John 18:33-37
“The Royal Family”
November 25, 2018 Reign of Christ Sunday
Over the course of a more than three-hour long ceremony, a 1000 year old tradition continued. On the same day that Edmund Hilary and Tensing Norgay became the first men to reach the summit of Mount Everest, with all the pageantry that Great Britain could muster only 8 years after the end of the war that left the nation devastated and while food was still rationed, the coronation of Elizabeth II, Queen of England took place, arriving into the homes of people all around the world over that fairly new invention then called the television.
On June 2, 1953 the 27 year old mother of two young children who had witnessed her own father crowned king when she was 11 years old, had the 5 pound solid gold crown placed upon her head and for the past 65 years she has performed the responsibilities as Head of State, serving longer than any other monarch in British history. There are obviously many events and meetings and parades she must be a part of but there are also tremendous perks to the job. Queen Elizabeth is currently the 17th richest person in Great Britain, she has the power to veto any law and herself is above the law, she can commandeer any British ship, she has a staff member who wears in her new shoes so she doesn’t get blisters and technically she has legal ownership of all whales, porpoises and dolphins that are within 3 miles of the shores of the United Kingdom.
At her coronation, her husband Phillip had to kneel before God and the Queen as she was anointed, blessed and consecrated to rule and govern. There is then the moment in the ceremony when all of the other royals put on their crowns and “God Save the Queen” was said together by all present, her subjects. To we Americans who chafed and went to war at being ruled by someone whose position came to them through birth over 200 years ago, all of this is a bit hard to swallow while at the same time absolutely fascinating.
In spite of my ambivalence to the idea of kings and queens, I was riveted by the first 2 seasons of the Netflix series, “The Crown,” with its lush and beautiful depiction of the public and private lives of Queen Elizabeth and the royal family whose sense of decorum and doing the right and proper thing and holding onto power that has been passed from blood relative to blood relative for lo these many centuries. Frankly, it seems like an elitist, exhausting and expensive way of life for the British people to preserve – and yet they do.
This is the final Sunday before the season of Advent when we begin to look and wait and listen for Jesus to come. We are privy here to the questioning that took place on a fateful day. We are witness to a clash of wills between Pontius Pilate and Jesus and at issue is simply and directly, power. Pilate sees Jesus’ identification as King as a threat to the Roman Empire’s vise-like grip on the people of Israel. He asks Jesus directly, “Are you the king of the Jews?’ and then after Jesus challenges him on where he gets his information from and does not give him the direct yes or no he is seeking – and, by the way, when does Jesus ever do that? – Pilate does what the most adept and persistent of talking heads on television would do and he just takes the words, mixes them up and re-asks them with a subtle difference. This time he says, “So, you are a king?” Both times Pilate, though, is asking from the perspective of this earth and its rulers and most especially its rules while Jesus when claiming his kingship is basically answering with a “yes, but.”
The “but” is the critical part here and cannot be skipped over. What Jesus’ is ultimately willing to acknowledge is that, “Pilate, if you change up your definition of king and kingdom then I can go along with this.” Which is really a way of saying no, the way you think of kings does not apply to me. Your definition of power is of little importance to me.” This pointing to a truth that is not of this world is what has Pilate scared. In spite of the fact that he will remind Jesus that he, Pilate, has the power to crucify him, he still seems to need something on which to base his decision. He still needs some small technicality because he has the powers of Rome breathing down his neck as well as the local leaders here in Jerusalem who view this potential new king as a threat. There’s not a lot to hang his hat on so he throws it back to Jesus and lets him, through his answers, hopefully catch himself up in such a way as to seal his own fate. It was all because this new kingdom that Jesus would be king of had no use for the rules of the day. The same is still true yet we cannot let go of the things of this world, can we?
We can seem relieved to point out that we do not live under the rule of a king or queen and yet most of us would have to agree that as Americans we have handed over much of the rule of our lives to a system of government and order that is supposed to be looking out for the best interests of all its citizens and yet we know it doesn’t always do that. Our health care system is in the profit-making business. The education system is inconsistently delivered with wealthier districts having more resources. Our system of selecting political leaders is rife with decisions made by those with the deepest pockets and our tax system is full of loopholes that leave people who make less paying more and those with lots of money and skilled accountants paying less. The kingdom kind of living that Jesus taught – where each life is of equal value can seem quite distant from our lived experience in 21st century America.
Jesus is a whole different breed of king. Pilate is afraid of losing power and control and maybe the place where we meet Pilate in this story is our place of fear of losing what little power and control we have. Could it be that our kings or queens are found in the possessions we treasure? When we truly put our trust and our very lives into God’s hands it is often with one eye open or with our fingers crossed behind our backs. We want to be able to totally put ourselves at God’s mercy and care and wisdom but so often we also want a Plan B, just in case.
Today we are singing hymns about the Kingship of Jesus but when push comes to shove, it can be really hard to live as if Jesus is our king because we have options. It is hard to be a subject of Jesus’ where we are to stick our neck out for the lost, the hungry, the sick, the tired, the worn down and the worn out. It can be difficult to devote our resources to not just the care of our own households and ourselves but also the care of the stranger. Trusting the path that our King Jesus sets us on means asking the question that gets cut off in today’s reading. The very next verse that I did not read is Pilate’s response to Jesus’ testimony about him being put on the earth to testify to the truth and that those who want to belong to this truth must only listen, really listen, to what Jesus is saying. Pilate’s key question to Jesus next is, “What is truth?”
The truth that Jesus is speaking of, the truth that is at the heart of all that his life has pointed to, can be found in the single concept of relationship. Jesus is pointing to our relationship with God and our relationship with each other. This is a new kind of kingship. This is a new way of looking at power. Power doesn’t come in armies, or getting people to do what you want them to do, power doesn’t sit with those with the most money or things. The truth of which Jesus speaks is a truth that only comes when we seriously listen for God in our lives and respond in and through and with that relationship and with all of the rest of creation with whom we are in relationship. Power comes not with a clenched fist or a gun or the corner office or a plentiful bank account or a house in the right neighborhood but rather in love – starting with love of self, then spreading to love of those easy to love and finally love for those for whom it can be really hard to love – I know I can think of more than a few folks in the world for whom it is tough to rally a measure of love. This kingdom of God that Jesus proclaims is not a place but rather a way of being in the world. And it’s a risky business to challenge the familiar models of earthly power. Folks living a privileged existence are not keen to being challenged and yet that is the relationship kingdom that Jesus is proclaiming for God so loved the world. This is the word of truth. May we live it in faith as members of the royal family of God. Amen and amen.