A Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock
[Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37]
In 1925, in the midst of the international reaction to the traumatic horrors of World War I and with the subsequent destruction of the familiar social and cultural norms that had specifically shaped the western world, Pope Pius XI wrote an encyclical (that is, a formal letter to the faithful), entitled: Quas Primus: (“In the First”). The encyclical expressed the Pope’s concern and warning about what he viewed at the time as the growing secular nationalism and atheism, with the result being a dangerous and growing discord among people and countries. Taking a stand in opposition to this rising militarization, Pope Pius XI created “Christ the King Sunday”. It was a means to remind all people that while governments come and go, Christ reigns as King (that is, as sovereign) forever.1
In an era in which fear, disappointment, and bitter resentment roiled to ominous levels, many people viewed issues of religion and religious freedom to mean that one could believe whatever an individual wanted. The corollary implicitly recognized that whoever vowed to alleviate the people’s social and economic anxiety (which was rampant at the time) would be honored and followed. Yet, within the public arena (and specifically within the church itself) faith and its God-life perspective were mostly silent.2 Was this reticence a result of not knowing what to say; or was it a matter of avoiding paying the high price for challenging the day’s populist forms of religion and politics? – or was it both?
In 1922, three years before Pope Pius’s encyclical, Benito Mussolini became the Prime Minister of Italy, leading the “Nationalist Fascist Party” until 1945, when he was summarily executed by Italian partisans. Eight years after the Pope’s encyclical was issued, Adolf Hitler emerged to assume absolute power in Germany, capitalizing on the economic woes, the popular discontent, and the political ineptitude of the Weimar Republic.
Looking with historical lenses and recognizing the frightening parallels to our own time, one wonders to what extent the Pope’s clarion call was heard? Or in the clamor of the times, was it viewed as mere “church talk” -- idealistic, impractical, irrelevant? More to the point, are we in our own times any better at owning what we put at the center of our lives? As followers of Jesus, to what extent is our soul’s center reserved for God’s Christ and the God-life he reveals?
“Christ the King Sunday”. “The Reign of Christ Sunday”. As one commentator has written, this Sunday is not the most approachable lectionary theme. For example, should the focus be on the reign or the one reigning, on the kingdom or the king? Should preachers assume each year that most people have no idea why the feast exists? Is there a case for just glossing over it, preaching on whatever suits you, and getting on more conveniently by setting up the Nativity scene in advance?3
So, I ask you: What does this relatively new liturgical benchmark have to do with us? In what ways are the meaning and content of this day a true reflection of our faith and our actions as followers of Jesus?
My own response to these questions and to the question of this day’s focus and importance is this: As a matter of first things first, I believe that we need to focus on the “king”, on Jesus, and not on the kingdom because focusing on Jesus will bring us directly to the Cross of Christ and to its meaning for what is true and worthy of our life’s faith.
So, to begin: Our gospel lesson for this “Christ the King” Sunday begins with Pilate summoning Jesus to come before him “again”.4 According to the Fourth Gospel, this is Pilate’s second encounter with Jesus; and it entails a very confrontational interrogation. The issue at hand springs from the Hebrew authorities' indictment that Jesus purports to be “King of the Jews”. Now Pilate already knows that that title belongs to King Herod, who is a harmless, imperial puppet: no threat to Rome’s power and authority. Yet, Pilate also knows that even if he is governor in the armpit of the empire, maintaining order and control for Rome is his job; and Pilate was brutally effective at his work. Moreover, like weeds, pesky Hebrew “heroes” kept popping up in Judea. Foolishly, they sought their freedom from what they viewed as “oppression”. Yet, any talk of revolt (much more any revolutionary action) against Caesar and Rome always resulted in the crushing death of any and all threats.
So it is in this highly charged political context that this hastily arranged second meeting between Pilate and Jesus occurs. Wasting no time or patience, Pilate gets right to the chase with this demanding question: “Are you the King of the Jews?”
In the Greek text the stress on the expression of the “you” (as in “Are you the King of the Jews?”) indicates Pilate’s dismissive scorn so that the sense of Pilate’s question to Jesus is supercilious in tone: “You? King of the Jews?”5 Underneath this disdain lies both Pilate’s concern and political course of action. For if Jesus claims to be a king, then the case is closed. Pilate will do his imperial duty and eliminate Jesus as an enemy of Rome. Yet, in John’s recounting, Jesus answers the Governor’s question with a question of his own: “Do you say this on your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” [18:34]. Answering Pilate’s question with one of his own, Jesus’ implicitly interrogates the Governor to reveal two profoundly different understandings of kingship and authority’s truth – one standing in front of the other.
