St Frideswide s Church, Osney Eucharist on Sunday November 20 th [Christ the King] Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 46; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43 Then he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. [ Luke 23:42] + In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is the last Sunday in the Ecclesiastical year, the summation of everything we have learned over twelve months, from preparing for Jesus birth, his Incarnation, Ministry, Passion, death, Resurrection and Ascension, as well as the coming of the Holy Spirit amongst us and our own spiritual growth through the long days of summer. Next week we begun that liturgical cycle all over again. Of course, it is doubtful that even a monk or a nun in an enclosed order will have experienced the year entirely in such a regular, disciplined and contemplative manner. We live in a world of constant tension between the divine world and the mundane and the rich selection of readings both those set for the Eucharist and for Evensong explore this. Central to kingship in our minds is temporal power, whether exercised by kings, politicians or priests, and this year should certainly have made us think hard about this. We have seen in the Near East the Isis Caliphate, engaged in genocide and oppression of the worst kind in the name of God; in the same region we have seen a secular power, the Assad regime, bombing, killing and maiming its own people in the name of the State. These are extreme examples of the illegitimate use of power. But oppression is always a risk when human beings get the chance to exercise dominion over others and in the first reading 1
at Evensong Samuel warns the people of the consequences of having him choose a king for them. 1 Saul of course ultimately failed, but his successor David came to be seen as the ideal king, the ancestor,indeed, of our Lord but nevertheless flawed in exactly the ways that Samuel had prophesied especially in his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband Uriah. 2 In our western Democracies, we all have an element of choice as to who governs us, and in Britain this is exercised through Elections and occasional Referenda. The recent Referendum has led to a result that has left the country bitterly divided, and that looks likely to continue into a more uncertain future, for good or ill. Moreover, as a bi-product, passions were raised which have led in a few cases to attacks, verbal or physical against the vulnerable, especially foreigners and to at least one murder (that of the MP Jo Cox). The recent election in the United States of America has to an even greater degree occasioned unfortunate and divisive rhetoric, raised very un-christian passions and prejudices in some, and justifiable worry in many others, who have good reason to fear discrimination. We are, then, not so very far from the world of two thousand years ago in which Jesus was crucified as a criminal between two thieves. The question we need to ask is not: could it happen again? but rather ; how many times more must our Lord be crucified?, for every act of injustice, of quasi-judicial murder by those with power is a repeat of the crucifixion. There is the occasion, when the Nazis hanged a young Jewish boy in the Holocaust and the question was asked : Where is God? and the answer given was There, with that young boy. The Church has on occasion blatantly adopted the trappings of power; in art Christ is depicted as Pantocrator on Byzantine mosaics, as a sort of Emperor, 1 1 Samuel 8:4-20 2 2 Samuel 11 2
but Luke shows him very differently. The leaders of the people and the Roman soldiers deride him as a king who cannot save himself, a failed Messiah as one of the thieves mocks. The other sees through the superficialities of the temporal power of the State, and asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom.. So, what sort of kingship does Jesus exercise? St John s Gospel emphasises the contrast between the rule of Christ and the rule of Caesar in the dramatic altercation between Pilate and Christ. 3 Pilate asks him if he is a king and Jesus replies: My kingdom is not of this world. When confronted with the Truth, Pilate totally fails to recognise it is there in the very person of the prisoner before him. All earthly things will pass. That is a truth that has daily confronted me in my life as a historian and archaeologist. The all-powerful Roman Empire, and its servants like Pontius Pilate are simply reminders of a vanished society. We can study works of art and writings which can portray former lives in a positive light, a sense of beauty, a desire for justice, and love between individuals. We can hope that we will leave such a memory to those who inhabit the world after us. But I want to emphasise here very strongly that this is all about this world, the world in which Christ was mocked, Christ died alongside the thieves, in which the Emperor was supreme. Our hope is in an immortality not of this world. None of us is a king or (I think) a politician but all of us on occasion are in a position to exercise authority over others and all of us have at some point been tormented by others even if that was long ago at school. The tyrannical exercise of power, which is that of the bully, avoids the truth of our essential equality under God and treats the other person as an object. We scourge the other person 3 John 18:33-37 3
with our tongue if not with a lash, and some bullying goes even further. Such power, the power of the tyrant, inevitably corrupts as Samuel said long ago that it would and as the cruel way Jesus was treated by his adversaries proves. Bullying is not rare in our society: it is to be found in the home, in the workplace, in hospitals, in schools, in universities and I am sorry to say in the church as well. It is perpetrated by little kings, little Caesars, by officials and people who find it easier to try to dominate than to exercise mercy and love as we have been commanded by Christ to do. Instead of calling for legions of angels to fight for him Jesus simply forgave those who had persecuted him and promised that repentant thief a place in paradise, as he surely promises us. In one of the very earliest Christian hymns, imbedded in Paul s letter to the Colossians, we learn why, because Christ was no earthly ruler but the image of the invisible God for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created. It is very easy to become obsessed by temporal power in whatever form it comes, whether in our day to day lives or from the State or (Heaven forbid) the Church. We can worship the trappings of power which is an insidious form of idolatry or fail to speak out against it, feeling that if we do it will overwhelm us, knowing that the cost of living in this very uncertain world can by death, can be martyrdom, voluntary or involuntary. But if we are true followers of Jesus we have always to see our true home as being that other kingdom, the eternal kingdom of justice, freedom and love. That kingdom was, after all, gifted to us at our baptism. Jesus was asked by Pilate whether he is, indeed, a king. He refuses to reply directly, telling his interlocutor: 4
Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. 4 Do we want to belong to the world of manipulative truth or are we to be citizens of Jesus Eternal Truth? That is a question for us all to ponder as we approach Advent. + In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 4 John 18:37 5