Living in the Servant Kingdom

This is the text of a sermon I gave today, during Morning Prayer, at St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church.

Today is Christ the King Sunday and we’re supposed to make something of all this kingly imagery.  

We hear about how Jesus was given dominion over all the earth and sits on the throne of heaven.  

We hear about how he will come again from the clouds, how he always was, he is, and he will be the king and deliverer of the earth.  

We wear fancy robes and carry a golden cross and kiss a golden book and make fancy gestures.  We kneel and genuflect to the king.  

We pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”

Personally, I long for a God of power, that will set things right.

A God that will heal my hurts, punish the guilty, save the refugees, dismantle institutional racism, make the village support our resale shop, and balance our budget.  

I long for a King, and what I get is that guy--the one hanging from the cross, hanging in disgrace, his arms outstretched in love, praying to forgive his murderers because “they know not what they do”.  

We get Christ the King.

Christ Jesus, who, when questioned by Pilate, answers him with sarcasm.  

When Pilate accuses Jesus of calling himself the King of the Jews, a statement that is clearly sedition and treason to Rome, Jesus answers, “Is this what you think?  Or did others tell you this?”  It’s like he’s checking his sources.

Pilate dodges the question, answering, “I’m not a Jew, so how would I know?”  Jesus continues in a sarcastic tone, “If I were a King, don’t you think someone would be here defending me?”  It’s as if he’s saying, “Dude, if you think I’m a king, I am no king like you’ve ever seen.  I mean, can you even imagine a king allowing himself to be treated this way?”  

And, Pilate can’t imagine it.  He can’t understand what Jesus means, how could his Kingdom not be in this world, why is he not defending himself?  

Pilate cannot conceive of a servant king, he cannot conceive of the true power of Jesus--the power of sacrifice and love.  

We are all a little bit like Pilate sometimes.

Robert Farrar Capon, one of my all-time favorite theologians, talks of Luther’s idea of Jesus’s left-handed power, the power of sacrifice and love.  

Pilate (and the rest of the world, then and now) thinks of power as straight-line power, the power to make things happen, to make people do your will.  

Straight-line power works well on things and on impersonal systems, but it falls short pretty quickly with people.  

I can force someone to obey me, but I cannot force someone to love me.  

Jesus knew this; Jesus used left-handed power, relational power, power that, instead of subduing others by force, took a beating itself.

Jesus died, forgiving his killers, and immense power was in that forgiveness, but it was a power the world had never seen and still struggles to understand.

Today we hear the story of a kingdom, not of this world’s straight-line power, of oppression and violence, but of left-handed power, of service, of love.  

This is the kind of kingdom we get with Jesus.

We get the God who showed up as a helpless baby to poor, displaced, refugee parents.  

We get the God who washed the feet of lepers, Samaritans, women, and prostitutes.  

We get the God who resisted the devil’s temptation to power, the God who fed and served the poor, the God who came to save the sinner, and the God who died a disgraced prisoner in a painful, shameful death and then rose to defeat even death by his surrender.  

What does it mean to be citizens of that kingdom?  

What does it mean to use relational, left-handed power, rather than dominating, straight-line power to accomplish our work?  

When faced with this question, I feel about as dense as Pilate was.  

Although I have Jesus Christ and thousands of years of Christian theology, liturgy, and saints to guide me, I struggle with it.  

I am a human being and I want things to go my way--I want to win.  

I don’t want the God who forgives his tormentors; I want the God who rains down destruction upon my enemies.  

Human beings don’t like to give up our power, so we make structures to protect it.

In the church as well, we make structures to protect our power.  

We set up plans, committees, congregations, deaneries, dioceses.  

We ordain deacons, priests, and bishops, so we know there is someone in charge.  

We have been hearing the story of a servant kingdom and the healing power of love over fear for 2000 years;

But, we still cling to our hierarchical power structures.  

Structures aren’t all bad, of course; we need some sort of structure to get things done.  

Even Jesus had some sort of structure with the disciples; the early Christians had some sort of structure to their organization.  

How can we do this structure without grabbing on to the power for dear life?  

How should our leaders lead us into submitting to God’s will, rather than imposing our own?  

Well, my best answer is, “We do it together.”

My friends, we are not here by chance; we are called and carried into this place and into this work.  

The kingdom of Jesus is not of the earth; it does not dictate, threaten, or force us into action.   The Holy Spirit called me to St. Ignatius a few years ago, through the books I read, the signs I saw, and the websites I found.  

Jesus called me into a relationship with him and a relationship with the people here.  

But the call didn’t end there.  

Fr. Tim called me into leadership, and my fellow parishioners carried me forward.  

Here I stand before you, a lay-leader, called and carried into this moment, asked by our ordained priest to speak to you.  

What is the difference between Morning Prayer with a lay-person and the Eucharist with a priest?  

Really what is the difference between ordained people and all the rest of us?

Here on Christ the King Sunday, where we are living in the servant kingdom, why do we set our leaders apart?  

Honestly, at first I had no earthly idea how to answer that question.

Being a good Episcopalian, I looked to the BCP, to the Rite of Ordination of a Priest, and I found this line, “In all things, you are to nourish Christ’s people from the riches of his grace.”  

A priest is set apart in order to nourish the people.  

An ordained priest is a vessel for the Holy Spirit.  

An ordained priest is the sacramental image of the Holy Spirit working within us all.  

Just as the bread and the wine in the Eucharist is a sacrament for the grace that fills us at all times,

just as the water of baptism is a sacrament for the grace that fills us at all times,

the ordained priest is a sacrament for the priesthood that fills us at all times.  

A concentrated sacrament that brings us a visible focus--a re-presentation--of the presence of grace already within us.

The priest shines a sacramental spotlight on our own priesthood--calls us and carries us forward.

An ordained priest is a sacrament of the Grace of God within all of us, the grace that cultivates our hidden strengths, challenges us in moments of weakness, supports us in our doubts, and rejoices in our joyfulness.

A priest isn’t better than others, more holier, or closer to God, he just has a slightly different role in the kingdom.

Through the grace of God, an ordained priest calls us and carries us and empowers us to call and carry each other.

In the servant kingdom, the collaborative kingdom, the abundant kingdom, we are carried forward by each other through the grace of God.  

When we fear that we don’t have enough supplies, people, and money to pull off Vacation Bible School, Joanne Kriens steps forward with a generous donation and we all come together to make magic for the kids.  

When we fear that our new Grab a Slab event will fail, the entire church steps forward with donations of baskets, time, and money, and carry the event into success.  

When we fear that we can’t make the anti-racism training work, the Diocese, the Lutherans, the school systems, and our own parishioners step up to carry us forward into a transformational experience.  

When we fear that the village will shut down our resale shop, more than 30 people show up to support our ministry and carry us forward into success.  

Our Lord Jesus Christ calls us into faith.  Our priest--the vessel and sacrament of the grace within each of us--calls us into action.  

That grace spills out upon all of our people (friends, parishioners, community members), who carry us forward with purpose.

It’s no wonder that Pilate didn’t understand Jesus’s kingdom; it is a holy mystery.

Wrapped up in the image of glory, encrusted with triumph and dominion, right at the heart of power, is the heart of sacrifice and love.

The King we worship washes his followers feet.  

The King we worship loves the sinners.

The King we worship forgives us.  

The King we worship calls us into service and love, and the citizens of that Kingdom carry us into glory--to serve the “least of these” and therein see the face of our Lord and King.

Amen.