Christ is king
In 2019 rapper and musician Kanye West introduced a new album that took pop culture by surprise. At this point in his career, he had already stormed the stage during Taylor Swift’s Grammy reception to tell the world she didn’t deserve it, he shocked many with his MAGA hat in 2018 saying made him feel powerful, and has generally been thought of as a brilliant artist, but a confusing and chaotic human who enjoys holding controversy.
Kanye’s new for 2019 album was titled “Jesus is King” – a surprising title that signaled Kayne’s recent conversion to Christianity – and change that once again brought controversy to the world of rap music.
The songs in this album take you on a journey through Kayne’s shift in beliefs.
He raps about his conversion, about God’s power, about redemption and grace, devotion and righteous living. All good things, right?
But then starts rapping about thanking God that he is the best artist dead or alive, abiut protecting his family, about the consequences for stepping onto his land, about being part of the army of God, about the gospel as a form of protection, and lastly, about needing to save money so his family does starve (google says his net worth is 400 million) .
These other lyrics don’t sound very Christ-like, and make me question who really is kanye’s king.
Kayne’s album shows us the struggle of following Jesus. Though I am assuming none of us have $400 million, we know the struggle of needing to survive on this planet, but also trying to take seriously Jesus’ nonviolent love.
We too flow back and forth between security and risk taking. nonviolence and yet a world that relies on violence to maintain itself. Two realities. The kingdom of the world run by the ways of power and fear, and the kingdom of God, this alternative way that Jesus points to throughout the gospels. Two kingdoms that we struggle between throughout our lives as Jesus followers.
John Passage
In our passage for today, we witness this struggle. We see two kingdoms at play. We have Pilate, who is the Roman governer. He has power and can decide Jesus’ fate.
And then we have Jesus, the itinerant preacher who says mysterious things like, “The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds but grows into a large bush with branches where birds can nest.” The kingdom of God sounding quite different from the kingdoms of the world.
Jesus and Pilate decide to have a back and forth, a question and answer, but really they refuse to answer any of each other’s questions. Pilate says, “Are you the King of the Jews?”
Jesus in response asks a question, “Is that your own idea or did others talk to you about me?”
“Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”
Clearly, Pilate and Jesus are functioning in different worlds. Pilate, a Roman, doesn’t even understand Jesus Jewish context.
Jesus replies. “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
Jesus says his kingdom is not of this world – some might jump to the conclusion that Jesus is an Alien, but that is not what he is getting at. In the time of Jesus, when someone said “world,” they were not pointing to the planet earth. They did not know we were rotating on a giant piece of round rock, water and air, around a sun. Their world was what was right there around them. Their little corner of the Roman empire. Walking distances between Jerusalm and Galilee.
The kingdom of God was not the reality that Pilate was living in. The kingdom of God was not instilled by the violence and oppression of the Roman empire.
If the kingdom of God was like the Roman empire, Jesus argues that he would have servants fighting to stop his arrest. But since it is from another place, since it was a different way of thinking, and being , here was Jesus, arrested, and on trial.
You have Pilate’s kingdom of violence and power. And you have Jesus’ kingdom who does not rely on servants fighting for him.
“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
Jesus says the reason he is here is to point to the truth. To point to the kingdom of God.
Hauerwas And the Kingdom of God
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus is not concerned with his own status, but is concerned with the proclamation of the kingdom of God.
His teachings directed his followers not towards him but towards the kingdom of God. A kingdom that was already being made present and is yet to come.
This story shows the reader that as the early Jesus followers would have written down these gospels, they were struggling with these two kingdoms. Jesus’ kingdom of God, and the powers that be that surrounded them, which made up the kingdom of the world. They took Jesus the whole way to pilate where Jesus refused to play his games, to make the point that when you follow Jesus, you are stepping towards a different reality. Pilate is no longer in charge. Bring it on.
We as readers of the gospel situate our lives in relation to the life of Jesus. Theologian Stanley Hauwerwas writes that “We cannot know Jesus apart from his ethical significance.” Jesus shows us the way of kingdom of God, through the stories that are told about him: His healing of the sick, telling parables, challenging the authorities of the day, and even eventually being killed by them.”
Hauwerwas argues that it’s not that we are to imitate or mimic Jesus- we are not called to be Jesus, but to form communities and learn from one another what it means to be like Jesus. To join him for the journey as we work to become people of God’s kingdom of peace and nonviolent love that names this truth to the powers of this world.
We tell each other the story today, as people told the story to us in the past, and we let it shape us and change us, and invite us to participate in the kingdom of God that is already at work in the world today.
This process is not linear. We get it wrong. As we try to be like Jesus, we have the hard work of figuring out what that is based off of the gospel and applied to our context today. That is very difficult work. That struggle is what it means for the kingdom of God to slowly form on earth today.
