Lectionary Reflection — Reign of Christ Proper 29 (34) (Year B)
33Pilate went back into the palace. He summoned Jesus and asked, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
34Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own or have others spoken to you about me?”
35Pilate responded, “I’m not a Jew, am I? Your nation and its chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?”
36Jesus replied, “My kingdom doesn’t originate from this world. If it did, my guards would fight so that I wouldn’t have been arrested by the Jewish leaders. My kingdom isn’t from here.”
37“So you are a king?” Pilate said.
Jesus answered, “You say that I’m a king. I was born and came into the world for this reason: to testify to the truth. Whoever accepts the truth listens to my voice.”
Collect:
All-loving and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and addicted to sin, may recognize their freedom and come together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
This week I read a tweet that said —
“The contemplative lives in a narrative that is led by reality.”
My first thought upon reading that tweet was “Whose reality?”
Today we live in a world that is inundated with claims of “fake news” (mostly directed at reliable news sources), with hype and spin based in fear coming at us from all sides, especially by our elected political leaders. Depending on the color of one’s skin, reality is a very relative narrative. What’s clearly “reality” for people in power is not at all “reality” for people of color, or women, or people who identify as LGBTQ, etc.
So I ask again, “Whose reality?”
And then I thought of our Lesson today. In our Lesson, there’s a clash between two realities — the reign of Caesar (power) and the Reign of Christ (love). The Reign of Christ is a reality whether we want to accept it or not. At least from a biblical standpoint.
One of the things that has shaped my worldview is the understanding of the Kingship of Jesus — the Reign of Christ. For lack of a better word, I’m a completist.2 That is to say, I believe, with my whole heart, that Jesus actually completed the work God sent him to do — he actually rescued the cosmos. When he cried, “It’s completed” (of “finished;” John 19.30), he genuinely meant it. The problems that remain — and there are multitude — all stem from a not-knowing of humanity. We don’t know, we don’t realize, that we’ve actually been rescued! Rescued from hatred! Rescued from bigotry! Rescued from fear! Rescued from our false selves! Rescued from sin!
And yet …
Our world is filled with Pilate people. That is, there’s another group who believes in another reality. They only understand reality when it plays them — and those like them — as favorites. We see this all the time. When a group speaks out about injustice and equal rights, the Pilate people (i.e., those who currently have those rights) think that the group speaking out wants to take away their rights. It’s like Pilate people think basic, human rights are a pumpkin pie where all the slices have already spoken for. When someone comes along wanting a slice, the only way she gets a slice is to either take away an entire slice from someone else or taking some of the slices from other people.
But that’s not the way it works. That’s not the reality.
Pilate people just can’t see that there is an ever-abundant amount of pie! When all the slices are gone from one pie, another pie is brought out! There’s enough pie for everyone and, because of the work of Christ — because of the reality of Christ’s Reign — everyone gets as much as they want (Matthew 14.20).
All the time we hear people teach and preach that Jesus completed the work God sent him to do but we don’t live like it. We don’t really believe that to be the case. We hear those same preachers and teachers still talk about how humanity is “enslaved in sin” (as the unedited Collect states). But didn’t Jesus come to set the captive free (Luke 4.18; cf. Isaiah 61.1)? If that’s what he came to do, and he claimed to have completed that mission, then how can we say that people are still captive to sin?
Saint Paul addressed this very thing in his letter to the followers of Jesus at Rome. He wrote that they had all “died to sin” (6.2). He goes on to say —
… the person that we used to be was crucified with Christ in order to get rid of the corpse that had been controlled by sin. That way we wouldn’t be slaves to sin anymore, 7because a person who has died has been freed from sin’s power. … 14Sin will have no power over you, because you aren’t under Law but under grace. … 18you have been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness. 19(I’m speaking with ordinary metaphors because of your limitations.) … 22But now that you have been set free from sin and become slaves to God, you have the consequence of a holy life, and the outcome is the Life of the Ages. 23The wages that sin pays are death, but God’s gift is the Life of the Ages in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul is clear — humanity has been set free from sin.3
Then why don’t we walk in this reality?
I think it’s because we haven’t been told.
We’ve been told that we’re “sinners saved by Grace.” But we’re not. That’s like the person at a 12 step program who says, “Hi. I’m Francis and I’m an addict.” No, Francis, you’re not. You’re a person who struggles with addiction. There’s a distinction, one is not the same as the other. In the 12 step approach, a person’s addiction is her identity. In the second, it’s just another facet of her personhood.
To me, sin is the same way. My identity is not a sinner. My identity is a person who sometimes sins (1 John 1.8-10). My sins are only one aspect of my personhood. But it’s not the deepest characteristic within me. My identity is more complex than that. And so is yours.
From the resurrection of Jesus (the “first day” of New Creation; John 20),4 till now, and on into the future, the reality is “Jesus is Lord” (Romans 1.4).5 He sits on the Throne at God’s right hand (Hebrews 12.2)6 and will reign until everything, including death, is brought under God’s control (1 Corinthians 15.23-28). When death is finally brought to an end (1 Corinthians 15.54) God’s Realm and our realm will become One (Revelation 21.1-5) and God will be “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15.28).
This is the Reality that leads me. The one where I can look at those on the margins and offer solace. Because of this Reality, I can look into the faces of others and see the Other within them. And because of this Reality, I can work to help bring others into this Reality and help them see that they, too, have been rescued.
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In the Love of the Three in One,
Br. Jack+, LC
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1. Scripture quotations marked (CEB) are taken from The Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible.
2. By definition, a completist is someone who is an “obsessive … fan of something.” Yep. That pretty much sums up my view of Jesus’ work in rescuing the cosmos.
3. I know. Someone will point out that Paul is also clear in this chapter that he’s talking about people who are “baptized into Christ” (verse 3). True. But the distinction I think Paul’s making here is that people don’t have to wait until they physically die before they can live a sinless life. They can decide to follow Christ now and live this life now in the present moment. But even if they don’t, that doesn’t change the fact of what Christ accomplished — the complete rescue of the cosmos.
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