Last Pentecost - Christ the King

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Last Pentecost - Christ the King
PROPER: 29B
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 23,1997

TEXT: John 18:33-37 - Jesus before Pilate - Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

ISSUE: Along with the Daniel and Revelation apocalyptic readings, Jesus standing before Pilate is also apocalyptic in nature. Jesus is the unique revelation of God’s truth. He is not encumbered with all the trappings that go with the world and its meaning of kingship. Jesus is utter simplicity that reveals the Glory of God’s forgiveness and his love. All who focus on him and listen to him, who embrace him, embrace a truth of God. Jesus on the cross sums all that up, once and for all. Keeping focused upon him and following him leads to the way and Kingdom of God. At this time of the year, this focus is not always too easy.
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Today is named by the church as “Christ the King” Sunday. Actually the celebration of Christ the King Sunday was originally celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church as a kind of reaction to the Lutherans. Back in the 1920’s, according to Marion Hatchett a distinguished liturgist at Univ. of the South, the Lutherans celebrated Reformation Sunday on the last Sunday of October. The Roman Church sort of said, “You Lutherans go ahead and honor your Martin Luther if you want, but we Catholics will honor Jesus Christ as our King on that Sunday.” After Vatican II, the Roman Church moved the celebration of Christ the King to the last Sunday before Advent. When our Episcopal Calendar was revised we followed along with that theme of this last Sunday of Pentecost being referred to as both The Last Sunday of Pentecost and/or Christ the King Sunday. There is, of course, a reasonable sense in ending the Church’s year with a celebration that the Lord Jesus Christ whom we have studied, worshiped and adored over the year would be celebrated as our spiritual King.
The Sunday is also The Last Sunday of Pentecost. It marks the end of the church year, which begins anew next Sunday with the beginning of the Advent Season. As last week, today’s reading carry on an apocalyptic theme. The Old Testament vision from the Book of Daniel portrays an Ancient One (God) whose dominion and kingship will never pass away inspite of all the commotions and wars, persecutions, and the rising and falling of nations. God who is king will prevail and never be destroyed. It is a message of hope for the time.
The epistle reading from Revelation is also the apocalyptic literature of the early Christian Church which was also experiencing when this book was written some very difficult times. Romans were demanding Emperor Worship, and Christians were being thrown out of the synagogues and therefore were not exempt, like the Jews were. So the early Christians were suffering persecution from all directions. They looked for and to Christ to come again from the throne of God, from the Alpha and the Omega (beginning and end) to be their ultimate hope and salvation.
The Gospel reading is also apocalyptic in a sense. Taken from the Gospel of John, Jesus has come to his end in the world. He is seen standing before Pilate in judgement just prior to his crucifixion on the cross. Unlike the synoptic accounts where Jesus is largely silent, here Jesus and Pilate are in conversation. Jesus attempts to reveal something to Pilate that he can not really grasp. Pilate who has the power to release Jesus questions him as to whether or not he is really a king: “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus replies that he is not a king in the way in which the world understands political kingship. “My Kingdom is not from this world.” Pilate keeps trying to insist and demand, “So you are a king?” But Jesus will not accept Pilate’s definition of his ministry as a king. He has eome to bear witness to the truth, the truth about God.
For Pilate and for many of the people of Jesus’ time, a King was a political leader. Actually most of the kings, and especially the Jewish Herodian kings were poor rulers. With kingship came power, prestige, wealth, honor, status. For even our own time, Kingship, royalty is a place, and arena of prestige that conjures up images of political influence and prestige. In so many instances the status of grandeur and power rises and falls. Remember that early on in the church year, usually early in Lent, we read the story of Jesus being tempted by Satan. Satan will give Jesus all the nations of the world but for a moment of adoration. Jesus refuses to succumb. He has not come to the world for this kind of power. Satan goes away and bides his time. Now that Jesus confronted with crucifixion and death, Satan comes again in Pilate: Won’t you be a king? Surely you are a king? Pilate cannot understand that Jesus is not after power and prestige as the world knows it. Jesus refuses to play the game. He refuses to be a king as the world understands it. He has come to bear witness to the truth. He has come not for himself and his own honor and glory. He has come to keep people focused and aimed upon God. If there is any king for Jesus it is God who is King, and he is merely a servant. Jesus is the great servant and indeed the great revelation of what God is like. His life, ministry, and his crucifixion is to reveal the beauty of God as accessible to every human being.
