A Sermon for the Last Sunday in Pentecost: Christ the King

Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm 46
Colossians 1:11-20
Luke 23:35-43

Today we end the Year of Luke with the crucifixion story. In this story we see Christ on the cross proclaimed king, So this last Sunday before Advent begins is known as the Feast of Christ the King. It is meant to be a triumphant celebration of the kingdom of God. We sing hymns like "Crown him the King of kings." Yet some theologians, notably the liberation and feminist theologians object to the "King" language finding it oppressive and triumphalistic. It brings to mind images of dominance, hierarchy, and abusive power.

But look at the king the Gospel portrays. Look even at the picture on your bulletin. This "King of the Jews" is a joke. Looked upon with scorn or, at best, pity. Jesus on the cross is a broken, vulnerable man not a glamorous, powerful regent. This is decidedly not what we mean by "king." Everyone else is making fun of this mockery of a king. One wonders why the one criminal seems to take Jesus' kingdom seriously.

There are only two places in Luke's Gospel where Jesus is referred to as "king". One we read today: Jesus dying on the cross is proclaimed king by a criminal. The other mention of Jesus' kingdom was made by the angel Gabriel to Mary of Nazareth at the Annunciation of Jesus' birth. What is this crazy wisdom that angels and criminals share?

Jesus himself, of course, repeatedly proclaims the coming of God's kingdom but does not claim himself to be king. Yet it is clear from Jesus' own preaching that the coming kingdom is not like any other that we have know.

Just look at the stuff we see Jesus doing: This "King Jesus" hangs around with the lowest of the low. He refuses to use power to get things for himself or to order others around. And he claims to have come to us "as one who serves." What kind of crazy king is this? He, who could if he wanted claim God's power and say to people "Believe me or die" instead leaves us to make our own choices.

And isn't it insanity to choose to follow a king who is a helpless refugee baby in a barn? What person in her right mind would accept as ruler a rebel rabbi who eats with prostitutes. And just who's going to believe that that miserable, dying mess of humanity on a cross is the king who will save us?

We want to trust our lives to a strong ruler, a powerful someone who is virtuous and victorious and can protect us. We want a king we can honor and celebrate and be proud of. Why, God, do you offer us instead this Jesus: a baby, a servant, a vulnerable, suffering, and broken man?

Kings belong in palaces or at the heads of armies. Yet the king that is proclaimed in the Gospel is not this powerful, triumphalistic, and oppressive ruler. The Gospel claims to find our King on a Cross and in a Stable. Cross & Stable: places of birth and death. Cross & Stable: Real places of joy and of suffering, places of both darkness and light.

We want the light and joy and birth of God's kingdom without the darkness, suffering, and death. But the Gospel tells us that the Kingdom of Jesus includes it all. We sing easily: "I want to walk as a child of the light I want to follow Jesus. But following King Jesus means living ina world as messy as a Stable and taking up our own the burdens, that may seem as heavy as a Cross.

We want to walk with Jesus That means: to walk in his infant vulnerability to live in his servanthood to those he meets to join in his suffering on the cross. Walking these paths with Jesus is the way to the kingdom where all can be children of the light. Because "In him there is no darkness at all the day and the night are both alike."

Note that that does not mean that there is no night but that in Christ both night and day are alike. Somehow mysteriously the Light of Christ the King encompasses within itself these opposites. The place where Christ is King is a kingdom where death and birth are both alike; a place where angels and criminals together announce God's kingdom.

And that's good news. We who cannot identify ourselves with angels of light, those of us who know ourselves to be criminals in the darkness, yet still desire to walk as children of the light are offered a chance to be with God in Paradise. We shall know the joy of Jesus when we know Jesus to be King and we cry out with the crucified criminal: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

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