Christ the King (John 18)

     “If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over…but, as it is, my kingdom is not of this world.”

     In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

     Here we are, on the feast of Christ the King, in a church named for the king’s advent, that is, for his arrival, his appearance in the world. It is our feast of title, our celebration of the name we give to our community, as a sign of our allegiance to that kingship, and our commitment to his appearance in our world. We see the statue before our pulpit, of Jesus dressed as a king in western European medieval style, in a robe and crown, and carrying an orb. Even in our secular, democratic republic, the symbols of kingship still have meaning, have power; they are ancient, archetypal, and live in the collective memory of the human race. Kingship was the typical form of government for thousands of years, and only in the last two hundred and fifty years or so has it given way almost universally to new forms of social and political organization. The symbols live on, and still speak to us.  But in today's Gospel, Jesus transforms the concept of kingship, and presents an understanding of it for a world very different from the one in which kingship arose.

     Today’s feast is a new one. It was established in 1925 by Pope Pius XI, and originally was celebrated on the last Sunday in October, just before All Saints. The Pope instituted the feast to remind Christians that their allegiance was to their spiritual ruler in heaven, and not only to  earthly supremacy. Pius XI wanted to establish Christ as the moral center of Europe, to counteract the nationalism and class warfare and social disorder of the time. In our time, Pope Benedict XVI said that Christ's kingship is not based on "human power" but on loving and serving others. Now the feast is celebrated on the last Sunday of the church year, as a fitting conclusion to the Sundays after Pentecost, and as suitable preparation for the season of Advent, in which we remember the advent of Christ in the Incarnation, and look forward to his advent at the end of time. The celebration has been adopted by many churches in the West, including Episcopalians.

     Today’s Gospel displays Jesus’s refusal to be limited by conventional ideas, in this case, ideas about kingship. Pilate asks Jesus directly, “Are you the king of the Jews?” This is a real and important question, coming from a representative of the emperor, to Jesus, a person apparently from a royal line, the House of David --- in other words, potentially a claimant to a throne to which he may actually be entitled. If Jesus is such a claimant, he’s a threat to the Roman order and its puppet King Herod. From Pilate’s point of view, he has a right to a straight answer to this question. And does he get one? No, he doesn’t.

     “Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’” Or, as we would say, “Who put you up to this?” Jesus is not dodging the question in order to get away with anything, but to lead Pilate, and his hearers, and us, away from an ordinary way of thinking about kingship.

     The enthronement of the Ancient of Days in the Book of Daniel is a clear statement of what real, spiritual kingship is; the Ancient of Days gives it to “one like a son of man;” his kingship is over all peoples forever and will never be destroyed. This is the understanding that Jesus has, beyond ordinary human kingship. This is what Jesus is leading Pilate to, and like a true spiritual guide, he does it by questioning his questioner and by refusing to be pinned down to conventional thought.

     Pilate is exasperated by this and gets to the point. “Your own nation…handed you over…What have you done?” Again, no answer. Not evasion this time, but a return to the previous question: “My kingdom is not from this world.” After more dodge and weave, Jesus states his mission, what his kingdom actually is, and it has nothing to do with crowns and orbs and all the rest of it. “I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” That is Jesus’s kingdom: everyone who belongs to the truth.

     Oddly, today’s Gospel ends there. The compilers of the lectionary could have ended with the next line, the real ending of this section of the chapter, which is Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” That question leaves open the nature, even the content, of truth. We needn’t be disturbed because the question comes from Pilate. I like the open-endedness of it, its risky relativism. But I’ll stop there, before I drift off into some wild speculation about what Jesus and Pilate are talking about. It’s enough to say that the question is in the Gospel for a reason; it gives us permission to ask more questions.

      What, indeed, is the “truth” of a celebration of the kingship of Christ, in a world in which that kingdom is hard to perceive? What “truth” do we belong to? In our very secular society, the Church appears to be in retreat as its membership declines and increasing numbers of people are indifferent to the Gospel. Where is the kingdom of Christ?

     Durufle’s piece ‘Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est’ tells us where the kingdom is. ‘Where charity and love are, there is God.’ That is the short answer to the question, where is the kingdom? It is where love is. Pope Benedict reminded us that Christ’s kingship is found in loving service to others. The earthly symbols of kingship applied to Jesus are meant to lead us to awareness of the truth he, and we, belong to, which is love. It is a paradoxical kingship, which rules not from above, but from within, as Jesus says in Luke’s Gospel, “the kingdom of God is within you.” As long as love rules, Christ the King rules, in the Church and out of it.

     “If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over…but, as it is, my kingdom is not of this world.”

