BIBLE READINGS: Colossians
1:11-20 Luke 23:33-43
SERMON
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings–
and why the sea is boiling hot,
and whether pigs have wings."
In the story of Alice in Through the Looking
Glass, Lewis Carroll provides a wonderful little poem about a walrus, who goes
out for a walk with some very cheery little oysters. In the end, the power of
the walrus supersedes the lives of the little oysters, and they are no more.
The power of the largest wins, and the most naive and gullible seem to lose.
On this special Sunday - the Festival of Christ
the King - I want to look for a moment at Kings and cabbages.
Have you ever read Mark Twain's classic - “The
Prince and the Pauper”?
The story is a simple dramatic plot of switching
places. The king’s son, Edward, encounters a poor boy, Tom Canty. The
resemblance between them is uncanny. Once the pauper is cleaned up, It is
impossible to tell which is prince and which is pauper.
Edward, the prince, dresses up Tom in princely
clothes then puts on Tom’s rags and goes out the back door, leaving Tom to act
the prince. As the story unfolds, Tom Canty learns what it is like to be the
son of a king, while Edward, the true prince, learns what life is like for
those who are poor, those who are abused, those who do not have enough to eat.
At one point Tom the
pauper king says “Kings should have to live by their own laws at times, and so,
learn mercy.” Twain tells of Tom enjoying a celebration at the royal court,
when he sees the real prince, down in the streets, proclaiming his rights and
his wrongs, denouncing the impostor, and clamouring for admission at the gates
of Guildhall! The crowd enjoyed this episode and pressed forward and craned
their necks to see the small rioter.
Presently they began to taunt him and mock him,
trying to goad him into a higher and still more entertaining fury.
While this is going on - news arrives that the
King is dead. Tom Canty, the impostor prince, now soon to be the impostor king,
summons a Lord and asks, “If I give a command, will it be obeyed?” The answer
comes, “Thou art the king--thy word is law.” And Tom, the peasant king,
proclaims:
"Then shall the king's law be law of mercy,
from this day, and never more be law of blood!”
The switch or reversal is a common dramatic
device. By switching characters, having them trade places, the writer can
illustrate important ideas, which, were they to simply state them, would be as
interesting as watching paint dry. That kind of reversal, that truth which
emerges from paradox, is woven throughout the Bible, and nowhere is it more
evident than in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
On this last Sunday of the church year, Just before we begin to prepare our hearts once again for
the coming of the baby born in Bethlehem, We are confronted with this Sunday of
Christ the King.
The Prophet Jeremiah proclaims,
“he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the
land.”
The Song of Zechariah exults:
“By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on
high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the
shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
And then the reading from Luke slaps us in the
face with the horror of Jesus on the cross, Tormented, mocked, his clothes torn
from him, hung like a common criminal on a stinking heap of smoldering
garbage, between two thieves. The crowd shouted “If
you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” The thief on one side said, “Are
you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
Like them, the world sees this God hanging on the
cross and sneers, “Some king!” Some God, the skeptics
shout - A God who can’t even save his own skin.
A God who doesn’t lift a finger to stop typhoons,
starvation, earthquakes.
A God who is a friend to lepers and prostitutes
and tax collectors, a friend to illiterate fishermen and women who don’t seem
to know their place.
“Some Savior,” the
world scoffs, as the King of the Jews dies on the cross.
But the story doesn’t end there. Because in this
tale of reversal, events are not predictable. The pauper hangs on the cross
between two thieves,
And one of them taunts him, “...kept deriding
him,” the gospel says - “Aren’t you the son of God? Why don’t you save us, and
yourself?” But the other thief rebukes him, and says to Jesus, “Jesus, remember
me when you come into your kingdom.”
Reversal upon reversal.
“Your kingdom come, your will be done,” we pray
to the pauper king. But which is the impostor? We’ve set up for ourselves two
images, at least, of this King. In one, he sits enthroned in a golden palace,
blond-haired and blue-eyed, smiling all the time, No longer his raggedy human
self, but just back to being God Almighty, pavilioned in splendour and girded
with praise.
He especially likes people who dress nicely and
act right, who know all the noble words of the kingly court. He loves most the
people who go to huge fancy churches
with espresso stands in the foyer, he loves them
better, it seems, if they send in money and buy the books and hang out with the
right people, he blesses them with land and nice houses and money and new cars;
with happy marriages and wonderful children who never do anything wrong,
And with successful businesses.
In the other image, he is both human and divine,
Son of God and Son of man. He looks like a street person. His friends are not
the sort of people we’d invite to dinner, Probably not
the sort we’d even invite to church. He doesn’t look like a king at all, and
his kingly court is the most dejected, scraggly, motley bunch of drop=kicks you can ever imagine. His empire covers the face
of the earth, where he walks away from sumptuous banquets and sits down in the
houses of the poor, sharing their meagre meals.
Theologian Catherine LaCugna
describes the empire of this King:
“In Jesus Christ, God heals divisions, reconciles
the alienated, gives hope to those who have none, offers forgiveness to the
sinner, and includes the outcast. In the end God’s love and mercy are
altogether inclusive, accepting the repentant master as well as the repentant
slave. If anyone were to be ultimately excluded from the reign of God it would be because they have set up themselves as the
final criterion of who should be included in God’s reign. Still, the exclusion
of even a single person is contrary to God’s providential plan. In the end,
only the barriers to eternal and universal communion are excluded from God’s
reign: sin, death, and despair.”
In Twain’s book, at the last possible second, the
Prince is restored to the throne and crowned King.
Twain writes:
“The King sought out the farmer who had been
branded and sold as a slave, and reclaimed him from
his evil life with the Ruffler's gang, and put him in the way of a comfortable
livelihood. He also took that old lawyer out of prison and remitted his fine.
He provided good homes for the daughters of the two Baptist women whom he saw
burned at the stake…
He saved from the gallows the boy who had
captured the stray falcon, and also the woman who had
stolen a remnant of cloth from a weaver; …
As long as the King lived
he was fond of telling the story of his adventures, all through, from the hour
that the sentinel cuffed him away from the palace gate till the final midnight…
He said that the frequent rehearsing of the
precious lesson kept him strong in his purpose to make its teachings yield
benefits to his people; and so, whilst his life was spared he should continue
to tell the story, and thus keep its sorrowful spectacles fresh in his memory
and the springs of pity replenished in his heart.”
In this ultimate tale of reversal, this story of
Christ the King, It is not a child’s tale, but
the proclamation of truth and salvation for all humankind,
A story for all eternity, Christ our King is
doing this and more.
In the lives of his people,through the turning and reversals of our
hearts, through the workings of our grateful hands, through our actions which
reflect his merciful love Christ’s kingdom is coming, even as his will is done.
"Then shall the king's law be law of mercy,
from this day, and never more be law of blood!”
Thanks be to God that Christ is King!
Acknowledgements: Catherine LaCugna,
Christina Berry, Mark Twain!