Robert Barron - Which Kingdom Are You In?
Peace be with you. Friends, we come to the end of the liturgical year, this feast of Christ the King. Think of this now as this great stately procession we've been following all during the year. At the very end of it comes the King. So we close the church year with a meditation upon the kingly reign or rule of Christ. Now, I've said it before, we have a hard time with kings. I get it. We in the modern liberal west, we like democratic polities. Our country emerged out of a great rebellion against the king. So we struggle a bit with the imagery of king, but we should get over that. It's a modern hang-up, because kingship is a really basic biblical idea. Go right back to the beginning of the Bible.
So you have Adam and Eve in the garden. Adam is the first priest I've often said, he's giving right praise to God. And from that right praise comes the order and beauty of the garden. He's also though meant to be a king. That means someone who will reign over the garden, maintain its beauty. And then think of it now, a little more imperialistically, meant to go out and to expand the garden outward into the rest of the world. That's the idea of the human being. So Adam here is an archetypal human being. That's our job. Bearing the image of God, we go forth as kings to order the world around us according to God's purpose, and then even to expand it to go and march.
Now, what happens with sin? Well, it's a compromising of our priestly identity because we're not giving God right praise, we're praising everything else. So our priestly identity falls apart. It's also a loss of our kingly identity. In our sin, we become self-preoccupied, and what's in it for me? What'll make my life better? Well then the minute I do that, I'm not concerned about the flourishing of the garden, and I can summon no energy to go on march to expand the garden outward. So it's a loss of my kingly identity too. Now, read the history of Israel. God sends this rescue operation in the form of a holy people, a priestly people, yes indeed, and God teaches Israel how to praise him right. That's very important.
Now we can understand much of Exodus and Leviticus and so on. But also, a kingly people. Israel's meant to be the rightly ordered kingdom, which will go eventually on march to bring all the world into right order. Now, keep pressing this. So what are we looking for? This kingly people requires a king, or a shepherd, that will get it in shape so it can do its job. Read the Old Testament now, in many ways, as this quest for a shepherd, this quest for a king. Well, now Abraham plays that role. Abraham who leaves the Ur of the Chaldees and comes to the Promised Land, and he establishes the holy people. Isaac, Jacob, they're shepherd kingly figures, come up through a figure like Joseph who makes his way into Egypt, and becomes the vizier of Egypt during a time of crisis. He's a kingly shepherd figure.
Then centuries go by, Moses emerges maybe as the greatest, or maybe second greatest of the kings, the shepherds, the leaders of Israel. Moses the liberator from slavery, Moses the one who leads the people forth into the desert, to give God right praise, the priestly identity as well. And then he gives them the law. So he is a shepherd, kingly figure. Now, what do all these figures have in common? They're kings, yes, but they're all to different degrees, flawed kings, imperfect kings, sinful kings, who therefore can't do the job perfectly well. Now push forward through the history of Israel, go past Joshua and others, and we come to Saul. That's when the people Israel say, "We want a king like the other nations have".
In the Bible, of course, always a bad sign. Israel should not be trying to ape the other nations. Israel's meant to stand out, but that's what they want. So God goes, "Okay, you want a king like that, I'll give you one". He gives them Saul who turns out to be a fallen and flawed and very dangerous king, a king ruling not for the good of the nation, but for his own good. After Saul comes David. And I said Moses maybe is the second greatest king, because I think David's presented in the Old Testament as the greatest Old Testament archetype of the king. King David, who unites the tribes of Israel, who establishes right praise of God. He brings the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. He's the inspiration for the temple, ultimately. And, David goes on the march. What Adam was supposed to do from the beginning.
David goes on the march, and he expands the borders of Israel outwards. David becomes this king after God's heart. Oh, and what's the hope? The hope is that David in his establishing the kingdom in the empire is fulfilling the mission of Israel. But is David the perfect king? Hardly. That still startling episode with Bathsheba where David emerges as both adulterer and murderer. David's a flawed, sinful character, therefore his kingship is compromised. Now, now, what do we begin to hear in the scriptures of Israel after David, is a longing for the true and authentic David, the Mashiach. David is the anointed one. So they begin to look for the Mashiach par excellence. I can combine Hebrew in French. They're looking for the anointed one in the fullest sense.
