There was a time in my life when I declared myself sovereign ruler of my home, and the kitchen was my throne room. It was a wide open room in the back of the house, from where I could survey my domain. I had a clear view of who entered or exited the front or back door. I could see anyone coming up or down the stairs. I could stand at my counter peeling apples and maintain command over the household. I called out orders as I kneaded dough. I answered questions while I diced onions. And you can be certain, nobody was getting any forbidden snacks, or failing to clean up their messes, while I was in my place.
For a time, when they were small enough, I actually extended my kingdom to anywhere I happened to be with my children. They were, the four of them, essentially, my realm. The little ones running down the sidewalk ahead of me would stop on my command. Strangers would look at me, clearly impressed by my power. I simply nodded. Of course. I am the ruler of this realm.
In those days and those places, I was sovereign. At least, that’s how I remember it now.
We don’t have kings, of course, in our nation. No monarchs or dictators for us. We have democratically elected leaders and systems of checks and balances, and that sort of thing, because we have a healthy suspicion of power in the hands of any one person. Absolute power is a dangerous thing in the hands of men and women.
The people of Israel experienced this over and over again. God never wanted to give them a king in the first place, because they should have known God is the only king they would ever need. But they had a serious case of keeping up with the Joneses. Israel looked around and said, everyone in the neighborhood has a king; we want one too. And finally, they got their way.
This is where that old saying, “Be careful what you wish for,” seems apt. For hundreds of years, between the occasional benevolent monarch, they were beset with cruel, careless, and malevolent leaders. The problem with absolute power was absolutely clear. But the only ones speaking up about it were the prophets, like Jeremiah, calling out those shepherds who destroy the flock. A shepherd who destroys the flock! Shameful, isn’t it? To allow the destruction of those you have been entrusted with care of; to abandon the least powerful and most vulnerable of the flock for the sake of your own gain. These are, as the Lord says, evil doings.
No one but the prophets were speaking out about it, though, because no one really wanted to put themselves at risk by challenging the ultimate authority in the land. The one who protests will risk the wrath of the whole kingdom coming down on him.
And when Jesus challenged the authorities of his day, this is what happened. It did not matter that he made no claims to be king of Israel. It did not matter that he voiced no intentions of revolting against kings or emperors. It did not matter that he broke no laws of the empire. It only mattered that he questioned the conventional wisdom. He shone a light on the cracks where evil seeped in. He peeled away the veneer of law and order, showing the corruption that lay beneath. This just would not be tolerated because we all, every one of us, want to believe that the system is ok, that the benefits we carve out from it, however small they might be, are safe. My tax cuts, my job, my cheap goods and entertainment are safe.
So it wasn’t just the empire that could not tolerate someone like Jesus. The Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Chief Priests, who had all carved out their little realms of power could not tolerate Jesus. The people who just lived day to day, hand to mouth, a breath away from homelessness, who had carved out their tiny realms of what little they had, who heard the authorities warn he was a threat to their safety – they could not tolerate Jesus. Jesus had to be cast as a criminal, an enemy of the state.
So they mocked him as king, oblivious to the truth of what they were saying. They hung him on the cross, alongside two other men who had been charged and convicted in their courts. One of these dead men joined the taunts of the crowd, but the other one turned to Jesus and said, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Remember me when you come into your kingdom. This one hanging alongside him recognized him for who he was. He saw in him what so many others could not see, the kingdom of God. And he wanted to be a part of this kingdom.
Perhaps the only reason this man could speak this way was because he had nothing left to lose.
The truth is that for most of us it is a hard thing to proclaim Jesus’ kingdom because so much of what we value stands as a barrier to it. The truth is that we may not want to recognize the kingdom of Jesus because it bids us come and die along with him. The truth is that if we live in fear we won’t be able to see that his kingdom is not just pie in the sky in the sweet by and by but is also here and now. The kingdom is in our midst.
The kingdom of Jesus is here as well as there. It is now as well as then. The kingdom of God is present to all who can see it and live into it and living into it means dying to all that resists it.
Christ is the king of both heaven and earth, of here and now and always, of this realm and the realm of eternity. He is the one who would be called, in the words of Jeremiah, The Lord Is Our Righteousness. And we cannot make light of this kingship. It does not serve us or this world well if we try to reduce his realm in time and place to one hour on a Sunday morning, one room in one building.
It does not do to reduce his rule to the lord who puts Band-Aids on my wounds, the lord who is my cheerleader, I shall not want for self-confidence. It does not do to pit him against others because he is “my” Jesus. It does not do to claim him as the lord of my needs while ignoring the needs of so many others.
If Christ is our king, we will stand with those whom he stands beside, however much the powers of this world despise them. We will stand with whom he stands with, however different they might seem from us. We are being called to do this even now.
There has been a new level of hate unleashed in our land. It has reached an unnerving level, a point where the haters don’t even bother to pretend they are better. This hate is unleashed on all kinds of vulnerable people, but in particular, recently, for reasons I have trouble fathoming, against the Jews.
Words of hate, which lead to acts of hate, have been used by some people with really big megaphones. So many refuse to stand up to them. How will you and I respond? It won’t do to shrug it off and say, it’s just talk, it’s just words. Because words of hate almost always, eventually, lead to acts of violence. We have seen it before.
We must resist it, if we believe in the kingship of Jesus. We must work for justice if we are citizens of the kingdom of Jesus. Here and now.
Jesus rules in this world wherever there are people who choose his reign over the reign of “might makes right.” Jesus rules in this world wherever there are people who choose to stand where he stands – with the persecuted, the despised, the least, the last, and the lost.
Whenever someone stands with the person who is being taunted or bullied. Whenever someone gives up a privilege so that another might have their basic human dignity. Whenever someone calls out the authorities who are neglecting their responsibility as the shepherd to all the sheep – Jesus rules.
Jesus rules in this world when he rules in our hearts. And when he rules in our hearts, the world will know it, my friends. The world will know it.
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Photo: ChurchArt.com
