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: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 26,2000

TEXT: John 18:33-37 - Jesus before Pilate
Pilate asked him, “So your 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: Who reigns in and over our lives is the issue of this passage. Pilate represents the powers of the world. Jesus represents the loving power of God over the creation, and Jesus reveals the truth about God. Pilate cannot understand Jesus and the truth that he offers and orders the crucifixion. But while Kingdoms of this world rise and fall, Christ is risen and Christ comes again at Christmas. The challenge and the welcome to allow God and His Christ to rule over our lives continues.
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This is the last Sunday of Pentecost, now commonly known as Christ the King Sunday. We have come to the end of the church’s year. The new year begins in the church next Sunday with the First Sunday of Advent. Once again for this season, the Hebrew Scripture and the Christian Scripture readings are apocalyptic writings from Daniel and Revelation. Each written at times of great tribulation for God’s people, when great foreign powers ruled and viciously attacked the people of God. But each of these readings proclaim the power of God to over rule those foreign powers, and God’ people are given hope.
In a fascinating vignette the Gospel reading from John portrays Jesus before Pontius Pilate. For all intents and purposes this is the end of Jesus’ life. It is his apocalyptic moment standing before the great power of the world. Pilate the Roman governor of Israel stands with Jesus. It is a fascinating picture. Pilate represents the world’s great power, the Roman Empire. Jesus has no power at all as the world understands power. He is little more than an itinerant preacher, a magician-healer, sage, a rebel prophet. His enemies bring him before Pilate with a charge that he claims to be King of the Jews, or of Israel. He is brought before Pilate, since the Judean authorities have no power to execute him. Pilate begins a dialog with Jesus. He wants to know if there is any validity to the charge that Jesus claims to be a king, “Are you the King of the Jews?” It is curious that Pilate and Jesus enter into this dialog, which was hardly required on the part of Pilate. He is by far the greater authority here. Jesus verbally spars with him, which insinuates that in some sense they are equals. In the sparring Pilate assumes Jesus is some sort of king, but why would ones own people turn him over to Roman Authority. Then Jesus makes the startling claim, “My kingdom is not of this world.” It is not a kingdom of Israel. Rather it is the Kingdom of God, the realm of God, the dominion of God. Jesus has come to bear witness to the truth.
Much like Jesus’ own disciples, Pilate cannot understand. He doesn’t get it. He cannot understand that Jesus comes to reveal, proclaim the Kingdom, Dominion, Realm of God. He has come to bear witness to the truth about God and about God’s Kingdom. Unable to understand, Pilate says, “And what is truth?” He then does the only thing he knows how to do, he orders the execution, the crucifixion of Jesus. The end of Jesus’ ministry has come. This scene is an apocalyptic one. The end has come. The disciples are depressed and dispersed. The flee and hide. The sky turns black, the earth is shaken by a quake. Doomsday has come. But then what happens. A new day comes, a new age is born, and Christ appears risen. The truth about the power of God over the powers of the world, of Pilate’s world is revealed. The truth is that God rules over the powers of the world in spite of what people think.
Now, I know that we might be wondering why we are talking about the Crucifixion of Jesus when we are about to enter into the Advent-Christmas season. It is because we have come to the end of the year, and as Christ came to the end of his life and was raised. We also come to the end of this year and enter into a transition of Christ, The King, being born again into the anxieties, difficulties, troubles, uncertainties, foolishness, and sinfulness of our lives.
Notice in all of this the challenges to our human and worldly way of thinking. The Kingdom, Domain, Realm, Empire of God is quite the opposite. It is the great turn around, the great reversal, which is “the truth” that Jesus comes to reveal. Jesus and Pilate stand before one another. Pilate and the corrupted Judeans appear to hold the reigns of power. However, they only hold the reigns of power that lead to death. Jesus proclaims and participates in the power of God, that leads to resurrection, new life, beginning again, with the assure that Christ will come again to the people of God with reconciliation, redemption, and hope. That’s what our Advent transition is all about, the coming of Christ again to the sinfulness and brokeness, to the world’s culture of death. The world’s culture of death is its drugs and drug dealers, its atomic weapons, its biological weapons, its corruption, its poverty and crime in the streets, its racism and sexism.
“What is the truth?” Pilate asks. What is truth in the Realm Of God over which Jesus proclaims and rules? The truth is that God loves the poor and hates the greedy. The truth is that God loves those who are suffering and hate those who laugh at and are apathetic about human suffering and need. God loves and honors those who are hungry and hates those who stuff themselves and watch out only for themselves. God honors and loves those who are persecuted for the sake of demanding justice.
The truth in God’s kingdom is that the last, least, the lost, the lonely, are invited into the banquet of God. Anybody even sinners can welcome their own family and friends, who pay you back and give you gifts in return.
In the Kingdom of God the truth is that you hate your own worldly mother and father, sister and brother, and see all of God’s people, gay, Asian, Black, Hispanics, Caucasian as your family and the people with whom you are to be intimate.
The truth in the Kingdom of God is that people turn the other cheek, and walk the extra mile, and give their clothing away.
In the realm and Kingdom of God, the truth of the matter is that people don’t walk out on one another: their wives, husbands and children for greener pastures elsewhere.
In Jesus’ kingdom, God is like some poor old widow lady who demands justice from the corrupt rulers and judges of this world.
In the Kingdom of God, the bratty selfish kid who wants things his way and ends up nearly dead is welcomed back and forgiven. What’s more good and faithful are challenged to lighten up and come and join the festivit5ies of God.
In the Empire of God, God is like a no good foreigner that reaches out to the very religious people who hate him, and extends an abundance of grace, far more than they can or could ever deserve.
Those who bear the burden of the day in God’s kingdom, working in his garden and picking his grapes receive the same benevolent and generous salary and benefits of those who come at the end of the day.
In the Kingdom of God, and the truth about that Kingdom or Domain, or Realm is that the Widows, the children, the least get a place of honor and status. The least are allowed to sit on the lap of the Son of God and to join with him.
In the Realm of God, the truth is that all who come to Christ as their Lord and Master, their King of Kings, and invited to participate in the fellowship, in the companionship, the eating together with God. And so it goes, in dying and serving, taking up the cross we take on meaningful, purposeful lives in the Kingdom of God.
We live in a world that knows little else but being anxious about what we are going to eat, drink, and wear. Yet the truth of the Kingdom of Christ is that God will provide the ‘stuff’ we need, and we do not worry or become anxious. It does nothing, and adds not one cubit to our stature. But we seek first the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness. That’s the stuff of which we are meant to be made.
Jesus and Pilate stand before one another. Pilate represents the culture and human condition of force, manipulation, domination, and power as the world understands it. In sharp, keen, contrast Jesus represents the power of God, the truth about God. God is love. God is forgiving. God reaches out in affection. God is patient and kind. It is a power that touches the human condition with love and enables free response and the freedom to change. It is the love that raises up that which has fallen. It is the power and love that comes not in prestigious pomp and circumstances, but that comes in the form of a suffering servant and in the form of an infant child that touches human hearts and changes them. Standing before Pilate and in the manger, all who hear his voice and cry know the real truth about God that stands as hope for the powers of the world.