We tend to think we know what kingship is and what dominion means. It means obedience and following the rules, if you’re not the king. If you are the king, it means being the source of all the answers and decisions. It means control. No one expects humility or open-mindedness from a king, unless they are an unusually good one, right?

So, when we think about Jesus as king, what does that mean? What does the reign of Christ mean? What does that look like? Feel like? How do we know when its present and when its not?

The gospels are full of stories that point towards what the Kingdom of Christ might be like and what values define Jesus’ Kingdom.

• Healing
• Care for the poor and disenfranchised
• New life
• Forgiveness and reconciliation
• Integrity

Again and again, Jesus showed us what his Kingdom is like and it has very little to do with domination and control. Jesus showed us his Kingdom on the cross, where he experienced the exact opposite of our expectation of a King living out the promise and full reality of his Kingdom.

Jesus was not winning anything in our human sense in that moment, and yet his Kingdom was and is intact on the cross. He doesn’t need to dominate others, because that’s not what his Kingdom looks like. So, he can die on the cross, be mocked with this crown of thorns, and yet his Kingdom is fully intact. He says in our text today, “If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over.”

But that’s not what happened.

Jesus is saying that if my kingdom followed your human rules, if my kingdom could be threatened or even hurt by my physical death, this would not be happening right now.  But my kingdom does not follow these rules. This was, and is, so amply demonstrated by his crucifixion and resurrection.

This feast day called Christ the King Sunday was established between WWI and WWII by the Catholic pope in response to rising nationalism in Europe, such as Italy, Spain, and Germany. Nationalism isn’t the same as patriotism. It is an assertion of one country over another, in dominance and requiring obedience. It’s an inherently aggressive posture between countries, but also generally doesn’t tolerate dissention within the nationalistic state. There’s a requirement to “bend the knee” to the ruling ideologies.

It’s a puffed-out chest, dominating, king-like rule even if there is no king in sight.

The pope at that time was concerned about what he was seeing, so declared this day to be a reminder that Christ is indeed our King, that we are subjects of Christ’s kingdom.

So, what is the Kingdom of Christ like? How do we experience it? What does good citizenship of Christ’s Kingdom look like?

The Bible is full of stories, parables, and metaphors for what the Kingdom of God is like. Stories like the Prodigal Son, the Wedding at Cana, the Good Samaritan, the calling of Moses, the feeding of the thousands, the healing stories, the faithfulness of Ruth, and even Jesus’ walking on water.

All of these stories tell us something about the Kingdom of God. One of the consistent aspects of these stories is that they all involve breaking the rules of humans or even the physics for the sake of love, inclusion, freedom, and wholeness in people’s lives and in societies.

Jesus did not establish a political dominion or even a religious dominion. He did not set up a bunch of rules to follow. Seems to me he was pretty busy breaking rules for the sake of his Kingdom, which was perhaps defined by his new commandment that he did give us – to love one another as he loved us.

And he loved us, in part, by breaking the rules that got in the way of love.

Many of us have stories about experiencing the Kingdom of God, when something different, beautiful, and perhaps transformative happened that defied expectation. I would experience this a fair amount working with people with disabilities where I helped members of the Note-Ables band or the dance troupe go into the community to perform. When typical folks had the opportunity to see the capacity, skill, and beauty of people with disabilities sharing their music and dance, I often saw people dabbing their eyes. Folks couldn’t always explain why they were moved to tears, other than it was just so beautiful and good. From my perspective, the boundaries that normally separate typical folks from people with disabilities came down during those performances, and with that breakdown came a glimpse of the Kingdom.

My favorite story of the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God is the story of the Christmas Miracle in the trenches of the Western Front during WWI. This is the story of English and German troops, all up and down the Western Front, laying down arms, singing carols, helping each other to bury their dead, and playing soccer in no man’s land. They couldn’t see the point of all that fighting they were being made to do. It’s a beautiful story, right?

But at the time, this was not seen as the beautiful inbreaking of the Kingdom of God. This was mutiny. This was a shameful display of a lack of moral fortitude, a lack of love for King and Country and all that stuff. It was cowardice and absolutely horrifying to the powers of the time. After all, they were trying to fight a war, right? So, you can’t have this deeply inconvenient inbreaking of the Kingdom of God going on.

It might just lead to peace.

Also during the Civil Rights Movement, there were plenty of folks who did not see this as a wonderful, if stressful time of God’s action in our world. We may celebrate MLKJr with whole hearts today, but it wasn’t so clear cut back then for everyone.

Even the Grinch who stole Christmas was not pleased with the singing of the Hoos in Hooville on Christmas morning. Eventually he came around, but man was he mad when he first realized that he couldn’t stop the joy of Christmas morning. Thankfully the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom converted his heart to its rightful size of four times larger than his shriveled up raisin heart, right?

This is Jesus’ Kingdom. The one that erodes harmful human rules, limitations, and systems of domination, even when we don’t really like it. And we may not immediately recognize it for what it is, because we may be stuck in Grinch-mode. We may not get it right away, but hopefully we do eventually see the wisdom in the change and see God’s Kingdom breaking in in ways that are beautiful, mysterious, even while they are uncomfortable.  

As citizens of Jesus’ Kingdom, we hold fast to the belief that these moments of love and liberation are more true, more real than our misguided human ways. Some folks believe that when Jesus returns, this time he will bring the armies, lay down the law and judgement, and make us all obey the rules. But frankly, I cannot square this idea of Jesus with the gospel, the Bible,  or with the many examples we all have of God’s Kingdom breaking into our lives and world, bringing liberation, love, and wholeness in its wake. Whatever is to come, I’m pretty confident God’s Kingdom, Jesus’ Kingdom will be full of mercy, patience, love, and tender care.

Today we name our citizenship in the Kingdom of Christ, the kingdom that breaks into our lives with moments of grace, hope, and exquisite love. We are a people who honor a king who died at the hands of political power and in doing so declared a greater power than cannot be consumed by this world, cannot be touched or diminished by the destructive forces in our lives.

Paul, in some of his letters, talks about this allegiance we Christians swear to this Kingdom, Jesus’ Kingdom as foolishness. It is foolishness, in a way, to declare that these moments of peace and love as being more real, more legitimate than our usual realities of our culture, economics, political strife, or even illness and death. It is foolish, because they may just be flashes. The inbreaking of God’s Kingdom may not last that long in the scheme of things.

 And yet we know what we know, because we have experienced it. We have read about the Kingdom in our scriptures and felt our hearts leap and respond. We have seen the promise of God’s Kingdom show up in our lives or in our world in a way that assures us that God’s power will always break human ideas of dominion. Not always how we want it. Maybe not in ways we can immediately recognize. Or on a timeline that we can agree with. Some days it takes a tremendous amount of trust and faith to continue to declare our allegiance to God’s Kingdom in this world, to continue to declare that we are citizens of a Kingdom that is defined by love, mercy, hope, and faith.

And yet we do, because we know in our hearts and souls and bones that the inbreaking of God defines who we are. We are followers of Jesus the King, who shows us the true nature of our world. And this world is indeed good.  

AMEN.  

AMEN