Between noon and three

This sermon was preached at St. Mark’s, Berkeley, on November 24, 2024, the feast of Christ the King (Last Sunday after Pentecost/Proper 29). Today’s feast, following so shortly our national elections a few weeks ago, provided a natural occasion to reflect on power, vulnerability, and the Gospel.

Collect: Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14, Revelation 1:4b-8, John 18:33-37

__________

In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen:

Today’s readings present probably the highest contrast of any set of readings in the lectionary: the Old Testament, the Psalm, the passage from Revelation, are all highly exalted in tone, with royal imagery and language of great power and dominion. Reading these lessons, one is in no doubt about the ultimate authority of God or of his chosen. “His throne was fiery flames, a thousand thousands served him, the court sat in judgement and the books were opened. The Lord is King, he has put on splendid apparel. Lo, he comes with clouds descending; to him be glory and dominion, for ever and ever.” 

And then we get to the Gospel, which takes place mere hours before Jesus is crucified. Yes, he and Pilate are discussing kingship, and what sort of king Jesus might be. But it’s impossible for the context to fade into the background. This is not a meeting of two equals. Pilate is a citizen of Rome, the governor of Judea, appointed by Emperor Tiberius Caesar himself to rule in Caesar’s name. And Jesus is the son of a provincial carpenter turned itinerant rabbi, arrested and condemned. He appears before Pilate a prisoner, whose life hangs on a word.

Today is the feast of Christ the king. The whole force of the other lessons, certainly the collect, our hymns, the choir’s anthems, all of them drive us to see that here in Pilate’s chambers, the prisoner is the one who is lord of all; while the chosen deputy of the most powerful man on earth we are meant to think merely a mid-level bureaucrat at best.

No starker contrast exists in all the church’s calendar of Sundays, feast days, or readings. There’s no way around it, this level of contrast is hard to understand. Sure, we can acknowledge it with our minds, but what on earth does it mean?

Part of the challenge, I think, is that at this point in our history, it’s hard to imagine a king of any sort; at least, a king like the ancient world would have known. In the Year of our Lord 2024, almost every monarch we’re aware of is figurehead of a limited, constitutional monarchy: useful for raising awareness of charitable causes, and of course endless fodder for tabloids and talk shows, but not usually much else. Meanwhile in this country we have famously done away with monarchs altogether. Every schoolchild grows up learning about the American Revolution: when effigies of King George were burned, many of his officials and sympathizers were tarred and feathered, and the new nation established itself on principles from the Roman republic, not the Roman empire. 

So we can perhaps be forgiven some confusion when it comes to the feast of Christ the King: not only is the contrast between ancient almighty royalty and a condemned prisoner too much for our brains to hold, the whole idea of a king is foreign to us in the first place.

Maybe it’s worth digressing at this point, to say that no form of government is explicitly or implicitly endorsed by God, not in the Christian religion at any rate; you might say Christianity is “governmentally agnostic.” And indeed, across history it is frequently the case that Christianity spreads most quickly and roots most deeply in places with oppressive governments rather than in those with benevolent ones. Which is not to endorse oppressive regimes, only to observe that the Christian Gospel resonates with people there in a way that it frequently doesn’t elsewhere, or not to the same degree. 

As Americans, no matter where we locate ourselves on the political spectrum, it is often difficult to remember that we have not perfected the art of civilization, that our ideas are not necessarily the best, that God is not reading the New York Times taking notes on how better to run the universe (though sometimes I wish he would). 

It’s worth keeping all this in mind, especially at times when we feel the stakes are particularly high, when our choices as a nation have real consequences for good or ill across the globe. They do, of course: I am not suggesting that our choices for good or ill do not matter. Only that we worship a God who is quite capable of making good from evil, of snatching life from the jaws of death, of affirming that a prisoner awaiting his death sentence is actually King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And perhaps this is exactly the point, or at least for us, here in Berkeley, on this year’s feast of Christ the King at any rate: we cannot imagine a king, yet we own this one as high above all earthly authority. We cannot hold the contrast between Caesar’s prisoner and the lord of all creation, yet we worship him as God and nourish our souls with his flesh and blood. The impossibility of all this, the necessity of affirming it all anyway, must finally break something in us: our assumptions, our expectations, even perhaps something of our aspirations. 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ and the quest for political power and influence do not and can never go hand in hand. Because the Christ of the Gospel does not pull the levers of earthly power; rather he is crushed by those who do. And if you and I would worship him truly, we must first ask, whom have I crushed, and how might I turn and serve them? And then, who else is crushed by the powers that be? Can I find it in myself not just to serve them, but to adore them as those in whom Christ is especially visible? If I can adore the refugee, can I adore the fentanyl addict? If I can adore the addict, can I adore the unpleasant uncle whose mind is rotted with social media and memes? Maybe, but I suspect most of us have work to do. I certainly do.

It is true that in this life, in this world, especially perhaps in Berkeley, California, we find ourselves in possession of a certain amount of power, whether we asked for it or not. We try to do good with this power, we seek to wield it for the benefit of others. But power is a double-edged sword, and the tighter we grip it, the longer we wield it, the more damage it does to ourselves. 

Christ the King teaches us, the only thing power is finally good for is for giving away: for casting down our crown before the only one who can wear it without being corrupted by it: the One who humbled himself to become a servant, even to death on a cross.

This is a beautiful vision, I think, and offers an important alternative to the world we live in. Today there seem to be two prevailing responses to woundedness, vulnerability (well, three, if you count denial): First, we can insist that we ought not be vulnerable, that it is beneath our dignity, and then rise up in anger at those we perceive have wounded us. Or, second, we can wear our victimhood as a badge of honor, and thereby turn it into its own source of power and corruption. But this is really the same as the first, and both mean we are finally consumed: whether consumed by anger or by pride, the result is the same.

Christ before Pilate, Christ the King offers a third way: refusing on the one hand to take vengeance for our wounds, refusing on the other hand to justify ourselves by them, we can instead just stop, and behold them. They are wounds, they are injuries, to be sure. But as the wound in Christ’s side made his heart visible, even, as early commentators put it, opening passage to the heart of God, so our wounds put us in touch with what is truest and best about ourselves, and in the process make our hearts open to the presence of God and to our fellow human beings. 

The mystery is, that while this makes us vulnerable to attack, abuse, misunderstanding, and all sorts of villainy, yet it is the only way to be faithful to the example of our Lord. And, as the cross is his eternal and glorious throne throughout all worlds, so wherever you feel most vulnerable, most afraid, is the place his glory abides in you, is the beachhead of his kingdom on earth. 

Do not leave that shore, do not seal it up, do not make it your brand, do not charge admission, for heaven’s sake do not muster an army there or declare yourself king. Instead let it be the place where you continually draw water from the well of life, where the sun breaks across the sea and the wilderness blossoms as the rose.

In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Amen.