Year C
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Psalm 93
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37

May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth…

The Gospel is hard…  the Gospel is difficult…  the Gospel is so totally at odds with our American experience that fitting it into our lives may feel like forcing a square peg into a round hole…  and sharing the Gospel…  the Good News with others…  evokes images of salmon swimming upstream…  it can turn family members against each other…  it can feel like Sisyphus pushing that boulder uphill…  but the Gospel is the boulder that…  with God’s help…  we Christians are called to raise up…  and while we can acknowledge that it’s a real challenge…  we can also acknowledge that it’s the work we are called to do…  that it’s the race in which we are called to run…

Hebrews 12:1-2 says…  since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…  let us lay aside every weight…  and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us…  looking to Jesus…  who for the sake of the joy that was set before him…   endured the cross…  disregarding its shame…

Christ the King Sunday is only ninety-six years old…  Pope Pius XI instituted this observance in 1925…  and only a few years ago…  Episcopal priest Lucy Hogan…  wrote…   the Pope felt that Christ’s followers were being lured away by the increasing secularism of the world…  that they were choosing to live in the “kingdom” of the world…  rather than in the reign of God…  ] it’s also why we celebrate a seven-week Advent…  it’s why we begin our new church year not only with the coming of Jesus in Bethlehem…  but with the hope of his second coming as well…  ] and to challenge our thinking…   we turn not to stables and shepherds…  but to the final trial of Jesus… ] if we’re to live in God’s reign…  we pause and reflect on who Jesus is in our lives… we…  like Pilate…  need to know who this man is…  and so Pilate asks Jesus if he’s a king…  that’s because this is the kind of construct…  the kind of system that Pilate understands…  he projects his own experience…  his own attachment to power and authority…  and the fear of it being taken away…  onto Jesus…  what Pilate’s really asking…  is…  Are you a problem for me…  and Jesus answers…  No…  I’m not…

And earlier in John’s Gospel…  in Ch. 6:15…  after the feeding of the 5,000…  when Jesus realized that the crowd was about to come and take him by force to make him king… he gave them the slip and withdrew to the mountain by himself…  that’s how little he wanted to be a king in the geopolitical understanding of the world…  if he was…  and as he said…  his followers would be fighting to keep him from being handed over to the Jews…  but Jesus says…  as it is…  my kingdom is not from here…  and Pilate’s like…  Aha…  so you are a king…  and Jesus answers…   You say that I am a king…  but I was born…  I came into the world…  to testify to the truth…  and everyone who is committed to living into the truth…  listens to my voice…  and there are those who…  down through the centuries…  have heard Jesus’ answer as Pilate heard it… as a threat to their agency and their power…

Pastor Martin Billmeier wrote that the framers of our Constitution were right to reject kingship as a model for government…  the kings they knew could never resist the temptation to abuse their absolute power…  Jesus on the other hand…  emptied himself of power for the sake of revealing a God of love…  and does not act like any king we know of… 

And so Jesus continues to turn things upside down…  he says my kingdom is not from here…  it’s not like this one… it’s not like any you know…  my kingdom is utterly unrecognizable to someone like you Pilate…  because the way you understand power and privilege… and what the future looks like…  and what security looks like…  is so different from mine… ] Jesus affirms that the ultimate source of hope…  promise…  and security comes not from any earthly kingdom we build…  but from what God has built for us…

In several of the translations I’ve looked at…  Jesus says…  my kingdom is not from here…  my kingdom is not from this world…  my kingdom is not of this side…  so we understand Jesus to mean that his kingdom is not of this type…  and this understanding connects us back to the beginning of John’s Gospel…  that Jesus enters space and time by becoming the Word made flesh… 

St. Benedict’s Abbey in Atchison, Kansas has posted on their website…  that Christ came forth from the stump of Jesse… ] and from the line of Jesse’s son King David comes forth another King…  the King of kings…  this is the One whom kings will worship…  especially three Gentile kings from the East…  who represent the seekers among the people of the Earth…  those who look for salvation in a darkened and troubled world…  they seek a king who is adorned and crowned in the glory of the world…  and when they find him…  they are surprised… because they’re the ones who bring royal gifts to this unadorned child…

We are called by our baptismal vows to strive for justice and peace for all people…  and to respect the dignity of every human being…  but there has been a perishing of sorts…  civility has taken a hit…  at school board meetings…  in election boards…  even in our highest elected offices…  because when someone threatens their opponents with violence…  they are undermining the basis of community… ] when someone targets people of one religion for discriminatory treatment…  they are attacking the basis of everyone’s religious freedom… ]  while name-calling and personal insult in any arena is an affront to reason… ] and anyone who sneers at the disabled or ridicules people because of their appearance… fails to understand that all humans are made in the image of God…  these behaviors do not support Gospel values…  and in fact…  the church is exhorted to lift up the moral values and social issues that are embedded in political decisions…  so some of the questions we must ask ourselves…  are…  does the church have power over society…  or does society have power over the church…  and what is our understanding of power…  and what is God’s…

The work we are called to do is hard work…  if it was easy…  our fathers and mothers in the faith would have figured it all out in the first hundred years or so after Jesus’ death resurrection and ascension…  our ancestors would have so fervently and sincerely invited the Holy Spirit into their lives…  that all they thought said and did…  would have come from God’s law written on their hearts…  and that would have become our inheritance…  but when we deny that the work is ours to do…  when we seek our own truths instead of God’s truth…  it just simply takes longer…

Because the Kingdom we celebrate today is not going to put us into the top 1% of the top 1%…  it’s not going to give us off-shore back accounts…  or seats on the stock exchange…  the Kingdom we celebrate today is not going to offer up McMansions with 120″ super high-definition televisions in every room…  or closets filled with designer clothes…  or the most expensive cars…  or the latest technology…  or the best seats in synagogues or at banquets…  but the Kingdom we anticipate today will ensure that justice rolls down like waters…  and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream…  and there will be justice and peace among all people…  and the dignity of every human being will be respected…  and all people will be welcomed…