The Rev. Michael Ramsey-Musolf delivered this sermon at St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, Sunday, November 25, 2012. It is passed on with his permission.
Today is Christ the King Sunday. Now, I don’t know
about you, but for me the notion of Jesus as a monarch needs some “up-dating”.
For one, the whole institution of a monarch as the
focal point of a society seems just a bit passé. When I think of a king or
queen, the first person that comes to mind is Elizabeth II. Granted, she is
probably the most popular political figure just about anywhere in the world,
but somehow I don’t think her role as a benevolent, parent-like figurehead fits
with how we think about Jesus. Nor do I think that her 16th century
predecessor, Elizabeth I – perhaps one of the most powerful women in human
history who very shrewdly used her sexuality to maintain authority in an
otherwise male-dominated political society – encapsulates the notion of Christ
as King either.
Does Jesus resemble any other kings from the past? How
about Louis XIV of France, the so-called “Sun-King”. Many years ago I visited
Versailles, his not-so-modest “home” outside of Paris, and I was astounded by
the signs of wealth and power dripping from its walls. The same could be said
about the imposing and impressive Hapsburg palace in Vienna, built from the wealth
born of this royal family’s conquests of much of Europe.
Is this how we should think of Christ the King?
Apparently, some of our brethren (and I do mean only one gender here) in the
Roman Catholic tradition have this interpretation. You only need to walk
through the halls of the Vatican with its gold, tapestries, and neoclassical
art and notice the resemblance with the interior of Versailles to reach this
conclusion.
OK, so if not Louis and the Hapsburgs, how about
Charlemagne – the first anointed “Emperor” of the Holy Roman Empire in the
Medieval era who very effectively “evangelized” his ever growing realm through
military means. Or for that matter, we could try the various popes and minor
rulers who lead the Crusades against the Muslims in the 11th-13th
centuries. Is that how the refrain from the hymn “Onward Christian soldiers,
marching as to war” is encouraging us to think of Christ the King?
It seems to me that none of this works very well when
it comes to Jesus, so I’ve been wracking my brain these last days to come up
with an alternative – one that is more fitting for 21st century
Christians in the middle of America. Here’s what I’ve tried so far:
Christ the
CEO: Since it’s all about the economy
these days, why not a metaphor that epitomizes the height of economic success.
Unfortunately, when I tried this one I just could not get around the notion of
Jeffrey Skilling, head of Enron during its “death star” days or the more recent
discussion of Bain Capital. Really, I don’t want to even go there.
Christ the
Five Star General: Granted a bit
militaristic, but we are accustomed to holding our military leaders in
particularly high regard (think of Colin Powell). However, we have the little
problem of a recently resigned director of the CIA to contend with…
Christ the
Champion: Great. Works very well in
Wisconsin, I think. Before he abandoned the Packers, Brett “Gunslinger” Favre
was the closest this state has come to having a patron saint. So why not kick
it up a notch and celebrate Christ the Champion one Sunday a year? We’d have to
try and forget about Lance Armstrong…but perhaps a challenge
like this can be overcome.
OK so I’m not doing so well. In one last try, I
reached for a figure who is quintessentially American, who doesn’t come with
some form of baggage, who calls us to be our better selves or at least makes is
feel better about how we are, yet can also challenge us to look beyond our
current preset notions. And I think I found the answer:
Christ the
Talk Show Host: Think Oprah. Think
Letterman and Leno. Think Conan, Ellen, or Jon Stewart. Though I would have
gone with Oprah as my personal favorite, we should probably stick with Ellen,
who rates number one in impact according to the blog “Klout.com”. Is anyone
here with me on this one?
Well, it appears that I have not come up with a universally
acceptable, viable alternative. So we are more or less stuck with “Christ the
King”. What to do?
Perhaps, we should start by thinking about what it
meant to call Jesus King of the Jews as we read in today’s Gospel and what it
meant for Jesus to admit that yes, he was a king, but that his “kingdom is not
of this world”?
