Let's talk politics!

Do I detect a groan? You say that you are sick of politics? That you have had enough of Republicans and Democrats and want to hear of nothing more controversial than basketball?

I have a political proposal for you. I couldn't present it during the heat of the campaign, but now the time is right: What we need in this country is monarchy. That's right. A king.

Think about it. The problems which beset us are so great, so seemingly insoluble -­ thinning ozone·, national debt, crumbling cities. You've seen Presidents come and go. Do you really believe that another President will take matters in hand? Besides, say the President does have a really good idea -- do you think Congress will go along?

On the other hand, think of what a king could do. I mean a real king, not a polo playing playboy who dabbles in architecture, but real royalty who was crowned the old­ fashioned way --by divine right rather than by the media.

I realize that I've got an uphill battle. The notion of royalty doesn't come naturally to Americans. We were born out of the idea that a modem nation doesn't need kings and queens. We believe that democracy is a better way than a monarchy. The democratic supposition is that wisdom is somehow quantitatively rather than qualitatively derived. Truth is determined by majority vote, something on which 9 out of 10 Americans agree. Truth is a commodity which is available to someone named "the common man." In reality, as we have been reminded during the recent presidential hoopla, what democracy often boils down to is the influence of a huge amount of1money, a mess of caucuses, PAC's, and special interests, all managed by Madison Avenue ''Image Consultants,'' hoping for a ten second sound bite.

On the other hand, consider monarchy. Constitutional monarchies have an amazingly good track record. Why not let those rule who have been trained, born to rule? I never agreed with those who said that George Bush would make a poor President simply because he was a privileged aristocrat. Haven't aristocrats made some rather good leaders for the rest of us commoners? (the Roosevelts, Washington, Jefferson, etc.)

As one of my church members explained his vote for one of these ''aristocrats'' in a South Carolina election, "The way I figure it, he's already got so much money it will be tough to bribe him." "Or at least expensive," I said.

I tell you, there is something to be said for rule by royalty. I suspect though, that you remain unmoved. No Fergie and Di, no polo-playing kings or pocketbook-clutching queens will make you agree. We can hardly afford a President, much less a king.

Yet all of today's biblical texts agree -- Jesus is a king. Jeremiah lifted up his sights out of the political corruption of Israel in his day, led by a bunch of inept "shepherds,,, and foretold, “The days are coming', says the LORD, 'when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness.'''

For Christians, this king is Jesus, the one who, in Revelation's words, is "ruler of kings on earth.”

Being a king really meant something in Jesus' day. A king was the most powerful human being on earth. A king speaks; common people tremble. For nations, the king was the only means of securing order and peace. He was civilization and domestic tranquility personified in one powerful person.

As your preacher, the question I'm struggling with this morning is: Can King Jesus mean anything in our day? Remember, you don't really believe that you need a king. You may be a Republican or a Democrat, but who is a Monarchist? When we think of kings or queens we are apt to think of Charles and Di, a pleasant woman with an omnipresent purse, but we don't think of power or sovereignty. The Dutch are fond of saying of themselves, whenever someone is belittled, "Trix ist Nix -- Beatrix (the Durch Queen) is also a nobody. Royalty looks as common as the rest of us. We've done to kings and queens what we have done to most sources of authority -- everything has been rendered common, everyday, impotent. Nothing or no one rules.

OK. You don't want a king. But do you need a king? If we ridicule modern royalty, consider how they ridiculed King Jesus. The setting of today's gospel is Pilate's trial of Jesus. In the Praetorium, the head of the Roman Occupation Forces in Judea, Pilate asks Jesus, "Are you the King of the Jews.,, Are you king? He snickered when he asked it. Here was a bedraggled, half-naked Jew before him, back still bloody from a nasty whipping. Some Legionaires, to mock him, had placed a crown of thorns upon his disheveled head. Are you king?

Pilate's questions t0 Jesus is preceded in John by Annas' interrogation (18:13, 19-24). Annas was high priest and related to Caiaphas who John says was "high priest that year" (18:13). One was supposed t0 be high priest for life. See what John is doing by saying that Caiaphas was on duty "that" year? It's John ' s caustic comment on what the Romans had done to Israel's religious leaders -- had made them meaningless quislings, mere puppets in the hands of pagans. Annas and Caiaphas are lackies for the Romans, who let them be priests ''that'' year.

Pilate shows himself to be a weak, indecisive little man. (What good is a Roman governor if he can't keep these Jews in their place?) In contrast, the prisoner Jesus is quiet, assured, clear-eyed, and totally in control while everyone else in the drama is running back and forth, merely filling minor roles.

"Are you King of the Jews?” asks Pilate, eyebrows raised, cynical smile on his face.

"Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?" Jesus asks. Are you actually speaking, or as usual, have others told you what to speak?

Pilate regroups. '' Am I a Jew? Your own people, your own leaders have handed you over.”

''My kingship is not of your world,” says Jesus.

"So you really are king?"

Jesus answers, "You are the one who keeps saying that I am king.”

