The Scripture Readings this week are:
- Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
- Psalm 93
- John 18:33-37
The Sermon title is King?
Early Thoughts: What does it mean to talk of God/Jesus as our king?
I think that is a question about authority and loyalty. I also think it might push us to reconsider how we currently assign those things.
Jewish Scripture is, at best, ambivalent on the question of whether or not kings are a good thing for society. I think it in fact leans heavily to the side that human kings "like other nations" are not a good thing for the people of Israel. The people of God do not need a king like other nations because they already have a king to whom they owe total loyalty and from whom authority flows -- that would be God. At their best the human king is seen as God's anointed/chosen (sometimes, as in Psalm 2:7, also described as Son of God) and acting as God's surrogate.
In the Apocalyptic parts of Scripture we also find this insistence that God is the proper King, source of authority and owed our loyalty. When the world is changed then God will rule over the world.
And then we have Jesus. All three of our hymns this Sunday will have us singing about Jesus, the Messiah, as Lord and King. A relatively common Christian understanding of Daniel 7:13-14 is that it is talking about Jesus, particularly the Risen Christ. This is not a Constitutional Monarchy being discussed [which makes sense since the ancient world had no concept of a Constitutional Monarchy like we find in Canada and other nations today] but a King with full authority and power.
In a world where kingship has largely taken on a totally different understanding what does it mean to proclaim God/Jesus as Lord and King? In a world where we try to flatten the distribution of power where do we place authority? In a world where we are constantly told we have to be loyal to our country, or community, or 'our people' or even our church where does the Reign of God that extends beyond all human divides come in?
This is the final Sunday of the year, a day when we explicitly name that we are part of, and waiting for, the Reign of Christ/Kingdom of God. I think that taking that seriously means thinking seriously about things we largely took for granted in the days of Christendom.
In a Christendom world there were assumptions made. It was assumed that the king (or other form of government to some degree) was still God's chosen and anointed. Part of the coronation of Charles III included an anointing with oil by an archbishop. It was therefore assumed (generally) that the King was owed your loyalty and that to rebel was not only disloyal to the realm but an affront to God. This is part of why it was such a big deal that England and France (in different centuries) executed their properly installed monarchs.
I think assumptions are dangerous. Human kings and governments are prone to error, to say the least. AS we have move to different understandings of government and have moved out of a Christendom-defined worldview I think we can start to challenge some assumptions.
I think the first assumption is about loyalty. We hear a lot about loyalty these days and are liable to hear a lot more. President-Elect Trump showed during his first term and has continued to show that he expects his appointees to be loyal to him personally even when their role (and even their oaths of office) are to loyal to the US Constitution. Sort of a modern-day equivalent of l'etat c'est moi (I am the state) from the days of France's monarchy. That is an extreme example but there have always been voices in many countries calling that people prove their loyalty in some way.
Maybe the voices are wrong. Maybe the ultimate loyalty for people of Christian faith is not to any country, political party, or leader. Maybe our loyalty is meant to be given to God and God's Reign/Kingdom first and foremost. Maybe our call is to be a citizen of God's Country/Reign/Kingdom first and a Canadian (or British or French or....) 2nd.
The loyalty question leads almost automatically push us to consider authority. What does it mean to say that God has authority over us? Maybe the authority question, in a world where we are increasingly encouraged to claim our own personal autonomy and authority, is in fact the hardest part of seeing God/Jesus as king. Who or what does have authority to guide or direct us? To influence our decisions? To tell us where we have gone wrong? Why do we grant them that authority?
Christian Scripture and tradition have long proclaimed Jesus, the Risen Christ, as our King (king of kings and lord of lords one might sing). Pilate passes on the accusation that Jesus is a king in opposition to Caesar (and Jesus sort of evades the question -- or at least moves it into a different realm, different type of kingdom). But Scripture and tradition have also proclaimed that Jesus is a different type of king, a Servant King who is among us "as one that serves". In this world what does it mean to talk about the Kingdom or Reign of God or Christ as King? How do we show we are loyal to God's Reign? Where do we cede authority to God?
ANd what do we do when the systems of power that govern our lives act in ways incompatible with our understanding of being a loyal citizen of God's Realm?
--Gord
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