     In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

  

    

     

The Widow's Mite (Mark 12)

     “For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” From the Gospel for today, the Gospel according to Mark, chapter 12, verse 44.

     In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

     Today’s Gospel reading includes two different stories: a denunciation of the scribes, and the story of the widow’s offering. At first hearing, it may seem that they are about two different subjects --- hypocritical scribes and a genuinely devout widow --- but in fact they are closely related. The story of the widow is better understood after the story of the denunciation of the scribes. It is not accidental that the widow story follows the scribe story. And both are better understood when we include readings not in today’s Gospel: the story of the cleansing of the Temple in chapter 11 of Mark’s Gospel, and the foretelling of the destruction of the Temple, in chapter 13, right after the end of today’s reading.

     Let’s look back at the cleansing of the Temple in chapter 11. The Evangelist writes, “[Jesus] entered the Temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the Temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers, and the seats of those who sold doves.” It is clear what is happening here. Jesus wants to clear the Temple of anyone and anything to do with economic transactions, which are out of place in a house of prayer, as far as Jesus is concerned. The Temple is to be a house of prayer for all the nations. There are to be no distinctions based on what people can buy or sell. The Temple is to be a house of prayer for all nations, and nothing else. The system is set up to make a profit from the sale of animals for the sacrifices, and even the poorest are exploited by the sale of doves, the cheapest offerings available. Jesus wants to put an end to this system. The Temple is a huge operation, and a very important one in the economy. Large numbers of farmers rely on it as a market for their animals, and the Temple priests and servants rely on it for their living. So we can appreciate just how radical Jesus is when he clears the Temple; he is attempting to bring an end to the exploitation and profiteering which support it, and which dominate the economy and society. Understandably, as the Evangelist says, “the chief priests and the scribes…kept looking for a way to kill him.” The people profiting from the Temple system will stop at nothing to keep it going. Many people in our world are equally ruthless in their defense of the current system.

     With this in mind, we return to today’s reading, and Jesus’s remarks about the scribes: “They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers.” The scribes, that is, people involved in the law, or finance, or religious institutions, or government, and so on, don’t come off well in today’s Gospel. Jesus’s radical critique and uncompromising attitude are unmistakable.

     I was asked in a gathering of new priests the other day, how I respond to Jesus as a person. I replied that almost all my preaching is about Jesus’s personal interactions and what they reveal about his teaching. It seems to me that the person Jesus is real and vivid in these exchanges in the Temple. He is clearly not on the side of the establishment, the side of the chief priests and the scribes. “They devour widows’ houses,” Jesus says. Our economic system today is not all that different in its treatment of the poor, widows and otherwise.

     With all this in mind, what are we to make of the widow’s offering (called the “widow’s mite” in the old translation)? The usual interpretation of this story commends the sacrificial piety of the poor widow, and holds it up as an example of ideal religious behavior. But is it really? Is that what Jesus is teaching here? Or, with his remark in mind about how the scribes devour widows’ houses, is he really saying something else? I think that he is, and I think that we need to pay attention to what he’s up to here.

     The priests and scribes are quite willing to take all that the widow has, her “mite”, to support the Temple system, which is to say, to support the system which exploits the piety of the poor. That is what Jesus is saying here, and he does not approve. To confirm this, let us hear the passage that immediately follows today’s reading, from chapter 13, verses 1 and 2. “As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ Then Jesus asked him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’” That is what Jesus thinks of the Temple and its exploitation of the poor widow. He does not expect it to last, and in fact he is certain that it won’t. Since this teaching follows right after the story of the widow’s offering, it seems to me that its meaning is unmistakable. The Temple system exploits the poor, and Jesus wants to see the end of it.

     What can we take from these stories and teachings? We can acknowledge the truly radical character of Jesus’s teaching. He is unsparing in his critique of the Temple priesthood, the religious establishment, and the scribes, the people who work for the establishment and keep it going. The established order, according to Jesus, is exploitative, and the institutions that keep it going, symbolized by the Temple, must not last. In the 14^th chapter of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is quoted as saying that “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.” We may take “another not made with hands” to mean a new life in which the old order of human exploitation is gone.

     We, Jesus’s body in the world, can bring a similar critique to bear in our world. The message is clear: just as Jesus does in today’s Gospel, we must see our economy and society clearly, recognize exploitation for what it is, and take steps to change what needs to be changed. We must avoid clouding our vision with false piety. And we must avoid using our religious institutions to sanctify an unjust order. Our new temple must be “not made with hands” --- that is, it must not reproduce the exploitation and hypocrisy which Jesus sees so clearly in the Gospel.

     In nomine, etc..