Sermon: King Jesus

Texts: Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37

Date: November 26, 2006

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, EagleHarbor Congregational Church

            Once there were two peasants lying by the steps of a great cathedral.  They were disheveled and dirty, aged beyond their years by exposure to the elements, and plagued by constant hunger.  Their choice of location, near the ornately stone-carved entranceway, was strategic.  Though people tended to give them a wide berth, they were difficult to miss.  Their pleas for alms were even harder to ignore.  As places to panhandle go, the cathedral steps were as lucrative a place as could be found.  But what was received was never enough, of course, to release them from their poverty.

            Off to one side, standing still and silent at the top of the stairwell, was a statue of Christ.  His head was adorned with a golden crown, and his garments in gold leaf.  It gleamed and sparkled in the sunlight, so much that you could see your reflection in it.  It looked down the length of the stairway—its gaze seemed to focus on the two peasants and tide of humanity that daily climbed and descended the steps. 

            One day, while they were sitting there, the peasants’ conversation turned to the question of the presence of Christ.  “So tell me,” the one asked, “where do you think we will find him?”  “I do not know,” the other responded, “perhaps in there.”  He pointed to the cathedral.  “Certainly not,” said the other, “I’ve been in there and I’ve seen nothing to convince me that he was around.”  “Well, then, perhaps he is there.”  This time he pointed to the statue.  Its golden crown glistened in the morning light.  “You can’t be serious!” declared the other.  “Why, it looks nothing like him.  It’s all covered with gold leaf and a gold crown.  Jesus wouldn’t look anything like that.”

            It was just then that they heard a faint voice calling, “Help me!  Help me!”  At first they thought that they were hearing things, that they were perhaps the victims of too little sleep and too much wine.  But again they heard the voice.  It was coming from the statue.  “I am covered with vestments that are not mine, trapped within an image that does not bear my likeness.  Free me.”

            In quiet disbelief the peasants approached.  Cautiously at first, and then quickly, for fear of being caught, they acted to uncover the Christ within.  They peeled of the gold leaf.  They removed the golden crown.  They discarded the precious metals.  As they worked they heard the words, “Thank you, thank you,” softly whispered.

            Now when the sun beats down the statue does not gleam.  There is no shiny façade in which to see one’s own reflection.  It looks tarnished and weathered.  It is altogether accessible and common.  Nearby, two peasants rest on the great steps.  Smiling.[1]

            Which is the truer image of Christ?  Christ with crown?  Or Christ without?  What does the Bible say?  A) Christ with crown?  Or B) Christ without?   

            Or C) All of the above?  I’m noticing again on this day set aside by formal liturgical calendars as “Christ the King Sunday” that the scriptures point to C) All of the above.  “Christ the King” is both true and false, false and true, so that the combination of words becomes a sort of Christian koan, a statement that in the Buddhist tradition is supposed to perplex you into enlightenment.  One definition of “koan” at dictionary.com reads: “A Zen teaching riddle. Classically, koans are attractive paradoxes to be meditated on; their purpose is to help one to enlightenment by temporarily jamming normal cognitive processing so that something more interesting can happen.”   

            We can see Jesus jamming Pilate’s normal cognitive processing in the text from John’s gospel today.  Pilate’s trying to nail down whether or not Jesus is a rebel threat so he can decide whether or not to nail Jesus down to a cross.  In typical Jesus fashion, our hero dances a verbal jig around Pilate’s straightforward question, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  First he dodges the question altogether; then Jesus says something about his kingdom not being of this world.  “Aha!”  Pilate cries. (The gospel doesn’t record this, but I’m sure he said, “Aha!”)  “So you are a king?”  Seems logical.  A guy who claims to have a kingdom must also claim to be a king.  But Jesus comes back with, “You say that I am a king.”  Can’t you imagine Pilate tearing his hair out in frustration at this point?  What he doesn’t yet understand is that in terms of cosmic history, something much more interesting than ordinary kingships is happening here. 

            Some Christians through the centuries have taken Jesus saying “My kingdom is not of this world,” to mean that the real focus of the action in Christianity is not in this life but the next, not on this planet at all but in the realm of heaven.  There is a form of Christianity, with which you are probably familiar, that emphasizes preparation for heaven almost exclusively.  The most important thing, according to this incarnation of faith, is to make sure you’re on Jesus’ side so you’ll go to heaven and not hell.  There will be a mansion for you in Jesus’ heavenly kingdom rather than a condo in hell if you give your heart to Jesus.  There is a great deal of evangelical zeal behind getting people admitted into that heavenly kingdom.

