Video will be available after the Sunday service at the YouTube channel of the Central Presbyterian Church, Fort Smith, AR under the Traditional Services playlist.
Audio is here.
John 18:33-37
Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Citizens of Rome called the Emperor, King. Remember that in John’s gospel, when Pilate presented Jesus to the crowd and said, “Behold, your king” they answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” Caesar was king. We call the Roman Empire an empire, but they thought of it as the Roman kingdom.
We have to start here with this reminder to get the full impact of this scene, and of Jesus’ whole ministry. For anyone to call himself king, besides the reigning monarch in Rome or their local laky “king” is to commit high treason.
Jesus’ Kingdom Theme
This was exactly the risk that Jesus took when he made his primary message the proclamation that God was king. Jesus’ central message was that God’s kingdom was a present fact. It was a direct challenge to local king Herod, and ultimately, to King Caesar himself.
Some scholars attempt to highlight that explicit challenge by translating “kingdom of God” as “Empire of God.” Either way, kingdom of God or empire of God, Jesus was making a direct challenge to the local kingdom of Herod and the ultimate kingdom of Caesar.
The Kingdom of God was Jesus’ main theme. From the beginning of his ministry, as Mark’s gospel describes it, Jesus came saying, “Repent (change your thinking) the kingdom of God is at hand.”
Frank Thomas in the Christian Century gathered up this list: Jesus told his followers to “seek ye first [God’s] kingdom and righteousness” (Matt. 6:33).
He told them
“The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you”.
(Matt. 13:11)
“You are not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34).
(Mark 12:34)
“The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you” .
(Luke 17:20–21)
Professor Thomas summed it up by saying, “Luke records Jesus’ words:
“I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because this is why I was sent”
(4:43)
“… Jesus goes through every city and village preaching and demonstrating the Good News of the kingdom of God. Jesus talks about God’s reign more than he talks about anything else.”
The Romans liked to rule their conquered peoples by using their own local kings, which they did, as long as those local kings were willing to be collaborative stooges for Rome. Herod the Great, the king when Jesus was born, was good at it. But when he died, his three sons split up the kingdom among themselves.
The Herod of Jesus’ adult life was Herod junior, named Antipas. His brother, Archelaus, was so bad that he was sacked by Rome. Rome decided to rule directly by appointing a governor, Pontius Pilate, to replace him.
How Much of a Threat is Jesus?
Now, standing before Governor Pilate is Jesus, a peasant from the Galilee region, who has been creating quite a stir. Pilate is trying to get to the bottom of it. How much of a threat is Jesus? He is a mystic and a healer, and so is very popular with the people, but is he more?
He is clearly more. He has made a public procession to the temple, which doubled as the national treasury and bank, the central shrine of this temple-state to which tens of thousands of pilgrims come for Passover.
Jesus had the audacity to shut the whole place down in a public demonstration. Why? What did he hope to achieve? What were he and his people planning next, Pilate is wondering?
Particularly alarming to Pilate is that the crowds who attended that processional parade were chanting slogans that sounded treasonous. According to John’s account, they had shouted,
“Hosanna! (meaning “[God], save, I pray”), Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord—the King of Israel!”
So, standing before Pilate is a person whose whole career has been spent speaking of a kingdom and whose people have called him the “king of Israel.”
Of course, Pilate is worried. Job number one, for a Roman governor, is to tamp down any hint of rebellion among its conquered people. “Tamp down” can, in a heartbeat, become “stamp out,” with deadly force.
So, John tells us that Pilate asked Jesus straight out,
“Are you the King of the Jews?”
which started the famous conversation that ended with Pilate’s question:
“What have you done?”
Pilate knows very well what Jesus has done, literally; but what is he up to that the chief priests want him dead?
Chief priests were in charge of running the temple/bank. By shutting down the temple, at least symbolically for an hour or two, Jesus has demonstrated his opposition to everything going on there.
The chief priests were from aristocratic families who, like vultures, were picking clean the carcasses of the peasants. They were driving them into debt with their oppressive fees, and then foreclosing on their families’ land, leaving them destitute.
