The Feast of Christ the King.
Sunday, 22md November, 2009
‘My Kingdom is not from this world’ says Jesus in today’s gospel reading; and then, to emphasize the point, he repeats, ‘My kingdom is not from here’.
Very true! This bedraggled prisoner standing before Pontius Pilate, the representative of the most powerful and long-lasting empire the western world has ever seen, doesn’t exactly match up to the image of worldly power and authority which we are used to. Deprived of sleep, and already bruised and humiliated before the real torture of the crucifixion begins, Jesus seems more like the pictures of hostages or terrorist suspects which we see in the news these days. Utterly powerless, broken, vulnerable, deranged even: ‘Are you really a king?’ asks Pilate.
And yet, and yet, Jesus, standing there before Pilate, does possess a certain authority, a royal dignity, a sovereignty – particularly as portrayed in St John’s Gospel. Jesus’ authority is based not on coercion, nor on military strength (as Pilate’s is), but on truth: ‘I came into the world to testify to the truth’. The might of imperial Rome is confronted with the power of truth – and the fact that Pilate doesn’t understand what Jesus is talking about only goes to emphasize that they are speaking out of two quite different world views.
It’s this that we are celebrating in the feast of Christ the King today - the authority and the sovereignty of the truth of Jesus Christ; our belief as Christians that the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ give us a true picture of ourselves, of the world and of God; our trust that the humble self-offering, the forgiveness, mercy and compassion that we see in Jesus is ultimately the rule and the standard by which the world is judged. A very different kind of kingship, a very different sort of kingdom, but, nevertheless, the ultimate authority that we, as Christians, acknowledge.
Now, what’s all this got to do with your renewal today of the covenant between these Pilgrim Parishes in the southern half of the Blackmore Vale? Quite a lot actually, because it reminds you of who you are and of what you, and this covenant, are about. In terms of power and of authority structures according to the normal standards of the world this covenant group doesn’t amount to very much; it doesn’t even register on the Richter scale. You have no central organization or bureaucracy and no obvious leadership person; there are no sanctions against those who don’t want to join in; there’s no coercion. You have, I suspect, little economic clout; the combined bank balances of your respective parishes probably don’t match those of the local dairy. Others in the Diocese of Salisbury may have heard about what’s going on and may be making approving noises, but today’s covenant renewal is hardly going to make national, or even local, news. Yet, what you are doing together, both in this service and in your on-going life and ministry, is a sign of the kind of kingdom that the Church is celebrating today, a witness to the truth revealed in and through Jesus Christ. It’s precisely because you are not a powerful, controlling organisation in terms of the prevailing world culture that you have something to offer the wider society, that you can point people towards the Kingdom of God.
Let me suggest three things which I believe that you have to offer as sings of the Kingdom:
Interdependence.
It seems to me that one of the things which your covenant is about is the valuing of each other’s gifts and ministries, and the recognition of each other’s needs; the understanding that you belong together in the Body of Christ and that Christ’s mission and ministry are going to be more effectively carried out if you co-operate with and support each other. That may seem very obvious to you if you’ve been practicing it for a while, but it’s not actually the way the world normally works, for our present world culture is highly territorial and it operates largely by competition. As individuals and as organisations we are deeply into defending our territory – not just our physical space, but our identity, our status, our influence, our wealth, our success. Just think of school league tables and what that’s all about. We are all at it: schools, families, companies, nations – even churches! An awful lot of energy goes into keeping or enhancing our independence. You, on the other hand, have chosen to embrace inter-dependence. You may not be doing it perfectly; I’m sure that there must be some around these parishes who are clinging onto their own territories for dear life, but by your covenant you declare your intention, you make your witness to the surrendering of territory which is at the heart of God’s Kingdom, God’s sovereignty.
And how the world needs that witness today! In two weeks’ time the leaders of the nations gather together in Copenhagen to try to reach agreement on limiting and mitigating the effects of carbon emissions on our climate. Unless we can find ways of co-operation, putting aside our own narrow interests, unless we can recognise our essential inter-connectedness, not only with other peoples but with the natural environment as a whole, the future for our children and grand-children looks pretty bleak.
Loving the Local
Your covenant represents a working together, not just for your own ends, nor simply for the life of the Church, but in care for and service towards your local community:- the villages and towns that make up this part of Dorset; the homes and schools, the shops and pubs, the businesses and voluntary organisations; the farms, the byways and hedges, the land and every creature dependent upon it. Your concern as God’s covenanted pilgrim people is for all of these and more, because these are God’s concerns. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not just a set of ideas, a list of worthy moral principles; nor is the Kingdom of God a far away country which we hope to reach when we die. When God fashioned a universal gospel for ‘all the world’ he did it by becoming incarnate, en-fleshed, within a few square miles of Palestinian hillsides and valleys. God in Jesus Christ embraced the local – and so should we.
In a world in which so many are becoming, for one reason or another, displaced; in a world in which people are losing their sense of belonging and are living increasingly out of the virtual reality of the computer screen; in a world in which we know less and less about where our food and energy and raw materials come from, or what they cost in terms of human lives and the destruction of the planet, we desperately need to recover that love of the local which your covenant expresses.
The centrality of worship
At the heart of the life of your covenant there lies a pattern of worship. Focussed around your Sunday and daily services, but also less formally in home and prayer groups, you are committed to meeting together to pray for each other and for the world. Worship, of course, is not simply about singing hymns and saying prayers; it’s not primarily for your own benefit, to make you feel good on a Sunday morning or just to help you get through the rest of the week. Worship is about recognising and acknowledging the worth of things and people; it’s about giving thanks and praise to the source and goal of all things; it’s about joining in and singing in tune with the song of all creation. Your worship, Sunday by Sunday and day by day, is the most powerful sign that you can offer to the world of the sovereignty of God’s loving purpose for the world. Rowan Williams in his book ‘Tokens of Trust’ tells us that ‘the present ecological crisis is due largely to our failure to see the world, each other and ourselves in relation to the mystery of God rather than as just a great warehouse of stuff to be used for our convenience.’ Worship – yes, even our worship here today – reconfigures our relationships and those of our world, it brings the world back into its true relationship to God and acknowledges, in the words from the book of Daniel that we’ve heard this morning, that:
‘to him is given dominion and glory and kingship,
that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him’
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
that shall not pass away,
and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed’. (Daniel 7:14)