Christ the King?

Scripture:

Revelation 1:4-8
John 18:33-37

We Americans, founded as we are on democratic principles and in our early years actually rebelling against an English king, don’t take the monarchy very seriously. In fact, kings are more often a matter for buffoonery or clay feet than leaders to be looked up to – like the French King I play in Mark Twain’s “Is He Dead?” or the sentimental, weak ruler who is so afraid of dying in Eugene Ionesco’s “Exit the King”. Mel Brooks may have famously said, “It’s good to be the king,” but this was clearly in a farcical context. Today’s British monarchy is but a shadow of its former self, and even though we mourned with English people and folk around the world at Diana’s tragic death, this was more from the perspective of celebrity than royalty. If you go back to Shakespeare there were certainly larger-than-life dramatic figures in Lear and Richard III and Henry V – but these were tragically flawed characters, needy and egotistical and war-mongering. When we think of kings we are more likely to think of someone like Henry II executing Thomas a Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, because he was threatened by him rather than accepting his friendship, or Henry VIII killing off all those wives and finally Thomas More, over a dispute with the church, instead of a kind, benevolent ruler who uses his or her power to truly benefit the people they serve.

So, given this history and our distrust if not downright abhorrence of kings, why in the world do we have this one Sunday in the liturgical calendar when we are supposed to celebrate Christ the King? (You’ll notice that I put “Christ the King” with a question mark in the sermon title – it’s intended to reflect precisely this question.) Well, the quick answer is that in the time of Jesus and for many centuries before that kings and emperors were all the people knew as rulers, so to call Christ a king was to put him on a par with those at the absolute top of the leadership pyramid (oh sure, there was a time in Israel’s history when they were ruled by judges, but the people’s historical memory of this period was probably pretty short by the first century A.D.).

I would be willing to bet that you haven’t observed very many “Christ the King” Sundays in this congregation. For one thing, it typically falls on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and so the sermon is given over to ways in which we ought to be thankful (I took care of that this year with the children’s talk, so if you came here mainly to get your Thanksgiving sermon fix, you can go ahead and leave now). For another thing, it’s usually thought of as being related to Roman Catholic and Anglican and Lutheran traditions – churches in the Reformed tradition don’t pay much attention to it. Indeed one Catholic web site says, “In the 21st century many Western Christians, Catholic and Protestant, celebrate Christ the King Sunday, including Anglicans and Lutherans. Unfortunately, in some mainline Protestant churches, ‘king’ language is not popular, and the feast is downplayed.” However, that same web site goes on to detail why this day is important: “Christians have long celebrated Jesus as Christ, and his reign as King is celebrated to some degree in Advent (when Christians wait for his second coming in glory), Christmas (when “born this day is the King of the Jews”), Holy Week (when Christ is the Crucified King), Easter (when Jesus is resurrected in power and glory), and the Ascension (when Jesus returns to the glory he had with the Father before the world was created). However, [Pope] Pius XI wanted specifically to commemorate Christ as king, and [so] instituted the feast in the Western calendar in 1925.”

There’s certainly plenty of scriptural basis for seeing Christ as a king. The name is found in various forms in scripture: King Eternal (1Timothy 1:17), King of Israel (John 1:49), King of the Jews (Matthew 27:11), King of Kings (1 Timothy 6:15; Revelation 19:16), King of the Ages (Revelation 15:3), and Ruler of the Kings of the Earth (Revelation 1:5, as you heard read and which we’ll come to later).

What has come to happen in our liturgical calendar is that this solemn day of Christ the King comes just before Advent – which is the start of a new year for Christians. So, this day marks the end of our liturgical year; we are completing a cycle of time in our church life – and thus our lives as members of this community – which ends with the affirmation of Jesus the Christ as Lord over us all. Next Sunday, then, we begin again with the anticipation of a birth, a baby, a blessing that we will find the new-born Jesus alive in our lives.

As you know, we have spent quite a bit of time in worship talking about Christ as a servant – even a slave – which is the polar opposite of a king. The servanthood of Jesus, we have said on more than one occasion, is what we are seeking to emulate, not his royalty.

And yet…..here are all these allusions to Christ in a kingly persona, as noted in that quote from the Catholic web site. Is there a disconnect here? Are we running the risk of thinking of ourselves as schizophrenic if we try to think of Christ as both servant and king?

Of course not…..but you already knew I was going to say that. Once again we are in the Biblical realm of paradox – that the one who is lauded as king over all is one who first and foremost serves all. Indeed, the ideal behind those who would seek for power even in our contemporary democracy is to be a “public servant” – and those who truly, selflessly sustain such an ideal come to be seen as statesmen or stateswomen.

What lies behind being a king – or any person in a position of authority – is power. But with Jesus it is a whole different level of power. That great preacher William Sloane Coffin used to say that Jesus reveals an alternative that is not about the “love of power, but the power of love.” It’s about God’s power to heal and transform and forgive and redeem. Where those things are happening, the kingdom is like yeast that makes the whole loaf rise, and like salt that gives food its taste.

