Sermon at Parish Mass, Christ the King 2021

 

James Tissot: Christ before Pilate, 1894. Brooklyn Museum

Daniel 7:13-14

Revelation 1:5-8

John 18:33-37

If you don’t like changes in Church, perhaps this won’t be your favourite feast, as the Solemnity of Christ the King is a relatively modern addition to the calendar. It was invented in 1925 by Pope Pius XI, who wanted to assert the sovereignty of Christ against the increasing nationalism and secularism of his time. He was also making a not too subtle point about his own claim to sovereignty as the Vicar of Christ the King, still a sore point for the popes after they had lost their temporal power in the previous century.

In spite of these ultramontane beginnings, Christ the King is a feast that has grabbed the imagination ecumenically, having been adopted not only by Anglicans – for whom it supplants the much-loved “Stir-Up Sunday” – but also by quite a few protestant denominations, and some Russian Orthodox.

It seems to have taken on a life of its own. If you institute a Feast of Christ the King, then you have to assign Bible readings to it. Which inevitably will bring you up against Biblical ideas of kingship, and specifically the kingship of Christ, that will challenge the assumptions of power out there in the world.

As we see in today’s Gospel reading. This is a scene of contrasts, Pilate and Jesus standing for two radically different understandings of power. Pilate represents the earthly power, that of the Emperor, by whose authority Jesus in the end will be put to death. But Jesus reveals a different power.

He says, “My kingdom is not from this world.” To which Pilate asks, “So you are a king?” But Jesus gives no direct answer. Pilate’s understanding of the word “king” is completely different from that of Jesus. So, instead of answering, he bats the question back, “You say that I am a king”. Jesus then goes on to say what his real purpose is, and how any question about Jesus being a king has to be answered, and that is “to testify to the truth”.

It is here that the Kingship of Jesus is to be found. It is here that we need to examine, and transform, all our ideas of earthly power and leadership. The Kingship of Jesus is about truth. In a way that the kingdom of Pilate is not.

There is a lot about truth in John’s Gospel. Jesus says that he, in person, is “the way, the truth and the life”. He tells the disciples “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free”. He promises the gift of the Holy Spirit, who “will guide you into all the truth”. He prays for the disciples, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth”.

If the Kingship of Christ is about truth, then that means, first of all, that the exercise of power depends on truthfulness and integrity. Unlike the power exercised by Pilate, who ends up asking, “What is truth?”, and condemns a man he knows to be innocent to the will of the mob. When earthly rulers fail in truthfulness and integrity, the consequences can be disastrous for communities and nations, as the past season of remembrance has reminded us.

But Jesus is more than simply a person who is truthful. He is the truth in person. With our dominant rational western mind-set we can tend to think of “the truth” as a set of facts we have to agree to, and certainly facts matter. But Jesus shows us that the fullness of truth is a person, and a person requires personal encounter, real attention and engagement, a process of growing into and getting to know more and more fully.

He who is the truth in person is also the Word through whom all things were made. Which means that truth is woven into the fabric of human communities, our world, and the universe.

I was at a talk last week by Professor Rob Gilbert, who is a professor of Biophysics at Oxford University and a priest. He spoke of the scientific endeavour to seek the truth. Although science is always questioning and refining its discoveries, scientific discoveries are nonetheless truthful. They uncover something that is beautiful because it is a facet of what is true.

Professor Gilbert spoke of the delight in scientific discovery as being like the recognition of an old friend. Which is the language of personal encounter, not simply of ticking off facts. It is relational language, and relationship changes you. From the perspective of Christian faith, every discovery of the truth is an encounter with the Word through whom all things were made.

So when Jesus speaks of the disciples being led into all truth, that they will know the truth and the truth will set them free, he is speaking of truth as transforming relationship. His kingship, which consists of testifying to the truth, is about being drawn into relationship, that relationship in which we become fully who we are meant to be.

The Kingdom of Jesus is about delight and joy, discovery and recognition. It is the kingdom in which we are led into the whole truth until we know as we are known.

Yes, his standard of Kingship means, as a starter, that truthfulness and integrity are necessary in human life. Necessary, for the life and relationship that builds up and does not destroy. Which means turning away from, repenting of, all that demeans and obscures human life, the truth of every person made in the image of God. But necessary also as the starting point for the journey into all the truth, the discovery of who we are meant to be, and are becoming, in Christ.

The First Letter of John says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is”.

Truthfulness and integrity in our lives are where we begin, where we acknowledge the Kingship of Christ, and this is where the work of repentance is to be done. But this then opens us to a journey of encounter and recognition, in which every discovery of truth, in the world, in science, in human communities, and in faith, draws us closer in to relationship with Christ who is the truth in person. And at the end of that journey, if we can speak of an end, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.