Side-stepping the need for an answer to Jesus’ slightly impertinent question, Pilate pivots and redirects the moment: “Am I a Jew…What have you done?” And then Jesus answers Pilate’s question and makes explicit what has heretofore just been rumored. Jesus says, “My kingship is not from this world…”. Quick to seal the case before him, Pilate pushes: “So you are a king?” [18:37] To which in effect Jesus says “yes” – that he is present in the world to give “witness to the truth”: God’s truth.
You know what comes next: the question that perpetually reverberates in all our hearts and minds: “What is truth?” [18:38]
This climactic question is not included in this year’s gospel reading cycle, but anyone with even a passing acquaintance with Jesus’ trial by Pilate knows it’s there. “What is truth?” Perhaps we can restate this piercing question with this translation: “What is the source that guides your life?” I believe that this question is what this day entails.
For Pilate and his ilk, the truth means nothing. The truth is functionally defined by whoever or whatever pays the bills and provides what has cheekily been called “alternative [more convenient] facts”. Yet, followers of Jesus believe that he represents the truth’s reality. We believe that Jesus embodies the truth, which in Jesus’ death and resurrection is demonstrated by the fact that the love of God is the real order of the universe. Yet, in a world of violence and the grasping for power at all costs, what does it take to trust and honor this truth? What does it take to live this truth?
The “Collect for Fridays” found, in the Daily Office and used in the weekly commemoration of Jesus’ crucifixion, puts the truth that Christ represents this way: “Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy before he suffered pain, entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace …”6
This is to say that the truth Jesus reveals is demonstrated on the cross; and that truth is the proverbial “proof of the pudding”: namely, the cross is all about God and God’s demonstration of the truth, that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…”; that “if God is for us, then who or what can be against us”?7
And there you have it: The cross of Christ conquers death, and Christ’s resurrection inaugurates God’s new life. This means that for you and me to have the Godly life that is stronger than fear and death, we will have to learn how to die – die to all that holds us hostage in this life. What does it take to live in such freedom and with such hope?
That is a very big question. And if you will allow me to return to what I offered in last week’s sermon, I will use my own experience as a very imperfect example.
Too often I seem to be awakened around 4 o’clock in the morning amidst the fog of knowing that I have been dreaming and, more to the point, praying hard to God. In this, my sleep has not brought me rest largely because I can’t stop wrestling with the state of the world and my fear over the dreadful state of affairs that produces the “news”. In those times, and after prayerful wrestling, I occasionally do fall back to sleep, but such sleep is most likely the result of my prayer for myself: that I have the grace to let God be God. “Please!” I shout in exhaustion, “Let me let God be God!”
And this prayer is about my holding God-in-Christ at the center with a wobbling trust and allowing that stubbornly unfaithful part of me that questions where God is in all of the world’s struggling and confusion – to allow that wobbling part of me to die, making room in me for that God-life that is stronger than death. For me, in one form or fashion this is a daily issue – an issue of trusting, risking, remembering, and welcoming what I need and surely cannot give to myself.
What is truth?” Richard Rohr (a Roman Catholic, Franciscan priest) has referenced a helpful sense of “truth: namely, that “[r]eal truth has to do with how we situate ourselves in this world.”8 In other words, “truth” is another way of identifying what lies at the center of our lives. Rohr continues, “[t]here are ways of living and relating that are honest, sustainable, and fair, and there are utterly dishonest ways of living and relating to life …”. And here is the point: “How we live is our real and final truth, not what ideas we believe.”
All of which is to say – yet again! – that everyone is religious. The problem is what we worship. For followers of Jesus, can we risk knowing God’s life – life that is stronger than death? Only then will we know the “truth” and that truth (contained by the cross) will set us free. Amen.
1. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. U S. Council of Bishops, “About the Solemnity of Christ the King: Background”
2. Ibid
3. Steve Thorngate in the Christian Century: “Sunday’s Coming”; November 24
4. John 18:33
5. Andrew McGowen. “Andrew’s Version”; 11/24/24: Year B
6. Book of Common Prayer. “Morning Prayer”, p. 99
7. John 3:16; Romans 8:31
8. Josef Pieper (1904-1907), referenced by Richard Rohr. Breathing Underwater, p. 8-59
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