Last Pentecost

The Reverend Martha Frances

Year B, Last Pentecost, Proper 29

Christ the King

22 November 2009

Text:  John 18: 33-37

Other Readings: 2 Samuel 23: 1-7; Psalm 132: 1-13; Revelation 1: 4b-8 

      Once again today I return to the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale "The Emperor's New Clothes" because it reveals so much of the encounter between Pilate & Jesus we just read.  In this story, the emperor is a clothes horse.  This king of a distant land really likes to dress for success.  He can choose from several outfits each day, kept ready for his wearing by a whole team of palace servants.  This emperor has a closet for every day of the week, but he's not satisfied; he likes to stimulate the economy with new additions to his wardrobe.

      Along come 2 "tailors", they call themselves.  They've heard of the emperor's clothes' fetish, & they have a scam they figure he'll fall for.  They talk their way through the palace security system & tell the king they can fashion him a wardrobe addition that will not only be stunning, but to those who are foolish & aren't fit for their office, the clothes will be invisible.  "What a deal!" figures the king.  He can feed his clothes' fetish & uncover those attendants who are incompetent, all at the same time.  He sets the tailors up in a corner room near his private quarters, & they go to work.  None but the king's closest aides are allowed to see the progress of the wardrobe, & they don't dare reveal that, up on the large loom the tailors are using, not one of them sees a blessed stitch of cloth. 

      Time comes for the king to model the clothing, whereupon he'll lead a parade through the streets in his new outfit.  As he dresses, even his wife is stunned to realize that she must not be fit as queen.  Amazed silence greets the king as he appears on the palace steps & descends to his open-air coach, standing in it as it moves slowly through the streets lined with parade aficionados, all eager to spy the king's new threads.  Well, they certainly glimpse more than they have anticipated. All fear they are unworthy until an innocent child cries out, above the clamor of horses, "Look!  The emperor has no clothes on!" 

      Indeed, the emperor appears naked to his whole kingdom, his desire to look good & appear clever & brilliant uncovered, & his shallowness obvious to all who spy his naked self.  This ruler who judged the world for its earthly values reveales, in the end, his own lack of truth.

      In contrast, we turn to Jesus in his simple though seamless garment standing before Pilate in the Praetorium.  Pilate, the puppet king of Judea, taunts Jesus as he asks, "Are you the King of the Jews?"  Jesus answers Pilate's attempt to entrap him: "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?"  Jesus includes 3^rd persons in the conversation for of course, others' opinions matter greatly to Pilate.  Pilate is trying to find middle ground in dealing with this Jesus who seems harmless to the State yet is deemed dangerous by the pesky Jewish leaders.

      Pilate continues to quiz him as if he were, indeed, a king, taunting him that it is the chief priests & the Jewish people who have accused him.  Ever calm & collected, Jesus responds that he does, truly, have a kingdom but it is not of this world.  Jesus doesn't mean, by the way, that his kingdom is other-worldly, but rather that, in the Kingdom of God, values other than those of this world hold sway.  Jesus reminds us that no amount of clothes or position or posturing to accept accolades such as the emperor or even some present-day politicians would do can remove Jesus himself from the kingdom over which he reigns. 

      Pilate tries again. "So you are a king?"  Jesus still does not flaunt his position as ruler but answers vaguely, turning the focus from himself to the truth.  Those who listen to Jesus' voice belong to the truth, he says, & Jesus does not need to dress himself up in fancy clothes or titles to be the truth who comes from God, indeed is God enfleshed. 

      What a contrast between the Gospel story for Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the Christian year, & the fairy tale about a pompous but foolish emperor!  That emperor thought he could show his importance by the clothing he put on his body & a magic trick to determine the ability of his staff, yet he was stripped bare & revealed as foolish & pitiful, a mere shell of a man.  Jesus, the King of Kings & Lord of Lords [about whom we sang a few minutes ago], makes few claims for himself, pointing only toward the consequences of his living as God's faithful son on earth:  being stripped bare & hanged on a cross, deprived of all this world considers essential for success yet exalted even as he is raised on the cross & goes to his death.  We know the rest of the story, don't we?  We are witnesses to his resurrection.

