To Be King

Propers: Christ the King, A.D. 2018 B

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The psychologist Jordan Peterson wrote of a dream he once had, of a land filled with pyramids as far as the eye could see. They were built of glass and steel, like modern skyscrapers, and varied greatly in height. Some overlapped, while others were freestanding. And all of them were full of people. In each and every pyramid, people were fighting to reach the top, to reach the apex, to stand above all the other people packed in with them under glass.

Yet far above and beyond the pyramids, suffused throughout the air and the light of the sun, was a completely different form of power, an authority beyond the petty social structures of the pushy people in their little towers. It was the power of freedom and goodness and beauty and truth—completely unnoticed by all the people in the pyramids squabbling as they were to be top dog in a world trapped beneath steel and glass.

This is what the Kingdom of God is like. This is the Kingship the world cannot see.

In our Gospel this morning, Jesus is on trial for claiming to be God. Of course, that’s not what it would say on the arrest report, had they bothered with such things. There is no Roman law against impersonating a deity—or being one, for that matter. But there is a law against claiming to be king, for indeed the land of Israel has been conquered by Rome and assimilated into the legal structures of the Empire. The Judeans have no king but Caesar. Caesar is, by law, the king of kings, savior of the world, and a god upon the earth. Caesar stands at the pinnacle of the pyramid.

“Are you the King of the Jews?” Pilate asks, and I have to imagine that he does so with a smirk. Pilate is governor of Judea, sent to keep the peace that the revenue might flow. He is Rome’s, and thereby Caesar’s, deputy in this rather hot and violent corner of the world. The Middle East of Jesus’ day looks rather a lot like that of our own: a land of ancient feuds and religious zealots, occupied by technologically superior Western armies who would really rather go home if it weren’t for all the trade and instability that flow throughout the region.

Pilate’s job is to keep the peace—by any means necessary. If that means killing a few to keep the rest quiescent, so be it. Rome is unconcerned about the body count. What matters is that the troublemakers are kept from boiling over. And here it is, the eve of Passover, when Jerusalem is packed full of faithful Jews from the world over making pilgrimage, a time ripe for violence and terrorism, when suddenly this charismatic would-be Messiah is dropped into his lap: this Jesus of Nazareth, little more than a desert rabbi in from the wilderness.

But His arrival has undoubtedly caused quite the fuss, so now He’s Pilate’s problem.

Hence the incredulous question: “Are you the King of the Jews?” I mean, you’ve got to be kidding me. This is what the whole town is so worked up about? This is the guy the Chief Priest and the scribes have insisted I have to kill? This man isn’t leading an army. This man doesn’t even have a band of brigands at His beck and call. Honestly, the Roman governor of Judea has bigger fish to fry.

“Do you ask this on your own,” Jesus replies, “or did others tell you about Me?” At this Pilate surely snorts. Of course a rabbi would answer a question with a question.

“I’m not a Jew, am I?” he retorts. “Your own people have handed you over to me.” You naughty boy. “What have you done?”

And then Jesus utters those infamous words: “My Kingdom is not from this world. If My Kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep Me.”

Ah, says Pilate, “So you are a king?”

And Jesus tells him, “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.”

And so Pilate wraps things up with the smart-aleck dismissal still so popular amongst the pompous and the bored: “What is truth?”

It’s not that Pilate doesn’t realize that he’s staring Truth in the face. It’s that he doesn’t care. Whether Truth lives or Truth dies is of little concern to him. What matters is maintaining the stability of the hierarchy, for Caesar demands that the spice must flow.

Thus Pilate will sentence Jesus to death not because he hates Him, but because He doesn’t matter. Pilate knows where he stands in the pyramid, knows who’s above him, knows who’s below, and Jesus doesn’t even register in that structure. He’s a non-person, unimportant. If He’s not in the pyramid, He’s not real. Kill Him, worship Him, it’s all the same. Pilate washes his hands of the entire affair.

When Jesus proclaims, my brothers and sisters, that His Kingdom is not of this world, He does not mean that it’s distant, that it’s somewhere over the horizon, beyond the grave, pie-in-the-sky by and by. Rather, His Kingdom—the Kingdom of God—is so far above and beyond what we’ve come to expect from earthly kingdoms that it doesn’t even register with us. We’re all trapped under glass, while He is the Heir and the Light of the Son.

That’s why we didn’t recognize Him. A thousand years waiting for the Messiah, and once He shows up, we kill Him? How did that happen? It’s because we wanted the Messiah to fit our own mold. We wanted Him to boot Caesar out of the top office and take over management of the building. Jesus as Emperor. Jesus as King! Jesus as warlord who kills all the bad people, saves all the good, and establishes His benevolent rule with an iron fist in a velvet glove, making the world safe for—I don’t know—purity, equality, democracy, take your pick.

Even the Devil was okay with that. When Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness, at the very beginning of His ministry, he temped Christ with a full belly and invincibility and political power to rule all the world! You know—all the stuff that we want. And all the stuff that we expect from God as well.

But Christ didn’t come to take over the pyramid. Christ has come to shatter the glass. He’s come to free us from political structures of oppression and want, not with a revolution in government or military, but with a revolution of the soul. That’s where the true power lies. That’s where it matters to be King. Christ didn’t come to grant us success in school or in business or in the social hierarchies of worldly success. He came to free us from slavery to sin, to lies, to fear unto death.

His Kingdom doesn’t look like the platforms of our political parties or our military-industrial complex. His Kingdom is that of the soul, of the heart and the mind. He calls us to live bravely, to sacrifice heroically, to put the good of other peoples before our selfish gain. He teaches us never to lie, but to tell the truth in love. Don’t go along to get along. Don’t acquiesce to white lies and deceptions.

Seek always that which is good and true and beautiful. Love without fear of rejection. Give without thought of return. Let go of anger and hatred and vengeance: forgive the unforgivable, love the unlovable, speak the unspeakable truth. Live like a son or a daughter of God, compassionate to the sufferings of others, dauntless in the face of hardship and loss, fearless in the conviction that death and hell have been overthrown, and Christ is now Victorious Lord of All!

Most of all, know that when you fail, when we fall—when we sin and miss the mark and fall short of the glory of God—there is always forgiveness, always renewal, always new birth in Christ Jesus our Lord, who raises the dead to new life.

You will find Him in the Scriptures, find Him in prayer, find Him in moments of silent meditation and in the love shared between two or three people in His Name. He comes to us in our Baptism, comes to us in Communion, comes to us in the living Word of God. And He will never stop coming for you, never stop forgiving you, never stop raising you up from out of the grave to new and eternal life in Him.

Live like this and you are free. Live like this and you are rich. Live like this and you are kings! Live like this and you live in Christ as Christ now lives in you. And nothing—nothing—no armies, no nations, no kings on their thrones, no Caesars who demand to be worshipped as gods—not even the Cross and the fires of hell—no one and nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And that is what it means to be King.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.