Many Crowns (Christ the King B)

 

Many Crowns

Last Sunday before Advent, the Solemnity of Christ the King (Year B)
22 November 2015--8:00 a.m. Said, 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass

Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; Psalm 93; Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37

Gracious Jesus, our leader and guide, king eternal from whom all kings should take their pattern:  open our eyes to see your hands at work in the world about us.  Open our hearts and hands that we may hasten the coming of your kingdom.   For your mercy’s sake we pray, Amen.

Today is Christ the King Sunday, a festival intended to celebrate Christ’s dominion in the world today, the living, breathing world of nations, peoples, politics, armies, and government.  Pope Leo XI introduced the feast somewhat nostalgically in 1925, after the First World War had destroyed the last vestiges in Europe of what had been called “Christendom,” the joining of political power and Christian faith.   It is now celebrated by most mainstream churches, because it places a fitting emphasis on Jesus’ rule over us on this, the last Sunday of the year in the Christian Calendar. 

What Leo was asserting, of course, was that the proper political order was one of theocracy, where God and his vicars reigned, or dictated basic policy to those who did.    If God and Jesus are all knowing, all good, and all just, what better rulers could we have?   

Logical as far as it goes….  But……..   

We have plenty of reasons for fearing theocracy, and indeed, any mixing of political power and religious hierarchy.   Religious leaders are just as prone to abuse as others.  Look at what we call “religious wars.”   Theocracy just makes things worse, it would seem.  But it is not as simple as saying that religion is the problem:  Karen Armstrong’s book Fields of Blood I think shows very well that most wars usually called religious are actually caused by political and economic struggles that simply use religious memes and ideas as meta-narratives to motivate your people.

Our own republic rejected the idea of theocracy along with kings at its founding: we have a separation of Church and State, and a Bill of Rights prohibition of state-sponsored religion.  Our federal constitution proclaims, “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust under the United States” (Art. IV).

I think most of us are actually repelled by the idea of theocracy, all the more so today.  Da’esh, the self-styled Caliphate of Islam in Syria and Iraq behind the terrorist murders in Paris and Beirut this last week, claims that all it does—the random murders, the rapes, the enslavement, the kidnapping, the beheading, the burning alive—all this is good and right, acts by officers of the Caliphate in accord with God’s intention and orders.    Many of us have reacted to such barbarity with fear, anxiety, and outrage.  But some mimic such enemies by striving for a theocracy all their own:  a religious test for immigration or refugee status, shutting down borders to those fleeing for their lives, and a call for “keeping the Law of God” in our public life and laws.   

So what does “Christ the King” say to us, members of a commonwealth suspicious of kings and politically-minded priests? 

Our Bishop Michael Hanley wrote the following about our reaction to the terror attacks: 

“St. Theresa of Avila says be not disturbed or distressed, ‘For, when you are it is a great gain for the devil; he is delighted to see a soul distressed and uneasy, because he knows that this will hinder it from employing itself in loving and praising God.”

Joan Chittister, (in her book A Spirituality for the 21st Century, The Rule of Benedict), tells us that St. Benedict directed the reading of the psalms in Morning Prayer as he did to remind us, ‘that life is not perfect, that struggle is to be expected, that the human being lives of the brink of danger and defeat at all times’, And that, ‘having lived through everything life has to give that week, the community bursts into unending praise for having survived.’

“In the first psalm we cry for help and in the second we praise God for having saved us.

“In the past several days I have read many wonderfully written calls by bishops, by priests and by laity in the church, to resist the temptation to exclude Syrian refuges from the United States or to insist that our Muslim brothers and sisters wear a badge stating their religious preference. These are all important points to be made and clearly of Gospel value. I give thanks for the good work that has been done by those who have spoken out.

“I am convinced in addition to this: that the central challenge of daily living is to make good choices about how we exist in the world. We can live disturbed or distressed and the devil will enjoy our discomfort, or we can live through the challenges of life - which are inevitable - and continue to love this good earth God has given us, love the good people around us, and praise God for saving us daily.

“Those who take life and particularly innocent life, be they religious fanatics, troubled young men, or angry individuals seem to me to be those who have lost their capacity to know God, to love life and to give praise to the creator of the universe. It is in the belief that we are the masters of our fate and totally in control of our lives that we become servants of evil and people who tear down and destroy rather than build up and create. 

