The Last Sunday after Pentecost – Nov. 22, 2009

A King Not Of This World

The Rev. Stephen Elkins-Williams

Pilate was confused. He understood what a king was. He knew what authority was about. He knew that the subjects of a king resisted that absolute authority at their own peril. Yet here was a supposed king whose own people had turned him over as a prisoner. He did not demand obedience under threat of punishment. He even spoke of his kingdom being not of this world. Pilate was confused.

He was also resistant. He did not perceive Jesus for who he was. He only saw him as a problem he had to deal with, an unusual case which could turn difficult if he did not appease the chief priests and the crowd, a threat to his own authority and freedom.

If only Pilate had been more alert and perceptive and open, he would have realized that Jesus was not the problem, he was. Jesus was not to be feared but welcomed. Jesus was not the threat to his life and fulfillment but the means to it. Instead, Pilate kept Jesus at arms length. He met him only in the safety of his praetorium, where his authority was unquestioned. He ultimately washed his hands of Jesus and dismissed him from his life.

And yet, with the advantage of hindsight, we should not be too hard on Pilate, as if in his place we would have acted any differently. In fact, if we are honest, even with the gift of our faith, we still act exactly like Pilate! Yes, we call Jesus our King and we acknowledge him to be the Lord. “Crown him with many crowns,” we will sing enthusiastically in our final hymn. But it is one thing to call Jesus King and another thing to live in submission to him.

It is human nature to try to rule ourselves. We want to be people of faith; we want to live out our baptismal covenant, as those made in the image of God. But very often, it is we who try to make God into our image, to convince ourselves that God wants what we want, God loves what we love, God hates what we hate. We make judgments about others and their value in God’s eyes. We welcome only those who seem to welcome us, dismissing those who do not fit our particular standards. Like Pilate we insist on staying within the comfort of our praetoriums, where our authority is unquestioned, where we do not need to submit ourselves to the standards and wishes of our supposed King.

We may be nursing, for example, long held grudges against others, refusing to grant them the dignity of forgiveness. Yet our King has told us to forgive others from our hearts, not once but many times. We may blame others for the mess of their lives, refusing to help them. But our King has asked us to feed the hungry, to shelter those who need it, to visit those in prison. We may not want to tell the truth in a difficult situation or to make a tough ethical decision, but we know that our King is truth itself and that he assures us that the truth will set us free. We may be inclined not to trust in God’s providence and to hoard all that we have only for ourselves. Yet our King has encouraged us to set our hearts on the kingdom of God and to share what we have with generosity. We may feel it is our right to live in addiction and not to take care of our physical and spiritual health. But our King has come to bring us abundant life and expects us to use well all the gifts we have been given. We may be focused only on doing what interests us and what serves our own needs. The desire of our King, however, is that we look after one another and that we volunteer our time and our talent in service of others. In these and many other ways, we follow our own way, despite promising in our baptismal covenant to follow Jesus and to obey him as our Lord.

We are no different than Pilate, but we are no different than other human beings as well. We are all the sinners whom Jesus came to forgive and to set free and to bring abundant life. That is good news, although we are reluctant to accept it. The fullness of life is God’s free gift to us, not one that we earn or justify. It is not ourselves on which we depend, but on the mercy and love and compassion of God.

That is why Jesus says his kingdom is not of this world. He does not mean in time only, i.e. merely that his kingdom extends beyond the life of our temporal world. He also means that the values and the vision of his kingdom far exceed the accepted standards of this world. He is not a King who demands our submission with the fear of great punishments. Just as he did with Pilate, he comes to us unassumingly in the sanctum of our praetoriums. He invites us to see beyond our comfort and security, to welcome a whole new way of seeing and acting, to submit ourselves to his authority. He asks us freely to embrace a kingdom whose roots and vision and duration far exceeds any kingdoms of this world.

On this final Sunday of the liturgical year, when we acclaim Jesus as our Lord and King, let us do so freely and without illusion. With humility but with renewed commitment, let us embrace the vision and the sacrifices asked of us by his kingdom. “Not only with our lips, but in our lives,” may we proclaim Jesus our King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

John 18:33-37