Jesus answered him, “My Kingdom is not from this world.”

Where are you spending Thanksgiving this year?

It is the question of the day? Where are you spending Thanksgiving this year?

Are you going to spend it at a relative’s house, or will all of the pillagers and looters be invading your home this year, or did you decide that the cost of eating out is well worth not having to slice the turkey and clean up after Uncle Eddie?

Where are you spending Thanksgiving this year?

Wherever it is, wherever you go, let me invite you to spend it in the Kingdom of Christ.

Today is Christ the King Sunday, it is the final Sunday in the liturgical year, before we begin all over again next week with The First Sunday of Advent.

We don’t make a big deal about Christ the King Sunday in our tradition, but we should, because we need to learn, as Americans, what it means to have a King.

We Americans like to emphasis being free, but having a King means we belong to someone; we want to make up our minds about the truth of things, but having a King means that we are told what is true and what is not, whether we believe it or like it or not; we place our faith in opinion polls or popular votes, but having a King means there’s only one vote to be cast and its not ours and its really accurate and really final, God does not believe in democracy.

Jesus answered him, “My Kingdom is not from this world.”

And you might be thinking, “well that’s OK, when we die and go to heaven we’ll adjust to the changes, but as long as we are here on earth we’ll keep going with Majority rules.”

And Majority rules is not a bad way for earth bound organizations, governments, and social clubs to make decisions on things that belong to them, but on the great moral and ethical issues of God, all of the votes in the world can’t make something right.

No, you might say, but it works here and even Jesus says that his Kingdom is not in this world, so why worry about it?

Ah, but that is not what Jesus said, is it?

He didn’t say “My Kingdom is not in this world.”

He said “My Kingdom is not from this world.”

There is a difference between where something, or someone, is and where something, or someone, came from. So let’s look a little closer at this Kingdom of Christ thing.

Here’s what we know about nations and kingdoms and the like: they have borders. The Atlantic and Pacific bracket our nation, so that we only need to worry about Mexico or Canada invading us; the Delaware and the Hudson bracket New Jersey leaving us only to worry about our lives being disrupted by wandering New Yorkers, from Port Jervis, Suffern or Warwick.

And nations and kingdoms have historical borders, defined by time.

We can’t visit the USSR, it doesn’t exist, The Republic of Texas isn’t there anymore and Rome of the Caesars is only a memory in the midst of modern Italy.

But before them all and beyond them all and within them all, there was and is and will be Christ, who proclaimed “I am the Alpha and the Omega” the beginning and the end, the first and the last and everything in between.

You see, the Borders of Christ’s Kingdom are not established by geography or by time, it is beyond those limitations, it can’t be pinned down to a place or day or season, something like Margaritaville, but better!

That is why you will rarely catch me talking about the Holy Land being somewhere in the Middle East. My Holy Land is on the suburban streets of Pompton Lakes, my Holy Land is on the sands of the Jersey Shore, my Holy Land is here in this place and at the Warwick Center and at New Brunswick Seminary, the places where I knew and was known by God. That’s what makes a place holy and that’s all that makes a place holy, your encounter with your creator in his Kingdom.

The borders that define Christ’s kingdom were not established in this world and can’t be restricted to latitude, longitude or century; they are always on the move, growing within our hearts and the hearts of others until the prayer we love, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” is transformed from a hope to a reality.

And when there is a moment that we know, certainly and without doubt, in the midst of tears of sorrow or overwhelmed with joy, that God is with us, then, at that moment, we are in the Kingdom of Christ.

Jesus answered him, “My Kingdom is not from this world.”

Let me suggest just three of the many border markings of Christ’s Kingdom today, just so you know what you are looking for, a roadmap to the Kingdom, a roadmap home.

First there is the border of motive.

Jesus was always concerned with why people wanted to follow him, why people would ask him what they did, why they would present themselves and their gifts for his use. And he would ask them, and us, sharp and direct questions that cut to the heart of our motives

He wanted to know, from Pilate, “is this your question or did someone put you up to this?”

So what are you looking for in your relationship with Christ? It is a question whose answers need to be individual, unique, intimate and changing. There are times we are looking for comfort, other times for guidance, or forgiveness or patience or peace or a challenge or a rest. All of those things are good things to look for and all of those things will find answers in the Kingdom. The important thing is that we ask the questions, our questions, and that we answer them honestly.

We’ll never find the Kingdom unless we are clear and straight in our motives and our motives need to be centered on the needs of others, not ourselves.

Jesus answered him, “My Kingdom is not from this world.”

Then there are the borders of principle.

We know, time after time, what is the right thing to do or to say, we know where the borders of principle are, and yet, time after time we plow right over them. There is a disconnect between what we do and what we know we should do.

St. Paul described it best when he said “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. . . I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”

Sometimes, I know, we do things that we shouldn’t because we are just plain spiritually stupid, these are the times when we hear the accusation from the cross “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But there are plenty of other times when we have intentionally and knowingly crossed over the borders of principle and left the kingdom behind us.

Times when we told or laughed at the jokes that belittled others whose race or religion or gender or sexuality were different than ours.

Times when we placed job commitments over baptismal promises.

Times when we sought brief moments of pleasure and shattered wedding vows.

Times, every week for most of us, when we stole God’s money, putting it in our bank accounts rather than his plate.

Times when our earthly loyalty to our country outweighed our eternal loyalty to our King.

These are borders of principle that mark the Kingdom of Christ, borders that are intended to keep us from going places we are not supposed to go and being people we are not supposed to be.

So there are borders of motive and borders of principle.

And there are borders of faith.

Jesus answered him, “My Kingdom is not from this world.”

This world, in our age, belongs the scientists and the accountants, people who need to see things in order to believe them. But the Kingdom of God has never belonged to those who need proof, it always belongs to the faithful, for when we believe things we begin to see them, our faith gives us vision, not the other way around.

And so our King calls us to serve him beyond the limits of science and accounting, out in the border lands of faith.

And when we get there he instructs us to feed the hungry, even though we know that the hungry will always be with us; to shelter the homeless, even when we know that the needs far exceed our ability to respond; to protect the children, to honor the elderly, to make and keep promises to each other and to him, as well as we can, with his help.

These are borders of the Kingdom that need to be protected so that we can celebrate Thanksgiving there together, this week and every day. It is a Kingdom that is more than geography and greater than time, it is a Kingdom that is both outside of our worldly existence, inclusive of it, and fully present within it, it is a Kingdom of pure motives, firm principles and unshakable faith, it is a Kingdom that relies not upon us, but upon our Savior, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the one who is called Emmanuel, God-with-us.

A kingdom like that is a very good place to spend Thanksgiving, wherever we are and whomever we are with.

Jesus answered him, “My Kingdom is not from this world.”