Nov 24, 2024
Today’s sermon is by Chip Camden…
The Last Sunday after Pentecost/Christ the King Sunday
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Psalm 93
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37
Today is the final Sunday in the church year, commonly called Christ the King -- although as our Bishop recently told us, Christ the King is not one of the feast days mentioned in the Book of Common Prayer. Nevertheless, our readings for this Sunday reflect the regal character of God in Christ that is associated with this observance. What does it mean to say that Christ is King?
When Pilate interrogates Jesus in our gospel lesson, he gets right to the point: "Are you the King of the Jews?" He hoped to make quick work of this case. If Jesus admitted to the charge, then he could be executed as a rebel against Rome. Case closed. But Jesus doesn't make it easy for Pilate. In the same way that God likes to shatter our easy categories, Jesus plays with the meaning of "king" and "kingdom." His kingship is not like earthly rulers who have armies to back them up when fighting against rival kingdoms -- it is not of this world. Pilate grasps at Jesus' use of the word "kingdom" to try to bring the question back to the dualism he prefers: "are you a king then?" Jesus expands on his redefinition: he has come into the world to testify to the truth. "Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." Thus, Jesus' "kingdom" is made up of truth followers, not soldiers or unwilling subjects. For Pilate, this constitutes a "no" to his original question, so he attempts, unsuccessfully, to release Jesus. But first, Pilate can't resist throwing out a (perhaps snarky) philosophical question: "What is truth?"
We continue to ask Pilate's question 2000 years later. The gospel writer records no response from Jesus. Did he perceive that Pilate wasn't seeking an answer, or that he could not receive one? Or was Jesus' silence more profound: mere words cannot answer that question.
Clearly, when we apply the term "king" to God or to Christ, we cannot mean the same thing as we do when we apply it to humans. It is a metaphor, by which we ascribe certain qualities of kingship but not others, and even those we intend do not correspond exactly. The same is true of every term we use to describe the divine. Take our Psalm for example -- does God really wear clothes? Or our reading from Daniel -- are there chairs in heaven? What does it mean when we say that Christ is seated at the right hand of God - does God even have a right side? No, all of these metaphors intend to express majesty, in the parlance that was familiar to the authors. So it is also with kingship.
A king is powerful, and God is infinitely powerful. But a king often exerts power in order to maintain the authority of the throne and the king’s own possession of it. God has no need to fear any usurper or enemy, so the expression of God’s power is very different from that of a king. A king must dominate – but God’s power is love.
A king rules over many people, and God is over everything. But kings, being human, have less time for each individual the more of them they rule. Not so with God, whose attention is unlimited. Kings create distance between themselves and their subjects, but God embraces the least of us.
We the well-informed liberal minds of the twenty-first century may wish to discard Biblical metaphors like kingship as too dated, patriarchal or ridiculous, but we should remember that there are no words to adequately express the divine. I suspect that, if faith is still found in this world in another two thousand years, they will look back on today's improved terminology and think, "how quaint and unenlightened." Nevertheless, we have little choice. Only by direct encounter can we know God -- and even then we immediately slather it with our explanations. We have to use metaphors, or not speak at all.
We can use our words to point others towards the destination of divine encounter, but we have to be careful not to limit God to our metaphors. God is greater than anything we attempt to describe. There is much more that cannot even be addressed.
Here's a secret: the same is true for you and me. Who you are is far deeper than any words that can be said about you. We often think of our identity in terms of our career, interests and relationships. But all of those things are only emanations (or distractions) from our true identity, which is "hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). Meister Eckhart says about that innermost identity: "Here God's ground is my ground, and my ground is God's ground" (Sermon 5b). Because we are united to God, we are also ineffably deep.
Rather than focusing on our surface features such as political party, career, wealth, education, ethnicity, gender and sexuality -- what if we could see the very depth of God in each other? What if we could see each person we meet as Christ? How would we treat them differently?
How can we learn to see that identity in ourselves? Most if not all of us feverishly fashion our surface identities, engineering what we think people will think of us (hint: social media isn’t helping). Often we begin to embrace our own story to the point where we lose our ability to see ourselves as we are. We often fear to look that deeply within, because we are ashamed or afraid of what we think we might find. We fear even more to show that to others. The Imposter Syndrome is the recognition that what we appear to be might not correspond with who we really are -- and that we prefer the fiction to the reality. But we need not be afraid of ourselves. The deeper you go, the more divine you are. Your true identity is unspeakably beautiful.
We may not ever be able in this life to completely avoid projecting false images of ourselves, but the more we learn to refrain from it the more authentic we will be. Authenticity frees us from fear, so that we can genuinely love each other and ourselves. God help us to do so.