A different kind of king

 This is my homily for today, the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, aka Christ the King.  The readings for today can be found here.

When Queen Elizabeth II died this past September, the outpouring of grief was genuine and abundant.  Clearly, there was something about her and her life that touched people – both those who were her subjects, and even people like me who weren’t.  

Many commentators have noted that Elizabeth lived an exemplary life of service, with a devotion to public duty that was nearly constant over the span of seven decades.  To be sure: her role in public life was largely ceremonial and symbolic.  But we Catholics understand that ceremony and symbols aren’t nothing: they convey realities.  And the reality is that Elizabeth, and how she lived her life, resonated with many people.  

I really think there is a deep human need for most of us to be led, to be ruled - but not just by anyone: we need wise and just rulers.  I believe this is part of our make-up.  We humans are social creatures, and we need our society to be well-ordered.  We require rulers to order our societies.

The British monarchy these days has been stripped of most substantial ruling responsibility, but that hasn’t been the case for kings and queens in most times and places throughout most of history.  Even Britain, with its constitutional monarchy today, has a history in which kings ruled with near absolute power, at least until Runnymede and Magna Carta.  The story of how Magna Carta came about is a typical story for a monarchy in human history: King John was a bad king, neither wise nor just, and so some of his own barons rebelled against him and forced him to grant them certain rights.  That is the history of human monarchies: conflict between rivals, or pushback from those who are being mistreated or exploited by unjust rules.  The story of monarchies tends to be the story of conflict, division, civil wars, and the occasional usurping.  The history of monarchies is drenched in blood.  The chance to be king tends to bring out ambition and ruthlessness both in monarchs and their rivals.  

I’m offering these reflections on monarchs because today we celebrate the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe – that is to say, Christ the King.  But if our Lord Jesus is a king, he’s not like any king the world has ever seen before.  Jesus had no interest in thrones or palaces or riches or armies or concubines; on the contrary, he spent his entire ministry bringing hope and healing to those who were poor and downtrodden.  

Jesus rejected the notion that rulers are entitled to power and privilege.  In a famous passage in Mark’s Gospel, he told the apostles James and John, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt.  But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.  For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

What a strange philosophy of kingship that is: a lord as a servant!  Jesus was a king who willingly spent his time at the bottom of the social pyramid rather than at the tip top.  

It is a bitter irony of Jesus’s life that he was put to death by powerful men who couldn’t see that he was different than them.  The people loved him, and so the rulers saw him as a threat.  They feared uprising and insurrection.  There is that telling dialogue found in John’s Gospel, when Jesus is on trial for his life before Pilate:

Pilate went back into the praetorium and summoned Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”…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 to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.” So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say 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.”  Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

In this passage, Pilate doesn’t understand Jesus - apparently, he is unable to listen to Jesus's voice, to listen to the truth.  In fact, he asks, "What is truth?" as though it is a puzzling concept to him.  He tries to make Jesus fit his earthly categories: do you claim to be a king?  Jesus’s answer is: You’re making a category error.  If you think of me as an earthly king, jockeying for earthly power, you don’t understand me.  My kingdom is not of your world: your world of politics and conflict over earthly power.

Had Jesus been given the chance, he might have said much more about his kingdom.  He might have told Pilate that his kingdom is a wonderful place: not a place of rivalry and conflict, but rather a kingdom of joy and peace.  It’s a place where every person, even the poorest and most exploitable, not only is welcome, but can find justice.  It’s a place where the sick and injured are healed, the troubled are soothed, the mourning are consoled.  It’s a place where widows and orphans are cared for, and strangers are offered hospitality.

Today’s Gospel passage shows us Jesus’s monarchy in all its strangeness.  Jesus our king does not sit upon a throne; rather, he hangs upon a cross.  Upon his head sits, not a bejeweled crown, but a crown of thorns.  He is surrounded, not by wealthy and powerful courtiers, but by common criminals.  The rulers and soldiers of the kingdoms of earth mock Jesus in today’s passage.  “If you are king of the Jews, save yourself!”  The only wisdom and understanding on display, besides that of Jesus, comes from one of the criminals hanging next to him.  “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom”.  “Today you will be with me in paradise.”  Thus we see that even criminals who deserve their death sentence aren’t excluded from Jesus’s kingdom.  Apparently, the place where Jesus is king is a place of forgiveness, too.

Tradition has given the Good Thief the name of Dismas.  But they are not actually named in Luke’s Gospel.  That may have been intentional: the intention may be for us to identify with one or the other.  I suppose it doesn’t seem very flattering to see ourselves as criminals being given a death sentence, but it would have made perfect sense to the persecuted believers of the early church, some of whom really were sentenced to death for the “crime” of being a follower of Jesus.  And really, criminals facing a death sentence it is not a bad way for us to think of ourselves.  If we swear our allegiance to the evil ways of the kingdoms of earth, then we’ve passed a sentence of death on ourselves – excluding ourselves from paradise: the bliss of being with Jesus our king.  But if we are willing to acknowledge Jesus as our king, and let him rule our thoughts and actions – well, then perhaps we too, like the Good Thief, will be welcomed into paradise at the moment of our deaths.