Sermon 11-23-03
Ends and Means - John 18:33-37
(view lectionary notes for this text)
So, how many shopping days do we have 'til Christmas? If you look around in the stores, you might guess that we don't have very many left, even though our Christian season of Advent doesn't even begin until next week. My mother has been Christmas shopping for a couple months already, and I'll admit, I've made several purchases already in anticipation of the big day. But hey, it's cold outside, we've had a good snowstorm, and though not all of us are as happy about it as Katie was last Sunday, it's beginning to look, or at least feel, a lot like Christmas isn't it? Thanksgiving is just a quick stop on the way, a little reminder that we might have someone to thank for everything we're about to receive, and then we're off and running toward December 25th as fast as we can get there.
Then how is it that our gospel lesson talks about Jesus' trial before the Roman leader Pontius Pilate? That doesn't make sense, does it? This passage belongs sometime in Lent, surely. But, here it is, a passage about the hours before Jesus' crucifixion, and we must deal with it, and see what it's doing here in the midst of our holiday celebrations. Before we can anticipate the birth of the Christ child again, we must take a moment to pause, a moment to remind ourselves where this path is ultimately leading us anyway. No matter how many times we celebrate the birth of the Christ child, the death of the same Christ is always the same. We always end up in the same place, with the same trial, the same cross. Given our foreknowledge of what will happen, do we really want to go through with it all again? Are we willing to send Jesus to the cross again and again, just so we can celebrate the warm and fuzzy feelings of Christmas?
So let's take pause today. Today we celebrate Thanksgiving Sunday, but we also celebrate Christ's Reign Sunday, sometimes called Christ the King Sunday. Today is the last Sunday of the Christian calendar year. Next week when Advent begins, we begin a new church year along with it. But today, before we turn our attention more fully to the hustle and bustle of the holidays, let's look at this passage, and see what it means for us, what is means to celebrate Christ's reign.
Our passage begins in the middle of Christ's trial before Pontius Pilate. Jesus had been brought here because the Jewish people, occupied by Rome, were unable to make some legal decisions, such as a death sentence, on their own authority. They had to bring in their rulers, the Roman figures, for final approval. Pilate asks Jesus, "Are you the King of the Jews?" He probably asks with some skepticism that Jesus could be any sort of rebel leader claiming such authority, but he probably had also heard the claims and rumors that Jesus was some sort of messiah. Pilate wants to know if Jesus is a revolution leader, someone who will seek to take the position of King by force.
Jesus answers question with question. "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" Pilate responds, "I am not a Jew am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?" Pilate suggest that there must be some reason Jesus has turned up in his court. What has Jesus done? Jesus turns back to Pilate's original question and gives him an answer. "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." Jesus admits that he does have something to do with a kingdom, but he tells Pilate he's got the wrong picture in his head. Jesus may be a revolutionary, but not the kind who will fight with force to take the throne. I can almost sense the sadness when Jesus points out that no one is fighting to keep him out of the hands of the authorities. "My kingdom is not from here."
All Pilate hears is that Jesus does indeed admit to having a kingdom - therefore he must be claiming kingship. "So you are a king." Jesus responds, "You say that I am a king." Pilate and Jesus are talking about different kinds of kings. "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."
Here our reading ends, and we can perhaps envision Pilates' frustration with Jesus' response. What is he talking about? Jesus sums up the purpose of his whole ministry in this scene with Pilate: he came to testify to the truth. But unfortunately, that response doesn't seem to clear things up for us, or give us the answer to what Jesus is all about. Our passage stops short of Pilate's next question to Jesus, but it doesn't keep us from asking it ourselves, "what is truth?" Truth, we know, is a word that's tossed around pretty easily, in culture, in the media, and certainly in the church. We all want to get our corner on the truth. What is Jesus' truth? Is Jesus the truth himself? If Jesus is the truth, what does that mean? In a world that seems to get smaller as our technological and financial capabilities become more sophisticated, we can't be unaware of the other religious traditions in the world. Don't they think they have the truth too, or can we claim that we are the only ones who know what we're talking about?
"I came to testify to the truth," Jesus tells us. As I said, truth is a word that gets tossed around the church pretty frequently. As people of faith, as believer is God, we're pretty interested in 'truth'. We want to know if we're getting it right. We want to know if we believe the right things. True or false, right or wrong. When we think about truth in the church, what comes to mind? What truth does Jesus want us to know? Our time and energy seems to be spent on worrying with questions like, "True or false: Believing in Jesus is the only way into heaven." "True or false: as long as I am not led astray from my belief in God, I'm doing ok." "True or false: to be a Christian, I just have to accept Jesus as my savior." "True or false: My faith is between me and God, and no one else."
On the other hand, if we look at the gospels, we'll find surprisingly few times when Jesus tells what we are and aren't supposed to believe. Jesus never lays out a set of beliefs for us. Jesus tells us elsewhere and in today's reading to listen to his voice, the voice of truth. And what his voice tells us is not so much what to believe, but what to do. Jesus' teachings involve a lot of actions, a lot of stories about what we are to do to live into the truth and Jesus presents. Jesus taught in many parables, telling stories about how to include the ones who usually were unwelcome, about how to love the unlovable, about how to prioritize life so that God and not money or possessions was at the center. Through all these teachings, Jesus came to tell us the truth, and the truth is that the kingdom of God is at hand - God's kingdom is here, with us, right now, on this earth. But the kingdom of God is only here inasmuch as we embrace the truth that Jesus shares with us - we must love, we must live, we must serve, we must do in order to see how God's kingdom is all around us. Theologian Frederick Buechner writes that the kingdom of God is "not a place, of course, but a condition, insofar as here and there, and now and then, God's kingly will is being done in various odd ways among us even at this moment; the kingdom has come already. Insofar as all the odd ways we do [God's] will at the moment [are] at best half-baked and half-hearted, the kingdom is still a long way off. (1)
As we move from one Christian calendar year to the next, as we stand at the brink of Advent, as we eagerly prepare our Christmas lists and hit the stores this Friday, let's stop a minute, and get our bearings. Advent is the beginning of the story, but today's gospel reminds us to keep the end in sight as well. Truth: God loved us so much that God came to us in person in Christ. Truth: God loves us so much that grace is extended to each of us. Truth: God's kingdom can right here on earth with us. Truth: we have to help usher the kingdom in, not by the details of right belief, but by the heart of right action, as we seek to love others, help our neighbors, and heal the broken ones.
"You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I cam into the world, to testify to the truth."
(1) Cited in sermon by Rev. Dr. Wiley Stephens, http://www.protestanthour.com/11.23.2003.html
Benediction: Go in peace, love and care for one another in Christ's name, - and may the truth of Christ our Lord bring you to complete and utter freedom, as God's kingdom comes here to earth. Amen.