A Tale of Two Kings

Sermon preached at Church of the Good Shepherd, Federal Way, WA 
www.goodshepherdfw.org 
by the Rev. Josh Hosler, Rector
Last Sunday after Pentecost (Christ the King), November 24, 2024 
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14 ; Psalm 93 ; Revelation 1:4b-8 ; John 18:33-37 

“Worship” is a strange word. We like to use it ironically, as in: “He worships the ground she walks on.” Or, “My dog totally worships me.” Honestly, we use the word “worship” this way so much of the time that I’m not sure many people still get its full range of meaning. We suppose that its true use must be reserved for religious practices. An atheist might insist that worship is something they simply never do. 

Yet everybody worships something or someone. Habitually. With or without awareness. Bob Dylan put it well: “You gotta serve somebody.” That which we worship is that which we find worthy of our allegiance. We all have default settings—inherited, adopted, and nurtured—that determine who and what we will serve the interests of. You might worship the way your parents raised you, or the way your church was in the 1950s, or your bank account, or the stock market, or grind culture, or popularity, or fashion, or your smartphone, or your gun, or your nation and its flag. Those of us who outwardly claim allegiance to Christ also, inevitably, allow something or someone else to rule our usual practices. 

So I want you to imagine for a moment that there are two kings you might serve. One is Jesus. The other is your usual, run-of-the-mill king—not necessarily a literal king. Maybe a president, or a CEO, or a bishop or priest, or a social media influencer. Or anybody, really, who is placed in a position to affect the lives of others. 

Which of these two kings would you rather allow to dictate your choices in life? 

Oh, you’d rather follow Jesus? Hey, we are in church, after all. OK then, let’s look at the example Jesus has set. You can no longer give your ultimate allegiance to nation or money or popularity or security or even survival. You’ll have to help people who don’t deserve it. You’ll have to give your money to those who need it more. You’ll have to spend lots of time with total losers, simply because losers are the only people Jesus has any use for. You won’t necessarily have a place to lay your head at night, and oh, by the way, you might get nailed to a cross. Maybe not. But you’ll definitely have to carry heavy  crosses that you’ve lifted off the backs of others. 

Having second thoughts? 

OK, now let’s look at this more conventional king. If you follow him, you’ll feel a lot of pride in your country because it’s so powerful. You may be rewarded with quite a bit of wealth and power yourself—as long as you don’t let others get too close. See, they want what you have, so they are a threat! But the more wealth and power you have, the more you’ll be shielded from the lives of others, so chances are you won’t have to think about them much. 

Which of these two would you rather follow? Because, as it turns out, the worhsip of one is in direct oppostion to the worship of the other. 

One hundred years ago, the world had just come through World War I, followed by revolutions in Russia, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Mexico, and Malta—and those are just the revolutions in Christian nations. Observing all this with concern, Pope Pius the Eleventh decreed in 1925 that the final Sunday of the Christian year would hereafter be observed in the Roman Catholic Church as the Feast of Christ the King, with readings from scripture underscoring the eternal reign of Jesus Christ. He did this because he realized, in his own words, that … 

... manifold evils in the world were due to the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics … 

If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth … He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God. 

Interesting: the pope thought that Christians weren’t mixing politics and religion nearly enough! Nor were they engaging in personal practices of prayer and worship. Their fearful ambitions had jettisoned any check that their baptism might place on their will to power. All over Europe, nations led by baptized people were committing acts of unspeakable violence against vulnerable people. 

After World War II and the even worse horrors of Nazi Germany, the Pope’s idea took root among Protestants as well. Episcopalians began observing the Feast of Christ the King in 1970. Today it is also observed by Lutherans, Methodists, Nazarenes, Moravians, and Calvinists. 

This is the 100th year of the Feast of Christ the King. And here we find ourselves, a quarter of the way through the next century, watching as waves of nationalism rise in Europe again, with their insidious promise to protect the “pure” from the “unworthy.” In America it’s the same thing: “Those desperate, hungry people are an invading army. They will take what’s yours. Do not help them; use violence against them. Protect our nation’s sovereignty.” 

