Community Parson: The Good King

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

The Good King

Proper 29 B; Nov. 25, 2012

2 Samuel 23:1-7; Psalm 132; Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37

The movie “Lincoln,” now in theaters, opens with a group of Union soldiers talking to the President. He sits in a simple chair, on some sort of a porch, in the dark night in an army campground, and the soldiers are in awe of meeting the great man. One of them says he enlisted just after the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery; his brother died in that battle, and then he speaks from memory Lincoln’s words on that day. Other soldiers come by, simple farm boys and even freed slaves, and slowly, from soldier after soldier, we hear the brief speech in its entirety.

In such a scene is how we Americans like to remember our kings: humble and fallible, yet brilliant and regal, powerful and complex, and standing on the side of right. That scene of Lincoln quietly and informally conversing with soldiers on the eve of battle is what comes to mind with later in the film Mary Todd Lincoln declares to a White House full of politicians, including those who would oppose him, “The people love my husband!”

We have ancient models of kings in our memories – of David, for example, the ideal king of Israel. We read his “last words,” today in our first lesson, words which remind us that such kings who rule with the justice of God bring order and prosperity and peace and beauty to the world.

That sounds good, of course, but is the figure of the king not an outmoded concept for us today? A king who cannot be elected or thrown out of office, a king who does not reflect the will of the people, who rules without the consent of the governed?

All true. All good reasons, of course, for democracy, and after all, even the Queen of England does not so much as rule as preside rather delicately at the will of Parliament.

So why Christ the King? It’s not a feast from the Bible, like Christmas, Easter, Pentecost or Ascension. It’s not an early church custom, like Lent or Holy Week, or something borrowed from folk religion, like All Saints. A King, and a Kingdom, are political terms. A king rules territory: a kingdom. Everyone within those boundaries is subject to the king. The boundaries of a just king, a righteous king, enclose a pleasant land, a land like that spoken of by David, where the people live in peace and prosperity. If you live in the kingdom of a just king, you get it all. You don’t have to join anything – you don’t have to register for one political party or another, vote a particular way. You are there; part of the Common-wealth.

Of course, for Christ the King, there are no geographical boundaries, as well as no political litmus tests. Say yes, step up to the font and get washed in the waters of baptism and you’re in. That’s all it takes to be one of the people of God’s pasture, one of the sheep of God’s hand. Everyone is welcomed into this kingdom, even those who can’t curtsey, or those who can’t pay, those who aren’t always good and those who are not nearly so bad as some people think.

No, Jesus tells Pilate, my kingdom is not from this world. I don’t have to fight for it with violence for I win it with love. Not even the death with which you threaten me, Jesus says to Pilate, can overthrow my kingdom.

On this last Sunday of the church year, we are reminded of the cross, and the death which Jesus will die. Next Sunday begins Advent, when we prepare for the birth of this same Christ in the humility of a poor family with only a barn for shelter. With such a beginning and an ending, no wonder Pilate, draped as he is in the trappings of the empire, cannot comprehend this Jesus as a king. Pilate has no idea why anyone would choose to follow this king.

But we, his followers all these long years after, still know the sound of his voice. We know it’s true when he says all are welcome here, at this table. We know it’s true when he says, eat this bread and drink this wine, and be part of my body. We know it’s true when he says follow me to the death, for with the love we share, even that death is turned into life.

1 comment:

sadbuttrueNovember 16, 2015 at 4:39 AM
Hi Jacqueline, I've stumbled across your post, as I searched for an image of Christ the King to use on the order for our patronal next Sunday. Did you take the picture in the post, or does someone else hold the copyright? If you do, could we use it, giving you attribution, please? Many thanks. Simon Douglas (vicar, Christ the King church, Aldersley, CofE diocese of Lichfield)
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Missional church and the arts

What if we thought about church in another way, as "a small community that [moves] into a particular area (often one with a lot of deprivation and poverty) ... seeking to follow Christ but their focus is simply helping transform their community -- in arts, environment, in social needs, with youth and so on."

These are churches, as the English church missioner named Jonny Baker, "are not focused on growing big -- but more like the yeast of the kingdom that Jesus talked about infecting the wider batch of dough. ..." Such churches, Baker says, face "the challenge of weaning members off their addiction to consumer approaches to church where they get their fix of worship and teaching and meeting with friends before they could properly engage in this more local, outward-focused community approach (maybe we need a 12 step detox programme for leaving consumer church!?)"

We may benefit from thinking this way, as we explore how to connect our treasure, which is the Celebration of the Arts, into parts of the community that could use more art.

Thanks to the Patheos blog for sending this thought my way ...

"A prayer book even an atheist would love"

It does seem a teensy bit arrogant for a 21st century author to claim that he "edited" The Book of Common Prayer, but Brian Cummings seems to have added considerable value to familiar red book we find in our pews. In this 2011 volume (Oxford University Press), we can find the full texts of the 1549, 1559 and 1662 Prayer Books, along with introductions, explanations, notes and glossary. The review in the September 2012 issue of The Atlantic, gives the book a glowing recommendation -- both in its edited and "explained" form and in the original, which as the book upon which all prayer in our language is based "shaped the inner life and branded the tongue of the English-speaking peoples. Its phrases and rhythms did not merely enter the language. They largely defined the language. " Read more of the review here, and if you read it, let us know how you liked it!!

What I read - 2012

FINISHED:

At Simon's INSISTENCE I read The Hunger Games. Some parts I had to skim through, because the depictions of these young people fighting each other to the death was at times too gruesome, but it was overall well worth the read. NOW I have to get on with # 2 in the series

Dennis Lehane's A Given Day. Everything comes together in a slightly staged but effective way in 1919 Boston: anarchists, molasses, racism, repression and the Boston police strike. J. Edgar Hoover makes some unflattering cameos. I must say it is kind of Ragtime as it would be dramatized by Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg and Ben Affleck. It was in the days when you could tell what Boston block someone grew up on by the accent. The Irish don't come off all too well. Southie is a place to avoid in this prelude to The Depahted. It's good, though a little too graphically violent and written like a movie script. Let's just say Whitey Bulger came by his proclivities naturally.

Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman

quite charming and lovely; a peek into the modest domestic life and extraordinary yearnings of a summer community of Orthodox Jews in the Catskills

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Also saw the Swedish version of the first book.

The reminders of domestic terror in the most intimate sense are deeply unsettling. The author reminds of the percentage of Swedish women who are abused, beaten, left for dead, even. It is an all-too-steady drumbeat beneath human society.

Meanwhile, I found a new collection of stories, that is easier to read before bed. I heard the most astounding story on Selected Shorts: "The Mappist" by Barry Lopez. You MUST read it. Before you know it, you are in another world, that shines the most wonderful light on this place we inhabit and how we live in it.

I had a brief flirtation with a few of Joyce Carol Oates short stories. Bracing. I am always on the look-out for her perceptive comments about upstate New York.

Done with Cheever, and LOVED it. Again. If you read nothing else, read "The Death of Justina." Then again, I also like, "Goodbye, My Brother." Cheever; the chronicler of a world falling apart.

This summer ...
Middlemarch by George Eliot. This wonderful story of the intertwined lives of villagers contains the requisite English characters of pompous rectors, impoverished strivers and beautiful young women. It's like reading Trollope: you'll find someone you know in Middlemarch.
and
The Collected Stories of John Cheever. A perennial favorite. Poignant stories of families in mid-century middle America. Reading it again is a bit like Mad Men, where you are glued, almost in horror, at the train wreck you know is about to happen in these people's lives.

Responding to the Unspeakable

The shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, in the days right before Christmas, with the deaths of small children and the people trying to protect them, wrench our hearts like nothing else. However we respond to this tragedy -- with silence, with weeping, with anger, with resolve to work so that something like this will never happen again -- all of our reactions are understandable. We need ways to regain our footing and imagine how we will live in the world as it is now, in this world in which we experience yet more grief and sadness.

On Sunday, December 16, the Prayers of the People at St. David's Church were in the words of parishioners and preachers, some from the very day of the tragedy. Find the text of those prayers on our Forming Disciples blog.