You could not be for the people and not oppose that whole system. Jesus was for the people, and therefore he opposed that whole system.
But his goal was not to overthrow that system by force. Maybe that is what the crowds would have wanted him to do, but that was not his way. Jesus completely eschewed violence, even in his own self-defense.
Nonviolent Opposition
But this creates a conundrum. How do you so oppose a corrupt, oppressive system that you are willing to make a public demonstration, as Jesus did, but then not take the next step of attacking it by force?
Jesus’ answer explains it. He told Pilate,
“My kingdom is not from this world.”
Jesus knows that Pilate might not buy that claim; of course a captured revolutionary would say anything to keep his head on his shoulders, so Jesus offers proof.
“If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews (i.e. the Jewish authorities). But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”
The next exchange shows that Pilate is confused. Jesus says he has a kingdom, and is willing to march into the temple/bank and shut it down, but it is not an earthly kingdom: does that make sense? For Pilate, not yet. So he presses the issue:
“Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
I’m not sure we should put a question mark after Pilate’s words, “So, you are a king.” Literally, it says,
“Pilate said to him, (not “asked him”) so you are a king.”
Greek has no punctuation, so there is no question mark available; that’s an interpretation. But taking it as a flat statement makes Jesus’ answer more sensible:
Pilate says: “So, you are (indeed) a king.”
Jesus replies: “You say that I am…”.
Jesus has been teaching that the kingdom of God is present, for those who are willing to receive it; believe it; act on it. The kingdom of God is present wherever and whenever God’s will is done “on earth as it is in heaven, “which is exactly what the Lord’s prayer says.
The proof that it is not like earthly kingdoms is that it eschews violence. If it were an earthly kingdom it would have an army and they would be storming the gates to set Jesus free. There is no army; therefore the kingdom is not earthly.
Earthly Implications of the Truth
But it does have earthly implications. Because getting God’s will done, as Jesus shows us, involves being on the side of justice, being on the side of the oppressed, opposing systems of domination and brutality. It means public, non-violent action.
But the first task is to tell people the truth. Once people understand the truth coming from Jesus’ voice, once they internalize it, then they are free.
“The truth will make you free,” Jesus said.
Decolonizing the Mind
The truth can decolonize your mind. What was Jesus’ truth? That people, all people, everywhere are beloved children of God. All people are cared about by God, more than “the lilies of the field or the birds of the air.” Therefore all people are worthy of dignity and respect.
All people deserve enough food, and a place at the table of equals. That is the truth that can decolonize your mind. There is enough for everyone. There should be justice for everyone.
Today, as much as in Jesus’ day, we need to hear this truth. We hear so often the un-truths that try to mis-define us, in order to manipulate us.
We hear that we are not enough, but that is not true; we are enough, just as we are. We are told that unless we have the newest products, the right body type, the whitest teeth, we are missing something. We are told to think of ourselves, not as mutually related human beings, but as consumers, as if consuming was our purpose and destiny; as if consuming ever constituted the life well-lived for anyone.
Jesus’ truth is that we are more than citizens of Herod’s kingdom or Caesar’s kingdom, we are Christians, citizens of the kingdom of God. Our loyalties lie in a realm higher than the nations of the earth.
No nation can claim our deepest allegiance. For us, all of them are subject to the moral law, and responsible for acting justly.
In our country, even our pledge of allegiance acknowledges that we are one nation, under, not above God.
As citizens of God’s kingdom, we will not carry water for any political party. We will hold all of them accountable to God, whether that is the popular position or not. Our commitment is to enact the truth as Jesus taught us.
We also need to hear the truth that Jesus taught us: that there is hope because we are the people of God’s kingdom.
Therefore, even if the future is uncertain, even if things change, we have hope that God is with us now and will be with us in the future.
We have hope because “the kingdom of God is at hand,” that God our heavenly parent will “give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
We can decolonize our minds from the fear and anxiety that politicians keep serving up, and instead, live in trust and faith.
That is what we are here in church for: to be nurtured and strengthened by Word and Sacrament to listen to Jesus’ voice and to be radically Christian citizens of the kingdom of God.
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