John 18:33-37
Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?"
Pilate replied, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?"
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 asked him, "So you are a king?"
Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. 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."
---
On the liturgical calendar, today is Reign of Christ Sunday.
When I was a boy, we called it, Christ the King Sunday.
And either way the rest of the world says, "Huh?"
We think of kings, we think of outdated governments.
Figureheads.
Imaginary places, like Narnia.
Or oppressive places, like North Korea.
Kings are old-fashioned, primitive.
We, on the other hand – in America – we got rid of kings.
We had a war about that.
We pledge allegiance to the flag, not to any one person.
We the people elect our own leaders.
We're a democracy, not a monarchy.
Democracy, good. Monarchy, bad.
So when we try to talk about Christ, reigning as King, we have a built-in border wall in our brains.
We have deep, historical biases against kings and kingships.
It's why our forebears left England in the first place.
But on the other hand, in the church, we affirm Christ –
King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Monarchy: bad.
Eternal monarchy: very good.
This is one of those things that if you think too hard about, thou shalt get a headache.
I think Christ the King is one of those things we don't think about because we don't like headaches.
And because Christ the President, or Christ the Speaker of the House doesn't roll off the tongue.
They might THINK they're the second coming of Jesus, but they are not.
—
Jesus must have been a real headache for Pontius Pilate.
Jesus - and his alleged kingship - must have been a real pain in his neck.
Not that Pilate deserves a lot of sympathy.
But I think the dialog between Jesus and Pilate isn't that far from the contradictions we wrestle with when our hearts call Jesus king, but our minds are skeptical of kings.
For Pilate, it was reversed: Pilate believed in kings (or caesars), but he was skeptical of Jesus.
Too much of the time we have more in common with Pilate than we do with Jesus, and that causes headaches for the people who want to be our co-Pilates.
Pilate and Jesus, ruler and subject.
Pilate was the ruler, and Jesus was his subject.
Or was it the other way around?
Jesus was the ruler and Pilate was the subject.
Which is it? Which is truth?
This is a puzzling little passage from the Bible.
I feel pretty certain that's the way God intended it.
---
It's good to be king.
Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Beautiful dogs.
@KingJames, as in LeBron on Instagram.
King of the castle.
King of the hill.
"King of the road."
By the way, I actually listened to the old Roger Miller song last week.
Even though it's not in the hymnbook, it's a thought-provoking commentary on power and freedom.
"Trailers for sale or rent." They don't write em like that anymore.
Something for your afternoon playlist.
Steven King, Martin Luther King, Billie Jean King, Gayle King.
B. B. King.
King Kong, Smoothie King, King Ranch Chicken Casserole.
All good, but none serious monarchs.
On our continent, Democracy is king.
In a democracy, who has the real power?
(Tech bros. Russian hackers. Private equity firms.)
OK, who's SUPPOSED to have the real power?
We are.
We, the people.
We get to choose our own leaders.
We get to manage our own lives.
We get to decide our own future.
Right?
Well, that's the way it was in the textbooks.
We all want to be kings (and queens) of our own domains.
But when everyone's a king, no one's king.
Pilate asks, "What is truth?"
When you don't know what's up, when you don't know what or who's in charge, when you don't know what or whom to believe, truth is meaningless.
The only power is what little you can literally cling to.
—
Do you have days when you feel utterly powerless?
You teach your kids the best you can, and they still act clueless.
You scrimp and save every penny, and your spouse comes home with a new fishing boat.
The car breaks down.
You exercise, you eat low-fat foods that taste like cardboard, you floss.
You go to church, you tithe 10% of your income, you drop coins in the Salvation Army bucket.
You do all the right things.
And then, one day, in the shower, you find a lump.
A drunk driver comes the wrong direction.
A hurricane blows through the mountains.
In a split second, your life changes.
All that planning, all that hard work, all those at exercising control, your power, your reign – poof!
You're not king anymore. You never were.
It's fun to pretend like a king. Or a queen. Or a Disney Princess. Or Gaston.
But in our quiet moments, in our moments of truth, we know whatever royalty we have is hanging by a thread, if that much.
It can give you a real headache.
---
We say the Apostles' Creed every Sunday.
In the Creed, which we say every Sunday, five people or persons are identified by name.
First, there's God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
We're all familiar with him.
Then there's Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord. That's two.
...who was conceived by the Holy Ghost.
That's three.
And born of the Virgin Mary. She's number four.
Lastly, one final person, number five: Pontius Pilate.