Pilate thinks he is in control. He keeps raving about his power but he has very little. He thinks he is in charge but obviously this Jew, this bedraggled, whipped Jew is in charge. When Jesus says that his kingdom is ' ' not of this world," he isn't talking about heaven or some other time. He means now, that his kingdom (unlike that of Pilate or Caiaphas) is not dependent upon or grounded in the methods and means of Caesar's world. Jesus calls the shots, not because he has some certificate from Caesar in Rome, but because he is true royalty.

Now come with me outside, to the courtyard, where another trial is taking place, that of the lead disciple, Peter. John devotes as much space to the trial of Peter by the maid in the courtyard as he gives to the trial of Jesus by Pilate in the Praetorium. Jesus is

facing the most powerful rulers this world can muster and is calm and firm. Outside, Simon Peter (the disciples, the church) is being questioned by a serving woman and the trial is not going well. Out in the darkness, all the disciples' courage, resolve and determination is slipping. Peter will deny Jesus three times before dawn. Here is a two-level drama. Inside, Jesus, the one who is supposed to be on trial, is asking the questions, is in control. Outside, in the darkness, the followers of Jesus are being questioned by the world and are falling apart. ''I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter'' is fulfilled.

"Are you king?" It's an important, fundamental question. It's a question about sovereignty, rule. Who is in charge when it's dark and the world is falling apart?

Who is in charge? I'm betting that this is still the fundamental question, your question. Who is in charge?

The crowd answered, ''We have no king but Caesar.'' Today, that's still a popular answer. Politics has become our most important means of transcendence, the answer to every human problem. We expect politics to make our world secure, to give us safe steers, drug-free children. We have, it would seem, no king, no means of securing our lives, save Caesar.

At the same time, witness our shock when we find that those we elect to lead us are, in reality, quite ordinary people. As we learned during the past presidential campaign they make gaffs, goofs, C's in college -- and who wants to be ruled by people just like us? Pilate, big powerful Pilate is revealed to be a rather pitiful, inept little man who can't run his own marriage must less Israel. He thinks he's putting Jesus on trial when, in reality, Jesus has Pilate and the whole Roman Empire on trial. It's enough -- when you see how really puny are our politicians, how they look just like us -- it's enough to make you wonder who is in charge? You see, if you push the political question far, before long you are knee deep in religious questions. Who is in charge for you?

One hot, July afternoon, right after I arrived at the church, I trudged up the walkway to visit a man who had been inactive in the church for some years. Some said that he had left the church because of the United Methodist stand on South Africa. Others said he was mad over what we said about homosexual rights.

"I'm your new preacher," I said to him amiably at the front door. He greeted me sullenly. It was obvious that he really didn't want a new preacher, or even an old one, but he allowed me to enter.

We talked. I finally asked him why he wasn't coming to church anymore. Was it South Africa, homosexuals, the National Council of Churches, the offensiveness of my predecessor?

Well, it wasn't any one thing, he said. It was a bunch of things. What things? I asked. He began to talk. He spoke of his fears, fears that this country was falling apart. No one would stay in place. Crime was rising. People were being murdered, right in their own beds. He had voted for Reagan, had thought maybe he could change things, but what had he done? It was worse than before.

Now I felt anger rising in me. Was this any way for a Christian to talk? You ought to be ashamed talking like this about other people. That was what I was thinking.

The man's raving was becoming more bizarre. "A few years ago, I didn't even own a gun. But now I own a dozen of them. I sleep with two by my bed. And when they come up here to try to take what's mine, I'll be ready for them."

I realized that his raving had gone beyond mere reactionary conservatism. I was listening to a deeply troubled person.

"I tell you," he said. He was screaming now, “Nobody is in control. Everything is cut loose. Nobody's in charge!"

You see, I was ready to minister to the symptoms of an illness without reaching its cause. All that resentment and hate had a source in a deeper fear. Nobody's in charge.

The Feast of Christ the King was created by Pope Pius XI in 1925 to celebrate the kingship of Christ in the modern world. Get it? In 1925, with chaos reigning in many European countries, European colonialism at its worst, and serpents' eggs ready to hatch in the Thirties, the Pope proclaimed that Jesus Christ is King, ' 'the goal of human history,...the joy of all hearts, and the fulfillment of all aspirations....drawn together in this Spirit we press onward toward the consummation of history which fully corresponds to the plan of his love: 'to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth''' (Eph. 1:10). (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, #45, p. 947, Flannery.)

When the lights go out, it's a great help to know who’s in charge. Many of the problems that beset us lend themselves to democratic or political solutions. But some of our problems are deeper. Sometimes what's happening in your life is so chaotic, confusing, frighteningly out of control, that you need someone to take charge. You need to know that the one who hung the stars, set the planets in motion, and laid the foundation of the world is there, ruling for you.

A Jew stands before us, martyred, scorned and made fun of by the world and its ruler s, both political and religious. When lights go out in your life, when things cut loose, become unglued, and you like feel Peter on trial, out in the darkness, you need to know who sirs on the throne. He shall reign forever and ever!