Solemnity of Christ the King, November 21, 2021

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Jesus and power; my relationship with power/Jesus and truth; my relationship with truth

John 18:33–37

So Pilate went back into the praetorium and summoned Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Jesus answered, “Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me?”

Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?”

Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants [would] be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.”

So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Music Meditations

Opening Prayer

From Sacred Space, a service of the Irish Jesuits:

Jesus, in the midst of all the noise and distractions of this world we find it hard to hear your voice.
Open our ears Lord that we may hear and take account of your word.

Companions for the Journey

From a homily delivered at Memorial Church, Stanford, for the Feast of Christ the King, 2006:

Let’s do a little word association:

What comes to mind when I say King?

What came to my mind was: King Henry the VIII, King David, King Louis XIV, Elvis, King Kong….

What they all had in common for me was the idea of wealth, dominance, power, and the abuse of same.

This feast of Christ the King is just the opposite. It is not about power at all. And it is not about heaven. It is about God’s vision for the earth—a transformed world, a world where kings or dictators and systems of economic or physical domination and exploitation do not exist.

The Jesus whom we meet in today’s gospel, this battered, exhausted little man standing in front of Pilate, is not a King as you and I would define one, and his kingdom is not a place; it is a moral landscape we inhabit, where the values of the world are turned upside down. We describe it in today’s preface to the Eucharistic prayer: “an eternal and universal kingdom: a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of Justice, love and peace.” Is this the kind of world we want? (I think so)

We celebrate that Jesus came, in the words of Luke and Isaiah: “to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and the recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Jesus was about inclusion, not exclusion, about sharing, not domination. His friends were those marginalized by the society in which they traveled: women, the uneducated, the poor, the unclean, the schizophrenic, the criminals, tax collectors and other sinners. In Matthew he is reported to have said to the righteous leaders of Israel: “Even tax collectors and prostitutes will enter into the kingdom before you.”

Jesus spent his life as a subverter of the order that existed. That’s what got up the noses of the Scribes and Pharisees. They were complicit in a system that bled the poor people dry in order to feed the massive machinery of war and government that Rome had constructed. Rome ruled the Jewish homeland through native collaborators of the elite class—temple authorities and Jewish aristocracy under a high priest appointed by Rome. They had a stake in how Galilean Jews behaved—an economic stake in whether those Jews paid tithes to the temple and a political stake in whether those Jews were restive and prone to rebellion. Along the way, they skimmed off a little for themselves, but the real issue was that they participated in and benefited from an economic system that oppressed the rest of the population (1) Jesus was openly critical of them, and that’s why they considered him so dangerous.

Scripture is political. It is about God’s passion for a different kind of world—one in which people have enough not as the result of charity but as the fruit of justice, (2) a world in which success is not measured by the size of our automobiles or the number of our toys, but by the quality of our service to others. Jesus’ vision of the kingdom was a world in which the laborers in the vineyard were paid according to their economic and physical needs, not necessarily according to the amount of their labor. Jesus’ vision of the kingdom was a world in which a spendthrift son who dissipated his inheritance came home to a warm welcome and absolute forgiveness from a loving father. No questions asked.

Is that the kind of world we want? (I wonder…)

Jesus spoke and still speaks on behalf of people at the bottom who are victims of a systemic social sin that finds it easier to blame the victims for a speck in their eye than society itself for the timber blinding its own eye. (3)

Jesus’ vision is one of a world where the Good Samaritan risks ritual uncleanliness and personal safety to rescue a man found along a barren roadside. He gives out of his own pocket money to care for this man who is a stranger and from an enemy tribe. Pretty risky and very irresponsible, some might say.

Jesus’ vision is of a world where we don’t rely only on governmental “safety nets” to save the old, the ill, the poor, the disabled in any way. A world in which in which we give to those who ask without judging the recipient as worthy of our “charity”. A world in which we can look a raggedy, dirty street beggar in the eye and recognize our brother or sister, or maybe Jesus.

Is that the kind of world we want? (The jury is out on this one.)

An examination of the values of the kingdom provides a lens through which to bring the questions of our personal life into sharp focus: What will make me happy? What shall I do with my work? How shall I spend my money? Who shall be my friends? How am I to love? Filtering the questions of one’s personal life through the scope of the kingdom brings to light the vision on which Jesus was focused. Such a process can stamp out selfishness, vindictiveness, hatred and judgmentalism, and substitute generosity, forgiveness, inclusion and understanding, but only if we are open to change. (4)

When Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God he posited a countercultural lens through which to view the world. [The kingdom] suggests a cataclysmic shift in which the poor, the blind, the lame and the captives are represented and included. (5) Is that the kind of world you want? Make no mistake about it, that’s the kind of world Jesus was talking about.

