Monday Meditation
a ruler for the rest of us?
What Kind of Ruler is This?
John 18:33-37 – Christ the King Sunday
Yesterday was Christ the King Sunday. The last Sunday of the Church’s calendar that begins with promise of God’s fulfillment in Advent, moves through the celebration of the Incarnation at Christmas, takes us under the death of Christ on the cross, raises us in surprising joy on Easter and sends us shouting into the streets with the enthusiasm of the Spirit descended on Pentecost, then settling us into the steady ordinariness of the Christian life until this final Sunday in which we proclaim that Christ crucified and raised has been exalted in radiant splendor. The whole story in a year!
Where to begin the ending?
The book of Acts describes an incident in which a mob drags a group of Jesus’ followers before the magistrate, shouting: These people have been turning the world upside down. They are all defying Caesar, claiming that there is another king named Jesus.’ The city officials were disturbed when they heard this.
Which reminds me of a political poster I saw the subway with the caption, “a ruler for the rest of us”. It didn’t say who are “the rest of us”; I supposed that was understood and that if you had to ask the question, you weren’t included. But more intriguing was the person in the poster above the caption: Jesus, dressed in Middle Eastern peasant clothes. A Ruler for the Rest of Us; that will keep give you something to think about on the train. Not far from that poster was a line of graffiti scribbled in bold print along the wall. Aslan Rules! (For those who don’t know, Aslan is the lion king in CS Lewis Chronicles of Narnia; the one we know as Christ is the lion of Judah.) Some imaginative Christian is taking the message to the streets in creative ways.
What’s the actual point of Christ the King Sunday?
We who look upon this confrontation between Jesus and Pontius Pilate see two very different rulers. On the one hand is Pilate the Roman appointed ruler, ever conscious of those who appointed him and of his constituents whom he must answer, along with the crowd that could sway opinion for or against him. Pilate calculates every decision based upon two measures, how it will enhance his status and whether it will meet the approval of the crowd. There is no indication that he has any vision or the courage to make decisions that are based upon a higher Truth. One that judges actions not by whether they please a crowd but whether they enhance justice. Truth that is higher than political calculation escapes Pilate. It confuses him.
How about Jesus; what kind of ruler is he? Rowan Williams, whose book we are reading in Sunday School, says, “Pilate has begun by asking Jesus if he is a king, and Jesus has answered that his royal authority is not of this world–not the world’s kind.” Which begs the question: what is this world’s kind? The kingship Jesus exercises is the kind that cannot be defended by violence, nor is it upheld by hubris.
Pilate is clearly puzzled by the One who stands before him. He has only the categories of this world to fit Jesus into; categories that have served him well but into which Jesus doesn’t seem to fit. Are you a King, he asks. Jesus refuses to help Pilate escape the deeper implications of the conversation. “As you say so” forces Pilate to stay with the questions about the nature of true power and Truth.
The Roman Catholic theologian Hans Kung once asked, “What kind of kingdom will the Kingdom of God be? It will be a kingdom where, in accordance with Jesus’ prayer, God’s name is hallowed, God’s will is done on earth, people will have what they need, all sin will be forgiven and all evil overcome. It will be a kingdom where, in accordance with Jesus’ promises, the poor, the hungry, those who weep and those who are downtrodden will finally come into their own; where pain, suffering and death will have an end.” We keep looking.
Even so, we have to admit that speaking of Jesus as our King is awkward. American Christians are Americans who have resisted royal language from the founding of this nation. Our history teaches us that we are the ones who cast off the yoke of Kings to establish democracy and individual freedom. This can create a disconnect with Biblical language and hymns that speak of Kings and Kingdoms. It’s also awkward for another reason. To speak of a King is to speak of a higher authority to whom you and I are accountable. However much we may deny it, most of us find it difficult to recognize an authority higher than oneself. Nations divide in camps, congregations split into factions and families fall apart on this resistance to an authority that is higher than what one thinks, feels or believes is right. So rather than get too distracted by kingship language, you might ask yourself: what does it mean to give my full allegiance to Jesus, within a community of others who have pledged the same? What does it mean for you, along with others in this community, to allow Jesus’ way to rule our lives.
For Christians to say that Jesus is the Truth is to confess that our lives are accountable to God; that Jesus’ Way will be the guide for our ways; that his life shall be the Life in whom we find our life.
The only standard by which we measure the goodness of any nation is the one given by Jesus our King. He who preached good news to the poor, fed the hungry, welcomed the outcast and the foreigner. Our King enables us to hear angels singing over one lost sheep, who made it all the way home in the arms of love. The King of Love our Shepherd is.
When you see these things happening, you know you are in the kingdom of God. Aslan rules!
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
