Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser
Not the Kind of King You Might Think
Nov 25, 2019 John 13:33-37 Christ the King B
I’m going to say a word in a moment,
and I want each of us to pay attention to our imagination, and what picture
comes to your mind. OKAY? You are going to have an immediate picture of
what this word conjures up for you - everyone understand? Okay, here goes - CHAIR. The word is CHAIR. You have your immediate picture? Okay- how
many of you saw your favorite TV-watching chair? Hands up, please! Is it a recliner? Does it swivel? Does it have a place for holding a cup? How many visualized a table chair? Does it have arms? Is it black? Brown?
Does it have those shaped dowels in the back? Does it have a hard seat? A covered one? Since we’re in a church, did anyone see a
pew? Did anyone see a poolside chair?
How about a throne? A
rocker? A folding chair like in our
Fellowship Hall? A weird modern chair? A
rock or stump to sit on in the woods?
One of those kneeling things that are supposed to help your back? Is it a comfortable chair? Or does it just match the table or the
sofa? I’ve heard chairs described as a
10 minute chair - that is, its uncomfortable on purpose so the person won’t
stay long. Some chairs are too high up
for some legs; some you feel like you’re almost sitting on the ground. Some hit your back funny.
You probably already got my point -
we have many experiences and associations with the word ‘chair’. If I were to
talk about my favorite chair, I would have to get rather specific about what I
mean. Otherwise, we would each be making assumptions about it, based on chairs we
know.
So today, the last Sunday of our
church year, is called Christ the King. The word I want us to ponder is the
word ‘King.’ What associations and experiences do we bring to the word
‘king’? Do we get a mental image of
paintings of Henry VIII? Large, richly
dressed, dressed in a long past style, a man who broke with both the roman
church and the Protestant church and made up his own Anglican church? A man who claimed an annulment from one wife
to marry another, only to behead her 3 years later for yet another wife?
Do we perhaps, since we’re in
church, think of the kings of Israel, like David - the youngest son who was
raised to King, who fought a rather strange battle in the wilderness with King
Saul, who raised armies and fought other peoples in the land around his, the
man who was able to successfully return the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem,
but couldn’t build the Temple? Did we think of that mythical King Arthur and
the legends of the round Table, and the Knights and their quests? Did we think of the Lord of the Rings
stories, and the various Kings of Middle Earth, especially Aragorn of Arathorn?
I could name some generalities of
our images - King are male, for one. Its
a word that implies a gender. Usually
kings are leaders of countries; often in history Kings led armies into battles,
and the legends around Kings are that they are mighty warriors and wielder of
weapons, defending their people and
keeping their borders safe. And
sometimes expanding their borders…
When we think of Christ as a King,
are those the characteristics we automatically attribute? There is a lot in scripture that attributes
the attributes of a good and worthy King to the Messiah, the Anointed One, the
Christ of God. And the Revelation to
John certainly carries this imagery of earthly kings in battles and
triumphant.
The text we read from John’s gospel
today reminds us that religious language tries to put in words those things
that are often not quite equal to our limited words, and tries to use words to
capture things of God that can’t really be captured. Religious language is often like using our
finger to point to the moon - the moon is way beyond out finger; our finger is
not the moon - it only points to the moon.
(I don’t know who first used this illustration, but its old.) Just because we have to use the word King to
try and capture how God creates, sustains, orders, and is greater than the
creation, doesn’t mean that God is exactly like our human kings.
We have Jesus here before Pontius
Pilate, who was like a regional governor of Judea under the Roman Emperor,
which included keeping the peace with the conquered Jewish inhabitants. The title “King of the Jews” has
been thrown around about Jesus, and used as a reason to bring him before the
secular authorities as an enemy of Rome.
The conversation between these two men is fascinating, the contrast of
position and power, the contrast of human authority and God’s authority. Despite Pilate’s questioning, Jesus never
says “I am a King.” He is not claiming
an earthly kingdom that will literally fight to overthrow the forces of the
Roman Empire. Instead, he says, “My
kingdom is not of this world.” They are
not talking on the same plane; they are talking apples and oranges, so to
speak. “You say I am a King,” Jesus
says, “but this is why I came - to testify to the truth.”
I want to say that Jesus’ kingdom is
a kingdom of the heart - more than a philosophical ideal because it is acted
out and lived in real time, and on the real earth, in the midst of all kinds of
other earthly-styled kingdoms. In a way
it is like a kingdom because we Christians have a deep loyalty, a trust in our
heart of hearts, our minds, our very souls; we are pledged to God as the center
of our being and meaning. Its a kingdom
without borders to protect - in fact, we don’t want walls to keep people out of
God’s kingdom. Borders are political
things, arbitrarily drawn and defended by human systems of government. It a kingdom of like-minded people that live
anywhere and everywhere, and can be citizens of any political country they
happen to live in, although our true country is God’s. So its like a kingdom in
many respects.
Our General Assembly’s bible study
this past year compared and contrasted the words and concepts of Kingdom and
Kindom. I first heard the term “kindom”
years ago as a feminist attempt to avoid the gender-bearing word ‘King.’ I immediately liked it for the way it spoke
of the community, the family of God, without hierarchy, yet in relationship
with God and with each other. And it
reminded me of the native American concept of all created beings as “all my
relations.” Kindom also doesn’t carry
the mental associations of only a royal bloodline of special people, nor the
associations with wars and battles, with that win/lose set-up of trying to
conquer the other.
You might have noticed that I will intersperse Kingdom of
God and kindom of God and realm of God, in order to offer different ways to
enter the concept. It seems to me that
when believers have taken the concept of ‘kingdom’ too literally, it has led to
literal wars and bloodshed trying to literally enforce God’s realm in the
political sphere. The crusades, for
example, and all the current fighting between Israel and Palestine and
everybody who wants to claim Jerusalem.
I do believe that we are to live by the ethics and precepts of the
Scripture, and if we can spread these good ways of living, the better our
countries will be for all people, which I think is what God desires. I don’t believe we kill people to prove our
way is right.
So when we affirm Christ as King, when the scriptures talk
of all enemies being beneath his feet, what do we mean? It is a scriptural hope and confidence that
Christ is the first, the leader, the one who shows the way, to this kingdom
that is not of this world. Christ is the
first of a new creation, and the best - Scripture calls Christ the new adam,
the first of the new, resurrected human, the first and foremost of the new
realm of God. And that doesn’t mean a
far away place we’ve commonly referred to as heaven, a place we get to go if
we’re good, some imagined future after we die.
The realm of God is now - Christ is already the first to open its doors,
and those doors are opened to us who believe.
In fact, we probably ought to make it more plain when we tell people
about God - when our hearts open to God, we become members of that same realm,
that same kindom. We become a new
person, sharing in that resurrection of which Jesus is the first, and we
metaphorically and spiritually become part of that realm where Christ is
foremost. Each of us here, believers in
God and in the words and work of Jesus the Christ, are now part of a new
reality, a new worldview, sisters and brothers with Jesus Christ as we work
together in this world to bring the values of that realm into being here - thy
will be done on earth as in heaven, we pray.
And we mean it. Our allegiance is
to this new realm, our actions and our disciplines are as loyal members of this
realm that is of utmost value, and of which Christ is foremost. Other
allegiances give way, fall to second place; other leaders, while good and even
important, don’t measure up. In fact, other loyalties are called into question
by that which is ultimate.
That, my friends, is the message of this last Sunday of the
Christian year. AMEN.
No comments:
Post a Comment