Delivered 25 November 2006, the Saturday service based on the readings for Christ the King Sunday.
Welcome
Good evening! Here we are at the close of this day, the beginning of a new
week. We gather beside the waters of baptism, we gather at the foot of the
cross. This is the feast of Christ the King, the end of the church year.
The Lectionary
Look them up
The Sermon
Grace and peace to you from God our Father, and from his son Jesus the Christ, and from the Holy Spirit. Amen
Today is the feast of Christ the King, Christus Rex in Latin. The last Sunday of the liturgical calendar. Yes, at sunset next Saturday, the new church year begins. So consider this the New Year's Eve party of the western catholic church. I've always wanted to preach at a New Year's Eve party.
As holy days go, this one is pretty recent. Easter has been celebrated since very early in the history of the church, Christmas has been celebrated since the fourth century, shortly after the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and wanted a Christian holiday to compete with the Roman Saturnalia. Pius XI, Bishop of Rome, created this feast day in an encyclical in 1925, setting the date as the last Sunday in October. We have members of this parish that are older than Christ the King Sunday!
The Lutheran Church paid no absolutely no attention, for two reasons. First, at that time we were keenly focused on not being catholic. If the predecessor churches to the ELCA were so afraid of being seen as catholic that they banished the word from the creeds, they certainly weren't about to pay attention to Roman Catholic additions to the calendar. Besides, that's the Sunday we observe Reformation Day, which the Roman church blithely ignores. For those who remember the red book, the Service Book and Hymnal of 1958, there is no reference in the calendar to Christ the King.
In 1969 the Roman church finally implemented the calendar reforms called for by the Second Vatican Council, at which point the date was set as the last Sunday after Pentecost. That was, incidentally, the same time that Saint Christopher lost his place on the calendar. The new date was open in the Lutheran calendar, so when the green book, the just-retired Lutheran Book of Worship, went to press in 1978 we included it as well.
This is a day for a new image of our lord and savior. A new look.
Image and story are very important to us, they shape how we think about things. Our images of Jesus shape our faith. What are those images? We see him as the babe in the manger. We see him as the mostly-obedient son of Joseph and Mary. We see him as quietly turning water to wine. We see him sitting down, teaching the children. We see him in the good shepherd, looking for the one lost sheep. We see his broken body hanging on the cross.
But this is the day to turn the page on those images. We proclaim that the cross, the ultimate Roman sign of degradation and humiliation, is not only a painful place to die but a throne from which to rule. That's an image that challenges our Sunday-school portraits of the Lord, and also challenges our images of kings.
Pilate struggled with Jesus. There is no doubt that the prefect of Judea had very clear ideas of what a king was, and how a king would act. He found that the kingdom of Jesus did not threaten the Roman empire, or even his prefecture, and told the crowd he found no guilt. That didn't keep Pilate from turning Jesus over for crucifixion anyway, but he understood that the kingdom of Jesus was different from the kingdoms of earth.
As Americans in the third millennium, we probably have pretty mixed images of what a king is. Do we see King Arthur at Camelot, either the romantic versions or the more realistic ones? Do we imagine George VI of England, the wise and gentle father of the current queen of England? What about the obsessive George III who we battled for independence, and who ended up confined for the last decade of his life because of this madness? Or speaking of madness, what about Ludwig II and his amazing architecture? How about visualizing Prince Charles as king, those taxi-door ears sticking out below the crown?
Our images of kings don't help us understand the kingdom of Jesus any better than Pilate's understanding helped him, but Pilate managed to see royalty there. Can we?
Kingdoms have borders, and kings ride out with flags flying to defend or expand those borders. Jesus doesn't. He waves no flags, and knows no borders. But he claims to be king.
Kingdoms have laws, and great power to compel obedience and punish disobedience. Jesus doesn't. His commandments are few, enforcement is nonexistent.
Kings surround themselves with ministers and secretaries and all kinds of gatekeepers to protect them from their people. Jesus doesn't. He has called pastors and teachers and bishops and a host of others to serve the church in manifold ways, but we don't have to slip our Sunday school teacher a few bucks to get an appointment with the king. Each of us stands on our own.
Kings have palaces and thrones and vast treasuries, Jesus doesn't, at least not on earth. He didn't value palaces. As far as we know, he never had the equivalent of a bank account, much less rooms full of jewels. As king he levies no taxes, sends out no tax collectors.
The kingdom of Jesus Christ isn't like other kingdoms. The borders are all of time and space. His commandments are "Believe in me", "Love your neighbor", "Feed my sheep". We can come into the courtyard of the king at any time of day or night, to beg, whine, or give thanks. And the treasury of this kingdom? It's you! You are the treasure of Christ's kingdom!
Terrestrial kings lead their armies out to conquer new land, and then demand that every person accept the change in lordship. Not Jesus. He comes to us, one at a time, and asks for our allegiance.
In legend, Arthur was called the "once and future king". Jesus goes beyond that. He was once a king, hanging on a cross, pardoning the penitent thief and promising, "Today you will be with me in Paradise" as Luke relates. He is the future king, for we shall see Him on the throne of heaven, attended by angels. But he is also king today.
From east to west, from the beginning of time to the end, he accepts us as subjects. The only question is, do we accept him as king? From birth to death, at work, at play, at school, at home, do we take him as our king? Do we give him fealty, proclaim him our liege? Do we follow those few commandments, and build up his treasury by sharing the joy of being a part of this confused kingdom? A kingdom where the servant is on the throne? A kingdom where joyful sacrifice is the path to power?
Do not be deceived by the images we share, there is incredible power in this kingdom. That thief on the cross was sent to heaven, something no other king could ever have done. The thief accepted his guilt, he accepted the justice of his sentence. He somehow saw the majesty in the carpenter on the middle cross and acknowledged the kingship of Jesus while he was hanging there from from the nails through his bloody hands. "Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom."
But that thief got one thing wrong: Jesus is not going to come in to his kingdom, Jesus is king now. Don't take a number. Don't wait in the office with the outdated magazines. Accept this sacrificial lamb as king, and enter the kingdom. Give him the throne in your heart.
The harsh prefect Pontius Pilate saw kingship in Jesus. The unnamed thief, in agony on the cross, could see it. We must look past the legends of other kings, look past the gentle face we most often see in our lord. Beyond those images we see the king. Christus Rex. Christ the King. He is our king, we are his subjects.
And this is what we call Good News. This is the Gospel of the Lord. Amen.