In What Way Is Christ a King at All?

Christ the King Cycle B  Proper 29 November 25, 2012

2 Samuel 23:1-7  Psalm 132:1-13, (14-19)

Revelation 1:4b-8  John 18:33-37

 Lectionary Link

    We enjoy watching children play; we are charmed by their imaginations.  They can be kings and princesses and super-heroes.  But even children know what is imaginary and what is not.  The little boy in his Superman costume knows that when he jumps off the bed to fly; he knows about gravity and so he knows not to be too literal about his flying.  Already the young guy knows that he is switching codes between science and the codes that govern the imagination of his Superhero imitation.  Even though he is child-like he still has learned the hard rules of gravity.  Is a boy in a Superman costume, Superman? Yes, he is as much Superman as the actual Superman, because the actual Superman is an invention of literary imagination. We encounter child-likeness and the brute facts of history on this feast of Christ the King.

  Today on the feast of Christ the King we ponder the question, how is Jesus of Nazareth a king by any actual earthly experience.  Saul, David and Solomon were actual kings of Israel.  They had actual earthly reigns.  There was an incredible long succession of Kings in the Roman Empire, the Caesars.  They sat on thrones, they had standing armies, and they were actual kings.

  But how are we Christians like the young boy who is pretending to be Superman when it comes to our confession of Jesus to be a king, and not just a king but the King of Kings?  This question challenged the writers of the Gospels.  They had to deal with those Jews who decided Jesus was not “their” kind of Messiah, because Jesus in fact was not kingly enough.  He did not have a standing army.  A king with a standing army would not let their leader get crucified upon a cross.

  Today, we have read from the interrogation scene between Pontius Pilate and Jesus.  This scene was being written by people who knew that the Romans were in control.  They knew that Jerusalem was destroyed.   They also knew that to confess another person to be a king in the time of the Caesar was a foolish political act and it was an act that could be interpreted as a rebellious act.  The Christians who wrote John’s Gospel knew that the Romans believed Jesus was dead and that he was not a literal threat to their power.

  Pontius Pilate is presented like the adult who is mocking a child for taking the Superman role too seriously. ‘ Seriously, young man, how are you Superman?  You jump off of the bed, you do not fly; you fall to the floor.”

  “Jesus, are you a king?  How in any way are you the King of Jews?”   “ Well, Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world; if it were my angels would have fought.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

  What we don’t see in this dialogue is Pilate’s cynical reply, “What is truth?”

  For most people what was literally truthful was that a real earthly king has an army and wields incredible power.   That is the kind of king that the Roman citizenry understood.  It is the kind of king that David was and he was the model king for the messiah who the Jews were looking for.  And Jesus was not that kind of king.

  So how do we process the fact that Jesus did not look like a king?  Historically the church did this by saying Jesus does not yet look like a king but he will when he comes again in the future.  Then he will be a literal future king.  This deferred kingdom of Jesus on earth is embedded in the Bible in the apocalyptic literature.  This deferred kingdom is why so many fundamentalists and apocalyptic Christians pray and want the world as we know it to end.  There is less motivation to care for our planet if one is fervently praying for life as we know it to come to an end.  One might question the healthiness of this kind of “kingdom” attitude.  Jesus is not a literal king now in the world, but he soon will be and everyone will be forced to acknowledge it.

  I wonder if many have missed the truth of the kingdom of Jesus that is found in the Gospel of John.  In John’s Gospel, Jesus said that his words were Spirit and those words were life.  Jesus was the same one who was call the Word of God.  And the writer of John said that the Gospel was written so that the reader would know that Jesus is the messiah or God’s anointed king.

  And what is the Gospel?  They are the words and Spirit of Christ.  They are an army of metaphors and they fight such an interior battle that they persuade people to know the good news of how Jesus is kingly in our lives.  By the sheer number of people who have made the interior assent of the will in knowing Jesus as kingly in their lives, one could easily make the case that Jesus is the most kingly figure in all of human history.  The army of metaphors has brought the truth of Jesus to many people in more valid ways than what has come by the swords of earthly kings.  In fact, the Gospel coming to people by an earthly sword seems to be a violation of Jesus as the prince of peace.

  What is the truth that is being hinted at in the Gospel of John?  Poor Pilate is just a teaching tool for the Gospel writer.  He represents both the literalists and those who have such a limited understanding of the fullness of truth.  Literal Pilate is the one who knows that Jesus is not an earthly king.  Was there any other way to be a king other than with an army?  Pilate is the cynic who is treating Jesus in the same way that a myth busting adult would like to tell a child that Santa is not real and neither are all of those Disney characters in the Disney kingdom.

   The writer of John’s Gospel was saying that truth is about understanding word; how you use word and how it uses you.  There is a child-like way of imagination that opens us to the meaning of Jesus and his kingdom.  The cynic will try to pour cold water on that and say that isn’t true because it isn’t brute historical fact or scientific fact.  But truth isn’t just about fact; it is about the total way in which we live.  We live with different discursive practices when we do science or when we appreciate art or music or when we make love or when we play or observe play such as an athletic contest.  We have the discourses of dreams and hopes and wonder and imagination and the uncanny and the Sublime.  They are not all the same but they interweave in our lives to represent the fullness of Truth.  Pilate was cynical about the truth of Jesus because his own notion of truth was so literal.  As people of faith we need to drop literalism as the only way to appropriate Jesus as a king and as a savior.   The departure of people from communities of faith today has to do with the narrow practice of truth in many Christian communities.  Such narrow constrictions of truth go hand in hand with an obsessive need to control.

  Modern cynics can see religious people as childish people in Superman costumes ready to jump off the building and assume that they are going to fly and the cynic says, “Not me…that’s just childish and a little crazy.”

  The Gospel more than anything is the “spirit of words.”  It is about an army of metaphors taking over our lives and reorganizing our lives towards the values of love espoused by Jesus.  Indeed Jesus is a king of hearts; he entrances and inspires the imagination.  He motivates us and is available as an experience of life-changing grace that is so unique and serendipitous to our life experience, it cannot be replicated.  Other people have graceful experiences but not my graceful experience.  The Gospel of John has Jesus speak to the truth of the different graceful experiences of life and how they come to words in the stories of the people who have these experiences.

  And trust me, people have graceful experiences but often will not tell them because the cynical Pilate is out there to crush them with the boot of cynicism the truth value of graceful experiences.

  The kingliness of Jesus has to do with how Christ becomes the visionary directing person in our lives to organize us toward love and justice in speech and deed.  And so let us today not be cynical or too literally limiting of the ways in which God and Jesus have, are and will get through to us.

  Let the angelic army of peaceful and loving metaphors enter us and rearrange our interior lives and let us know that Christ is our king and we live in his kingdom.  Amen.