Proper 17B, September 12, 2013; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of hope, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Today we mark the end of the liturgical (or church) year – the last Sunday in Pentecost. This day has come to be known as The Feast of Christ the King – or The Reign of Christ Sunday for folks moving away from patriarchal language. It’s a fairly new church holiday — first declared by Pius the 11^th in 1925. It was a Roman Catholic feast day; then it caught on with the Lutherans. As recently as a dozen years ago, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church described it as “kept unofficially in some Anglican churches.” As we Episcopalians have lived into our commitment to use the Revised Common Lectionary (shared with other major Christian denominations), Christ the King Sunday has become a part of our common practice, printed on our calendars (so you know it’s legit), but I’m a bit slow in my own conversion.

The lectionary now calls for this reading from John, a departure from the Gospel of Mark used for most of the past year. Our appointed Gospel portion places us right in the middle of the passion narrative of the fourth Gospel. It’s jarring. Often our churches begin the celebration of Christ the King with what strikes me (and I know many of you) as a toxic cocktail of Christian triumphalism in our hymnody and anti-Jewish rhetoric in our Gospel. We should feel uneasy because that mixture has been deadly for millions. And because we are accountable for what we say and do, I can never let the damaging words go unaddressed. The word in the Gospel of John most often translated as Jew is the same for Judean (as in people of Judea) – there is no difference. I made the change in our text this morning, although it’s not an entirely satisfactory substitution. (Pick up a copy of The Jewish Annotated New Testament at coffee hour if you want to learn more about that!)

There is intense irony in this passage with its disturbing language and that charged exchange about kings and truth. Part of the irony is that this passage perpetuates the lie that “the Judeans” or “Jews,” rather than the Romans, were responsible for killing Jesus. Pontius Pilate reported directly to Emperor Tiberius. Pilate was appointed prefect or governor of Judea, was as responsible for the execution of Jesus as he was for countless other state executions. His excessive cruelty was notorious and the reason for his removal from office in the year 37 and his subsequent exile. Regrettably, late first century self-preservation attempts combined with the in-fighting between Jesus-followers and non-Jesus-followers, codified the untruth in a Gospel so concerned with the word truth that the writer uses the word for truth fifty-five times! Pilate’s response in verse 38 to Jesus’ assertion that everyone who belongs to the truth (cares for the truth) recognizes his voice is: “What is truth?”

Part of the irony in this passage has to do with the nature of kings and what it means to be king and to have a kingdom. There is high drama in this encounter between Pilate and Jesus. Here is Jesus, arrested and bound, being interrogated by the Roman government’s highest authority in the land. Here Jesus represents compassion, righteousness and deep humility. Here Pilate represents military, social and economic power. Jesus’ concern is for the last, the least and the lost. His work is all about re-creating, encouraging and inspiring fullness of life. Pilate’s concern is for the first, the most, and the best. Pilate’s work is all about demeaning, condescending, and controlling. Pilate embodies cynicism and the love of power. Jesus embodies compassion and the power of love. The thing is that Pilate is arrested by his political situation and bound by his office. In the story, he seems to believe that his hands are tied. In contrast Jesus is spiritually free. He is free from the constraints of the goal of self-preservation, and free from both self-aggrandizement and self-loathing. Jesus exhibits perfect freedom in a most limiting and oppressive situation. He is demonstrating something about courageous living in whatever horrible present moment, in contrast to hunkering down and merely surviving. He is demonstrating that the more one is motivated by love, the more fearless and free one becomes. [1]

This is what we rightly hold up when we proclaim Christ as King. Of course, claiming the supreme rule of the faithfulness of God in Jesus Christ is one thing when being oppressed by military, political and economic might and it is quite another when claiming supreme right to assault and kill “infidels” or any other kind of enemy in the name of the Lord. Perhaps recognizing the relative speed with which we fearful human beings go there could help us extend our compassion whenever we behave or anyone else behaves more like Pilate than like Jesus in the face of conflict.

The story in the Gospel of John goes that Pilate didn’t wait around for an answer to his question, “What is truth?” It’s not clear whether he ever knew that he was staring right at it when he asked. Truth, in the Biblical sense, has to do with integrity, firmness, fidelity, reliability, stability, sincerity, and candor. And Biblical truth can never be separated from Love. The psalmist declares that in God, loving kindness and truth have met together. In Psalm 85, the Hebrew words compassion and truth are put together much like words are strung together in German. Justice and peace have kissed each other. The truth of God, according to theologian John A.T. Robinson, “is an experience at one and the same time of ultimacy and intimacy.” [2] The truth of God, according to the Gospel of John, was Jesus. The answer to the question, “What is truth?” I believe, is Love. Truth is not about facts; truth is about Love. Love is Truth.

I have a confession to make to you. There are some times when I long for the kind of audio-visual equipment used in mega churches – you know – the capacity to drop a projection screen from the ceiling to show pictures or short videos while I preach. So many of my ideas for a sermon this morning needed audio visuals and a technical team to go with them! If I had a big screen, I would show you pictures of icons of Mary Magdalene. You would notice that whenever Mary Magdalene is shown in an icon, she is depicted holding an egg. Sometimes the egg is white, but often it is red. The reason is the ancient legend that after Jesus’ crucifixion, Mary traveled to Rome to meet with the Emperor Tiberias, to complain to him about the brutality of Pilate resulting in the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. (It’s a fantastic idea, isn’t it, that a Galilean follower of Jesus would be granted a meeting with the head of the Roman Empire. In that meeting, Mary Magdalene, an uppity woman if there ever was one, said to Tiberias, “although Jesus was crucified, he is risen from the dead.” And Tiberias responded that someone could not be raised from the dead any more than the white egg Mary was holding could turn red. And in that instant the egg turned red.

If I had a big screen, I would play a short video of Dr. Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston’s Graduate College of Social Work. She studies vulnerability, courage, worthiness and shame. If you have the ability to watch videos on your computer, find the TED talk she gave in 2010. Her talk doesn’t mention Jesus, but it seems to me to be all about what Jesus taught. She talks about how compassion and connection come from the whole hearted conviction that we are worthy of love and belonging; that whole-heartedness is what courage is. Being courageous is being able to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart, which of course, makes you vulnerable. Vulnerability, Brown asserts, is the birthplace of creativity, joy, of longing and of love. What Jesus was demonstrating with his whole life, as far as I can tell, was the conviction that everyone is worthy of love and belonging in God’s eyes. Everyone.

If I had a really big screen, I would have a video camera panning the congregation – you know, like a jumbotron – showing you your beautiful selves. Some of you would laugh and wave when you saw yourselves; some would probably duck and hide your faces, startled by your larger than life likenesses. That would just make the rest of us smile and love you more. It seems to me that when we are at our best in church, we help one another see and be beauty. We help one another see and be beauty by encouraging one another to more thoughtful, prayerful self-awareness in a place of honest and loving support so that we can grow into God’s calling in each of our lives – to be whole-hearted subjects of the King of Truth – the King of Redemption — the King of Love, and to then go out of here ready again to respect the dignity of every human being and to seek and serve the Christ in every other. Since I don’t have a really big screen, I’m going to count on your really big imaginations.

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