The English word truth is closely associated with the word old German word “troth.” Remember in the Marriage services we used to say: “I pledge thee my troth.” I pledge to you my faithfulness, my trust. Jesus, as the revealer of truth is the one who betrothes all who listen to him to a loving relationship with God.
Jesus’ world knew many very poor people. There was considerable sickness and death. Persecutions by the Romans were prevalent. Crucifixion was common. Many people felt themselves to be outcast, lost, least. The religious ways and the political structures of the time were seen as much of the cause of the suffering of people. The ministry of Jesus was to enter into the human condition and to restore a sense of the presence of God and the hope of God. The parables and teachings of Jesus challenged the very system of his time. The last were seen as the first in the eyes of God according to Jesus’ parable. The bad guy was restored and welcomed home again. The righteous were shamed and challenged to look at their hardened hearts. Hungry folk were fed with love and hopefulness. Children were allowed to find their way into his presence, and women and widows were honored. People were called into meaningful servanthood to care for and with one another. Human hearts that were touched by Jesus were changed. When Jesus triumphally entered Jerusalem he was not riding upon the horse of triumph but upon the beast of burden. A new age was dawning. A new kind of kingdom is being claimed and a new definintion of royalty was being revealed. Jewels and crowns, power and prestige, manipulation, force, and fury, worldly influences and were not what this way of life was about. It was about being a community focused again on the simple loveliness and the beauty of God. Changed, healed, loved, accepted, included, forgiven transformed human beings with renewed hearts were people who saw themselves as new citizens worthily entering God’s Kingdom. Something wonderful was ruling in their hearts. It was the way of God revealed in Christ, and he was a king unlike the world’s understanding of kingship. Yet for the early church, there was something indeed royal about him.
Now as we come to the end of this church year and are about to begin a new one, we are faced with the question of who or what is it that rules our lives? What is the truth? To what are we faithful? What are we really betrothed to? To what or to whom do we pledge our troth, our homage, or fidelity? Who is king for us? What are we intently focused upon? What dominates our lives? What or who rules in our hearts? We all have our obsessions and our interests which are not necessarily bad. Some are. We can be caught-up in destrutive interests and behaviors like drugs and alcohol, pornography, addictive gambling. But it is not only the negative destructive things that can captivate our lives. We can becomes very captivated by our jobs and careers. We can become fixed and devoted to being right about certain things and issues, if not pompous. In our time there is a real devotion and commitment to family and family values. Sports and hobbies can rule our time. Devotion to our wealth and the making of money, and the holding on to it can possess our interests. It’s a busy world with many distractions and attractions, many philosophies and demands. But again, what rules, what governs us? What is the truth about ourselves that is at the foundations, at the very bottom, that governs from the deepest recesses of our hearts?
We live in an age and a country that is not comfortable with kings and princes. Many in the world loved Princess Diana, but largely because she was not cut from and at least rebelled against the from the royal mold. We don’t like anything that has a reputation for ever being tryannical. Nor do we like to think in our time that there is a specific truth. Our age is the age of relativity where there are many truths and varieties of ways of seeing things and appreciating reality. And yet inspite of ourselves we do allow things to effect and rule us and direct who and what we are. We do fail, become disenchanted, disappointed, and sometimes inspite of all we have feel an empitiness or an anxious uncertainty about our humaness. Our imperfections and an ever changing world are a constant challenge to our proclaimed truths. What rules us, save us, helps us, forgives us? What is the truth, the faith and fidelity of our lives that lasts and endures the test of time?
Pilate stood before Jesus and asked: Are you a king? . . . . What is the truth? What do you think about these things and how would you answer?