      Jesus Christ & his kingdom still stand over against the values of this world, & sometimes we forget this very basic tenet of our faith.  We declare as if we believe it that God's ways are not our ways, but then we question God in our pain upon losing a friend or relative in an untimely death or when our lives don't go our way.  It's easier to blame God than to evaluate our own actions leading to the natural consequences of our irresponsible behavior.  Sometimes circumstances happen which can't be blamed on our actions but rather are consequences of free will in the world.  Further, we cannot, of our own accord, get ourselves out of the scrapes we get into.  At those times, we must rely upon the God who died for us yet also rose.  Hopefully, we learn to depend on the will of God who redeems us from all the foolishness we get ourselves into.

      That's the point of our celebration today as we acknowledge Jesus as Lord of our lives.  Each year, at the end of Pentecost season through which we have studied the words & work of Jesus, as we prepare for the coming of Christmas about a month from now, we pause to celebrate Jesus who shows us the Way, the Truth, & the Life.  As we move into the new Christian year next Sunday, Christ the King poses important questions for each of us:  What attitudes & behaviors will you have to modify or give up in order to welcome Jesus the Christ into your life anew, in order to let the Jesus who comes again at Christmastime enter your heart & mind once again & lead you to the peace which the world cannot give?  Which false emperors have you been worshipping instead of the true King of kings?

      In just a few moments, as I set the table for the Kingdom feast which we offer each Sunday at this altar, we will honor the power of Jesus' name & praise God for crowning Jesus the Lord of all.  Yet in today's world, Christian triumphalism makes me very uneasy.  If we're not careful, we give Jesus the crown yet keep the power for ourselves.  As many of us tighten our belts to anticipate a more conservative holiday season, it is natural for us to try to hang onto whatever illusion of control we think we have in our lives.  It's very hard for us to remember that the kingdom over which Jesus reigns has values which he has turned upside down from what is important in this world.  Jesus refuses to entertain a military solution to save his own skin, &, in fact, his being raised up as king consists of his reigning from the cross, & we are called to share his cross with him. 

      Last week I shared a bit of the revelation which has come to me as I have bemoaned the severity of our financial crisis this year.  Once again, we have a tendency to believe that our own personal & our church community's success or at least faithfulness is up to us.  Although we need everyone to participate fully at Hope by giving sacrificially of time & talent as well as money, we are called to recognize that our well-being is up to God who loves us dearly & wants the very best for us.  As I suggested last week, each of us has a mandate to pray frequently for the ongoing ministry of Hope & to put feet to our prayers by contributing of ourselves, returning a portion of God's gifts to God through the support of our parish.  Jesus showed his disciples just hours before the Bible story we heard from the Gospel today that his way to manifest his kingliness led directly to his death.  We can truly pray today that we learn to emulate Jesus in his willingness to give of himself in grateful response to God's gift of life itself. 

      We at Hope are at a crossroads in our mission & ministry.  Now that we have been together for nearly 5 years, we must ask ourselves what our priorities are for Hope to reach out to each other & to the wider community.  Who we are in the future will be determined to a large extent by the commitment you & I are willing to make to Hope Episcopal Church as we finish out this year & begin 2010.  We are not alone, however.  Our gospel today reminds us that God has made an everlasting covenant with us, evidence of which we see in the lessons from the 2 Samuel passage as well as from the psalms.  God has cast God's lot in with us & has no alternate plan.  How have you done in praying for Hope this week?  Will you do so again this next week, making sure to include our church community in your Thanksgiving prayers?  For starters, I'd like you to turn back to the Collect for the Day on the front page of your pew bulletin, & let us pray this prayer aloud again with special intentions for this congregation & for you & your neighbors as we move into a new year of Hope:

Almighty & everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings & Lord of lords:  Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided & enslaved by sing, may be freed & brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives & reigns with you & the Holy Spirit, one God, now & for ever.  Amen.