Parallax
Some have taken this “two kingdoms” theology to its extremes.
Some Christians have gone to the extreme where they no longer believe that the earth is of any use anymore, that they are just waiting for the kingdom of God to come in their afterlife, so it doesn’t matter if you live your life in a way that slowly destroys the planet, it will all be gone someday, and you will be in heaven.
Others take this to an extreme level of purity, where they try to live in the “kingdom of God” now trying to live perfectly into the constraints that Jesus sets. They believe that they can live outside of the kingdom of the world, and completely into the kingdom of God today.
My argument for today is that neither of those extremes have the clearest view of what it means to be a human being living on earth, inside of a powerful nation state, and trying to follow Jesus.
Instead, as Jesus followers, we are living in two worlds at the same time. We are just looking at the world through a different angle. And Jesus points to these two different angles.
The angle of the world
And the angle of the kingdom of God.
Two angles that have a gap between them that cannot be reconciled. And yet we live in them both.
It’s like closing one eye, lifting up your finger and pointing to something in the distance. Perhaps if you want to try this now with me. Take your finger and line it up with the cross so it covers it while you have one eye shut. Then switch eyes. Your figure shifts and all of a sudden you see the cross, and then it again disappears behind your finger when you switch eyes again.
Both of your eyes are looking at the same spot, and yet there is a gap between them. One eye is on the cross and the other cannot see it.
When you shift perspective, from one eye to the next, what you see changes.
We all know it’s the same world. We are all driving on the same streets, going to the same stores, paying the same taxes, and being buried in the same cemeteries. But when we shift our perspective towards the kingdom of God, we are constantly needing to reflect on how that shift informs how we live in this world.
Not that we can escape the world. Not that we will perfectly create the kingdom of God on earth. But that we will continue to switch eyes so that we are challenged to step into the that kingdom. And as Jesus suggests to pilate, to speak this truth into the world. To proclaim it to those in power, even if it doesn’t make any change at that moment.
We live in the world and yet also are bringing about the kingdom of God in it.
Church Governance and the Kingdom of God
As a church, we seek to be part of the kingdom of God. A taste of it – here in this place. We seek to be healing and hope in the world. Hopefully not like Pilate, who wields power through violence. But like Jesus who tended to those who were suffering.
No the kingdom of God is a proclamation of truth to those in power – As Jesus said to pilate,
“You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth.”
As followers of Jesus, we too are called to speak this truth. And the Truth is the experience of those who have suffered at the expense of empire. Jesus’ life and ministry was consistently with those who have suffered at the hands of those with power. The Kingdom of God does not coerce, wield the sword, force anyone to do anything. But speaks truth to those in power, in a world of suffering.
One way that I think we have been working towards this at FMC has been through our shift in governance. This congregation moved from a model of governance that was much more top-down, ( much more, dare I say it, Roman), to a model that is bottom up (perhaps Jesus-like). A shift in perspective that I think more closely identifies with how Jesus functioned in the world. More closely aligns with the kingdom of God.
Historically, a lot of decisions around ministries needed to be made by leadership counsel. With our current governance, anyone in the congregation can make a ministry happen very quickly without one body of people making all of the decisions.
For instance, this last year, there were requests to have more fun activities for us to do as a congregation. Folks like Trusty or Emily were already creating fun events like the fall festival that they hosted in the fellowship hall for the second time this October. Or the Vine street Block party.
Pastor Carrie noticed this and wondered if we should have a team of folks that put together fun activities. Quickly, people jumped on board and the fun committee was formed. They requested funds from our jubilee fund, which provides seed money for ministries, and our Jubilee fund team of lay folks approved the funds which provided the fun committee with money, and the fun committee took off. They have since created many activities, including the building of a float for the Blaze of Lights parade next weekend – And wow, the photos I have seen are incredible.
These ideas are not emerging from the leadership circle. They are not being forced on the congregation by the pastors. They have emerged from the congregation itself. We, all together are the church. Not just the leaders. In our governance, we have little power, but it is you who make this church happen.
And what I love about this fun committee is that while the idea was to have fun activities for this church, all of these events have been ones that created joy for the broader community around us. It has been fun for more than just us.
We made, and are still making this perspective shift as a community. From top down, to bottom up. Like switching eyes with your finger pointed at the cross. And what is great is that we have the structure in place to make bottom up ministries happen. If you have a ministry idea, we have the resources and support structures to make it happen, but it comes from each of us. The governance and the staff are here to help you as a church community, be the church in the world.
As followers of Jesus, may we live in constant reflection on the ways of the kingdom of God, and the ways of the world. May we choose to live in that struggle, and speak Jesus’ truth, the kingdom of God, into this world.