a king. King is Jesus.
That’s not how kings work. Kings have a whole nation. That’s the whole point of being king. It’s no fun being king of one person. It’s not a thing. But we like it that way. We like to have a personal Jesus, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. My lord, my savior, personal, all about me, me, me, I, I, I. We like to make Jesus about ourselves. And Christ the King is when we get the surprise. It’s not about me, me, me and Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Now, I did not come this year to the Thanksgiving dinner at the Episcopal church, and I’m pretty confident it didn’t go the way we’re going to look in the video. But here’s a way that people like to make their Jesus their own personal Jesus. It’s from “Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby.”
We all like to make Jesus in our own image, and you can choose your own Jesus if you’re an American. But surprise. It’s not what the scripture’s about. Surprise. Now, some of you think, and I’m trying not to look at anybody, again, some of you think the surprise is that the right get to go to heaven, and the left go to hell. Well, that’s not the way we planned it out. We always thought the left were the heavenly people, and the right, you know, we’re not too sure about them. You know. But calm down. Just remember, Jesus was looking at the people. So the people on the left were on the right, and the people – so, yeah. Take a little comfort in that. But that’s not the surprise I was talking about. Not a surprise.
Everyone there is surprised that Jesus led them out and said, called them out and said, you know, you helped me when I needed help. And they all said, “What?” Or that you didn’t help me when I did. And they said, “What? How is that possible?” You know, when Jesus tells a story, and it’s just more a story than a prophecy, I think; could be, I think. And you look for the weird part, the part that you stumble over, the part that surprises you. Because that’s what God’s doing.
Why is everybody surprised? Because it’s not your own personal Jesus. What’s the first part of the scripture? He called the nations together. And all the way through it, you can’t see it in the scripture, it’s in the plural. You nation. You group of people. You did not provide for the sick and the sad, the sick and the imprisoned. You did not provide for the hungry and the thirsty. You did not provide for the naked and the impoverished. As a nation, as a people. No wonder everyone’s surprised. Because they thought their own personal Jesus, their own King Jesus and them were on good terms. I go to church. I do my things. I try to help out. I went to fish. I went, dropped off a turkey at a Salvation Army Turkey Drop. I haven’t really impoverished anybody this week. You know, I’m good. Me and Jesus, me and my own king, we’re good, one on one. Not looking around at everybody else.
Surprise. He’s not just your king. He’s the king of everybody. He’s the king of nations. We’re on the hook for it all. I was told the first time that universal healthcare was brought up in our nation in the presidential elections – anybody know?
ATTENDEE: The ‘20s?
1916. I could be wrong, 1912. FDR. You know him, a crazy guy, taking care of people. Haven’t got it done. We got it done for people over 65. Why is it moral for people over 65 to get government universal healthcare over here, but the people under 65, oh, no, no, no, no, can’t have that. That’d be politics. That’d be ruining the whole nation. Well, what happened with the 65? You know, what if we just took out “65 and older” and went all the way down? Got rid of the health insurance company. Oh, no, Christy, not the health insurance companies. I love mine, said no one ever.
Oh, Christy, that’s politics. You’re talking politics. You’re talking politics. Well, yes. If your politics are that sick people should suffer and die without healthcare, well, I guess I’m talking politics. If one of the planks on your platform for your political party is that sick people shouldn’t get care unless they can pay for it, and they should just suffer depending on how much money they have, well, if that’s your politics, yeah, I’m talking politics. But I’m telling you you’re talking religion. I’m not stepping into your arena. You’re in my house. I’ve got us a king that says the sick are taken care of, end of story, period. So when you tell me the sick are not taken care of, they don’t have insurance – oh, it’s a preexisting condition. Every condition is preexisting unless you develop it in the waiting room.
My king says the sick are taken care of. My king says the hungry are fed. And not just me and mine. The king of y’all. I’ve got news for you. Surprise. The king is of y’all. It’s a plural. It’s not just me, well, if you want to, you and the church can go and do this and help out the people. Well, yeah. But that doesn’t let everybody off the hook. The nations get gathered together, not the church people. They don’t have the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and divide them up. Unh-unh. The nations. Everyone. You’re supposed to do all this.
And that’s why everyone is surprised. They say, what? You really meant that thing about love one another? You really meant that thing about everyone’s our neighbor? That was a real thing? I thought it was just, you know, me and my actual neighbor next door to me on my street, who I’m pretty sure is named Kit. No. It’s the whole nation. It’s everybody. It’s a community.
So I’m not telling you to be political. I’m telling you to be religious. When someone says, oh, that’s politics, your politics don’t trump my religion, man. I’ve got it right here in the scripture. The nations are judged by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is not judged by the nation-state. Oh, no, Jesus, you can’t go there. That’s a no-go zone for you. No. No. Be so much nicer to have our own personal Jesus, talk about king and allegiance, maybe even throw in a little controversy about flags in the sanctuary, you know, your traditional Christ the King Sunday. But no. Surprise. Surprise. It’s about all of us, not just one of us. Amen.
