All Saints Sunday, Yr B (2024) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Christ the King, Yr B (2024) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
John 18:33-37 St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
In the name of the one, holy, and living God:
who was, and is, and is to come. Amen.
Have you even been in a conversation in which you were merrily talking along
and then the other person said something that made you realize
that you weren’t really talking about the same thing at all?
Maybe the topic was the same…
but you suddenly realized that you had completely different understandings
of what that thing was.
I think that was the situation in today’s gospel reading!
“Pilate entered the headquarters again,
summoned Jesus, and asked him,
‘Are you the King of the Jews?....’
Jesus and Pilate then have a conversation in which they keep missing each other
as they talk about kings and kingdoms.
Pilate is utterly rooted in this world…
trying to suss out whether Jesus is a threat to Pilate’s power.
Pilate asks, “Are you the King of the Jews?”
“Jesus answered, ‘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.”
Pilate responds, “So you are a king?”
No, no, no, Jesus says.
You just don’t get it!
You are saying that I am a king,
but I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth.
My kingdom is not from here.
My kingdom is not a kingdom that you would recognize!
Now…today at St. Andrew’s we celebrate Christ the King Sunday.
It’s the last day of the liturgical year.
Usually at the end of something there’s a big party, right?
So, today is an important day…the last day of the Christian year.
All this Kingdom talk must be important!
To be honest, it’s not my favorite image of Jesus:
Jesus as King.
Apparently, it wasn’t Jesus’ favorite image either!
But I do think it’s important to try to understand.
Pilate was at least trying to understand
even if for the wrong reasons.
So…what is Jesus talking about?
In the Lord’s Prayer, which Jesus taught to his disciples, he (and we) pray:
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Is Jesus saying that… in his kingdom…
There will be no fighting or violence?
There will be no delineation of boundaries:
of who belongs and who does not,
of who may be healed and who may not?
There will be no false-speaking,
only Truth-telling.
There will be no guile or deceit,
only honesty.
There will be no power-mongering or “lording over,”
only humble service.
Is he saying that in his kingdom those who mourn will be comforted,
those who are naked will be clothed,
those who are hungry will be fed,
those in prison and those who are ill will be visited,
the stranger will be welcomed and the vulnerable cared for?
Is this the likes of his Kingdom?
If so, that means that his Kingdom is not a kingdom you will find on a map
with heavy, solid lines of demarcation.
It is a kingdom that exists wherever there is justice
and mercy
and compassion
and reconciliation
and healing
and forgiveness
and Love!
The reign of Christ is not time-limited…
God is the beginning and the ending,
the Alpha and the Omega…
…the same God who was, and is, and is to come…
the God who creates, redeems, and sustains us!
…the Christ who abides with us and in us,
who transforms our very lives
so that we may embody such a Kingdom here and now.
As one translation of the Bible puts it: the “kindom” [k-i-n-d-o-m]of God…
it’s the place where everyone is related!
Our worldly system of “kingship” and “lordship” is broken,
and it permeates all systems,
hence our need to remind ourselves on this last Sunday of the liturgical year
that the kingdom in which we live
is the Kindom of Christ, crucified and risen.
I remember some years ago sitting around a table for a care review
for one of our church’s neighbors who was then living on the streets.
There were 15 people sitting around the table,
representing about 8 different agencies from around the city.
As this man expressed what his needs were,
one service provider said, “We’d be happy to help him with medical care”
to which I immediately responded, “that would be great!”
Another service provider across the table then piped up,
“Well, if you help this person with medical care,
then we will not be able to help him with housing.”
Say what?
I had thought we were all talking about the same thing here:
helping this man get off the street
and getting him the help he needed to live a healthy and whole life!
What does one agency’s help with medical care
have to do with another agency’s help with housing?!
What were the kingdoms here that were competing with each other?
Befuddled and irritated I blurted out,
“I don’t care who does what!
This person needs to get off the street and needs housing and medical care…
whoever can do that is fine.”
Our systems are broken,
driven by territorial power and money.
And people…
people with real and urgent needs get tossed about and lost in the fray.
It happens everywhere:
in housing, education, finance, and medical care.
Perhaps that is why Jesus set up no systems and confronted the ones that existed.
Perhaps that is why Jesus sent his disciples out two by two
with only a tunic and pair of sandals to meet folks on the road wherever they were
and with whatever they had…
to hear and respond to their needs.
“My kingdom is not from this world….
For this I was born, and for this I came into the world,
to testify to the truth….”
the truth that God’s reign is a reign enfleshed as we love God and neighbor…
as we take time along our journeys to stop,
bend a knee,
and wash our neighbor’s feet in whatever form that takes.
Today we celebrate the reign of Christ as we stand on the cusp of
once again anticipating the coming of Christ into the world as a vulnerable baby…
and as we also anticipate and live into the return of Christ
and the true reign of Love.
This afternoon parishioners from a variety of churches across Canton and Clyde
will gather and give thanks for the many gifts in our community.
It doesn’t matter our different faith traditions….in fact, we celebrate them!
Clergy from across Canton and Clyde and Waynesville
have been in conversation since two days before Hurricane Helene…
to make preparations and coordinate response to needs in this area of Western NC.
No one has asked anyone’s political stances or faith or income or education…
we only ask what the need is
and who has the resources to respond.
To me, that sounds like the Kindom of God,
and I am so grateful to be able to participate in it.
In closing this morning,
I share with you the motto for The Order of the Daughters of the King.
As Children of Christ the King, this prayer applies to all of us:
For His Sake, I am but one,
but I am one.
I cannot do everything, but I can do something.
What I can do I ought to do.
What I ought to do, by the grace of God, I will do.
Lord, what will you have me do?
Lord, what will you have me do?
Thy kindom come,
Thy will be done.
AMEN.