Jesus "suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried."
So, right up there with the names of the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, just slightly after the Virgin Mary, is Pontius Pilate.
Pilate from Pontus.
We say his name every week, as if he was a vitally important man.
A big shot. A king-ish guy.
That's a sad irony.
Pilate IS important in the story of our faith.
He's the one who allowed Christ to be crucified, dead, and buried.
But in the scale of human history, Pilate was a middle-governing-body bureaucrat.
At worst, Pilate was a little dictator, a bully who tried to compensate for his own weakness by stomping on powerless subjects.
But even at his worst, Pilate doesn't begin to compare to Hitler, or Mussolini, or Putin.
Pilate wasn't sent to Judea to think.
His job was to be the face of the Roman government, and to keep the Jews from causing Caesar headaches.
And yet, there Pilate is, one of only five names in the most common creed of the church.
A government bureaucrat.
Did Pilate actually crucify Jesus?
No. Pilate washed his hands of responsibility.
Washed his hands and sealed his fate.
Pilates' great sin was preserving his delusion of power.
Allowing crimes. Ignoring the worst.
Pilate tried to sidestep trouble in classic middle-management ways.
And so, Jesus Christ was crucified, dead, and buried.
A delusion of power made Jesus suffer.
A delusion of power crucified Jesus.
Jesus suffers.
Whenever we forget the thread of separation between our own power and our powerlessness, Jesus suffers.
Whenever we thrive on the illusion of our own royalty, Jesus is crucified.
Whenever we hurt others because we have the power, Jesus dies.
In this way, we have too much in common with Pontus Pilate.
It's not really that good to be king, after all.
---
If Pilate wanted to be famous, wanted to be remembered forever more, he certainly got his wish.
But here's the greatest irony of all.
If Pilate had embraced his powerlessness, if Pilate had just proclaimed that Christ WAS king, Pilate might have been forgotten.
If not forgotten, at least not mentioned every single Sunday in an unflattering light.
Might have been forgotten.
Might have been forgiven.
If protecting our illusions of power causes Jesus to suffer, what, then, does accepting our powerlessness do?
If our quest for power decreases, does Jesus increase?
In another passage, the Bible says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
What if Pilate had embraced his own powerlessness and - at the same time - clung to the power of Christ?
We'll never know the answer to that question.
Pilate made his choice.
You, however, you have a second chance.
You, who wrestle with your own feelings of powerlessness, you have a choice.
You can get depressed over your lack of power.
You can get angry, and resentful, and Scrooge-like.
Or, you can embrace your powerlessness.
Embrace your weakness in the face of this world.
Give up trying to be king.
Give up trying to be Queen.
Let go of your frustration with what is versus how you'd wish it to be.
Instead, hold on to the one, eternal power that faces you, faces us all, this day.
Embrace the truth of Jesus Christ not because he's going to make you powerful and remembered, but because he can make your weakness be irrelevant.
Embrace the power of Jesus because in him, and in him alone, you can do all things, you can do enough, through Christ who strengthens you.
---
Jesus gave Pilate headaches because he would never come out and say he – Jesus – was king.
What Pilate couldn't get was that it was his own job to say whether or not Jesus was king.
Pilate couldn't say. And so his fate was sealed.
What about you?
Maybe it's really easy for you to say, "Jesus Christ is king."
Maybe it's so easy you don't even have to think about it.
But when you see where your money goes, who's king?
When you spend time raging against changes you can't control, who's king?
When you go to bed and lie awake worrying, who's your king?
Jesus doesn't promise everything's going to turn out alright in this world.
In fact, he's really not all that encouraging about how this earthly life's going to go.
Maybe because he knows how many powers we have to kiss up to.
Maybe because he knows how hard it is to let go of illusions.
Maybe because he knows that we all suffer under the powers of Pilates.
And so Jesus never promises we'll be kings or queens of our own kingdoms.
Instead, he gives us a choice.
Do we hold onto our illusions of power?
Or do we embrace his?
Do we generate our own strength, or will we be strengthened through him?
Do we hate what makes us weak, or in our weakness, do we find redemption?
Do we kiss up to the powerful? Or take slides with the powerless?
So when we're faced with questions like this, it's a good thing to ask ourselves, W.W.P.D?
What would Pilate do?
And then do the opposite.
It's good to be king. Good to be queen.
But think about it.
If you're king, what's Jesus?
You know what Pilate said.
Today's your chance to say something else, and to celebrate the reign of someone else.
Someone else who's Christ, THE King.
Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?"
Pilate replied, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?"
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 asked him, "So you are a king?"
Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. 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."
---
On the liturgical calendar, today is Reign of Christ Sunday.
When I was a boy, we called it, Christ the King Sunday.
And either way the rest of the world says, "Huh?"
We think of kings, we think of outdated governments.
Figureheads.
Imaginary places, like Narnia.
Or oppressive places, like North Korea.
Kings are old-fashioned, primitive.
We, on the other hand – in America – we got rid of kings.
We had a war about that.
We pledge allegiance to the flag, not to any one person.
We the people elect our own leaders.
We're a democracy, not a monarchy.
Democracy, good. Monarchy, bad.
So when we try to talk about Christ, reigning as King, we have a built-in border wall in our brains.
We have deep, historical biases against kings and kingships.
It's why our forebears left England in the first place.
But on the other hand, in the church, we affirm Christ –
King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Monarchy: bad.
Eternal monarchy: very good.
This is one of those things that if you think too hard about, thou shalt get a headache.
I think Christ the King is one of those things we don't think about because we don't like headaches.
And because Christ the President, or Christ the Speaker of the House doesn't roll off the tongue.
They might THINK they're the second coming of Jesus, but they are not.
—
Jesus must have been a real headache for Pontius Pilate.
Jesus - and his alleged kingship - must have been a real pain in his neck.
Not that Pilate deserves a lot of sympathy.
But I think the dialog between Jesus and Pilate isn't that far from the contradictions we wrestle with when our hearts call Jesus king, but our minds are skeptical of kings.
For Pilate, it was reversed: Pilate believed in kings (or caesars), but he was skeptical of Jesus.
Too much of the time we have more in common with Pilate than we do with Jesus, and that causes headaches for the people who want to be our co-Pilates.
Pilate and Jesus, ruler and subject.
Pilate was the ruler, and Jesus was his subject.
Or was it the other way around?
Jesus was the ruler and Pilate was the subject.
Which is it? Which is truth?
This is a puzzling little passage from the Bible.
I feel pretty certain that's the way God intended it.
---
It's good to be king.
Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Beautiful dogs.
@KingJames, as in LeBron on Instagram.
King of the castle.
King of the hill.
"King of the road."
By the way, I actually listened to the old Roger Miller song last week.
Even though it's not in the hymnbook, it's a thought-provoking commentary on power and freedom.
"Trailers for sale or rent." They don't write em like that anymore.
Something for your afternoon playlist.
Steven King, Martin Luther King, Billie Jean King, Gayle King.
B. B. King.
King Kong, Smoothie King, King Ranch Chicken Casserole.
All good, but none serious monarchs.
On our continent, Democracy is king.
In a democracy, who has the real power?
(Tech bros. Russian hackers. Private equity firms.)
OK, who's SUPPOSED to have the real power?
We are.
We, the people.
We get to choose our own leaders.
We get to manage our own lives.
We get to decide our own future.
Right?
Well, that's the way it was in the textbooks.
We all want to be kings (and queens) of our own domains.
But when everyone's a king, no one's king.
Pilate asks, "What is truth?"
When you don't know what's up, when you don't know what or who's in charge, when you don't know what or whom to believe, truth is meaningless.
The only power is what little you can literally cling to.
—
Do you have days when you feel utterly powerless?
You teach your kids the best you can, and they still act clueless.
You scrimp and save every penny, and your spouse comes home with a new fishing boat.
The car breaks down.
You exercise, you eat low-fat foods that taste like cardboard, you floss.
You go to church, you tithe 10% of your income, you drop coins in the Salvation Army bucket.
You do all the right things.
And then, one day, in the shower, you find a lump.
A drunk driver comes the wrong direction.
A hurricane blows through the mountains.
In a split second, your life changes.
All that planning, all that hard work, all those at exercising control, your power, your reign – poof!
You're not king anymore. You never were.
It's fun to pretend like a king. Or a queen. Or a Disney Princess. Or Gaston.
But in our quiet moments, in our moments of truth, we know whatever royalty we have is hanging by a thread, if that much.
It can give you a real headache.
---
We say the Apostles' Creed every Sunday.
In the Creed, which we say every Sunday, five people or persons are identified by name.
First, there's God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
We're all familiar with him.
Then there's Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord. That's two.
...who was conceived by the Holy Ghost.
That's three.
And born of the Virgin Mary. She's number four.
Lastly, one final person, number five: Pontius Pilate.
Jesus "suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried."
