Chapel of the Apostles,  Proper 29B, 2000

“King is your word for it!”

KING is YOUR word for it.

KING is your WORD for it.

KING is your word for IT.

I. What are we to make of Jesus’ Kingship in this time in which “Question Authority” has moved from a slogan to an obsession? Believe it or not, this was even a subject of some side discussions at AAR two weeks ago. One woman scholar was struggling with the dilemma of living in a community where all traditional symbols of Jesus’ authority, especially his kingship, were called into postmodern question, while recognizing in herself a deep commitment to God’s sovereignty. Is there still a Gospel word for us in this symbol of Christ the King? Or is it baggage it is time to dump? King is our word for IT, and, like all such words in our time, problematic.

II. Pilate had a different problem with Jesus’ Kingship ­ what am I going to do with this king Jesus? I sent him to the real King of the Jews, Herod, who serves as a vassal under me as the real power here, the viceroy of Caesar, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But Herod dumped him back in my lap, though I suspect my move was a good one politically. I really think this guy is innocent ­ certainly the notion he is a king is a joke, except as a philosopher king, perhaps, with all his talk of “Truth,” whatever that is. But these messiah types have been trouble here before, and it is my job to make sure no so-called king runs around without license from Caesar, which, here and now, means me. I’ll try one last time to get him off, but I’m probably going to have to let the mob have him. “Shall I crucify your King?” King was Pilate’s word for it.

III. The soldiers and the crowd thought they knew what to do with Jesus’ Kingship ­ mock it, because they would have no king but Caesar/Kaiser/Tsar. And that has remained the problem, has it not? King is the soldiers’ and the mob’s word for it. When we dress Jesus in imperial clothes, and make him the excuse for tyranny, we forget the purple cloak, the crown of thorns, the reed, the spitting. The crowd and the soldiers knew what kind of King they wanted, what fit their word for it, but this Jesus was by no means IT, merely a parody of IT, an anti-word. Caesar, Kaiser, Tsar, that’s more like the real thing. King is our word for it, Pilate’s word for it, the soldiers’ word for it, the mob’s word for IT.

IV. The real question, of course, for those of us who call ourselves Christians, is not what we are to do with Jesus’ Kingship, but what is it to do with us. The clue lies in what was God doing with Jesus’ kingship.

A. Vexilla Regis, our sequence hymn. The Royal Banners forward go, the cross shines forth with mystic glow. Christ is reigning, yes, specifically, precisely, and exactly from the Tree: As meaningful to me from my past as The Christus Rex symbol is from my past , I guess I am glad we are going to get one; but I do worry about dressing Jesus up like Caesar or Charlemagne and hiding THE WORD under our word for IT. As I contemplated the way Daniel’s prequel prophecy and John the Elder’s sequel prophecy together focus on this moment before Pilate, I came to wish, in fact, we had our new crucifix up here today, because that is the true image of Christ the King. Since we don’t, here is the famous one by Grünewald for you to contemplate. Ecce Rex tuus. Behold your King! Christ is reigning not floating in front of, but from the Tree, mocked, scorned, and horribly killed. That is what God’s Kingdom and Christ’s kingship look like. There is God’s one and only WORD for IT. We don’t like that. It makes us nervous. Many of us much prefer a Christus Rex or an empty Cross because something about the Crucified King is profoundly disturbing. Not much Caesar there, nor even anything which seems very reliable as leadership. What sort of king is this radical rabbi with a servant ministry now executed as a slave? And, by the way, as the tradition developed it is clear that here on the cross also are God’s ultimate model for the other two messianic offices, prophet and priest. This is what they look like as God embodies them in our world. Still want to volunteer for one of them?