And so Pilate is befuddled by this man who is brought before him. Twice he asks Jesus about being a king, and each time Jesus gives him an answer based on his understanding of God’s will for his life, and each time Pilate’s response is off the mark. That’s because for Pilate being a king equates to having power, and a king of the Jews with power over them would be quite a competitor for him. Jesus speaks of a kingdom that “is not from this world” that “is not from here”. In fact it is the realm of God.

That’s why the second heading that you see at the top of your bulletin – the second way of referring to this last day of the liturgical year along with “Christ the King” — is “Realm of Christ”. The realm of Christ – the Kingdom of God – is alive within us. Episcopal priest Richard M. Simpson puts it this way:

“But when Jesus speaks about the Kingdom of God, he doesn’t point to Rome or medieval England or to Superman. He doesn’t say ‘it’s good to be the king.’ Instead, he talks about mustard seeds. Remember? How the tiniest of seeds, watered and nurtured and pruned can become something much larger than anyone could possibly imagine. He tells stories about finding something of great value — like a pearl — and knowing that it matters more than anything else in our lives, so you sell all you have to have it. He reveals the Kingdom of God every time he kisses a leper clean, or makes a blind man see, or speaks with a woman at a well and validates her as a human being. The Kingdom of God is in our midst whenever the hungry are fed. Jesus’ stories about the Kingdom of God are taken from the ‘real’ world — from daily life. They are stories about enough food on the tables of the hungry for them to eat their fill, and healthcare for the poor, and abundant life for all God’s children. Those things continue to happen in our world, if we only have eyes to see.”

The Kingdom of God – the Realm of Christ – is here in our lives. That’s what Jesus is telling Pilate when he says, “’My kingdom is not from this world’” – not from this world of power and authority, not from this world of ruling over and making people bow down, not from this world of courts and courtiers – but from a world where grace and truth abound. “’For this I was born, and for this I came into the world,’” he says, “’to testify to the truth.’” Again, Pilate chooses not to hear what Jesus is really saying when he non-responsively responds, “’What is truth?’” (and we dealt with that subject a few weeks ago). A kingdom that is not of this world is one that does not relate to democracies or republics or monarchies – as forms of government. It is a kingdom that lives in peoples’ hearts.

Jesus the Christ is the servant-king, the shepherd-king, the fisher-king. Do you remember the 1991 movie of that name, “The Fisher King”, starring Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges? In it a Christ-like figure on a contemporary search for the Holy Grail who begins the film as a nearly catatonic homeless man brings reconciliation to the lives of people he touches and who so desperately need that sense of reconciliation. One commentator on this film says, “A central theme of the film, playing on the grail motif, is grace and forgiveness.” Towards the middle of the film, Parry (the Robin Williams character) lies naked on the grass in New York’s Central Park and tells Jack (the Jeff Bridges character) the story of the Fisher King: a boy who is told to find and guard the grail searches for it all his life without finding it; he becomes a great but lonely king; finally a fool wanders into his castle and asks the king what he would like; the king responds, “A drink of water;” the fool fills a cup and gives it to him, and the king sees that the cup is the grail; “How could you find this that I have searched for all my life?”, he asks the fool; “I don’t know,” the fool responds; “I only saw that you were thirsty.” Jack is disturbed both by his friend’s antics and by this story, but it sets off the events that lead to two reconciliations and that grace and that forgiveness which the grail betokens. The final scene is of Parry and Jack again lying on the grass in Central Park – now both of them naked, signifying the innocence and inner peace that has come to each of them, gazing at the nighttime stars, and singing.

John in the Book of Revelation begins with this magnificent vision of Jesus on his throne with seven spirits. But it also includes this brief description of him: “faithful witness”. That’s what Jack and Parry are doing on that grass in Central Park: bearing witness to the reality of grace and forgiveness in their lives. No matter how grandiose a picture is painted of Jesus on his throne, the key to who he is for us is the bearer of witness to that same grace and forgiveness in our lives. Revelation goes on to describe Jesus as “the ruler of the kings of the earth”. Christ is sovereign over Pilate and Herod and Richard III and Henry VIII and Ionesco’s weak king and Elizabeth II and George Bush and Barack Obama and all those who would wage war and seek to dominate others and forget the plight of the poor. Christ the King Sunday helps us as Christians to recognize and worship Christ as king of heaven and earth for all time without challenge and without end.

One of Jesus’ answers to Pilate is: “’You say that I am a king.’” He doesn’t really affirm or deny it. It’s as if he were saying, “It all depends on what you mean by ‘king’”. Jesus is speaking not only to Pilate but to us and our uneasiness about the whole idea of Christ as King. In order to accept this image of the Christ we have to change our whole perspective on what being a king means. And so the qualifiers: servant-king, shepherd-king, fisher-king; Jesus as the king of heaven, the king of sacrifice, the king of love. We have to make these changes in our minds in order to accept the Christ who is king of us all and indeed of all the world. Yes, let us sing “crown with your richest crowns”, but let us also remember that the one we worship is the lamb upon the throne.

Amen.

Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
November 22, 2009