Majesty; Reign of Christ Sunday; November 25, 2018; ICCM; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson
Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away, there was a court jester who boasted that he could make a joke about any subject. “Well, then,” challenged one of the nobles, “make a joke about the King!”
“Ah,” the jester responded, “But, the King is not a subject!”
I know some of you really like that first song we sang today. Majesty— it means regal, lofty, or stately dignity; imposing character; grandeur: supreme greatness or authority; sovereignty, a royal personage. Personally, I’ve never been drawn to the image of Jesus as King of all Kings. But here we are, on the last Sunday of the church year which we call The Reign of Christ Sunday now. It used to be called, Christ the King Sunday.
This particular festival of the church calendar is rooted in the Imperialist past of Christendom. Unlike Lent and holy week and Advent, which have been celebrated for more than 1000 years, Christ the King Sunday was only established in 1925, by the papal decree of Pope Pius the 11th. The idea was well-intentioned. It was just after World War One, a time when fascism was rising. The purpose was to affirm that neither Czar Ferdinand nor Kaiser Wilhelm was king, Christ is king. According to historian, Arthur Cochrane, the cry “Jesus is Lord!” echoed in the liturgical gatherings of German Christians in the 1930s, sometimes among the liturgical drapery of Nazi flags. “Jesus is Lord!” …until a voice spoke into the fading echo, “and Hitler is not!” (1)
Christ the King Sunday made sense in that context. But even so, there is an irony to proclaiming Christ as “King” when the life of Jesus of Nazareth positively denies “kingliness.” The setting for our gospel reading today was the Roman Empire, where the Ceasars were thought to be gods. During their lives they were called Son of God and at their death it was believed that they rose up into the sky to be seated eternally on a throne. People greeted each other on the street with Ceasar is Lord. At the time of Jesus one of the Roman propaganda slogans was, “there is no other name under heaven by which people can be saved than that of Ceasar.”
As the Roman Empire grew, through its military conquests and domination, and by colonizing nations like Israel, it sent out royal announcements known as euangelia, it’s the same word in the New Testament for good news or gospel. Cities that submitted to the rule of Rome were known as ekklesias—where we get the words church or in Spanish, iglesia. So, for someone in the 1st Century to say “Jesus is Lord” or to call the gospel of Jesus Christ the good news was to directly defy the authority of the Empire.
When Jesus was born Herod was the Roman appointed ruler of all of Palestine. When Herod died he divided his territory among his three sons, the one named Archelaus got control of Judea and Samaria. But, Archelaus was not a good ruler and the people of Judea asked Rome to remove him from power and appoint a governor. Judea was an unimportant outlying territory in the Empire that normally didn’t need occupying troops and could be managed by a governor, appointed by the Senate. Pilate was sent as that governor, sometimes called a procurator. He was NOT a powerful man in the Roman world. Judea would have been a lousy assignment. Pilate was not popular. He acted without regard for the people of the region. He was cruel and self-seeking, known to be involved in murderous acts. His goal would have been to stay out of Rome’s eye. Do his job, make what profit he could, and don’t screw up. Finish his term at this lousy place and get back to Rome where things really happened.
Most of the people in the region would have been Jews and their holy days were coming up. Religious fanatics were likely to make trouble, and Pilate would have wanted to just make it through the week without too much hassle. But, that didn’t happen. Early in the morning, some guards bring in a man. His hands are tied behind his back, he’s been roughed up a little. His upper lip is all puffed up and one eye is swollen shut and beginning to show the colors of a terrible bruise. He looks like any other unwashed peasant. And the trial begins. “Are you the king of the Jews?”
What a crazy scene! Here is a man who by his own admission has no followers willing to support and defend him. Instead they hand him over to those who have the power to destroy him. His best friend Peter has just repeatedly denied that he even knows him. This bound man, a King? You’ve got to be kidding. “So you’re the King of the Jews, the head Jew.” Pilate repeats, “What have you done?”
The bruised man responds, “It’s not of this world that I’m king. I’ve come to testify to the truth. Those who belong to the truth listen to me.” And then, the loaded question comes from Pilate. “What is truth?” Pilate’s questions hang in the air. Are you a King? What have you done? Who are you? What is truth? But Pilate only goes to the first level those questions. Pilate meets the revelation of God in human form. Pilate has a chance to break out of his lies and his death-dealing practices. He has a chance to listen to the truth and find life and freedom. How much truth can he handle? Not much. He turns aside from the flesh and blood of Jesus who is the truth by asking the intellectual question, “What is truth?”
Jesus is not interested in philosophizing with Pilate. As Jesus told his disciples, He is the way, the truth, and the life. And if you know Jesus, you will know the One he calls Father too. Another time he told the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Jesus is not interested in some abstract discussion of the nature of truth with Pilate or anyone else. He is the truth. He shows us all we need to know about God and life. Jesus testified to the truth in flesh and blood, where he met people, or lifted the bread, or broke through some purity code: blessing children; laying hands on the sick; touching those labeled “unclean”; honoring the poor widow; eating and drinking with the tax collectors and prostitutes.
Jesus undermined the Emperor, not by opposing him with his own kingly power but by lifting up the truth of human life, and by showing God’s scandalous and unfailing promise to be with each and every person, no matter their status.
Kings were made in Israel by anointing them with oil. The only time that Jesus is anointed in the Gospels is when the woman at Bethany joins Jesus at dinner and, over the protests of the disciples, anoints him. But even in this moment that looks something like kingship, Jesus says that this anointing has been for his death, and he shifts the focus from himself onto the anointer: wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her. Even in what could be called his anointing, Jesus testifies to his solidarity with all the dying world, and to the particular life of this woman of Bethany, who the disciples would have had us overlook, forget, discount.
Kings draw power from their subjects up to themselves, focusing it and clinging to it. Jesus contests this way of kingship by testifying to the truth of the people he encountered, fragmented as they were by the powers of violence, sin, and death. Jesus pointed to the the scandalous surprise of the enduring faithfulness and mercy of God. Wherever Jesus lays his hands, where he sets a table, even where he is anointed for kingship, the diverse lowly ones are honored and rise up stronger, the image of God being restored in them.
Jesus is Lord… and Hitler is not. Or we might say today: Jesus is Lord and Bank of America is not. Jesus is Lord and supermodel standards of beauty and body image are not. Jesus is Lord and our own shortcomings are not. Jesus is Lord because the kingdoms we construct—from our own individual ones to the largest ones on earth—keep crumbling. Jesus comes not to annihilate our petty kingdoms, but to testify to the truth.
That living Christ testifies to the truth to us even today: the truth of a new covenant made with us, placed in our hands, in Jesus’ body and blood, given into our flesh and blood lives as daily bread. Our hands like a manger, like a throne.
All our hymns today ascribes glory and honor and power to Christ Jesus. But it does so not by showing us an awesome God high above us, emperor-like. Christ reigns in a different way, showing us God’s presence with the least, the dying, the whole creation.