Our readings today have been about being a king, because today is Christ the King Sunday. Kings on earth are very grand people. Other people sit on chairs, but kings sit on thrones. Other people wear hats, but kings wear crowns. Thrones are chairs raised up, so the king sits above his subjects, looking down on them, and crowns symbolise an inherited greatness that can’t be opposed or challenged by ordinary folk.
But what sort of king is Jesus? And what will it mean for us, to honour him as our King? He is no ordinary king: he told the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, that his kingdom is not of this world. But that doesn’t mean that he’s a king somewhere else, like heaven, or not exactly that. Jesus spoke a lot about the kingdom, and he told the people that the kingdom of God had come close to them. It is a kingdom we might look forward to, but it’s also about the here and now, it’s about how we choose to live, who we choose to listen to and follow and obey.
When he said 'My kingdom is not of this world' I think Jesus was declaring that his was a different sort of kingship, and a different source of authority, from kings like Caesar or Herod. A kingship that invites, rather than compel, and that offers service rather than give orders. As he told his friends, “Let the greatest among you become as one who serves.” If we’re going to follow him, we should be as like him as we can be: disciplined, loving, obedient and observant in our response to him, and thankful for all he has done for us.
There’s a theological word for that: ‘holy’, which means specially set apart. We are specially set apart in order to serve, in order to build bridges, in order to be peacemakers in the world, in order to bring healing and compassion and forgiveness into lives that need to know the transforming and saving love of our God and King. That’s what it means to be his people alive and active in his world.
His kingdom is opposed to the power play of the world; think of Mary’s song, the Magnificat, in At Luke’s Gospel. In it we can find these words: "he has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and has sent the rich empty away." Words that have been banned by some regimes, because of the threat to worldly order and power they contain.
So where will we find this kingdom, and how can we build and establish it? The kingdom is everywhere that the Gospel of Jesus is really being taken seriously and lived. It is both our present reality and our future hope. The signs of the Kingdom are all around us, and we ourselves are challenged to live in a Kingdom way, here and now, as we also pray for its fulfilment and its completion. Jesus sent his disciples out to proclaim the Kingdom, not as something to be looked forward to in the distant future, but as present reality. The signs of the kingdom are healing for the sick and troubled, acceptance for the outcast and unwanted, restoration for those who have lost hope or are burdened by failure or sin, and new life for those who feel they have no future and no worth. This kingdom isn’t confined to any place, it has no geographical boundaries - it happens and is proclaimed as we live it.
As servants of the King and builders of the Kingdom, we’re sent out into the world to get on with it. And where we get on with it is everywhere. The Greek word translated as ‘kingdom’ in our New Testaments is probably better translated as 'kingship', for it’s really about the place we give Christ in our own hearts and lives. It’s about whether we are his obedient servants. William Ruskin said, "He who gives God second place in life gives him no place." Jesus said, "Shine as lights in the world, to the glory of God the Father."
So we should be sincere and committed, God's people before all else; and the world should see that in us, we should be bearing a good and faithful witness. A card I saw in a local shop the other day said: "Work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt, and dance like nobody's watching." I offer those words to you as a way of being Kingdom people. The Kingdom we’re talking about gets built when its people are working not for worldly reward, but just because they’re thankful and loving. It’s a Kingdom built by people who go on loving and serving and giving even when it hurts, whatever discouragements come their way. And it’s built by people who just do it, who dance before our Lord, who have his music playing in their hearts and not the world’s song; people who don't care what others might think, but know they’ve received too much not to be thankful.
Ours is a king who might look foolish next to the Caesars and the Herods on their high thrones and with their fine robes and golden crowns - foolish even next to the Pontius Pilates of this world; but in reality he is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, and by him we’re challenged to go for what’s eternal, to live for what can’t be destroyed, and to open our hearts to the spark of love divine through which all things were made, from which all life emerged, by which we are lifted up from a world of sin and failure and death and into the new life only Christ could win for us, and in which we are given good news to take out into all the world.
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