2 Samuel 23:1-7 Psalm 132:1-13, (14-19)
Revelation 1:4b-8 John 18:33-37
Lectionary Link
Today is the Feast of Christ the King, and many may greet such a presentation of Christ as King, with the same cynical skepticism as Pontius Pilate when Jesus was held in captivity. "So you are a king?" said Pilate. The bleeding sarcasm is obvious like, "Well, most people who are real kings don't stand in chains before me. I guess you might be a legend king in your own mind. I hope that such fantasy is working for you."
This feast day invites us to explore our understanding of monarchies and then try to re-appropriate an insightful notion of how Christ can be a king for us today.
There were biblical kings. God did not want Israel to have kings; they had leaders like Moses, Joshua and the Judges and High Priests. But the people wanted a king like the other nations and so Samuel complied, but warned the people that a king would usurp resources of the land. But the people thought, "we need to be good at war to protect ourselves; and we need a king to be good at war among the nations."
So God gave Israel the first two kings at the hand of the last great Judge, Samuel, who poured oil over the heads of Saul and David in an anointing ceremony. The Hebrew word for such anointing is the word from which Messiah derives.
Israel had perhaps two noteworthy Kings, David and his son Solomon. Neither were perfect. David arranged for the murder of a man whose wife he stole, and that woman Bathsheba was the mother of Solomon, who was famous for his wisdom and for building the first Temple. He was also responsible for sending Israel on a downward trajectory, because in marrying so many wives and having so many concubines, he allowed the gods and goddesses of his wives to have a place in Israel in opposition to the One Lord God.
The kings of Israel did not do well; the kingdom was divided, the kingly lineage died when foreign conquerors carried the people off into exile.
What does an exiled and oppressed and kingless people do? They dream about the good old days of David. Their dreams gives birth to a vision of a future king like David who will be one to restore Israel to the greatness like the Davidic times.
It did not happen, and people continued to dream and be inspired to write all kinds of visionary literature about a future great king.
Jesus of Nazareth in his history was not such a person; and so the Gospel of John purposefully shares the skepticism of Pilate, "So, Jesus you're a king? Really?"
Fast forward to America. We are the heirs of a government based upon not having kings, since we with enlightened political thinking came to share the view that "absolute power, corrupts absolutely." We wanted to be rid of the control of the English Monarchy.
What is one of the differences between the rule of the many and the rule of the few? The rule of the few or the one can be very efficient and such can be beneficial for all if the one or the few are perfect and omni-competent and caring people, but such perfect people don't exist, so the rule of the few and the one tend toward cruel dictatorships or oligarchies with no respect for diversity.
We see now in our democracy that the rule of the many has revealed the public incompetence of many politicians, many of whom seem to be dominated by very narrow special interest groups. Some people wish for the rule of the few and the rule by the wealthy. Some want a theocracy; General Flynn recently said we should have a country with only one religion.
What do many people like to do with the notion of monarchy? We make them into dream kingdoms and iconic symbols with "Royals" who we want to be good for tourism and nostalgia.
The most prominent kingdom in America is the cinematic kingdoms of Disney. We make romantic child friendly kingdoms with "child morality plays" of good and evil, but mainly we want to sell lots of stuff and Halloween costumes from such romantic figures of kings, queens, princes and princesses.
When we try to find a place for Christ the King, we are forced to admit that Christ the King is more like a romantic Disney King rather than a warrior king like David, because Christ the King is an inner and spiritual king.
Christ the King does not have the same manifestation as the Jesus of history. The Jesus Movement spiritualized the notion of the Messiah as being a Risen and Ascended Person of Significance. What does Risen and Ascended mean in practical terms? It means that the Risen Christ is available through the Holy Spirit to the inner lives of people in such a way that loyal relationships have occurred.
A large group of people came into the experience of a spiritual relationship with the most significant and omni-competent person of their lives. They did not actually see Jesus the person; but the constellation of words which surrounded him could over take and influence lives, and those lives were energized and changed so that they could change the world in external and physical ways.
The Risen Christ came to be named the perfect, omni-competent King. He was the only one who was good enough to deserve the authority of kingship, because all earthly kings have been failures, in some way.
So while the Risen Christ the King is like the imaginative kings of Disney creations, the Risen Christ inspires such profound interior spiritual relationship, that significant effective changes happen in the hearts of loyal subjects; but not just in their hearts because the loyal followers of Christ make real changes in the external world.
What kind of changes? The kind of changes which are known as kindness, love, and justice. Kindness, love, and justice have material and physical reality, meaning that spiritual Christ the King has continued fleshly, incarnational, body language significance.
We pray "thy kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven," because we believe that the very best of the interior world of love, justice and kindness has to be very external and physical love, justice, and kindness in the specific lives of people.
The validity of Christ as King is only challenged if we make it Disney-like romantic and sentimental piety, and not world changing, people changing, love, justice, and kindness behaviors.
God and Christ are too good for the notion of kingship, because we will not know earthly figures who are omni-competent enough to be worthy of the title and the requirement of what perfect kingship can and should mean.
Christ is idealized kingly person who uses absolute power, not for aggrandizement, but for service and love and kindness.
We need the personification of the right use of absolute power, and so we have Christ the King to inspire our lives to be converted to use the power of our lives, not for self or tribal aggrandizement, but for the effective service of love, kindness and justice.
The understanding of Christ as King, is the way that we rehabilitate and rightly use power and and authority. And remember if we follow the spiritual Christ the King, we will not live in palaces or pride, but like Jesus we will humbly follow our heavenly parent in the ways of kindness for the people in our world who need it.
In this way, I invite each of us to worship Christ as our king today. Amen.
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