November 23, 1997
John 18: 33-37
The Rev. James R. Gorman
There is no more radical claim the Church has made than the claim that Christ is King. The idea that Christ is king is subversive and unsettling, both in the realm of our personal and political lives.
When we say that Christ is King we are excluding all other kings from the category of our ultimate loyalty. If Christ is King, then there is no other king that can in any way claim us. That is not to say that we need to be disobedient to all other Kings or Presidents or Leaders. It means only that all other Kings will, for the Christian, be measured against the Kingship of our Lord, Jesus Christ. And when a King or President or Leader acts in a way that is counter to what we know about kingship in Jesus Christ, then it is our bounden duty to disobey.
All the great movements of civil disobedience comes from this simple and radical claim that Christ is King.
In our personal lives, it means that no other claim of loyalty can in any way supercede Christ's claim on our lives. Not alcohol, not drugs, not the compulsion to earn a living, not even our own families can be placed before our loyalty to our God in Christ.
In our political lives, it means that no other political leader or political movement can supercede Christ's claims on our lives.
A way to bring this home is to say "Christ is our Leader." In English and in America this claim isn't particularly radical. But if you translate that into German and into the social situation of Germany in the 30s and 40s, the simple claim that Christ is our Leader, is radical indeed. For to say in German, "Christ ist unser Fuhrer" is to make a claim that excludes all other Fuhrers (all other "leaders"). To say that "Christ ist mein Fuhrer" is to say by implication that "Adolph Hitler ist nicht mein Fuhrer."
In the same way, in the earliest days of the Christian Church, to say that Christ is King was to say by implication, Caesar is not my King and neither are his appointed minions such as Herod and Pontius Pilate.
Thus the poignant confrontation between Pilate and Jesus, part of which is recorded in this morning's Gospel text. This passage from the 18th and 19th chapters of the Gospel of John is often referred to as the "trial of Jesus before Pilate." But anyone who reads this with any sensitivity knows that, in fact, it is the trial of Pilate before Jesus. You get a sense from this story that Pilate is extraordinarily uncomfortable and is boxed in by the religious leaders of both the Temple and the Synagogue.
[Here let me say that the use of the plural noun "Jews" by the Gospel writer, John ought not in any way to be interpreted in an anit-Semitic way -- as if the Jews are Christ killers. To understand the story in that way is to miss the point, and leads to a bad attitude on the part of the Church toward Jews. Jesus was a Jew and the writer and apostle, John, was also a Jew. So John is using the word "Jew" to mean the religious leaders of that time, the scribes, priests and pharisees.]
Now let us return to this story.
Pilate is in a difficult situation. He doesn't understand (or doesn't care to understand) about the religious charge of blasphemy (Jesus is the Son of God). But he does have some vague interest in the technical political charge that Jesus is the "King of the Jews." Because if Jesus means that in a real political sense, then Herod, who has the technical title of "King of the Jews" has some competition, and Pilate has some political responsibility to bring such a radical claim under control.
So, Pilate's first question, after the police brought him to Pilate's headquarters, was "Are you the King of the Jews?"
Jesus answers with a question, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?"
Pilate says, "Look, I'm not a Jew. Your own people have handed you over to me. What have you done?"
Jesus says, "My kingdom is not of this world."
Pilate in his cross examination says, "So, you are a king!"
Jesus says something like, "I am the king of Truth."
Pilate who lives in the ambiguous world of political compromise, asks, "What is truth?"
I think that one of the reasons we dislike politicians so much in our time may be because we have seen the ambiguous world in which politicians must live. If politics is the art of compromise, at some point it is inevitable that truth must needs be compromised. And, as politicians reflect on their lives, they might well ask Pilate's question, "What is truth?" Not "What is truth as you define it?" (Which is the way I've always read this question). But "What is truth?" Is there anything that can be called truth, given the uneasy world in which Pilate lives?
Evidently, Jesus doesn't answer the question. Except that in the same Gospel of John chapter 14, we remember that he said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." But Jesus evidently does not say that to Pilate at this point. It is left for Christians to read that into the dialogue.
Pilate finds Jesus innocent and goes out to the porch to tell the religious leaders so. "I find no case against him" Pilate says. "How about you let me release this 'King of the Jews' as is the custom on such holy days as this." But they cried out, as you know, "Don't release this man, but release Bar Abbas the bandit instead."
Pilate, the politician, follows the art of compromise and hands over a man he knew to be innocent to be flogged and prepared for crucifixion.
Poor Pilate.
He's stuck. He either follows the way of truth by sparing an innocent man or he risks a political insurrection that he would have to explain to Caesar. He chooses to quell the crowds even while saying two more times, "Look, . . . I find no case against him. If you have a problem with him, crucify him yourself."
And the Chief priests, acting as the prosecuting attorneys, decide to change the charge back to blasphemy ("he has claimed to be the Son of God." -- see Leviticus 24:16) and insist on holding Pilate to his politically assigned duty to put this innocent man to death.
In the dilemma of Pilate we can see the life of every politician of every age who must respond to the complex and competing desires of the crowd. Pilate, in John's telling of the story, is a sad character, much more "on trial" than is Jesus. He is the archetype of every politician in every age who must live in a shadowy world in which truth is too often compromised to political expediency.
In our own time politicians argue for tougher penalties for juvenile offenders instead of greater social and educational programs for them because it is politically expedient to do so. They are following the three "Rs" of political life, "retribution, revenge, and reelection." Even those politicians understand that if we took even a tenth of the money we are putting into more and bigger jails and put that into the Boys and Girls clubs or Public School recreation programs might make more sense. But even they feel the need to buckle under to political pressure. It is the dilemma of Pilate. To do what is right versus doing what is politically expedient.
That's why our social world needs the church who remembers this story and says and believes, that Christ is King. That helps us see a way clear through the very ambiguous nether world of political life.
It is not that there ought to be no other kings you understand. It's just that, for these kings or presidents or leaders to command our loyalty, their kingship will have to be measured against the one we know as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The one who has come to testify to the Truth even in a world in which the truth is harder and harder to discern amongst the shadows.
Christ is King means first of all that no other king is ultimately king and that all other kings, queens, potentates, presidents, shahs, magistrates, and prime ministers are to be measured by this Christ who came to testify to the truth. And as Christians, we hold to the somewhat arrogant position that there really is such a thing as Truth with a capital "T" and that the discerning of such a truth does not depend on me and my needs nor those of my immediate family.
I have no illusions about the difficulty of such a loyalty. And in difficult times, loyalty to Christ as King requires an unusual courage. In Nazi Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoller stand out as church leaders and pastors who insisted that Christ is King and not Adolph Hitler. Niemoller understood that truth transcends Hitler's gifted political rhetoric and it also transcends his own particular condition. Reflecting on the war years in Germany, Martin Niemoller confessed his own hesitancy to be obedient to the Truth and the King of Kings by saying:
They came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not object
Then they came for the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist so I did not object.
Then they came for the Poles, but I was not a Pole, so I did not object.
Then they came for me. And there was no one left to object.
Christ is King who witnesses to the way of Truth. And the truth which we know in Jesus Christ is one that transcends political expediency and our own particular existential crises.