Before we pray “thy kingdom come” we must be willing to pray “my kingdom go” (6) and that requires a shift in values and a desire to conform our will to that of Jesus. The world would look a little different from what it looks like right now: Right now 6% of the people (all American) control 59% of the entire world’s wealth, 80% live in substandard housing, 70% are unable to read, 50% of the world’s people suffer from malnutrition. For all that to change, we have to understand that the “good life” cannot be measured by what we own. For most of us caught up in this frenzy of getting and spending that exploits both nature and the poor, but fuels our society, Jesus’ world is not a world in which we might feel at home.

Someone once said” Show me where you spend your money and I will show you your priorities.” Worth a thought.

Many of us have sung “make the kingdom come, make the crying done, make the kingdom be, kingdom of the free”, but we want it to happen without changing anything in our own lives, in our own priorities, in our own comforts. —Can’t happen. So I am telling you. Your job will be to carry God’s love to the hungry, to the homeless and the helpless, and add a steward’s care for God’s good earth that we ravage so pitilessly. (7)

So I am telling you: If you do not wish for His kingdom, don’t pray for it. But if you do, you must do more than pray for it; you must work for it.(7)

    Notes:
  1. Marcus Borg, Jesus p226
  2. Marcus Borg, Jesus p225
  3. Raymond Schults, National Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada LP Jan-March 2006
  4. The Rev. Dr. Rebecca Pugh Brown, LP January-March 2006, p 6
  5. The Rev. Dr. Rebecca Pugh Brown, LP January-March 2006, p 6
  6. The Rev. Alan Redpath , LP January-March 2006, p 6
  7. Walter Burkhardt S.J. LP 1-3 2006

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

My kingdom is not of this world

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

  • Have I often thought of God’s kingdom as a place in the afterlife, rather than here and now?
    How does this affect my actions?
  • When you hear the word “king” what comes to mind? Is it a person or a title? Are the images positive or negative? Are you comfortable with the “Christ the King” image? How do you describe the Kingdom of Jesus?
  • Why do the words “king” and “power” sometimes go together? Which type of power do I fear?
  • Why is Jesus’ kingdom different? What about this kingdom attracts me? Repels me?
  • What has our culture “enthroned” (money, success, addictions, pleasure, for example)?
    What is my lodestar in this culture’s firmament?
  • What disconnect do you see between the values of the “kingdom” and the values of this world?
  • From “First Impressions,” a service of the Southern Dominican Province, 2003:
    What are we living for?
    What energizes and gives meaning to each day?
    To whom or what do we give our allegiance?
    At what altars do we burn incense, bend our knee in submission?
    What power holds sway over us?
  • In what ways has truth been perverted in our current culture?
  • In this passage Jesus claims that he has come into this world to bear witness to the truth.
    Have you ever been in a position where you were called on to do the same?
    What were the difficulties or risks?
    What was the outcome?
  • What is the basic truth Jesus wants me to understand?
  • Our text ends with the statement by Jesus that everyone who belongs to the truth listens to his voice.
    What do you think Jesus means by this statement?
    How do you LISTEN to God speaking truth in your life?
  • Jesus was dismissed as a rather unprepossessing individual—small, slight, probably dirty—Have you ever met someone whom you judged as more-or-less wonderful based on her appearance?
    Have you ever been wrong?
    If so, how did you deal with it?
  • Like Jesus and Pilate, did you ever have a conversation with someone, and you felt like you were really not connecting with the person and they to you?
  • From Faith Book, 2006:
    Who or what set of values rule my life and guide my daily decisions?
    What can I do to respond more fully to Jesus’ rule in my life?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

“Are you the King of the Jews?” Pilate seems to be searching for the truth about Jesus. Maybe he is asking the wrong question, because the truth about Jesus is not that simple. As a matter of fact, getting to what is true about anything is not that simple. First of all, the truth may be more nuanced than simply a collection of facts. Second, we tend to act as if we owned the truth, that the truth belongs to us. Whom do we listen to when we think the truth belongs to us? Do we listen to those who think and act like us? Do we listen to the voice of anxiety and insecurity? Do we listen to the voice of a particular political stance? Do we listen to our prejudices? Do we listen to our individual needs and desires? What, in particular, do listen to when I think I own the truth? What does it mean to belong to Jesus’ truth? What are some of Jesus’ truths that are hard to swallow? Here are some voices from “the Kingdom”: Isaiah 41:10; Mt 20:20; Mk 12:31 and Luke 6:27-37? Which one is the most comforting? Which is the most challenging?

