Christ the King

This coming Sunday is "Christ the King" Sunday.  It is the last Sunday of the Christian Church year.  The following Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. The name for this Sunday has some oddities that might rub us the wrong way. As a nation, many participated in protests shouting, "No Kings!" So what does it mean to turn around and envision Jesus as a King? 

The use of the King image has its roots back in the human era, when feudalism was the only economic/political system in operation at the rise of nation-states in Europe. Church doctrine was coming together bit by bit, church council by church council.  It's logical for the Church to look for a unifying image for the "head of the Church."  The position of king was the most powerful figure in people's lives.  They needed an image of Christ that would communicate that he was the leader over people's lives.  

The profound irony, however, is that Jesus explicitly rejected that role in his life.  As he rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on a donkey (or colt), it was purposely not a war stallion.  While there were groups who wanted Jesus to declare himself a king or emperor and overthrow Rome, he forcefully rejected the role. The word he most often referenced for his leadership style was "servant."

So here we are with this archaic doctrinal reference to Jesus to which tradition keeps us melded. I'll not get into the added tangle of patriarchal language. So, is this redeemable?  I think it is. 

All of us who follow Jesus, and hold him as a serious guiding principle in our lives can still see the congruity of using monarch as an image.  It connotes an authority whom we adopt as the moral guide for our lives.  So the redeeming question becomes this: What does Jesus as Monarch mean to my life?  What kind of Monarch is he to me?  For me, he would be:

A powerful presence yet humble.  Instructive but not domineering.  Judge of all good, not petty, unfair, lacking in understanding, or uncaring.  Beloved -- always on the right side of peace, encouraging plenty for all.  Charismatic - luring us to be like him without the force of legalism.  Gentle -- not vengeful or vindictive.

Inviting this very unique monarch into our hearts as the guiding founder of our faith and spiritual life is exactly what we need for our spiritual health, as well as the Vision for our world.  

Spacious Silliness

 "...there were seven brothers. The first married a woman and then died childless. The second, then the third, married her. Eventually, all seven married her... When all are resurrected, to which one does she belong?  Luke 20:29-33

The legal authorities in Jesus' day spent too much of their privileged time in spacious speculation about unimportant matters.  Rather than feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, they preferred coffee cake and mind-tripping. Perhaps, it was their puffed-up intra-group egoistic contest to outdo one another with clever what-ifs that caused them to cook up a hypothetical of such an unlikely occurrence.  Though it should be noted, their goal was to spring a trap and discredit as a theological scowflaw the far more popular folk hero operating in their ballywick. So much is wrong about this tale from our modern perspective that one might wonder why it isn't lying on the floor of the editors.   And yet...

Inside the tale (and the minds of the debate-ers) is revealed the simplicity humans prefer over cosmic glory. Let's list some of the deeper elements that are passed over in the hypothetical.

1. The inherent sacred value that God places on every person. The wife here is not some inanimate object of inheritance.  Nor is she a hand-me-down future bearer of the family name—though culturally, that was one of the assumed functions for women of that period. If religious minds had been aimed higher than their cultural norms, they might have been advocating for the sacredness in all human nature.

2. Do humans really have ownership over anything?  a) We can't possess another soul.  To share our soul with others creates the weave in the fabric of eternity.  The essence of relationships is the memories and love held in the vault of forever, often passed down from generation to generation. b) In practical purposes, marriage is a social contract for the sake of family stability and child rearing, not a bill of sale. Marriage, in religious contexts, however, is the recognition of and honor shown to the commitment to love.

3. Life on planet Earth appears as a zero-sum game.  One lives.  One dies. End of story.  That would be the tale if life were solely the tangible.   But it is not only tangible flesh & blood.  Even in the legal authorities' hypothetical, they recognize the intangible.  The eternal dimension == Life that is broader, higher, and eternal.  Where exists the energy & essence of life -- grounded in love, mercy, justice, peace...  Co-joined (married?) to God. We come from God.  To God we return. 

We do not worship a God of the dead, but a God of life -- a life that knows no end.

Proposing a New Social Contract

"Lo, the kingdom of God is within you."

        -- Luke 17:21 (American Standard Bible)

Generally, the Bible is not a huge wellspring of positive human portraits.  While it is perhaps spiritually instructive to see through another individual's struggles with sinfulness, it has left a strong residue of presumed unworthiness lurking in the shadows of every person of faith's self-esteem.  Too often, the Church has defined the worthiness of "good Christians" as those who stand before God and beat their breast, declaring what scums of the earth they've been and pleading for mercy (whereupon, they turn around and do again what they just confessed to.) Can I say at the start that this is not a healthy definition of being humble, much as you may have been told to the contrary? 

It is not an understatement that humanity, from its inception, has always been violent in taking what we need, both from the Earth and from one another. I would characterize this as humanity's greatest sin and struggle.  If we are to evolve out of "caveman ways" to stop the use of retributive justice and eternal trading up from clubs to nuclear weapons, we must correct the wretched theology that all are flawed and born into sinfulness. A new world begins with the re-creation of one's own self-perception.  It's not surprising that Jesus would be the keeper of that better, higher, more noble perception. 

If we can envision a Realm where shared plenty, kind interaction, fair treatment, honest interactions, benevolent understanding, ready forgiveness, and mutual respect are how the Realm operates, then we are well on the way to a truly transformed world.  If we could only adopt this vision as the New Human's social contract!

Paul Tillich, a well-known and respected theologian, used the phrase "Ground of Our Being" as a term for God. If the vision I just laid out there was this Ground, or the basis of the "Kingdom of God," it would be societally transforming. Jesus points the way to that: "It is within you." You possess it.  You can make it happen. Within that term, "Kingdom of God," lies God's affirmation of you.  You are complete.  You are born and live with what is needed.  You are worthy to be a resident and ambassador of the Most Holy. Others are looking at you, learning from you, and discerning the direction for their own behaviors from you! Are they noble, trustworthy, truthful, honorable, and loving? Those are difficult virtues to hang onto in the face of child abuse and separation and violence of all kinds, but we also have a model in Jesus of one who navigated well the use of his life.

The daily news out of the United States reeks of the 180-degree opposite direction life is going there. Reversing the racist, hateful trend is not a simple overnight fix, obviously. But it does begin with you; it spreads with you. It can be nurtured by you. Through you, a cosmic shift can begin. Are you up for it?