Which King?

The other day I was driving along in San Diego, and noticed that ahead of me on the road was a pickup truck, with the word JESUS stenciled onto the back window, surrounded by the stars and stripes of the American flag. Speeding around a U turn, the truck pulled into a gun store and shooting range and parked. I’m afraid I made some assumptions about the driver at this point. I didn’t know him, I didn’t know anything about his heart – but I saw the symbols he was using to announce himself. His Jesus seemed different from the one I know. 

That image came to mind for the feast on our calendar today: the Feast of Christ the King. It’s a relatively recent feast on the church calendar – it was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925, and moved to its current date, the last Sunday of the church year, in 1969. Pope Pius created the feast day as a response to the growing secularism and nationalism of his age, as a day to remind the world that it is God who is really in charge, and that we are citizens first of God’s kingdom, not our earthly nations. It was a rebuke to the rise of such leaders as Mussolini and Hitler.

Technically, we don’t actually keep this feast, because we’re not Roman Catholic. Our Episcopal church calendar does not officially include it, even though it’s there in everything but name. All the readings for today are on the theme of the righteous king, Jesus the king of the Jews, God’s reign on earth; many materials from our national church call this Sunday Christ the King Sunday; but our democratic General Convention has never voted that name onto the calendar. We still feel ambivalent about the idea of Jesus as king.

One of our bishops recently commented that we’re in a time when one popular version of Christianity seems to wrap the flag around the cross and hit people with it – Christian nationalism, in other words, where America and Jesus get all tangled up as if they stand for the same things. It’s a dangerous heresy. The scripture readings, and our Christian doctrine, teach us that yes, Jesus is king – but he’s king in a completely different way than we understand. He is not a new Caesar. He is not about earthly conquest and control, or absolute power wielded absolutely. In the gospels Jesus turns human ideas of power upside down, and rebukes those who try to hold onto it – through riches, or status, or exploiting or lording it over others. When Pilate asks Jesus if he is King of the Jews, Jesus’ answer is that he is one who bears witness to the truth – if he is king, then this is what his kingship is about, and his followers, his ‘subjects’, are those who hear the truth of God’s love and respond to it. 

That was a different answer than Rome knew what to do with. Caesar, and Pharoah and Herod before him, are all examples of strongmen leaders who brutally demand fidelity while personally enriching themselves. The Bible is quite clear that such people are not to be trusted – even the ideal king David is painted with a lot of flaws and need for repentance. No leader, elected or kingly, and no human system, can be the focus of our trust. They all fail; they cannot heal us or bring us life or bring about the beloved community here on earth. Only God can do that. Jesus is Lord – not anyone else. Not the false shepherds that Jeremiah rails at, who destroy and scatter the sheep. Not the powers and rulers who crucified Jesus on the cross. No one but God is God. No power except God’s is true.

In the 16th century, Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, wrote the Spiritual Exercises, a series of meditations for his monks. He included one meditation called the Two Standards. The meditation offers two images of kings and their strategies: one the false king, Lucifer, who uses the desire for riches, honor, and pride as his strategy to enslave and destroy his followers, and one the true king, Christ, whose strategy is poverty, powerlessness, and humility. In the meditation, we are invited to decide whom we will follow – and therefore to begin changing our life to reflect those values. The paradox is that in that self-emptying and humility, we possess everything: Christ himself. Rather than being enslaved to the false king and the destructiveness of his path, we are freed and brought out into the truth: the truth that our whole reality and value is grounded in being created and redeemed in Christ, not in any status or stature or security of our own or the world’s making.

This call to worship the true God, not to be distracted and enslaved by idols of power and wealth and dominance, has profound implications for our lives. It’s not easy. How do we choose to follow Jesus? What does that look like? Well, we come to church to find out, don’t we? And to find a community, and a place, where we can learn and find meaning together. Life can be isolating, and a community to be with matters, a community that is centered on shared values and beliefs and a care for one another.

But that language about home and family and belonging sounds a little more static and uniform than this really is. After all, Jesus was always on the move. Following Jesus was notably different from following other rabbis of his time. The usual pattern was that a rabbi would become known for his teaching, and people would come to him, and ask to stay with him and learn from him in the place where he was. The different rabbinical schools of tradition formed in this way, in different locations based around different teachers. But Jesus the rabbi functioned differently. Instead of people coming to be with him and stay, Jesus came upon them in the midst of their ordinary lives and called them to follow him. Instead of gathering a community of disciples around him in one spot, to stay and belong and be at home together, Jesus dragged his disciples hither and yon all over the countryside. Being Jesus’ follower was literal – following a moving target as he roamed around, preaching and bringing about the kingdom of God. The early Christians were known as people of the Way. They didn’t sit still. They, and Jesus, were on the move.

And as I’ve often pointed out, those early Christians had a little bit of everybody joining in. Rich and poor, educated and not, slave and free, women and men. The twelve disciples gathered around Jesus included both a Zealot intent on overthrowing the Roman empire and a tax collector who benefited from working for that empire. Dinner conversations must have been complicated. And yet, there they all were, gathered around Jesus – because following Jesus and learning to live like him was more central than anything else that might divide them.

Our former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry likes to call the church the Jesus Movement, the people who are on the move, following around wherever Jesus is leading. At the end of every service, we say the dismissal – Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Thanks be to God! – and go off into the rest of the day. Each of us goes off to love and serve the Lord in our different walks of life, in different workplaces and schools and groups of friends and neighbors. Church gives us a chance to rest and refuel, recharge, reorient ourselves again toward God in our midst. And then we go out to be Jesus’ followers in the rest of our lives, each of us following Jesus in a unique way, unique to us. What we do here today should bear fruit in how we treat others tomorrow. Slowly, so slowly, we should be becoming more and more like Jesus – more and more shaped and modeled on the one who is truly the king of our lives.

Our true allegiance as the Jesus Movement is to one who walked straight into a shameful death and through it brought life for all. That is a great king to follow. With God’s help! As we give thanks to God this week for all the good gifts of harvest, may we look to that humble king Jesus – so that we can be freed and brought together under Jesus’ most gracious rule. May we trust in God and God alone. Amen.