A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Consideration:

Imagine that you are Pontius Pilate and the Jewish scribes and priests have dragged this man Jesus of Nazareth before you. He is a typical Jewish man of his time, small in stature (maybe about 5’4”, and weighing 125 pounds or so—remember, he was so small and fragile that someone had to help him carry his cross) and dressed in very poor garments which he has been wearing for who knows how long since he is homeless. He has been up all night being questioned and badgered by the high priests and their thugs and looks a little worse for wear. You have heard that this man is accused of setting him self us as the King of the Jews. What do you think about this Jesus? Does he strike you as regal or powerful? Is he just delusional? Are the accusations credible? How do you feel when Jesus refuses to answer your question with a simple yes or no? Do you understand all of his talk about a “kingdom not of this world”? What sort of kingdom is Jesus talking about? Why does he make you uncomfortable? Zooming ahead to our own time, you can ask the same questions: what kind of kingdom is Jesus talking about? How consistent is this kingdom with a world that worships power? How comfortable am I with this vision of God’s realm? What do I have to change in my own heart so that my aspirations conform more closely to those of Jesus?

A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Relationship:

Pray the Lord’s Prayer, being especially attentive to the words “Thy kingdom come”. Talk to God about the kind of kingdom you think God wants. When you ask for God’s kingdom to come, what of your own personal kingdom must go? Ask Jesus to conform your will to His, so that God’s will may come to pass through the actions of your life. Write or speak a set of resolutions about honesty, power, forgiveness and selflessness that you can live out in order to make God’s kingdom happen in your little corner of this earth.

Poetic Reflection:

This poem, written by Thomas à Kempis in the fifteenth century, shows us the difference between our notions of power and the power God favors:

Oh, love, how deep, how broad, how high,
Beyond all thought and fantasy,
That God, the Son of God, should take
Our mortal form for mortal's sake!

He sent no angel to our race,
Of higher or of lower place,
But wore the robe of human frame,
And to this world himself he came.

For us baptized, for us he bore
His holy fast and hungered sore;
For us temptation sharp he knew;
For us the tempter overthrew.

For us he prayed; for us he taught,
For us his daily works he wrought,
By words and signs and actions thus
Still seeking not himself, but us.

For us by wickedness betrayed,
For us, in crown of thorns arrayed,
He bore the shameful cross and death;
For us he gave his dying breath.

For us he rose from death again;
For us he went on high to reign;
For us he sent his Spirit here
To guide, to strengthen, and to cheer.

All glory to our Lord and God
For love so deep, so high, so broad;
The Trinity whom we adore
Forever and forevermore.

Poetic Reflection:

“Salvator Mundi: Via Crucis” by Denise Levertov gives us another way to look at what Jesus renounced in order to be the kind of King that the world really needs:

Maybe He looked indeed much as Rembrandt envisioned Him in those small heads that seem in fact portraits of more than a model. A dark, still young, very intelligent face, A soul-mirror gaze of deep understanding, unjudging. That face, in extremis, would have clenched its teeth In a grimace not shown in even the great crucifixions. The burden of humanness (I begin to see) exacted from Him That He taste also the humiliation of dread, cold sweat of wanting to let the whole thing go, like any mortal hero out of his depth, like anyone who has taken herself back. The painters, even the greatest, don’t show how, in the midnight Garden, or staggering uphill under the weight of the Cross, He went through with even the human longing to simply cease, to not be. Not torture of body, not the hideous betrayals humans commit nor the faithless weakness of friends, and surely not the anticipation of death (not then, in agony’s grip) was Incarnation’s heaviest weight, but this sickened desire to renege, to step back from what He, Who was God, had promised Himself, and had entered time and flesh to enact. Sublime acceptance, to be absolute, had to have welled up from those depths where purpose Drifted for mortal moments.

Closing Prayer

Jesus, I ask you to help me know your kingdom and its values. Help me to care myself and for others as you would have me do, regardless of my personal biases and prejudices. Help me to understand that the moral landscape that is “The Kingdom” requires me to love as you did, forgive as you did, and pray as you did, for those who need help. [Take a moment to think of one or more particular people whom you especially wish to raise up in prayer.]