The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews is the vicar of St. Hilda St. Patrick Episcopal Church. This sermon was preached using the manuscript below as a response to John 18.33-38a.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today we’re dropped
in the middle of a chapter of John.
We hear this passage
on Good Friday every year.
Jesus has been arrested
and there’s essentially
a dispute over jurisdiction.
The Jewish leaders want Jesus put to death,
but they don’t have authority.
There is back and forth
between Herod and Pilate,
as they sort out who can give the order
if it’s to be given at all.
We find Jesus today in Pilate’s headquarters
and he’s being questioned.
Pilate is caught up in a squabble
that he doesn’t really care about.
When Jesus asks,
“Do you say this on your own
or have others spoken to you about me?”
Pilate essentially says,
“I know nothing about you.
Why are you here?”
And thus we hear this passage,
out of context in the chapter
but in context on this Last Sunday After Pentecost,
celebrating the reign of Christ.
“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.”
Even as Pilate pushes him
Jesus will only talk about his kingdom
but won’t claim the title of king.
““You say that I am 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.”
Pilate, dealing with messiahs weekly,
trying to keep a backwater province under control
even as it seems to be a constant powderkeg retorts
“What is truth?”
On Friday, as Topher and I left Pike Place Market,
I saw a tweet from the Rev. Dr. Emily Heath,
“I don’t know how you can
grab a gun,
[deputize] yourself as law enforcement,
kill a man,
and get acquitted.
I just don’t understand it.”[1]
Understanding how white supremacy
is baked into our whole society
Dr. Heath certainly does understand.
Yet she laments the reality
and longs for it to be different.
A verdict, reached by a jury,
is a found truth.
“What is truth?”
Pilate asked.
Some of us are shocked
others are celebrating
that Kyle Rittenhouse is free.
Many of us hoped
that there would be accountability,
and a lot of us aren’t surprised at all
yet continue to be disappointed.
Death at the hands of police in Kenosha, Wisconsin,
led to the death of people demonstrating that killing,
and their killer is free.
Even a conviction for Rittenhouse
or a conviction this week
in the trials of William Bryan,
And Gregory and Travis McMichael,
won’t bring justice.
Given the state of our criminal-legal system,
and our systems of mass incarceration,
even found truths of guilty
don’t bring justice,
not the justice that Jesus came to bring.
And thus we hear this passage,
out of context in the chapter
but in context on this Last Sunday After Pentecost,
celebrating the reign of Christ.
As we look in this text and look in the world,
we have to look for the Reign of Christ,
the kingdom of heaven breaking in
wherever we can find it.
“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….
You say that I am 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.”
Jesus’ kingdom isn’t of this world
because the kingdoms of this world
are so incurably unjust and corrupt.
Even when we try to get it right,
when we hope we’re doing the right thing,
something is still messed up.
We can’t save ourselves,
even if things get close to right,
there are unintended consequences
and people left in the rubble.
That’s why we have a savior,
a savior and king
whose kingdom is not of this world.
Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords,
exercises glory — especially in John
by willingly being crucified.
His act of power
is an act of self-giving.
He doesn’t call down angels,
and tells Peter to stop the attack
as Jesus is being arrested.
His crown is thorns, not gold,
and he has no scepter.
“You say that I am 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.”
As we come to the end of this liturgical year,
this Last Sunday After Pentecost,
Christ the King Sunday,
Reign of Christ Sunday,
we look to a king
whose kingdom is not from this world,
and we listen for the truth.
As we sit between Kyle Rittenhouse’s verdict
and the verdict in Brunswick, Georgia,
we look to the Cross
as we begin to continue
our work as antiracists.
Canon Kara Slade says,
“…Cross and resurrection
form the point from which we begin —
and from which we begin again.
As Christians,
we are called to the unproductive repetition
of feast and fast, joy and mourning,
within which we are always sustained
by the Body and Blood of Christ
that sustains us toward the banquet that is yet to come
and yet beyond all our reckoning.”[2]
She continues
“This work cannot end with a tidy solution,
but only with prayer.
Ordinary Christian life in ordinary time,
empowered by the Holy Spirit
acting in word and sacrament,
should call us to a constant work of re-vision and repentance,
of comparing the world this is
from the world that God has desired for his creatures —
and from the world that is yet to come as the new creation.
It should call us again and again to our knees,
and then to our feet.” [3]
Whether grieving or celebrating right now,
we follow a savior
whose kingdom is not of this world
because all the kingdoms of this world
are so incurably sinful and corrupt.
As we listen for Jesus’ voice,
we hear that as a truth
to which he’s come to testify.
Christ is risen from the dead
trampling down death by death
and to those in the tombs bestowing eternal life.
Yet God’s reign is not fully manifest.
As we continue our work of re-vision and repentance,
of comparing the world this is
from the world that God has desired for his creatures
we’re called to our knees in prayer
and our feet in action.
Knowing that Jesus’ kingdom is not from this world,
Jesus who never takes the title king,
but speaks of his reign
we listen for the truth
and acknowledge the brokenness that surrounds us.
As we prepare to go into a new liturgical year
and a new round of antiracist work
please turn to page 302 in the red Book of Common Prayer.
Toward the middle of the page:
Do you renounce Satan
and all the spiritual forces of wickedness
that rebel against God?
Do you renounce the evil powers of this world
which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
Do you renounce all sinful desires
that draw you from the love of God?
Do you turn to Jesus Christ
and accept him as your Savior?
Do you put your whole trust
in his grace and love?
Do you promise to follow
and obey him as your Lord?
Amen. May it be so.
[1] https://twitter.com/emilycheath/status/1461761279249555464?s=21
[2] Kara Slade, The Fullness of Time, 129.
[3] Ibid.