Now look at the Psalms and the prophets as they envision the day when the new David would come. What's his job? To be priest, yes, prophet, yes, but also king, who would gather in the tribes, who would go on march and would bring the world into right order. Now, flash forward many centuries, Yeshua from Nazareth emerges. What's he preaching? What's the theme of his preaching? The Kingdom of God is at hand. See, this is the ancient dream of Israel, going right back to Adam, that under the leadership of the right king, the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Righteousness would be established. Heaven and earth would be brought into harmony. What does Jesus do, this Yeshua from Nazareth? He begins now to gather within the tribes.
Think of the 12 apostles representing the 12 tribes. Think of his open table fellowship, his attitude of open armed invitation. Jesus is not just being a nice guy, he's doing what the king is meant to do, unite and gather in the nation. As he preaches the word of God, as he gives the new law, he does what Moses had done, when he gave the Ten Commandments, the new law by which the people should be rightly governed. Now, kings, kings in the history of Israel, kings really anywhere in the world, what's one of their marks, is they tend to enter into a struggle. They're opposed by enemies. Think of David here, and they've got to go on the march to subdue them.
What emerges clearly in the story of Jesus? Enemies visible, yes. Think of the scribes and the Pharisees and the Romans, et cetera, but also enemies invisible. Think of the demons who know who he is, the dark powers who oppose what he's doing. Jesus is the law-giver, tribe-gatherer, military hero, if you want. He's emerging as the king of Israel. The struggle comes to his climax now at the end of his life. As the powers of darkness close in around him, Jesus does battle with them.
Now, see everybody with all that in mind, I want you to look at the Gospel reading for today. It's Jesus standing as a captive before Pilate, Pilate, the local representative of the Roman Emperor, Pilate, who sums up worldly kingship the way the fallen nations govern themselves. That's what Pilate stands for. And he says to Jesus, "Are you the king of the Jews"? Jesus answered. "Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me"? What do you mean Pilate, when you say king? Jesus answered, "My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over".
Is he a king? Yes, now, as I've been arguing. The new Adam, that's what Paul calls him. He's a new Moses. Yes indeed. Especially in giving the law. He's a new David. Yes, because he's the Mashiach. He's the anointed one. He's the one who embodies the best of kingship in Israel, but now doing it perfectly, and without sin. And here at the climactic moment, he stands face to face with this representative of fallen earthly kingship. And he says, the kingdom that I have, does not belong to the world Pilate that you live in.
Remember last week I talked about those fixed points by which we guide our lives. Pilate is a king in the old form, and one of the marks of that, by the way, is violence. That's why the Lord says, "Well, if I were of that world, my attendants would be fighting". He represents this higher order of the order of heaven, the kingdom of God having come on earth. And that's where the fight is engaged. How do we read the cross? The cross is the Davidic king going forth to do battle. What does he oppose on that cross? By the same token, what opposes him?
All the darkness of the world, all the fallen world's way of organizing itself, all of its hatred and violence and stupidity and injustice, its criminality, all of it comes at him. And Jesus fights it not on its own terms, not with the weapons of the world, but fights it in the manner of a godly king, so that cross becomes his throne. His crown is that crown of thorns. Okay. Christ the King, summing up all of the history of Israel and facing down through the power of his self-sacrifice, all of the darkness of worldly power. Christianity hinges on this. Can you see that, everybody? Which kingdom are you in?
Think of the Ignatian exercises, now. Which standard do you follow? The standard of Satan, the standard of Christ. There's only one great option. Which kingdom are you in? The one that brought him to the cross, or the one that he embodies on the cross? That's why this feast is so important. Christ the King, Christ the King. That's the choice. Everything else is a footnote. That's the choice. Do I belong to these fallen kingdoms, embodied by Pontius Pilate and all those that came before him, and all those who would come after him, or do I stand with Christ the King, who reigns in divine righteousness, the righteousness of a self-emptying love. That's why this feast, everybody, coming at the very end of the whole liturgical year, matters so much, because it forces that decision. Which army are you in? Which king do you follow? And God bless you.