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Dr. George A. Purnell
November 22, 2009
“Tell Me the Truth”
John 18:33-37
Kings aren’t big in the United States. Freedom to elect our leaders is part of our DNA. Inheriting the right to rule rubs us wrong, so there isn’t much talk about kings in our everyday conversation.
If you were honest with me, I think most of you would admit that you don’t actually think of Jesus as being your king. In fact, I imagine more of you than not wonder what it means to pick up the bulletin this morning and read that this is Christ the King Sunday.
Formally, Christ the King Sunday is the final Sunday in the liturgical year. Just as we say that history has been heading toward this climactic moment – when Christ will come as King, and God’s kingdom will come on earth, as it is in heaven – so this Sunday represents the culmination of the movement of the Christian year to this last day.
Next Sunday is the first Sunday of the next liturgical year. The seasons of the church year follow in this order:
Half of the liturgical year deals with preparing for Jesus, his arrival, his ministry, his passion, and his death and resurrection. The second half of the liturgical year deals with how we are to be in the world now that Jesus is gone.
Christians are not familiar with the seasons of the liturgical year. I know this is true, because every church I have served has people who are bold enough to tell me the truth, namely that they would like to know:
-Why are the paraments white today?
-When I arrive next week, why will they be purple?
-Why don’t we begin singing the Christmas carols after Thanksgiving?
-Why don’t we celebrate Mother’s Day or July 4th as special days, but we do celebrate something called Christ the King Sunday?
Many people sitting in churches every week have questions like these, but they are afraid to ask for fear of seeming ignorant about their own faith. So, it’s easier to act as if all this is familiar.
I took us through the seasons of the liturgical year just now because I think it’s important for us to be familiar with the annual cycle that the church observes.
Today we find Pilate, governor of the Roman province of Judaea – a lower level bureaucrat in a vast empire – more interested in maintaining order than discovering the truth that would bring justice.
This was the worst week of the year for Pilate. It was the week of Passover – a week when religious Jews from other provinces of Israel, and from neighboring nations – made the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate this holy festival of their faith.
And these Jews were nationalistic. They believed that God had promised this land to their ancestors. They hated their land being occupied by a Gentile (Roman) army and governed by Gentile (Roman) rulers. With so many Jews in their holy city at one time, there was always the possibility that an incident in the streets between a zealous Jew and a Roman soldier would spark a wider insurrection. While the Roman army could readily squash such a protest by the Jewish peasants, farmers, and merchants who were in Jerusalem, it would be bloody and chaotic...and would not reflect well on Pilate’s rule to his superiors.
Just before where we began today, we read that when the Jewish council brought Jesus before Pilate demanding justice, “Pilate went out to them and said, ‘What accusation do you bring against this man?...Take him yourself and judge him according to your law.’ The Jews replied, ‘We are not permitted to put anyone to death.’” (18: 29, 31)
Jesus was brought by his countrymen to Pilate, accused of saying he was a king. Such a charge would be treason against Rome and its Caesar; a crime punishable by death.
It is here that we pick the story up. Pilate feels that this is a frivolous charge, but he is concerned with expediency rather than justice. If executing one Jewish peasant would satisfy the boisterous crowd, it was worth the trade off. Until this week was over and the Jews dispersed to return to wherever they had come to Jerusalem from, Pilate’s primary priority was order.
We see Pilate trying to get Jesus to admit his guilt, so that he would not be responsible for condemning a man he considers innocent to death. “Are you King of the Jews,” Pilate asked Jesus. If Jesus would just say he was a king, he would be guilty as charged by his own admission.
But as he often did, Jesus turned the table on his interrogator. He asked Pilate if this was his own question, or one he was asking for the crowd that had made this accusation against him.
Jesus then responds to Pilate’s question whether he is King of the Jews by saying, “My kingdom is not of this world…” His life was at stake here. He could have said: ‘I am no king! I’m a carpenter from a little village in Galilee named Nazareth, a place you probably have never heard of because it’s so remote.’ But, instead, he said: “My kingdom is not of this world. “ He had to know that this reply would not be very palatable to either Pilate or the accusing crowd.
He goes on to say, “for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.”
So Jesus implies that he is a king by saying “my kingdom is not of this world” (if he were not a king, he would not have a kingdom), and he suggests that his is the voice of truth for everyone who will listen to him.
And if his kingdom is not of this world, where does it reside? Does it rank higher than the Roman Caesar and his empire? Does it demand allegiance above all other earthly governments? Is Jesus’ kingdom a threat to America? Do we need to protect ourselves from this self proclaimed king?
We don’t see Jesus as a king, so he is not a threat to us. We see him more as a wise and moral teacher…as a tireless worker for social justice…as a voice for the poor and those on the margins of society…as a holistic healer.
But Jesus was not crucified because he was a first century Henry David Thoreau or Mother Teresa. He was put to death because he was a threat…because his followers gave him allegiance over the Caesar or any other earthly ruler…because he taught his followers to pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth, as it is in heaven…
Barbara Brown Taylor tells the story of being at a retreat once where the leader asked everyone there to think of someone who represented Jesus in their life. When it came time to share answers, one woman stood up and said, “I had to think about this very hard. I kept thinking, ‘Who is it who told me the truth about myself so clearly that I wanted to kill them for it?’”
Jesus spoke truth and he was crucified, because his personification of truth, and his refusal to back away from it regardless of consequences, was threatening to human authorities, both Jewish and Roman.
The truth is not always easy to acknowledge because sometimes it demands that we come face to face with realities we would rather ignore and sins we cannot hide. The first letter of John reminds us “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8)
In his sermon on the mount, Jesus assured us that God knows our needs. If we will “strive first for the kingdom of God…all these things will be given to you as well.” (Mt. 6:33)
These are not empty promises. Jesus speaks truth, not platitudes. My prayer is that we will make a searching and fearless inventory of our faith…that we will admit it when we find ourselves guilty of idolatry by giving our allegiance to something other than God…and that we will have the courage to live the truth, no matter the cost. Amen.
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