If you're like me, you may see this Sunday after Thanksgiving as a kind of "reprieve" Sunday. The Thanksgiving celebration is over, and hopefully it brought its own meaning and joys. And the December frenzy has not yet set in. We have a chance to catch our breath and "get a grip" in preparation for what lies ahead. In fact, you may well be seeing this weekend as a "get a grip" interlude at a hectic time of year.

Unlike most years, this first Sunday after Thanksgiving does not mark the beginning of Advent. So what do we do with it from a liturgical point of view? Because the church year begins with Advent, the Sunday before Advent obviously marks the end of a year; traditionally this last Sunday is called "Christ the King" Sunday. Most years we don't have much opportunity to observe it because it coincides with Thanksgiving Sunday. But today we are free to give it our attention. Christ the King is a day that tries to sum up the meaning of Christ by affirming his sovereignty over all of life. You remember that when Jesus was brought before Pilate before his crucifixion, Pilate asked him whether he was a king. And Jesus' answer, according to John's gospel was, "For this I was born, and for this I came into the world." But what does it mean for us in the 21st century, in our thoroughly democratic and egalitarian mindset, to talk about Christ's kingship? How do we view his lordship in human affairs and in our own lives today?

Our reading from Colossians today appears to have been an early Christian hymn about Christ's status in the cosmos, and it makes the case in very ethereal language that Christ is at the very heart of the created order. "In him all things were created," the writer says, "and in him all things hold together." I believe the opening words of John's gospel may help us understand what the Colossians writer is trying to say. "In the beginning was the Word," John writes, "and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came into being through him." Now, my way of translating this is that the Word is the ultimate DNA of the universe that brought about all of creation. It is the generating Principle that gave rise to all of life. And when John goes on to say that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, he's saying that in Christ we see the incarnation of this ultimate reality in its supreme form. Jesus was the earthly embodiment of God's DNA-especially in a moral and spiritual sense. So Colossians can argue that the pre-existent Christ, the Word, was the source of all creation. The true DNA of all things is in Christ, and when every part of creation lives in sync with the physical and moral and spiritual DNA that went into it, then it will all hold together and work the way it was meant to.

Now, if you haven't completely followed this ethereal line of reasoning, don't despair. The bottom line is that if Christ really has the status that the writers of Colossians and John claim, then he has every claim to be the lord of our lives. Our world was created to hold together in him. But if all things holding together is supposed to be evidence for Christ's kingship, most of us would have to say that evidence looks pretty shaky today. So many forces in our world seem bent on tearing things apart, and, sadly, that includes a fair amount of violence that is religiously motivated. Today's terrorist movements are pushing our sense of discord to heightened levels, yet the religious and racial and economic and political and cultural divisiveness among us has been around for most of human history. And too many, it would appear, don't really care that much about working for a more together world. Many would rather fight than negotiate. People seem so preoccupied with their own agendas and goals and pursuits that simple respect for one another is often missing. If you drive a car, you know what I mean. The focus on "my personal well-being" seems to cut the nerve of any meaningful caring for the common well-being of the larger community.

At the end of the block where Jean and I live, there's a little triangle of land that the city is allowing to be used as a community flower garden. One of our former neighbors took the initiative in getting it developed and planted, but now the question is who will weed it and maintain it? I have to admit the resistance I feel to taking my turn; I'd much rather put the time into my own garden. And most of our neighbors have no involvement with it at all. Right now it's looking rather run-down and seedy-a symbol of the need for more pulling together in our neighborhood.

I'm sure you could come up with your own illustrations of how you see the world not holding together -which raises the question, is the God we know in Jesus Christ really in charge here? Is anyone or any power in charge? It's sometimes suggested that Satan is really running things, yet I wonder if even Satan is capable of the chaos and fragmentation we often experience.