To set the stage, imagine the ancient Palestinian
world as being somewhat akin to the modern-day Middle East. You know the
saying: “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Like today’s
Middle East, the ancient near east was characterized by political domination
maintained by iron-clad military rule, periodic revolts by minority factions,
sectarian violence, and the near-complete absence of anything resembling
self-determination. If we wanted a modern-day setting for the Incarnation,
Bethlehem might do just as well as it did when Jesus was born. But so might
Ramallah on the West Bank, Gaza City, or even Aleppo in Syria. Change the names
of the players – trading Herod, Pilate, and Augustus for Meshal, Netanyahu, or
Assad – and update the tools of violence, and you’d have to conclude there are
more than a few similarities.
Imagine, then, the entry into the present-day Middle
East of a religious figure hailed by some of the populace as a new king, and
try to visualize what the response might be by various parties. How would folks
in the West Bank respond to this “King of the Jews”? How would this figure fare
with Likud or Hamas? What message, what new political-religious-economic
reality would he be trying to establish? Yes, his kingdom would most certainly
NOT be of this world of violence, domination, mutual fear, oppression,
assassination, AK 47’s, and the like. But what is it – this kingdom, and who is
this “King”?
In reflecting on Jesus Christ the King, I have been
re-reading small parts of a book I read in seminary called “Jesus and the
Spiral of Violence”. In a sense, the title itself already says it all when we
try to conceive of what Christ the King truly means. But let me try to break it
all down for you a bit more explicitly.
First of all, the meaning of violence is not simply
that of military or police actions, armed rebellion, or murder and
assassination. It’s much broader, having political, economic, social,
religious, and cultural dimensions.
The way I think of it is like a vice. Imagine that the
ordinary folks in ancient Palestine – mostly peasant farmers – were like a
piece of material squeezed between two plates of a vice. One plate was the
Roman government (Herod, Pilate, Augustus) who required that the locals pay a
tax called “tribute” to help fund imperial projects that were designed largely
for the benefit of the upper classes.
The other plate was the Jewish religious aristocracy
(Pharisees, Sadducees) who maintained their security by doing the bidding of
the Roman government and keeping the local populace under control. They also
exacted a tax, called the “temple tax”, to help fund the operations of the
Jerusalem temple and the bureaucracy associated with it.
Over time, the squeeze of the two taxes – the two
plates of the vice – became increasingly intense, putting more and more
economic pressure on the famers. It became more difficult for them to afford
the basics to maintain their way of life (things like seed or animals for
farming). Some went into debts that they could not repay. Others lost the lease
on their land. Still others became indentured servants, or slaves.
Imagine the stress and the impact this tighter and
tighter squeeze of the vice exerted. Imagine the impact on family life and
marriages. Imagine the toll it took on self-esteem, the feelings of increasing
helplessness because there was no political process through which to change the
situation. Imagine the growing sense of anger, the breakdown of normal life in
the village, the effect on community and friendships. Not even Jewish religious
life was untouched, as the Roman government required daily sacrifice to the
emperor in the temple.
This squeezing economic, political, social, cultural,
and religions vice is the spiral of violence, and its outward manifestation --
armed rebellions and the repressive responses of the authorities – was like the
periodic eruptions of a volcano that results from growing pressure of a
cauldron that can no longer be contained by a mountain’s walls.
And so into the middle of this spiral comes Jesus,
King of the Jews who announces the arrival of a new realm, who preaches that
the people in the middle of the two plates of the vice are blessed, and who
tells them to pray to their Father in Heaven, Abba, daddy for relief:
Give us today our daily bread, since we don’t know if
we will have the means to afford it.
Forgive us our debts before our debtors separate us
from our spouses and children and force us into slavery.
Save us from the time of trial, from this spiral of
violence, from this pressure we cannot escape.
Because we need you as our king. Because we want your
will to be done. And because only your power can save us.
Hail Jesus, King of the Jews. Christ the King.
My friends, as you and I consider the world about us;
as we think about the situation in our country, in our state, here in Dane
county, in our communities and workplaces: where do we see or experience the
spiral of violence, the squeezing plates of various vices that – to quote our
baptismal covenant – corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
Where can we, as followers of Christ the King,
confront those dehumanizing economic, political, social, cultural and – yes –
religious structures and announce a new realm of justice and wholeness for all?
Where can we, following in the footsteps of Jesus
before Pilate and the angry mobs, witness to a kingdom that is truly not of
this world and put ourselves, perhaps, a bit more on the line to make it a
reality?
Christ the King calls us to this ministry. Let us pray
for the grace, the courage, and the determination to answer faithfully the
King’s call.
