Christ the King, Year C
Psalms: 46
OT Lesson : 1 Samuel 8.4-20
NT Lesson : Colossians 1.11-20
Gospel: John 18.33-37
Text: Give us a king, like other nations (1 Sam 8.5)
One of the things I love about the Bible is the way its ancient stories turn out to have so much contemporary relevance. Today’s readings are a good example. Samuel had judged Israel wisely for many years, but his sons were no good, and the people didn’t want them to take old Samuel’s place as judge over all Israel when he died. Besides, no one else was ruled by mere judges. They wanted a king, like other nations. We all hanker after change, and often vote for it. We can see all too clearly what is wrong with the present lot, and we are perhaps too easily persuaded that a new leader will solve all our problems. Samuel told them what a mistake they were making, but no, they were determined to have a king like other nations, to govern them and to fight their battles (v20).
Give us a king, they plead. And Samuel knows what a bad decision that will be. Yet he goes along with it under God’s direction. Which tells us something about the way God responds to our prayers. God knew, just as Samuel did, that giving the people a king would be a bad idea, so why didn’t he just say no? We sometimes perceive the God of the Old Testament as a stern, even angry figure, but then we catch glimpses – as we do here – of the same God that Jesus taught us to regard as the loving parent, who will often give us what we really want, if we beg him to do so, even when He knows it’s not in our best interests. The Father in the story of the prodigal son, for instance, will not have been happy to be asked by his younger son for his share of the inheritance. He will have known all too well what the consequences were likely to be, but he gives it to him just the same. And then he prepares to deal with the consequences. Saddened as he is, he never gives up hope, and is ready to welcome and restore his son when he does finally return home.
When the people demand a king, God may regret their folly, but he helps Samuel to choose first Saul and then David to be king, and the Psalms give expression to the continuing hope and prayer that the king will be the channel of God’s mercy and justice. Even when the monarchy has become by human standards irredeemable, God remains present through his prophets to try to steer the king towards a more responsible path. If we really want something, we are taught to ask and it will be given to us, seek and we shall find, knock and the door will be opened. That is after all how a loving parent likes to behave.
The sad thing is that the Israelites want the wrong sort of king for the wrong reasons. Since the days of Moses they have been governed by God-given laws, so that all they have needed is a leader competent to resolve disputes about how the law should be interpreted. Alongside this form of judicial and spiritual leadership, and often united with it in the same person, they have from time to time needed someone to exercise political and military leadership, as Moses and Joshua did, leading the people first through the wilderness and then at last into the promised land. But there was no hereditary succession, and there might be periods when there was no clear leader. In the eyes of the historian writing after the monarchy had led to disastrous defeat and exile, this arrangement made wise provision for the Law itself to be revered as the key principle around which society was organised. But the Israelites hanker after a strong king, not to discern God’s will and lead the people accordingly, but to ‘go out before us to fight our battles’ (v 20). Give us a king like other nations. No wonder Samuel saw such a demand as a rejection of God’s own leadership, and of such leaders or judges as God might raise up.
We observe a similar confusion when Jesus stands before Pilate. Pilate thinks he knows what a king is. A king is a ruler, like the Emperor to whom he must report. When he asks Jesus whether he is a king, there is an ironic sneer in his voice, but perhaps also a hint of anxiety. No doubt Jesus had an inherent personal authority which flowed from his total identification with the truth about God. Pilate was not alone in feeling uncomfortable in the searching presence of God’s living Word, full of grace and truth (John 1.14). The Jewish nationalists rejected Jesus because he refused to pick up their agenda, to go before them and fight their battles, even when they came out in the streets to shout Hosanna to the Son of David. The priests and the scribes rejected him because he would not accept their authority when it conflicted with his understanding of his Father’s will for himself or for others. Remember the consternation which he caused when he restored the sight of a blind man on the Sabbath day – setting his Father’s will, his Father’s compassion, above the rules which purported to determine what he might or might not do on the Sabbath.
Yes, he was a king, if Pilate chose to call him so, but not ‘a king like that of other nations’. Like Samuel, Jesus derives his authority from the truth, the truth about God to which he bears witness. But Pilate wasn’t really interested in the truth if it wasn’t going to solve his immediate problem, get him off the hook. ‘What is truth?’ he sighs.
One of the saddest things about recent events is the apparent triumph of the post-truth society. The outcome of both the Brexit referendum and the American Presidential election seems to suggest that the strident repetition of the populist lies and half-truths your supporters want to hear is a more successful campaigning strategy than telling the truth. You don’t need to work out what you are going to do with power, much less tell the voters, until you have won the election and ‘taken back control’.
Jesus says: Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice (John 18.37). Yes, give us a king, but give us the king who came into the world to testify to the truth. To-day, as we celebrate the feast of Christ the King, we should reject the cynicism of the post-truth society. Rather we should resolve to seek and to defend the truth about God to which Jesus bore witness, and to follow his example in speaking and living that truth, whatever the cost.