A Sermon by Dr. Raymond Wilson: Last Pentecost Year C
Posted on
November 20, 2016
The Observance of Christ the King
Because all the clergy must be at the diocesan convention today, Father Don asked me to preach and to conduct the 10 AM service. After a bit of research it became clear that the commeration of Christ the King is one of the more peculiar observances in our liturgical calendar. Most occasions regularly observed are related to significant events described in scripture or to the commemoration of saints. However Christ the King is really a manufactured observance. It was defined - possibly imposed might be a better word – for the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Pius XI in 1925. It was designed to combat the perceived growth of secular influence in the world and, in particular, in Italy and to reinforce the requirement that all “should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ” – which meant, at that time, the beliefs decreed by the Pope and the church hierarchy. Unlike other observances related to Jesus’ life – for example, Christmas, his baptism, the Transfiguration - there is no specific occurrence in the Gospels that is commemorated by this feast day.
That said, the lessons chosen for this observance provide an opportunity for some reflection on the ideas of leadership and even kingship, in the Bible.
The first of our lessons today is a very familiar text from the book of Jeremia - from the period when the Jewish people were in exile in Babylon after a final unsuccessful revolt against the Babylonian Empire. We tend, perhaps from our church school experiences, to think of the entire nation of Judah in exile. However then, just as now, the Middle East was a complicated region. At the time of the Babylonian capture and destruction of Jerusalem there were probably one to two hundred thousand Jews living in Judah. Opinion varies but somewhere between eight thousand and twenty thousand people were exiled to Babylon. However it is clear that most of the inhabitants of Judah remained there. Most of the cities outside Jerusalem (all relatively small) were destroyed so the remaining population was scattered around Judah.
Although we think of Jeremiah as addressing the Jews in Babylon, the text makes it clear that he was thinking about the entire dispersed nation. After chastising the shepherds – the religious and political leaders – who have not properly cared for the people, he gives God’s promise that “I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold”. This promise clearly sounds like something that Jeremiah expected to happen relatively soon. In fact the period of exile was around sixty years. The promise was fulfilled when the Persians defeated the Babylonians and Cyrus the Great permitted, and even encouraged, the Jews to return home. This passage clearly anticipates leadership by what Jeremiah would call ‘faithful shepherds’ but does not really speak to kingship.
But the second section of this text looks to a longer span of time. The prophet says that God will “raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety”. This far more sweeping declaration looks back almost 500 years to the reign of King David – the glory days of the joined nations of Judah and Israel and it points forward to an indefinite future time. It clearly envisions a kingship like, but better than, the experiences of the past. The king in this context is clearly expected to exercise secular authority over his realm. But there is really no indication that the looked for king will have any aspect of divinity.
If we fast forward something over five hundred years to the Gospels, we find there the record of Jesus’s earthly ministry – those few years when he gathered his disciples and traveled about teaching, preaching and healing –culminating in his death, resurrection and ascension. In thinking about these lessons I became curious to find out what Jesus himself had to say about his kingdom and kingship. The marvels of the web made it quite easy to sort out all references to the words ‘kingdom’ and ‘king’ in the Gospels Jesus refers frequently to “the Kingdom of God” or, equivalently to “the Kingdom of Heaven”. But with one exception - the confrontation with Pontius Pilate on the day of his crucifixion - he does not refer to himself as a king having independent authority. Rather he describes himself as having authority within “the Kingdom of God” or the “Kingdom of Heaven” and says that “the Kingdom of God has come near you”. The only place where he unambiguously addresses his own kingly status is really a negative statement – in which he tells Pilate what his kingdom is not. His words, as reported in John’s gospel, are "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place."
And nobody understood. His disciples and the crowds that followed him, and sometimes even chased him, wanted him to be the righteous king described by Jeremiah and the other prophets. They certainly knew from his teaching and miracles that he had power and authority beyond, or at least very different from, that of any earthly king. In being close to Jesus they were close to God’s kingdom. However they still wanted Jesus to become the savior king of the Jews. Their expectation, their hope, their deeply felt need was for Jesus to take up the mantle of David and lead a spiritually and politically revitalized kingdom of the Jewish people.
On Palm Sunday he was hailed in Jerusalem as the Messiah – and then, in less than a week betrayed, handed over to the Jewish leadership and the Romans and finally crucified. He had tried to prepare the disciples but they simply did not understand. And so, in utter dispair they thought everything was over. Eventually, after the Resurrection and Jesus’s final time spent with them, they understood, at least in part, what Jesus had tried to tell them. They went on to become the indispensable core of the growing Christian community. But for a brief time they had believed that all was over and the hoped for kingdom a fleeting, vanished mirage.
The early church expected that Christ’s second coming – his return to rule in glory would happen almost immediately. Even by the time that Paul was writing to the Colossians it was clear that there was some delay. In the lesson read today Paul tries to explain how we are already part of Christ’s kingdom even though Christ is not physically here acting as a ruler. He says that God “has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins”. I think that Jesus might have phrased it somewhat differently and said that through his sacrifice we are all made part of what He would probably have called the “Kingdom of God” or the “Kingdom of Heaven”.
And now, a final visit to the Gospel lesson. Despite Jesus’ efforts to prepare his followers nobody really got it. Pilate did not understand what Jesus was saying. Jesus was mocked and derided as a bogus or failed king – by the Romans, by some of the Jews and even by one of those with whom he was crucified. His disciples were frightened and hopeless.
Only one person got it right on that awful day. The two crucified with Jesus might have heard about him. They probably had no contact with him until they were taken out to die together. However one of them saw in Jesus what no one else recognized – power and authority and love in some realm apart from their place of execution and their present suffering. He had no idea what Jesus’s kingdom was but somehow knew it existed and was a place he wanted to be. He said "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And Jesus replied, in the midst of his own suffering, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
The dying man on the cross did not have any real idea what Jesus’s kingdom was but somehow knew that he wanted to be part of it – to be with Jesus. As Paul tells us (in over 200 words), we are all already part of the Kingdom of Heaven. But sometimes the best path into that kingdom starts with the three words “Jesus, remember me”.