Pilate asked him, So you are a king? Jesus answered, You say that I am a. Today is Christ the King Sunday, marking in our liturgical calendar the last

Transcription

1 Sermon preached by the Rev. Becky McDaniel St. Stephen s Episcopal Church // Richmond, VA November 25, 2018 // Christ the King Today is Christ the King Sunday, marking in our liturgical calendar the last Sunday after Pentecost, and thus the last Sunday before Advent. But Christ the King Sunday is not an ancient liturgical practice. In fact, this designation did not emerge until the twentieth century and had little to do with the end of the church year. It was in 1925 that Pope Pius XI established Christ the King Sunday in response to what he believed to be destructive forces of secularism in the west as well as the destructive rise of communism and fascism in Russia and Italy. Pope Pius sought to present the rule of Christ in opposition to the totalitarian claims of rising ideologies. Of course the dialogue between Pontius Pilate and Jesus in our gospel reading from John today highlights the struggle between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of God. This gospel reading confronts us with the question, to which kingdom do we owe our allegiance? But the question is not a simple one; it is not black and white with the easy answer of choosing the Jesus of Christianity over the powers and principalities of this

2 world. We cannot so easily affirm Christ as King within a religion that has itself used power and authority to rule with destructive forces. Our history as Christians is complex, and we have not always chosen the path of love and humility. We must constantly remind ourselves that Christ reigns also from a cross, not just a throne. When we replace the cross with a throne, we risk losing the kingdom of God. I was so moved when Paul-Gordon Chandler spoke in the forum two weeks ago, sharing the life of Khalil Gibran and particularly his writings about Jesus Christ and the struggle between the historical Jesus of Nazareth and the Jesus of the Christian empire. Kahlil Gibran wrote: Once every hundred years Jesus of Nazareth meets Jesus of the Christian in a garden among the hills of Lebanon. And they talk long; and each time Jesus of Nazareth goes away saying to Jesus of the Christian. My friend, I fear we shall never, never agree. This image of the two Jesus figures is powerful because it invites us to re-examine our understanding of Jesus and our Christian faith. We stand at a crossroads in Christianity today, a time of conflict in the church when millions find themselves

3 embracing an emerging way of understanding the heart of the faith, while millions of others hold fast to and defend a tradition of gospel truth defined and illuminated by creed and doctrine. At this moment of paradigm shift, we can allow this dilemma to shut us down and send us into silos, or we can allow it to ignite in us an exploration of the many faces of Christ. It is important to acknowledge that Gibran s Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus of the Christian meet peacefully and see each other completely. They are two faces of the holy, making room for disagreement and even paradox. If you have ever spent time writing icons, or sitting in contemplation with icons, you know that there are many, many faces of Christ. There is the peaceful sacred heart icon, the Christ Pantocrator with the eye of judgment, there is Christ the Good Shepherd, there are dark-skinned Christ icons, light-skinned Anglo-icons, suffering servant icons, and yes, Christ the King icons. There are icons highlighting the femininity of Christ, and there are bold masculine icons. We can begin to understand from the sacred art of icons that there is not one way to see or experience Christ.

4 The religion scholar, Diana Eck, who directs the Pluralism Project at Harvard University, in her beautiful book Encountering God, describes the many faces of Jesus Christ as the many tastes of the Divine that are awakened in us each year through the repetition of the story of Christ in the Christian liturgical calendar. She writes of the not-yet Christ that gives us the taste of hope, the divine child Christ that gives us the taste of delight and tenderness, the healer Christ that gives us the taste of liberation and wholeness, the tempted Christ that gives us the taste of suffering, the risen Christ that gives us the taste of joy and faith. Beyond the liturgical calendar we can see the face of the bold teacher, the angry prophet, the playful wedding guest, and on and on. Right now we are on the threshold, standing at the edge of the season after Pentecost with the face of Christ the King, ready to enter into the season of Advent, when the face of Christ will be the not-yet that gives us the taste of hope. This liturgical moment is a threshold in which we hold the tension of fulfillment and expectation, not knowing exactly where we find ourselves. There is, of course, the urge to plunge ahead, to pull the light into the darkness, as we so often do during the season of Advent, to leave behind one face and meet another, to usher in a kingdom with no room for the holding of tension, such as the tension of Christ

5 the King who reigns from both the cross and the throne, or Jesus of Nazareth who stands face to face with Jesus of the Christian. But we must remember that holding the tension, living with multiplicity and even paradox is living in the realm of the holy. We are not to get too comfortable with one and only one face of Christ, or we will lose the fullness of the kingdom of God.