We hear this theme repeated ad nauseum by baptized people who somehow never mention the value of diverse immigrants to our country, both economically and culturally; the existing injustices in our broken immigration system; the fate of those who are in the country illegally through no fault of their own; the criminalization of refugees who are following the law; the destructive slander of migrants of all kinds; the problem of figuring out who is actually undocumented without resorting to blatant racism; the certainty that climate change will exacerbate migration exponentially from here on out; the moral requirement to respect human life and dignity; and hey, how about the possibility of forgiveness for a felony that may have been committed decades ago, with no detrimental effect today? 

Once again, people’s allegiances are getting confused. They’re worshiping certain laws of the land, but only certain laws, and the effect is to prop up wealthy criminals while victimizing the poor and vulnerable who are, by and large, law-abiding. 

As present-day theologian Walter Brueggemann has observed: “The crisis in the U.S. church has almost nothing to do with being liberal or conservative; it has everything to do with giving up on the faith and discipline of our Christian baptism and settling for a common, generic U.S. identity that is part patriotism, part consumerism, part violence, and part affluence.” 

One hundred years ago, the Roman Catholic Church, and indeed the Episcopal Church, could realistically make positive change in society through the practices of our liturgies, because many more Christians back then were fed by their weekly participation in church. That’s no longer the case. 

In the United States today, those who claim Christian identity are less likely to actually be part of a church and more likely to display their nationalistic fervor proudly. They may not actually have been formed in the teachings of Jesus, or they may have become jaded enough to view kindness and compassion as quaint, unrealistic ideals from a bygone era. They’d rather have a strongman to protect them—a conventional sort of king—a human being whose authority must not be questioned. Even if that king has, himself, broken many laws. 

But we’ve been down this road so many times before. When the ancient Israelites turned to Samuel to provide them with a king, God issued a strong warning: “The muscle of political power might seem like a great idea now, but it will turn around and bite you!” And indeed, it did. And indeed, it still does. 

Yet we hear today from the Book of Daniel about an Ancient One on a throne—the most powerful king in the universe. And then one “like a human being” comes to his throne, and the Ancient One gives him dominion over the entire earth—and “his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.” The Book of Daniel was the last book of the Old Testament to be completed, and much of it consists of prophetic, eschatological poetry. Christians have always looked at that “one like a human being” and seen Jesus. 

We also hear today from the prophetic, eschatological poetry of the Revelation to John: Jesus is “coming with the clouds” such that “every eye will see him.” Is he finally going to exact revenge against those who killed him? Any conventional king would do that and more! But read on to chapter 5, and what does this conquering Christ look like? A lamb. And not a happy, frolicking lamb either, but a slaughtered lamb. 

Your true king sits on a throne, but—have mercy!—he’s bleeding all over the velvet seat. 

Your true king brings a sword, but it’s not a sword for killing. It’s a sword for dividing falsehood from truth. 

Your true king brings fire, but it’s not a fire for destroying. It’s a fire for purifying, refining—killing only the germs of hate and fear that infect our humanity. 

Your true king waits patiently until the end of time to come back again and say, “OK, thank you all for playing. I’m knocking at your door now. Do you want me to come in and eat with you?” 

Which of these two kings is worthy of your worship? Only the one who will not be your king without your consent! Only the one who is objectively the king forever and always anyway, not by virtue of his power, but of his divine humility. This king doesn’t cling to power. He surrenders it … to you. Now, what will you do with that power? 

And what about that conventional king—or president or CEO or bishop or priest or social media influencer—who looked strong and reassuring for so long? At the end of all things, he and you and I are all in the Lamb’s presence together. Every one of us has just been invited into the eternal kingdom, which is always a rip-roaring party, where everybody is loved and welcomed and honored just for being who they are! 

Do you think that conventional king will want to hang around? To face all those he hated and feared and scapegoated? Those who suffered and died because of him? 

Or will he insist he could be a better king than that slaughtered lamb? Maybe he’ll wander off somewhere else—into the darkness—looking for some other kingdom to rule—and maybe we’ll never see him again. 

Until then, we must all work together to protect the vulnerable from the foolishness of the conventional king. But I guess we’d better pray every day for him as well. If he ever does decide to take the difficult path toward healing, he’s going to need all the help he can get.

 Amen.