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Sermon for the Last Sunday after Pentecost – Christ the King – November 22, 2009
Compared to the other feast days in the Christian Church, the one we are celebrating today – Christ the King – is an ecclesiastical rookie. Consider the season of Advent, which begins next Sunday and marks the start of a brand new church year; it can trace its origins all the way back to the latter half of the 6th century. Going even further back, the earliest mention of the observance of Christmas on December 25 is in the year 336.
Of course, the most important and the oldest holy day of the Christian Church is what? No, it’s not pledge Sunday. It’s Easter; the feast of the resurrection of Christ. Tradition says it was first celebrated as a holiday by the fledgling Christians in the year A.D. 68. Yes, we are thoroughly tied to ancient times.
This Sunday, though, we are thoroughly tied to modern times. In 1925, Pope Pius XI established the festival of Christ the King, originally observed on the last Sunday of October. In 1969, Pope Paul VI moved it to the last Sunday in Ordinary Time, the culmination of the Christian year, a much more fitting date, a natural completion of a liturgical year.
Unlike Advent, Christmas or Easter, today’s feast is not so much a commemoration of a particularly important event in our history; instead, it serves more as a commentary on the real source of power and the real nature of power.
At the time of the feast’s inception, much of the Western world was still reeling from the devastation of World War One; a war that wiped out a new century’s optimistic belief in human progress; a war that, far from making the world safe for democracy, laid the foundation for political despots to gain power. Earthly royalty was vanishing and in its place new and ominous figures were emerging on the landscape.
In July of 1925, Hitler published the first volume of “Mein Kampf”, translated “My Struggle.” The year before, Stalin had taken control of the Soviet Union following the death of Lenin. And in 1922, Mussolini had come to power in Italy. Each man was in the early stages of a cult-like following; one which would only grow more intense as peoples’ devotion increased. Over time each of these men took on the status of earthly saviors; all knowing kings; omniscient beings who would define the truth.
In George Orwell’s novel “1984,” written immediately after the defeat of Nazism and the rise of Stalinism, the main character Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth for Oceania, ruled by the benevolent Big Brother, only seen in photographs, never in person, like a god. Smith’s job is to tell people that the truth is whatever the Party says it is.
Today’s festival basically serves to put Big Brother’s Party in its place; telling us who the savior really is; who the king really is; who really defines the truth.
“What is truth?” Pilate asks in the verse that is omitted from our text today but is, in fact, the key question; one that has caused much head scratching throughout the centuries. According to some scholars, this is a question that was first raised publicly in a particular place by a particular group. It was the ancient Greeks, they say, who were most passionately committed to the search for truth.
Plato said that “The philosopher is in love with truth…not with the changing world of sensation…but with the unchanging reality which is the subject of truth.” Later Aristotle laid out this classic formula defining truth: “To say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true.” In truth, then, there is sameness between what is said and what there is; in falsehood there is always a difference.
So, if I understand this properly, truth implies both a consistency and a connection to reality. In other words, it is the opposite of the world in which Winston Smith and so many others lived. In “1984,” Orwell writes, “The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness…And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth.”
Despotic power, Orwell believed, relies on controlling rather than seeking the truth. Now the Greeks went after the truth with a zeal that is unmatched in history. And, it is important to remember, that it was to the Greek world that the Gospel of John was directed; a Gospel written much later than Matthew, Mark and Luke, each of which tells the story of Jesus only from different points of view.
But John is not really that interested in the biography of Jesus. He is interested in telling us the meaning of Jesus. He wants to tell us who Jesus is. He is the truth.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” he says right at the beginning, “full of grace and truth.” All through this Gospel the word “truth” appears, by my rough count some fifty-two times, virtually all spoken by or referring to Jesus. The last time comes today. Pilates asks him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answers, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Pilate’s response is to ask his famous question, in a tone, most believe, of weariness tinged with cynicism, cynicism bordering on bitterness. Shakespeare’s contemporary, Francis Bacon, begins his essay “On Truth” this way: “‘What is truth?’ said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.” Indeed, John reports that immediately after tossing off this inquiry, Pilate leaves Jesus’ side to speak with the crowd which is clamoring for his death.
