Sermon - The Rev. Dr. Elise A. Feyerherm, Nov. 20th, 2022

I’ll admit it – I have already watched all ten episodes of the latest season of “The Crown,” the Netflix series about the British royal family during the reign of Elizabeth II. I share with many of my generation and beyond a fascination with that family – even if I would not want such a system to be in place here.

This series is most definitely fiction, not history – an imaginative exploration of what may have been thought and felt and said and done in private throughout the decades of Elizabeth II’s reign. It is not about what happened, but rather about what it might be like to have so much privilege and responsibility, all executed under the watchful and critical eye of the public. So I am under no illusion that what I watched was historically accurate; I am, however, intrigued by the questions the series raises. 

The royal family are portrayed as deeply human – not as villains or saints but as ordinary people born into an extraordinary family. They act nobly and are also petty and revengeful. They are both wounded and also inflict great pain on one another. They want to do good in the world and at the same time can be absurdly blind to their own sense of entitlement. As bundles of contradictions, these royals are like each and every one of us – just a lot richer.

We in this nation don’t have any firsthand experience of monarchy – we may accuse some of our leaders of wanting to be king or queen, but we really do not know what it would be like to live under one. Coming to this third week of a seven-week Advent, centering our worship on Christ as Ruler of Nations – Rex Gentium – I suspect we are more than a bit at a loss as to how to understand, let alone relate to, Christ as King.

Other churches across the globe also celebrate Christ as King today, although for most of them this is the last Sunday before Advent rather than the third Sunday of Advent. Why do we do this? If you look at the liturgical calendar, the church year as it is laid out in our Book of Common Prayer, you’ll see that nowhere does the title “Christ the King Sunday” appear. It is simply listed as Proper 29 – the Sunday closest to November 23. The feast was created in 1925 by Pope Pius XI to counter what he saw as destructive political forces in the world, and was originally at the end of October, meant to serve in part as a challenge to Protestants who celebrated Reformation Day at that time.

The O Antiphon, Rex Gentium, is much older than that, dating perhaps as far back as the sixth century. We can go even farther back to see the image of Christ as ruler or king in Scripture –especially in the book of Revelation chapter 15, so well known as part of the text of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.”

Of the seven O Antiphons, Rex Gentium is perhaps the most alien to our experience, the hardest to wrap our minds and hearts around, because it is in some ways the most hierarchical, the one most intertwined with conceptions and misconceptions and worries about power and the abuse of power. We don’t need to watch “The Crown” to know that throughout history, there has never been a monarch, no matter how diligent and humble, who has not struggled with the temptations of power. There has never been a human king without limitations and prejudices, never a human monarch with perfect judgment and foresight, never a ruler who could completely withstand the lure of power. 

Thus we hear God’s condemnation, in our first reading from Jeremiah, of the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of God’s pasture, and the call to raise up a righteous Branch who shall reign as king and deal wisely. And thus we see, if we take Scripture as a whole, that even the most righteous and just kings, such as David, from whose line the Messiah was thought to come, were flawed and weak. Which is why God never wanted Israel to have a king in the first place!

If the reality of human monarchy is so fraught, so dangerous, is it any wonder why we should balk at making even Christ our King? We might argue, as some have done, that the title ought to be discarded; that the “kingdom” should become “kin-dom” or even “commonwealth.” I am sympathetic to that perspective. But if we discard any language of monarchy, we miss the marvelous reversal that happens in the story of Jesus. Jesus as Messiah, as Anointed One, as the Christ, turns human grasping for power and vengeance on its head. We need to be shown that reversal for us to understand the good news that Jesus brings.

This is why we are hearing a part of Luke’s Passion narrative this morning – Jesus on the cross. It is jarring, at this point in our liturgical year, to be wrenched back to Holy Week; it is jarring, and necessary, and so deeply true. 

The soldiers at Jesus’ crucifixion mock him, sneering at the idea that this pitiful, helpless man could be in any way a king. Jesus has nothing that humans expect a king to possess – neither a palace nor power nor pleasure; no means of keeping himself or his subjects safe. And this, my friends, is exactly the point.

Humans will always struggle with how to wield power justly and mercifully. Even diehard champions of democracy can succumb to the romance of monarchy, or the less romantic idea that if our party just held the power, we would do better. Whether in politics or in the church, it’s hard not to want to be the ruler, just for a little while.

Jesus on the cross shows us what to do with those impulses. Where rulers (even democratic ones) insist that violence is sometimes necessary to protect the public and deter criminals, Jesus refuses retribution. Where political leaders are more interested in retaining power than in speaking truth, Jesus will not save himself by telling others what they want to hear. Rather than wield power over human beings, Jesus manifests kingship by putting himself into the hands of those who are abusing their own power. In so doing, Jesus is embodying what God’s reign ought to look like. 

This is a king who rejects violence, even when it might seem justified. A king who shows us what it looks like to forgive, who refuses to let his own suffering hold him prisoner behind the bars of resentment and hatred. A king who puts himself into the hands of those whom he could control, and by doing so destroys the power of death.

This king exposes the brutality of this world, rather than participating in it. And in doing so, he reveals what his reign, the reign of God, looks like. He reveals what we hope for, not only in Advent, but every day of our Christian lives. It is the reign of God that is the focus of our Advent season, a focus for which the birth of Jesus is merely the beginning. 

Christ’s reign does not need a royal family; it does not need pomp and circumstance to preserve its public image. Christ’s reign does not impose from on high, but transforms from within. Our king puts himself into our hands, seeking to break the power of our petty vengeances and our abuse of what little or great power we have. 

He puts himself into human hands – not only on the cross, but here at the altar. The throne is not gold, but flesh and blood – we hold out our hands, open, in the semblance of a throne, so that Christ’s body may be placed in our palms. As we take Christ’s body into our own, he claims us for this reign of forgiveness, mercy, justice, and righteousness, so that, even now, as we wait, we are able to participate in the new world of God’s own making.

May we be made strong with all the strength that comes from Christ’s glorious power, a power that is not power over but power with. May Christ dwell in us, so that through us God may reconcile all things to Godself, and all people to one another. May this be our Advent hope, now and always.