            Others believe that what Jesus was trying to say was that the ordinary political institutions like monarchy didn’t fit with who Jesus was trying to be in this world.  Like the statue that whispered to the peasants that the crown and royal vestments didn’t fit, Jesus was constantly teaching that the kind of kingdom in which God’s rule was apparent was dramatically different from regular human monarchies or empires.  In other words, he wasn’t saying his kingdom was not in this world; his sayings about the kingdom of God were always pointing to how God’s kingdom breaks into this world.  He was saying that the kingdom was in the world, but not of the world.  There’s a difference.  Of the world implies that it’s well…worldly.  A construct of mortals, with all its human failings.  The building blocks of God’s kingdom are manufactured in a different factory than the one that churns out the crumbling clay bricks of ordinary empire builders.  Does that make sense?

            So you could see why Jesus would deny being a king—the costume is too small to fit.  Yet God in Christ has undeniable authority.  So when reaching for a metaphor to describe Jesus Christ, biblical writers used the ill-fitting terminology of kingship to point to the authority Christ had for their lives.  Today’s lection in Revelation uses this language to lift Jesus Christ up, calling him “the ruler of the kings of the earth.”  Christ has “made us to be his kingdom,” the writer says, referring to a Christian citizenship that transcends normal political or geographical boundaries.  Not to mention time boundaries; this, unlike every other kingdom or empire, is a kingdom without end. 

            What makes the phrase “Christ the King” a sort of Christian koan, then, makes it a riddle that jams up normal cognitive processes, is trying to understand the authority of Christ without trying to make Christ conform to old, inadequate patterns of monarchy or empire.  It’s very confusing; how to apply the right-headed notion of God’s reign through the often wrong-headed practices of human governance has troubled people of faith for thousands of years.  One sermon I found linked at textweek.com gave a helpful perspective.    Preacher Kirk Alan Kubicek summarizes author Verna Dozier’s book The Dream of God, saying that she writes about the three falls of humankind.  Dozier’s take on God is that God will never crush our freedom.  We are free to follow God’s will or reject it; the story of Adam and Eve, known as the (first) Fall, is a story of humans using their God-given freedom to reject God’s way of life, to reject God’s sovereignty and lordship.  In the Garden of Eden, humans first turn away from God’s dream of, in Howard Thurman’s words, “a friendly world of friendly folk beneath a friendly sky.”

            As the years went by, God sent judges and messengers to try to reclaim humans to live according to the Dream of God, with mixed success.  The law given during the wilderness sojourn of the Israelites brought them closer as they remembered the sovereignty of God.  But after they settled in the promised land and got comfortable, they looked around at their neighbors and wanted what they had—kings.  The prophet Samuel tried to talk them out of it, but they couldn’t be dissuaded, so Samuel made the request of God.  God reluctantly anointed a king, warning Samuel it represented a rejection of the kingship of God.  Verna Dozier calls this the second fall; people wanted the security of kingships and dynasties and chose that over what God had designed. 

              Over time the whole enterprise breaks down. The problem with kings is that they are inevitably succeeded by other kings and emperors, who move in and take over. And with them come their Gods.

It is in this period, Dozier says, that a small number of people rediscover what it means to accept God as king and lord over all. It is the wilderness sojourn all over again. God raises up new leaders like Paul and Peter.  The Christian church gets underway under the thumb of the Roman empire.  For several hundred years the emerging church of Christ was persecuted by the empire.

Until the time of the Emperor Constantine. It is then, in the fourth century, that the world sees the people of God choose the kingdoms of this world instead of the kingdom of God. A time when, in the words of an overly optimistic Christian historian, "the Church subdued the state."

Perhaps it is the American historian Barbara Tuchman who gets it just right when in her book, A Distant Mirror, she says, "by Constantine's gift, Christianity was both officially established and fatally compromised." The Third Fall! For in that moment, God's great experiment to provide an alternative to living in the kingdoms of this world became the kingdom of this world.[2]

            We are still wrestling with the fallout of a long era of Christendom.  The church became corrupt not long after Constantine’s crowning it with governmental power.   Why doesn’t honoring Christ as king seem to combine very well with structures of human governance?  Perhaps it comes down to the way power corrupts, and wealth warps.  Perhaps the problem lies in the essentially coercive character of the State, which so often unfolds as violence.  How can the rule of the God who will never crush our freedom be fully incarnated in an institution as coercive as a government—even the most democratic of governments? 