In that crowd are people who claim already to possess that which Jesus not only testifies to but also says he embodies. They have their tradition; they have their answers; they have all the truth they need. John refers to them as “the Jews,” which has led to tragic consequences throughout the centuries – notably the last one – for our spiritual cousins. But when John uses this term, he is referring to a certain class - the Temple authorities whose status is threatened by Jesus - not those who practice Judaism in general.
In this sense, then, those of us gathered here could be so described by John. We have traditions which go back, say, to the founding of St. John’s, or the founding of the Episcopal Church, or going even further back, to the beginnings of the Reformation and the Christian Church itself. We all know of the seven last words of Christ. How about the six last words of the Church: “We’ve never done it that way before?”
In all the divisions and schisms throughout history, how many groups claim to have all the truth they need? How many can blithely toss off Pilate’s question and then not wait for an answer?
But, as the theologian Paul Tillich pointed out, “There is no freedom where there is self-complacency about the truth of one’s own beliefs.” Jesus challenged such complacency by being the truth which sets us free; and he paid the ultimate price for doing so.
“Thoughtcrime” Orwell called it in “1984,” writing, “If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened, that surely was more terrifying than mere torture and death.”
There is a way around thoughtcrime, of course; another way of dealing with Pilate’s question, an easier way, for a while anyway. Instead of seeking truth, avoid it altogether. Follow the way of indifference. Life, we feel in our gut, is a mixture of pure truth, half truth, and out and out lies. It’s too much trouble telling one from the other, so we just muddle along, making decisions and getting through our days as best we can, not bothering to ask questions of the truth that matters.
Every so often, what theologians like Tillich would call a “boundary situation” may occur – a tragic event, a death, a prolonged illness, a major spiritual crisis, any of which can bring Pilate’s question to the forefront of our lives – urgently, not rhetorically. Such situations are, typically, rare, and once they pass the question of truth can recede into the background again.
But if we dare to do today what Pilate did not do so long ago – and that is face Jesus and await his answer, the answer we get is this: The truth is not a statement, not a proposition, not a doctrine. The truth is Jesus himself. The question is not “What is truth?” but “Who is truth?”
In him statements and actions connect. In him the ultimate reality that is God is present, unveiled, undistorted, unchanging; God in all his depth and mystery and meaning. He came among us to witness to the truth and everyone who listens to his voice as the sheep listens to the shepherd, belongs to the truth.
The Temple authorities would not listen; they cried for his blood that the truth would be silenced by death. Pilate would not listen; he walked away from the sound of Jesus’ voice, that the truth would be ignored. Neither strategy worked very well, did it? The truth would not die nor would its voice be stilled. We here are witnesses to that.
That is, if we are ready to listen ourselves; if we are ready to embody in ourselves the truth that he embodied. “Abide in me as I abide in you,” Jesus tells his disciples earlier in John. Abide in him as he abides in the Father’s love. Then, we will do more than listen to the truth, we will live in it; we will be in love with it, as we love Jesus. And each life we touch each day will receive some kind of answer to Pilate’s question.
I read of an old farmer who was asked by an enthusiastic young evangelist if he had been saved; if he had accepted Jesus Christ as his lord and savior. The man replied – a bit testily – “Why do you ask me such a thing? Here are the names of my banker, my grocer, and my farm hands. Go ask them if I have accepted Jesus.”
Yes, some sort of connection must be made between who we say we are and what others see in us. No, we are not required to be perfect, nor to be put to death for the truth we proclaim. Certainly we do not have all the answers; that quality belongs to God. So we are willing to know more, to grow more; willing to be open to the Spirit which cannot be contained or controlled.
We are Christians with one ruler, serving him in our service to the sheep that are lost; to the poor, the hungry, the sick, and the imprisoned. We are Christians who offer ourselves as we are to a cynical yet searching world, offering our own lives as an answer to the world’s longing questions. We are Christians who abide in the truth that God loved us so much that he sent his only son.
It’s always been that way.