Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14                Psalm 93                      Revelation 1:4b-8                     John 18:33-37

Today is Christ the King Sunday.  In a democratic society where we value our freedom and autonomy, some might have trouble with the notion of Christ as King – as God as our Lord and the King over all kings.  All EFM students and graduates have been exposed to the different names for God used in the Bible.  Some of the names even help us better understand the text.  The stories in the Bible were handed down from generation to generation before pen was ever put to paper.  If there was more than one story, they were put together with some obvious rough spots – such as the story of creation where God made man and woman in OUR own image (God referring to himself in the plural) – then God created Eve from Adam’s side in the next chapter. 

     Elohim and Yahweh were two Hebrew names for God.  Following the use of each name separately not only separates the merged stories, it also presents two very different understandings of God.  One presents God in very personal terms – Adam walks with God in the Garden.  The other presents God as the supreme other – a God to be worshiped.  The followers of Elohim were much more concerned with ritual and the mystical nature of God – such as found in the story of Moses and the burning bush. 

     In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus answer Pilot, saying, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Jesus is God incarnation.  Jesus walked with the apostles, yet in his answer he points to something that is more than our physical world.  “My kingdom is not of this world.”  Some have taken this to mean that the physical world is not important; that what is important is spiritual.   Yet, God in Christ came to earth to walk among us.  We can talk with him – and we often do without realizing it.   

     When our daughter was just a baby, she had such severe asthma that we administered breathing treatments twice a day – on good days.  “Duffy” as she called her compressor, followed us everywhere.  But our child care facility would not administer her treatments, so we would give her a treatment before we dropped her off and before bedtime.  When she was symptomatic we would increase the treatments and administer them up to six times a day – which presented problems for us with her childcare. 

I had only two more days to prepare for a State Health Department Medicare Hospice Certification Survey – our first, when Cathy called to tell me Katie was sick.  When Katie got sick, Cathy or I would have to stay home.  Cathy had already used all her paid time off from work caring for Katie during other illnesses, so we were between a rock and a hard place – to say the least.  I had spent months preparing for the survey and still there was work to be done.  In those days we lived hand-to-mouth and needed every dollar we earned – yet Katie needed a caregiver.  Either I would have to miss work or Cathy would have a short paycheck.  I desperately needed my remaining two days at work in order to be ready for the survey. 

     I was crushed.  We had no family in town and we had nowhere to turn.  I prayed to God asking, “why have you abandoned me – I am trying to do your will, and I can’t do it alone.”  I don’t remember how the events unfolded from the time of that prayer, but before I made it home that night, a member of my church called and told me he and his wife were bringing us dinner.  AND, he said, his wife would take care of Katie the next two days.  That afternoon all the pieces starting coming together at work and I knew we would be ready for the survey.  I had more energy than I had in months because I also knew that God had answered my prayer – I was not alone.

     The resurrected Christ was in my midst in the human form of two members of my church.  Christ not only walked with me that day, Christ brought my family dinner!  The man speaking to Pilot was also present in the flesh, but Pilot could not understand his message.

     Pilot knew of only one type of kingdom – a kingdom in which the king sought to achieve absolute power through control.  He could not comprehend the difference between a political kingdom and a spiritual kingdom.  To be “not of this world” does not require us to abandon the material world.  We are “of” another world when we put things in the proper prospective. 

     Over and over again Christ taught us to put God first, not “our worldly possessions.”  To be “of” this world is to put our material possession, our thirst for power and control, over God’s will.  Jesus taught us to serve, he said the first shall be last and last shall be first – so in his kingdom, the King is servant to all.  That was not the type of King Pilot or many others could understand.  They only knew of Kings as powerful people controlling others through fear. 

     Why then, did the people of Israel refer to God as Lord and King throughout their Holy Scriptures?  First, we need to remember that the people of Israel had prayed for a King.  Kings, they believed, provided order in a chaotic world, a world filled with the constant threat of war.  Kings, when they did what God intended, served the common good.  But throughout history, people in positions of authority have been seduced by their authority and used it for their own personal gain.  I had a professor, a student of eastern religion and philosophy, who said to us, “A king is only a king when he is ‘kinging.’”  By transforming the noun into a verb, he made the point that we must live into our position.  It is not enough to have the title – we must earn it.  The same can be said of being a Christian.  We can call ourselves Christians, but to be a Christian means to live our lives in the resurrected Christ.  To take food to those in distress and to sit with a sick child – when we do these things we are Christians.  We are not of this world, yet we are living in this world as servants. 

Christ is indeed our King – not because he has authority over us, but because Christ is here with us – helping us, serving us, in difficult times and leading us to the peace we can only experience through him.

In the name of one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.