So, right up there with the names of the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, just slightly after the Virgin Mary, is Pontius Pilate.
Pilate from Pontus.
We say his name every week, as if he was a vitally important man.
A big shot. A king-ish guy.
That's a sad irony.
Pilate IS important in the story of our faith.
He's the one who allowed Christ to be crucified, dead, and buried.
But in the scale of human history, Pilate was a middle-governing-body bureaucrat.
At worst, Pilate was a little dictator, a bully who tried to compensate for his own weakness by stomping on powerless subjects.
But even at his worst, Pilate doesn't begin to compare to Hitler, or Mussolini, or Putin.
Pilate wasn't sent to Judea to think.
His job was to be the face of the Roman government, and to keep the Jews from causing Caesar headaches.
And yet, there Pilate is, one of only five names in the most common creed of the church.
A government bureaucrat.
Did Pilate actually crucify Jesus?
No. Pilate washed his hands of responsibility.
Washed his hands and sealed his fate.
Pilates' great sin was preserving his delusion of power.
Allowing crimes. Ignoring the worst.
Pilate tried to sidestep trouble in classic middle-management ways.
And so, Jesus Christ was crucified, dead, and buried.
A delusion of power made Jesus suffer.
A delusion of power crucified Jesus.
Jesus suffers.
Whenever we forget the thread of separation between our own power and our powerlessness, Jesus suffers.
Whenever we thrive on the illusion of our own royalty, Jesus is crucified.
Whenever we hurt others because we have the power, Jesus dies.
In this way, we have too much in common with Pontus Pilate.
It's not really that good to be king, after all.
---
If Pilate wanted to be famous, wanted to be remembered forever more, he certainly got his wish.
But here's the greatest irony of all.
If Pilate had embraced his powerlessness, if Pilate had just proclaimed that Christ WAS king, Pilate might have been forgotten.
If not forgotten, at least not mentioned every single Sunday in an unflattering light.
Might have been forgotten.
Might have been forgiven.
If protecting our illusions of power causes Jesus to suffer, what, then, does accepting our powerlessness do?
If our quest for power decreases, does Jesus increase?
In another passage, the Bible says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
What if Pilate had embraced his own powerlessness and - at the same time - clung to the power of Christ?
We'll never know the answer to that question.
Pilate made his choice.
You, however, you have a second chance.
You, who wrestle with your own feelings of powerlessness, you have a choice.
You can get depressed over your lack of power.
You can get angry, and resentful, and Scrooge-like.
Or, you can embrace your powerlessness.
Embrace your weakness in the face of this world.
Give up trying to be king.
Give up trying to be Queen.
Let go of your frustration with what is versus how you'd wish it to be.
Instead, hold on to the one, eternal power that faces you, faces us all, this day.
Embrace the truth of Jesus Christ not because he's going to make you powerful and remembered, but because he can make your weakness be irrelevant.
Embrace the power of Jesus because in him, and in him alone, you can do all things, you can do enough, through Christ who strengthens you.
---
Jesus gave Pilate headaches because he would never come out and say he – Jesus – was king.
What Pilate couldn't get was that it was his own job to say whether or not Jesus was king.
Pilate couldn't say. And so his fate was sealed.
What about you?
Maybe it's really easy for you to say, "Jesus Christ is king."
Maybe it's so easy you don't even have to think about it.
But when you see where your money goes, who's king?
When you spend time raging against changes you can't control, who's king?
When you go to bed and lie awake worrying, who's your king?
Jesus doesn't promise everything's going to turn out alright in this world.
In fact, he's really not all that encouraging about how this earthly life's going to go.
Maybe because he knows how many powers we have to kiss up to.
Maybe because he knows how hard it is to let go of illusions.
Maybe because he knows that we all suffer under the powers of Pilates.
And so Jesus never promises we'll be kings or queens of our own kingdoms.
Instead, he gives us a choice.
Do we hold onto our illusions of power?
Or do we embrace his?
Do we generate our own strength, or will we be strengthened through him?
Do we hate what makes us weak, or in our weakness, do we find redemption?
Do we kiss up to the powerful? Or take slides with the powerless?
So when we're faced with questions like this, it's a good thing to ask ourselves, W.W.P.D?
What would Pilate do?
And then do the opposite.
It's good to be king. Good to be queen.
But think about it.
If you're king, what's Jesus?
You know what Pilate said.
Today's your chance to say something else, and to celebrate the reign of someone else.
Someone else who's Christ, THE King.
