Today we are observing the Reign of Christ, or, in somewhat older and more gendered language, the Feast of Christ the King.

Truth be told, the language is not that old. It’s not that old because the feast itself is not that old. We are not observing an ancient feast, we are not observing a feast with deep historical roots in the tradition.
It is, in fact a quite young — indeed a very modern feast. It was only instituted in 1925, by Pope Pious the 9th in response to a growing tide secularism and nationalism.

Perhaps your the kind of traditionalist who perceives some of the weight or significance of this day to be diminished due to its recent institution.
Or, perhaps you’re enough of a Protestant to be bothered by the observance of a papally instituted feast.

Either way, I would like to suggest that this feast is in fact an important one.
Perhaps especially important today —
Today on this last day of the Christian year.
This last Sunday before we move into the season of Advent.
This day on which we are encouraged to offer, with a unique clarity and hope,
the great eschatological affirmation of Jesus’ universal reign.

Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen
An affirmation such as this
on a day such as this —
on the last Sunday after Pentecost,
but also in November of 2015…
It matters.

It matters not just because we conclude the cycle of the church year with a clear liturgical reminder that Jesus is Lord.

But it also matters because our world needs this reminder.
Our world — and not just our church — needs to hear the affirmation of Christ’s Lordship, Dominion and Glory.
I suspect it doesn’t need to hear such an affirmation in precisely this biblical formula
— “glory” and “dominion” are words without much currency these days.
Perhaps our world doesn’t need to hear this affirmation in the peculiar idiom or language of the church at all.
But our world does need to hear it.
It does need to be made aware of or reminded of Jesus’ reign.
If not in our peculiar words, then certainly in our peculiar practices.
The practices of those people who are nurtured by this seemingly archaic speech about lordship, glory and dominion.

Our world needs this reminder because, while words like “lordship,” “dominion,” and “glory” are not used much these days, there is nonetheless
a continued and constant deference to lordship in our world.
a hopeless submission to a certain kind of dominion
and an awe directed to a certain shadowy kind of glory.

As much as our world may have purged itself of the tenants of religion,
it remains haunted by those very absences.

It is as though our world is obsessed with filling those absences with ever new masters, lords, or kings.
— “you gotta serve someone,” as Bob Dylan put it.

Consider our situation today, in the midst of a worldwide refugee crisis and in the wake of the Paris massacres.
The Lord of our world seems to have become fear
— and there is no limit to what will be sacrificed at the altar of fear:
freedom, compassion, love, imagination
The dominion over which the Lord of fear rules is the inhospitable and militarized western state
— which seeks to protect itself at the expense of it’s founding principles.
And the glory toward which our world directs its worship is a strange kind of “peace.” If you can even call it peace. It’s a peace without justice or reconciliation
It’s a peace where the stranger whom we fear has either been confined or eradicated.
— this is the shadowy glory of “sameness.”
Not the full, fearless and universal glory of Christ’s reign.
***
This contradiction between the “Lordship,” “Dominion”, and “Glory” of our world
and that which we proclaim today in the doxological praise of Revelation is the same contradiction that Jesus identified in his encounter with Pilate when he said, “My kingdom is not from this world.”

What he does not say is that “my kingdom is other worldly”
Or “my Kingdom has nothing to do with this world”
but, instead “my kingdom is not from this world.”

That is, “my kingdom does not find its origin, its justification, or its basis in the world as it is.”
A world of fear, violence, and scarcity could not possibly furnish the basis for the fearless, messianic reign of justice and peace.

Jesus thus doesn’t deny his status when Pilate asks him mockingly,
“So you are a King?”
Instead he offers the rather elusive reply: “you say that I am a king.”
He neither corrects nor condemns Pilate’s misunderstanding.
He simply allows Pilate to continue in his ignorance and confusion.

That’s because Pilate here stands in for the whole system of Roman Law — a system which is fundamentally at odds with the new law of love that has emerged in Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom.

And, more to the point, Pilate is precisely the kind of “king” that Jesus is not.
Jesus refuses to allow any analogy to be drawn.
To imagine that they could agree on terms would be to imply that
some other kind of agreement could also be reached
between these radically different paradigms of Lordship, Dominion, and Glory.
It would be the beginning of a political negotiation.

You see, Pilate was the inheritor of a certain kind of biblical tradition that Jesus knew very well: the tradition of the anti-messianic and unjust ruler.
It began with the slavery policies of Pharaoh.
it continued with the Kings of the Canaanite city-states,
Israel itself experienced it when it, against the better judgement of Samuel, demanded a king “like the other nations.”
It reached a peak with kings of the invading empires of Persia, Assyria and Babylon.
It continued into the New Testament period with the colonial regimes of Caesar’s Rome and his vassals like Herod … and Pilate himself.

Jesus, however, summons the more subversive messianic tradition against Pilate’s word games. But he does so subtly, almost playfully…
For, the pagan courtroom was not the place to rehearse the rich history of these scriptural traditions.

Jesus says only enough to confound the judgements of Pilate
“I find no case against him” was Pilate’s conclusion
And to expose the violence of Roman Law.
The same judge who found no fault with Jesus is the very one who has him flogged and mockingly dressed in royal attire.

But it was not Jesus’ words, finally, which shook the world to its core,
It was his life which he surrendered to a Roman cross.
***

Now, let us go from here prayerfully considering what it means to proclaim the reign of Christ in our world —
with our words, perhaps
with our lives, for certain

Against the Lordship of Fear
The Dominion of the militarized state
and the Glory of a world without strangers

Let us proclaim instead,

Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen