Matthew Henry John Bartlett

St Michael’s Anglican Church
Sermon for 21 November 2010 – Christ the King
 
Psalm 122:1-9; 2 Samuel 5:1-3; Colossians 1:12-20; Luke 23:32-43
 
Today’s theme is ‘Christ the King’. I want to explore this idea with you today in the light of particularly our Gospel and Epistle readings. Kings, queens, monarchies – they’re old fashioned things; they don’t have much currency or relevance for us here now. Well, I say that, but of course this week many New Zealanders, including my own wife, seemed quite excited to learn that Prince William and Kate Middleton are now engaged, and eager to hear the exact circumstances of the proposal, and precisely how everyone felt before and after. But really, even if William at some future date is crowned King, New Zealand’s Head of State, and the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, it seems very unlikely to make a difference to any of our lives. And if the idea of kingship doesn’t really speak to us in our contemporary setting, what does that mean for the idea of the ‘kingdom of God’ that is so often talked about from this lectern by various preachers?

One possible answer is that we have to find new ways of talking about the significance of Jesus that in ways that our contemporaries can understand. But before we do that, we better make sure our new ways of talking don’t miss out anything crucial that kingship conveys.

The language of kingship has another problem for us, much deeper than that it is a bit old-fashioned, and that’s that some of what kingship conveys fundamentally challenges how our society teaches us to understand ourselves and our world. Let’s look at the Colossians passage again and I’ll try and explain what I mean.

Here at the start of the letter to the Colossians, I’m told that the Apostle Paul is probably quoting or modifying a hymn that the early Christians sang. I paraphrase: Christ is the invisible God made visible, the firstborn of creation. Everything that exists, particularly every kind of authority and power, derives from him; and everything is for him. He holds the universe together. He has gone through death and out the other side, so that ‘he might come to have first place in everything’. The ‘fullness of God’ is in him; and in him God is bringing the broken universe back to wholeness.

It’s an amazing, all-embracing, cosmic vision. Paul and the hymn-singers are ascribing ‘every possible importance’ to Christ. This rich and complex passage has a lot of other things to say, but one thing it’s saying is that there’s no society or structure or nation or corporation or family or person or university or economy or ecosystem or anything that doesn’t exist because of Christ and for Christ. There’s nothing that Christ is not in charge of, nothing that Christ is not King of. And it’s this authority thing that I think goes against the grain for us; and particularly authority’s corollary, obedience. Our society trains us to see ourselves as free, rational, independent, self-actualised agents who make our own rules and make our own decisions – so long as we avoid impinging on other’s freedom to do the same. For most of us, with the possible exception of those with military experience, the thought of setting aside one’s own will in favour of someone else’s just doesn’t sit well. Obedience is not a very appealing virtue.

In part because of this, we in the Church are tempted to limit Christ to being our saviour, comforter, affirmer. This is so for all Christians, and maybe particularly for ostensibly Christian nations – to put God’s name on our own agendas. So how do we escape from that trap? What is the content of obedience to Christ the King?

An obvious starting point is the Gospel accounts. The Church confesses that the Christ of Colossians’ cosmic hymn is the human being who lived an earthly life in Palestine. It occurred to me to go through the Gospel of Luke and make a list of the commands Jesus issues that seem like they’re likely to have some continuing applicability. The whole list is in the slideshow, but here is a representative, paraphrased sample:

• Love your enemies.
• When you are slapped, offer your other cheek.
• When someone takes something of yours, don’t demand it back.
• Love people who don’t love you.
• Lend without expecting a return.
• If you want to follow me, leave your self behind, daily take up your cross and come with me.
• Treat the least among you as the greatest.
• Have no fear – God values you highly.
• Be on your guard against greed of any kind.
• Be ready for the coming of the Son of Man.
• When you give a party, invite outcasts and people who can’t invite you back.
• Someone who divorces and remarries commits adultery.
• Forgive endlessly.
• Proclaim forgiveness of sins to all nations.

This is obviously a sort of naïve approach – everything is out of context and it misses out big chunks of the Gospel of Luke that may have ethical significance: the narratives of Jesus’ actions, the healings and parables, the temptation, the crucifixion and resurrection – but it’s still a useful cross-section, and I think it is important to be confronted with this material. Whatever our understanding of Christ as King, and whatever our understanding of how God’s will for us is known, if there is no connection between our own lives and our community life and these words, that ought to give us at least pause for thought.

They are certainly challenging words – but are they impossible? Further on in the letter to the Colossians Paul says again that God’s fullness lives in Christ, and extends it, saying ‘and you have been filled with Christ’. So we’re directly connected with that cosmic vision – the same empowering Spirit that is in Christ is in us. For Paul this means an amazing freedom – even a kind of anarchy – Christ is king, so no one else is. He won’t let any human authority, or any hardship, get in the way of living and proclaiming the Gospel of Christ.

One way of thinking about the way of life that is sketched out by the commands of Jesus I mentioned is that it is life lived ‘as if’ the Colossians hymn was a present reality. I say ‘as if’ because of course despite Christ holding everything together and being in charge of the whole show, the universe isn’t yet finally reconciled to God. This way of life is a kind of emissary from God’s future, signalling that something really good is on the way.

I said earlier that we might need to find new ways of talking about the significance of Jesus. But more important is that we flesh out whatever language we use by lives that give it content. The most important content that’s given to the word ‘king’ is of course supplied by the Gospel reading. The ‘King of the Jews’ is on the cross. The God who made the universe is suffering like the worst kind of criminal. This has to challenge our ideas about how authority should work, and is surely a good reason to get over any discomfort we might have with the idea of ‘obedience’, and treat Christ not as a figurehead but as the true King.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.