John 18:33-37;  Rev. 1:4b-8                   “Who Will Be King?”                         November 22, 2009

James Bay United Church                                                                                  Rev. Larry Scott

We have become used to having the Royal Family on trial in the court of public opinion. After the recent visit of Charles and Camilla, the CBC aired a show discussing who would become the sovereign after Queen Elizabeth is gone. . There was no judge and jury but in the court of public opinion, a verdict is pending.  Prince Charles is keenly aware of that reality and it figured into the decision that he and Camilla made in accepting an invitation to visit Canada. Both Canadian and British tabloids and Royal watchers in general, speculate about what if Charles declined the Crown and Prince William became king.  In a society that idealizes democratic values, what role is there for a king ? Do we want a pop star, a parent figure, a guy next door or a reincarnation of Princess Diana?

In fact, it is much easier to go back in history and say what a king was, than it is to project into the future and try to imagine what a king should be. Queen Victoria rescued the monarchy at a low point, changing it from a pillar of the aristocracy to a symbolic family model for the middle class. This re-inventing act was probably more at the instigation of Prince Albert than herself, but in any case she was successful as a "motherly queen" and then as a matronly, albeit reclusive widow. The role of monarchy as a role model for family life and marriage has become ambiguous, given that the younger Royals have ended up reflecting society rather than leading it in the 20^th century. Much further back in history when the monarchy was absolute, the power to govern flowed from the monarch to parliament; indeed, monarchs were thought to rule by Divine Right from God and they were viewed as God’s visible representatives on earth. Times change.

If we go back to Jesus’ time, the Roman emperors were kings in all but name, and they required of their subjects that they worship the emperor as a god. This fiction fostered unity and civic cohesion in a vast empire of many nationalities and languages. Everyone under Roman rule, including the Israelites, were required to honour the emperor as their God, so as to show their loyalty to Rome. Jews were problematic because of their uncompromising devotion to Yaweh. Some were pragmatic and pretended to accept emperor worship, while others steadfastly resisted. Those Jews who belonged to the Zealots faction, actually hoped for a nationalist revolt against Roman rule, led by a heroic figure who would be like King David of old. Indeed, the Temple establishment drawn from the Herodian Family, was probably the group behind having Jesus brought to trial. If Jesus became popular among the people, the throngs might make him a king and bring down the wrath of Rome on tiny Israel.

While the writer of the Gospel of John knows that Jesus was not aspiring to be an institutional king, he reports the trial in such a way that another purpose is achieved. The real trial occurs at a deeper level and it is a trial on the nature of Jesus, in which the readers of the scripture are both judge and accused. Is this Jesus one in whom we can see our spiritual vocation lived out and focussed?  Is he the one who shows us the depth of what it means to live our humanity as  people made in the image of God? And if we believe Jesus to be the embodiment of that Sacred Presence, are we not transformed by knowing him? In this spiritual court there is much at stake. On the surface, Pilate seeks to establish if Jesus’ kingship challenges the kingship of Caesar. Pilate’s allegiance is clear. John invites us as readers of his gospel account, to consider the evidence and name our allegiance. The gospel record of Jesus’ ministry, with the record of all his parables, teachings and healings, is the evidence. Is there evidence that we are disciples of Jesus or does the daily evidence fail?  Such a trial is about ordinary times as well as biblical times.

In the seasons of the church year we call the lectionary readings in the six months from Pentecost until Advent,  Ordinary Time. The lectionary readings in this period cover the events of Jesus’ three year ministry. Like the disciples, we come to know him in the ups and downs of Christian life. Even in the midst of the ordinary, there comes a moment of decision: to leave one’s job, to move to a new place, to marry or not to marry, to launch out into a new vocation. The gospel writer John presents us with a moment of decision, as we overhear the trial of Jesus before Pilate ... we are onlookers but we are also drawn into the controversy.  Pilate tries to pin Jesus down on how he regards his own identity. Jesus’ answer is “My kingdom is not of this world ... You say that I am a king.” We infer that it is up to us to decide ourselves who Jesus is. Jesus himself requires no title. The apostle Paul in today’s epistle reading says that Jesus’ identity is one who intercedes on our behalf  with God, not as a high priest who repeatedly must make sacrifice over and over (Heb.9:25). Paul imagined in his early ministry that there would be a second coming of Christ associated with a kind of final judgement. When this did not happen in his lifetime, he later understood that coming to be a spiritual transformation in which believers would take on the yoke of Christ and become Christ to one another. Christ comes again each time we take Christ within us. We do not need a high priest to intercede between ourselves and God. We need only respond.

In the first three gospels, Jesus refers to himself only as Son of man or Son of David. Others sometimes venture to call him Son of God. After the events of Easter, the early Church felt it had a full enough revealing of Jesus’ identity that calling him Son of God, and declaring him divine as well as human, was the correct way to describe the way in which they found him to embody God’s presence. The apostle Paul and the gospel writers, as well as the writers of the early creeds,  chose to regard Jesus as Son of God, even though it was not a title he used of himself.  Only indirectly does Jesus name his relationship with God by praying, “Our Father in heaven...” but in this sense, it is a shared fatherhood with all who seek God’s will rather than a philosophical statement of divinity.  In the Greek and Roman world, an emperor could be divine because of his office, and so it would be a parallel way of thinking to name Jesus, a man obviously close to God and gifted uniquely with God’s grace, as divine. Despite Jesus’ statement that his kingdom is not of this world, Christians are influenced by their culture and other worldly influences. Early Christians could imagine Jesus only as a divine king, somehow similar but somehow different, from the "divine kings" of their own world.

Just as people in a democratic culture find it hard to imagine a reinterpreted role for a traditional king, so Christians are challenged in using divine king language about Jesus.  If “king” means a symbolic figure who lives on high and is not part of our daily life, then Jesus as king succeeds in making Jesus removed from our daily experience. A kingly Jesus safely stored away in heavenly places on high is no challenge to how we actually live. Jesus himself used the title Son of Man more often. Jesus the Son of Man empathizes with those who are poor, sick, hungry, strangers or outcastes. Jesus the human one suffers real pain on the road to the Cross.  Jesus the truly human one says at the close of Mark’s passion account, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). Jesus is with us because Jesus suffers with us.