“And so, begin each day with a cry for help and continue to praise God for saving graces.”

That really touched me.  I too have been thinking a lot lately about the Benedictine spirituality of the Daily Office, and in particular, the importance of reciting the Psalms in prayer.  There is no way about it:  though many of the Psalms are exquisite, some of them are horrible.  We have: “Cast your burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain you.  He will never suffer the righteous to fall.  He is at your right hand.”  But we also have:  “Defend me from my enemies, God! Kill them. Make their children orphans and their wives widows. Put them in prison never to be set free.  May they be buried alive!”  The emotions here—sometimes raging and out of control—are ultimately a side show.  The point is that no matter how hard life is, regardless of our feelings, we still are in relationship with God, beneath it all, sustaining the good and the right and pushing us on to glory.  It’s okay to feel emotions.  What matters is what we do with them.

We have had so many deaths here at Trinity of late!  And so much illness and suffering!  It is easy to lose heart, get depressed, or to get impatient with God.   We sometimes just shut our emotions down.  Rejecting the idea of a God, the idea of any sense in the universe, sometimes seems easier than to fathom the mystery of a loving and all-powerful Deity tolerating such things.   Daily prayer, along with gentle and loving service, is to my mind the best remedy for such despair and distraction.   Connecting with God, glimpsing the glory, participating in God’s love—this all helps us get through the darkness. 

Some people have reacted to the terrorism and trouble we see by trotting out the apocalyptic and last-days scriptures we read about this time each year.  They argue that the evil of the world is a sign that Jesus is coming soon, upset, and ready to cast it all down. But this misses the point and leads us away from the loving Abba Jesus taught us about. 

When I was young, I sometimes heard in Church sermons of what they called the “signs of the times,” or the signs of the end.  Most of these were disastrous indications of the world going to hell and destruction.   I only later learned that this was a gross misunderstanding of the New Testament idea of  “signs of the times.”  In Matthew 16:1-3, the Pharisees and Sadducees come to Jesus and ask him to show them a sign from heaven.   They have heard of his marvelous healings and acts, which he says is a sign that the reign of God has come near.  They want a proof before they’ll believe his claims.   He replies, “You know how to read the weather, but not read the signs of the times.^”  For Jesus, his marvelous acts that showed God’s grace and love and healing were the true signs of what time we live in, the time of the in-breaking of God’s kingdom into our lives here and now.    

“You want a sign?” asks Jesus, “I’ll give you a sign—the sign of Jonah!”  He is talking about coming forth out of the belly of the fish, out of death itself, alive and strong and well after the proverbial three-day wait for God’s true purposes to unfold.   As we read last week, Jesus thinks that all the gory stuff that people get worked up about are just stage props, what he calls “false labor pains.”  Tribulation is part and parcel of human life from the beginning.  “Don’t worry about it,” he says.  The only true sign of the coming of God’s kingdom are moments of joy, not despair. 

When we look for signs of the times, we should be looking for glimpses of glory, not for things gory.    We are often too beaten down and distracted to see the signs of God’s loving kindness right before our eyes.  They are there, new every morning.  We simply have to have eyes to see. 

That actually is what today’s Gospel is about:  the people who wanted Jesus to be “King of the Jews” wanted an theocratic leader who would march ahead of armies and conquer the Romans.  Pilate asks him if he is guilty of such insurrection against Rome.  Jesus replies “King of the Jews—are those words yours or someone else’s?”   Pilate replies, “Hey, it’s not my religion, after all! You tell me.”  And Jesus answers, “I’m not leading any armies am I?  If that’s what you think I’m up to, it’s not so.  The kingdom I talk about and am building is not about control, armies, and political power.”  “So you are a king,” says Pilate, ever the police interrogator.  “Your word, not mine,” says Jesus, “I would prefer saying I am standing up for truth and good.  In fact, that is the point of my life.” 

Again, seek for glimpses of glory, not of things gory.  I think that it is the heart of any true affirmation of Christ as King.  His dominion can and will change the world, the real world of nations and societies about us.  But not in any way we’re used to from other kings and leaders.    His kingdom is not of this world. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.