Many of you have heard of Dr. Stephen Hawking, the brilliant professor of mathematics and physics at Cambridge University. Dr. Hawking has been so bold as to try to come up with a comprehensive theory of how the universe works, which he calls "the theory of everything," or TOE for short. "My proposal," he writes, "is that the universe is a closed system. We don't need to suppose there's something outside the universe which is not subject to its law. . . . The laws of science are sufficient to explain the universe." So up to this point he's implying that how things hold or don't hold together is simply a function of natural law which we may or may not understand. But then, he continues, we are still left with one final question: "What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? If I knew that, then I would know everything important."

Well, of course, only faith can answer that question. But the writer of Colossians is clear about the answer: God revealed in Christ breathed fire into the equations that gave rise to our universe. God is the author of all creation, and therefore in the cosmic Christ all things ultimately do hold together.

But it's also clear that things don't hold together because God is there holding the strings to everything. In a previous church I served, there was a gifted puppeteer who would delight the congregation with his productions. He was so good that in our fantasy we could see the various puppets cavorting about and acting out the story as though they were autonomous characters. Yet we knew nothing really happened apart from the puppeteer and his partner manipulating the strings that controlled every motion. But that's not how God has organized the universe. God does not have us on a string, but rather has given us the freedom to act and think as we will-subject to the laws of nature to be sure, but with wills of our own to decide what choices we will make. And when our choices have the consequence of giving us a fragmented human order, God does not reach down to undo our chaos apart from our wills.

How then is God's universe held together? I think there are two things to be said. The first rests on our faith that our Creator has not abandoned this wondrous enterprise called life. In the words of an old English hymn, "God is working a purpose out as year succeeds to year." God wills that ultimately this human venture will arrive at the fulfillment and togetherness for which it was created, and God will empower this to happen, in God's own way and time. God has not given up on us, no matter how pessimistic or cynical we may become. This is still God's world.

And yes, we are also connected by the divine DNA, which means there is a moral structure and order to our universe. And to the extent we live in harmony with this moral order, we will find the wholeness and togetherness we are meant to have. And how do we discern God's moral order? We look to Jesus the Christ-the one in whom "all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell." When we live as though Christ is the lord of life, we put ourselves, as fully as possible, in sync with the divine order, which is our best chance of realizing our birthright of harmony and fulfillment in God's world.

But to be sure we do have a choice. God will not stop us if we keep trying to run our lives on our own terms, no matter how much chaos and division we create. And we can continue to crouch in fear and

despair in the face of our fractured world and wish it were different. But we can also decide to live trusting in Christ's kingship, and so invest our energies and our gifts in working toward a more together world. That doesn't make it an easier alternative to live out, but in terms of the benefits it wins hands up!

Loretta Altieri is a bus driver in south Orange County who makes this kind of choice for herself. In the course of her work she runs across more homeless, needy, or otherwise untogether people than most of us because she finds them riding her bus or lying on bus-stop benches. But rather than casting a blind eye on them as she so easily could, she's the kind of person who checks in with them to see if there's some way she can help-perhaps a free ride somewhere, which she pays for, or a listening ear, or steering them to other channels of help. One day she sensed that one of her passengers seemed very troubled, so Loretta began a conversation with her to see if she could help. Soon the woman was pouring out her marital problems in a conversation that went on for weeks during her commutes on the bus, and today that troubled woman thinks of Loretta as like a mother to her. So why does Loretta reach out like this? In part because she was born into an abusive family and knows what it meant to have caring people reach out to her when she needed that. And in part it's because she is a conscious Christian who wants to make her world a little better and finds joy in doing so. She chooses to live so that life is more together for her and for those whom she helps.

A very significant part of the fallout of the past two-plus months is the recognition that we don't have the level of control over our destinies that we used to believe we had. Life is shakier and more uncertain now, and more than ever we need to have faith in a divine power beyond us holding it all together. The good news of our scriptures is that this is the kind of God we have! And in Jesus Christ we have been shown how to live in harmony with the Power that gave us life and wills to hold us together in shalom. Our part is to be faithful stewards of life under the lordship of Christ, knowing that in him our labor is not in vain.