That's What You Say

Text: John 18:33-37

Today is called Christ the King Sunday. But it would be more Biblical to call it Christ Not-the-king Sunday. Or maybe Who-says-Christ-is-King Sunday. For it is others, not Jesus, who call him king. In all four Gospels, Pilate asks in one way or another if Jesus is king. And in all four Gospels Jesus answers in one way or another “That’s what you say.”

Neither God the Father nor Jesus the Son are enthusiastic about kings. In the book of Samuel, the people of Israel ask God for a king to lead them, but God cautions that

[A king] will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, … and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his friends. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. You yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day."

But the people say to God, “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations.”

In the Gospel of John, after the crowd of 5000 whom he has just fed try to make Jesus king, he runs away and hides out in the mountains. And in all the Gospels, Jesus seems to prefer titles like Son of God or Son of Humanity or Rabbi, meaning teacher. And yet people hoped that Jesus would be more like a king. And people still do.

The feast of Christ the King is not an ancient holiday of the church. It was invented by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and was not given its permanent spot as the last Sunday in the church year until 1970. Pius saw that there is in our world a deep and sometimes desperate call for someone to lead us as a king might and take care of us.

These are confused and anxious times, not times of contentment and peace. Wars rage constantly. We know that people suffer and we feel helpless to do anything about it. Social and political issues have divided the country and the world down the middle. Too many voices compete for our attention and for our affection. Too many people are trying to convince us of one thing or another. And too many of them are lying to us.

Things are scary because they seem not only out of our control but out of anyone’s control. We are like children in a household where there are no adults. Or where the adults act like children, and are childish and unreliable.

Isn’t there someone we can follow? Isn’t there someone who will tell the truth?

The two questions are related. Jesus relates them. Pilate asks about kings, and Jesus answers about truth. You say that I am a king, says Jesus, but I came to testify to the truth.

Ah, says Pilate—in a line left out of the lectionary, but in the Gospel—Ah, Pilate says, but what is truth? Not true facts. Not statements about doctrine or belief. Only in the Gospel of John does Jesus speak so much about the truth. And the word he uses means reliability, steadfastness, trustworthiness. More like true blue. Or true friends. True grit. Something both immeasurable and yet undeniable.

To be true is to be in alignment with the world as God created it to be. Like a wheel being true. To be smooth and effortless. To travel an effortless path, where, as Isaiah has it, every mountain and hill is made low; the uneven ground level, and the rough places smooth.

The enemy of truth is not falsehood, not error or mistake, but fantasy. Most of us live in a world that is at least a little fantastic. We think more of ourselves than we ought to—or we think less that we deserve. We imagine motives in others than do not exist. We have groundless fears and unhelpful hopes. We deny our own habits and obsessions, and we deny our own sorrow. If truth is a smooth path, fantasy is a rocky one. Acts that spring from fantasy destroy us and our world. It is too tiring and in the end too discouraging to have fantasy occupy us. You will be freed, as Jesus testifies earlier in John, if you know the truth.

For Christians, the truth has something to do with Jesus. Not about Jesus so much as through Jesus or from Jesus. To see the truth is to see as Jesus sees. To see through the lens of Jesus. Or to put it in a different way, to interpret the world as Jesus interprets it for us. We agree when we follow Jesus to let him explain things to us and to believe him when he does. When he talks about ethics or prayer or money or hypocrisy or corruption or compassion, we believe him. We say that Jesus sees the truth, or see things truly, or describes the world truthfully. We give Jesus the authority to tell us what to do because Jesus is the truth, in the way I’m talking about.

I’m convinced that of all the gifts Jesus had, it his ability to see and tell the truth that drew the band of disciples and the crowds of people to him. They could tell. People who convert to Christianity in an instant see the truth of Jesus immediately. Other people come to think so over time, through reading, conversation, prayer, and through confirming experience. We give Jesus sovereignty over us and are obedient to him, which is one way in which he is king. Follow me, he says. The kingdom of God is better called the reign of truth.

But we are obedient not because he is a tyrant, or because he is a better manager, or because he hangs around with people in high places, or because he is a great general for whom we would fight. All the kingly things. We do not give Jesus the kind of obedience we would give a boss (or king), but the kind of obedience that we would give a guide or mentor. Jesus has our focus. What does Jesus say? What does Jesus see? To where does Jesus lead us?

Everybody, from Pilate to Pius, wants Jesus to be king. Everybody but Jesus. People make out Jesus to be what they want him to be.

But Jesus does not command our attention like a king. He draws our attention like a lover. Present in our minds, as we walk, or shop, or eat, or work, or take a break. The one for whom we change our plans. The recipient of our vows. The one of whom we are mindful.

Jesus retells God’s lesson in Samuel as he talks to Pilate. Kings have armies and fight holy wars. If you want that, he says, if you want a king like everybody else, go find a king. But if you want to live a true life, follow me.