What Does Kingly Mean in Our Time?

Last Sunday after Pentecost, Cp29, November 20, 2022 Christ the King
Jeremiah 23:1-6 Ps. 46
Col. 1:11-20 Luke 23:23-33

Lectionary Link

Since we are human and prisoners of being merely human, we can only anthropomorphize about all non-human life, like the lives of animals, plants, and God.  We speak human languages and can only see and understand in human terms, so when we speak about God we use analogies.

In human history, for various reasons, kings were important people, exalted people, and privileged people in human society.  They were at the top of human hierarchy.

So, the human notion of kingship became used as a analogy for God.  God was presented as a king; and not like human kings who had many faults and imperfections.  God was presented as idealized king.

Human kings were very imperfect; they were often greedy, ruthless, kleptocrats, who took a disproportionate amount of the human resources of a society for their own pleasure and use.  In fact, in pre-kingdom times in Israel, we are told that Samuel warned the people of Israel about wanting a king like the other nations had.  He warned that they would conscript their son for the army and they would be high maintenance for their lavish style of living.  But God and Samuel gave them their wish and the first king of Israel, Saul, indeed,  was a disappointment.  He was so disappointing that his lineage was rejected, and God through Samuel had the shepherd boy David anointed as the second King of Israel.  David was not perfect either, but he was successful enough to create the desire for some future mythical king who would be like David but an even more perfect king.  This future mythical king was called, after David, the messiah.

The scene of Jesus hanging on the cross with the written declaration, "This is the King of the Jews," is completely ironic.  Kings, real kings like David do not die on a cross if they are successful kings.  The Romans wrote the script mocking Jesus as quixotic pretend king.

This crucifixion account is being written and read by people who had come to believe that Jesus was not only King of the Jews but of the Gentiles as well, but not in the way David or Caesar were kings.  The Risen Christ was an interior Spiritual and winsome force who gained followers by interior spiritual experience.  He was a king in a parallel world and the way that Risen Christ, the Risen Messiah, the Risen King interacted with the visible realm was within the lives of those who freely and willing came under his influence to become people of goodness, love, and justice.

As such a Risen King, the earthly notion of kingship is completely deconstructed.  Strangely the Risen king does intervene in the world.  In fact, the followers of the Risen King may end up persecuted and mistreated.  What kind of king does not intervene for all of the innocent sufferers in this world?

This contradiction requires us to ponder how and what is kingly in our world today in a way that is completely adequate to common sense, reason, and a sense of propriety.

The Risen Christ King, like God is not one who intervenes to overthrow the genuine freedom that is in the world.  God who is all and in all, is negatively represented when people who are made in the image of God do bad things.  So why does not God intervene to interdict people being bad and harmful?

What is truly kingly in our world is the Reign of Christ as one who has the power to permit true freedom because only in true freedom is there valid moral and spiritual authenticity.

The truly kingly one today is the one who lures and coaxes for people to love one another and act justly with one another.   The truly kingly does not come with the force of weapons and armies and mind police to force an agenda.

We may not really like the kingly Risen Christ, because we find him too tolerant of what might and does happen in our world.  We wish that people whom we thought were evil, greedy, cruel tyrants could be stopped in their tracks when we want it.

Earthy kings intervene in earthly physical ways to get what they want for the peace of their realms and for their own power and wealth.

Our encounter with the Risen Christ requires that we change what we think is kingly.  The Risen Christ is kingly power of restraint; he will not force anyone to do anything.  He works with the lure of love and justice wanting us to freely choose to love God, love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Let us adopt the reality of what is truly kingly today, as we have in the witness of the Risen Christ.  By his Spirit, we are invited to become kingly ourselves in living lives of love and justice and committing ourselves to influence others through the persuasion of example.

May God give us grace to counter the harsh kingdoms of this world with the gentle, loving, and kind kingdom of a truly kingly Christ.  Amen.