B. This broken, bleeding, dead body is what all rule and hierarchy are actually meant to look like. The upshot is not hard to see. Contrary to our modern and postmodern fears, the deepest truth is that the Kingship of Jesus, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, reigning precisely from the Tree, is not the foundational symbol FOR tyranny and oppression, but their very overthrow, their deconstruction, if you wish. King is our word for IT, and our word “King” is, by Command of Pontius Pilate, Procurator of Judea on behalf of his Imperial Majesty, Caesar, Lord of Lords and King of Kings, nailed to the cross with Jesus, quite literally, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, right at the top. How many ways can you say King Caesar? All pretense to find in the Pilate story grounds for the divine right of kings comes to an end facing this cross with its royal corpse and kingly inscription. This, not tyranny, is God’s WORD for IT. Indeed, the Gospel Word of Christ the King is the standard by which we are able to know that all forms of tyranny are a deep violation of true kingship and rule. If the symbols for today’s Feast are being read any other way, most especially if they are being lived out any other way, I propose to you that somewhere underneath is lurking a serious Christological heresy.

Sidebar: Pace Luther and Douglas John Hall, the proper antidote to an excessively triumphalist theologia gloriae is not to oppose to it a theologia crucis; instead, we need to preach and teach that the only legitimate theologia gloriae for Christians is a theologia crucis — the Cross shines forth with mystic glow, Christ is reigning from the Tree.

C. Because the concepts are closely related, I want to suggest to you that the same is true of God’s paternity. Our contemporary critique of Patriarchy has often led us to notice there is a misuse of the symbol of God as Father which props up this system of male privilege. When grossly distorted it leads beyond tyranny to abuse. While having fullest pastoral sympathy with those who have been so abused, to the extent of understanding how difficult this symbol may be for them in their own prayer, and in full support of the image of God also as Mother, I nevertheless wish to suggest an alternative point of view. The Fatherhood of God is not the foundation for Patriarchy, but its overthrow, its deconstruction. If it is being interpreted or acted out any other way, then I propose to you that somewhere underneath is lurking a serious Patrological heresy. Let me go one layer deeper. Just as the Crucified Jesus is God’s Word for what we call King, so he is as Son the best pointer we have to what God means by Father. God is not father in general, but specifically the Father of that Crucified Son, and that Fatherhood overthrows all abuse and patriarchy. It is the very Fatherhood of God which provides us a standard for judging abusive fatherhood and knowing it is wanting. Without God’s paternity we would have no sure ground for overthrowing what it reveals as false and perverted.

D. It has been said we don’t teach leadership here. That always makes me nervous, because I suspect a model of leadership is about to be imported from the public or corporate spheres and dressed up in alb and chausilble, with hands laid on it and the Spirit invoked. So let me teach you some leadership, or, rather, let me help us notice God’s lesson on leadership. We do not avoid the issues of Authority raised by today’s Feast by switching to symbols of leader; just translate that into German (Der Führer) or Italian (Il Duce) and the point is obvious. Manager, chief executive officer, or president only compound and disguise these issues. At least when we say King and Father we are facing the issues full on. King is Pilates’s word for IT, the soldiers’ word for IT, the mob’s word for IT, our word for IT, but Christ crucified is reigning from the Tree. This rabbi, with his practice of servant ministry fulfilled in discipled and hence disciplined friendship culminating on this shameful Tree, is the one and only legitimate model for Christian leadership and authority of any kind, the standard by which all leadership shall be judged, the overthrow and deconstruction not of all authority but surely of all authoritarianism. Wherever Christian leadership is being taught, interpreted, or acted out contrary to this Word of God, I propose to you there is a serious Pneumatological heresy lurking underneath. That is true of “Father knows best.” It is true of evangelical leadership defined as righteous anger at everyone else. It is true of the corporatization, the CEO’ing of leadership in the Christian Church, or in a Christian University, for that matter.

E. “King” is indeed our word for it, nailed to that Tree in Greek Latin, and Hebrew, and thereby overthrown, deconstructed. We confess this broken, bleeding, slave-executed rabbi is, mysteriously enough, God’s final, last, true, ultimate constructive WORD for IT. That Crucified Word is the one whom we greet today as Lord of Lords and King of Kings, rejoicing that in his basileia, his kingdom, his commonwealth, there is no room for abuse, oppression, or tyranny. Crown him with many crowns, the Lamb upon his throne, for he is the Lamb who was slain, and Christ is reigning from the Tree. Hallelujah