             That is what worries me about some of the Christian fundamentalists in this country who seem determined to create a theocracy here.  I wish I had time to read to you an article by Jeff Sharlet in the December 2006 issue of Harper’s, titled “Through a Glass, Darkly: How the Christian Right is Reimagining U.S. History.”  I commend it to you.  One of the tenets of some American fundamentalists is that the “wall of separation” between church and state was meant to be a “one-way wall,” designed to protect the church from the state, not the other way around.  These folk are convinced that Jefferson, who first used the phrase “wall of separation” was a believer; like all the Founders, he knew there could be no government without God.   Democracy is not nearly as attractive to some as a theocracy in which people could be compelled to obey (their interpretation of) God’s laws.

            So that’s an extreme version of crowning Christ as King, hopefully not coming soon to a neighborhood near you.  I don’t think most of us want that.  However, as followers of Christ we do want to acknowledge God as the ultimate authority in our lives, “the ruler of the kings of the earth.”  And we do want to live in a society in which our ideals, inspired by God, are honored in our institutions, practices and structures--ideals like protecting the vulnerable, assisting the poor, the stewardship of creation, respecting all persons, and so forth.  We are not inclined toward a faith that only concerns itself with life after death; it seems like our faith ought to have something to say to life during life.  So what’s a Christian citizen to do?

            Our church book group just finished discussing a book titled In Search of Paul which had a helpful perspective.  At the end of the book which lays out the contrast between the Roman empire and the way St. Paul understood the kingdom of God, the authors cite Mahatma Gandhi’s statement about truth-force, or satyagraha,  (sat, truth; graha, steadfastness) as a way of thinking about the kingdom as an alternative to global imperialism.  “Satyagraha is not predominantly civil disobedience, but a quiet and irresistible pursuit of truth.  On the rarest occasions it becomes civil disobedience.”  Opposition to the British Raj was necessary, but not primary.  “Why worry one’s head,” said Gandhi, over a demise “that is inevitable?...That’s is why I can take the keenest interest in discussing vitamins and leafy vegetables and unpolished rice.”  Opposition to the Raj was negative and secondary, even if necessary, but when the British were gone, India’s fundamental problems would still be there. What were his primary and positive goals? For Gandhi, ending untouchability, cleaning latrines, improving the diet of Indian villagers, improving the lot of Indian women, making peace between Muslims and Hindus—through all of which he believed he would find God—were such goals.[3]

            We could focus on a similar spirit of a steadfast commitment to truth.  Do you recall what Jesus said in telling Pilate who he was in today’s text: “For this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  If we believe it is true that followers of Christ should be good news to the poor and oppressed, we’ll work through all means at our disposal to incarnate that good news.  Which includes, but is not limited to, influencing the law as a tool (albeit an often clumsy tool) at our disposal in a democratic nation.   We won’t need to try to create a whole Christian nation—which is probably impossible anyway—but we could, because Christ is King, take care of Christ’s beloved as a way of honoring Christ’s authority. 

            Returning to In Search of Paul one more time, the authors use a geological metaphor to spark our imagination.  Deep beneath the earth’s surface are geological plates which shift and grind—the dramatic shifts are felt by us surface dwellers as earthquakes.  Think of the kingdoms of humans and the kingdom of God as opposing tectonic plates beneath the surface of history.  One of the plates is normal civilization, kingdoms and empires who attempt to win peace through victory.  Its imperial chant: First victory, then peace.  Another plate grinds relentlessly against this plate of imperialism.  This is the force of truth, God’s truth, God’s kingdom.  Its chant has a different tune: First justice, then peace.  Peace by justice.  That is the voice we are to be attuned to over the noise of empires rising and falling.[4]

[1] Story inspired by Rev. Kay Cho of the Korean United Church, quoted in Aha! November 26, 2000, p. 50

[2] http://www.episcopalchurch.org/sermons_that_work_7347_ENG_HTM.htm

[3] Crossan, John Dominic and Reed, Jonathan L.  In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom  San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004, p. 409-410

[4] Ibid, p. 413