34th Sunday of the year – Feast of Christ the King
Jesus, the Suffering King
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I remember in the early 1990’s, being driven around some tea estates in Limuru-Kiambu area not far from Nairobi in Kenya, and being told by the driver that some of that prime land belonged to the then president. And I remember a verse from the Bible popping up in my head. The verse was from 1Samuel 8:14, “This is what the king who is to reign over you will do… He will take the best of your fields, your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his officials.” It is not surprising that the three families that have fielded the presidents for Kenya, feature among the ten richest people in Kenya. And in terms of land-ownership, the family of the first president leads the list (it is estimated that they possess some 500,000 acres of land)! They are closely followed by the family of the second president of Kenya. And ranking third in landownership in Kenya is the third president of the country.
These are some of the notorious kings of today.
It was to challenge kings such as these that the feast of today was introduced by Pope Pius XI in 1925. It was a warning against the totalitarian governments of the 20th century. It was a statement against the situation of Europe between the two World Wars. Today it remains a statement against the politicians of our world who have lost their conscience. They need to be inspired by the king who hangs on the cross. We all need to be challenged by HIM.
The Suffering King of the Jews
The gospel text of today (Lk 23:35-43) tells us that the placard that was affixed to the cross to point out to the crime of Jesus, read: “This is the King of the Jews.” All the four gospels are agreed on this interesting detail (Mt 27:37; Mk 15:18; Lk 23:38; Jn 19:14). In short, Jesus was being killed in the Roman way because of treason: he was accused of calling himself “King of the Jews”. But this was only a false accusation. Nowhere in the gospels do we find a text where Jesus made an explicit declaration like: “I am the King of the Jews.” All the gospels tell us that this question featured very strongly in the trials of Jesus. So how did he get entangled with this title, and to the point of getting crucified on account of that?
We need to look at a little bit of the history of the “King of the Jews”! After the great Exodus from Egypt and entry into the Promised Land, the people of Israel were governed by the Judges. The Judges were wise leaders who did not wield extraordinary political powers. They did not have a standing army, for instance. If they led armies it was ad hoc, only to overcome a particular situation of aggression. They did not have big palaces. This was also due to the fact that people of Israel were nomadic during those years. But their history takes on a different turn when the people request for a king, as we read in the first book of Samuel, Chapter 8. God warns them through Prophet Samuel, of the dangers of having a strong monarchy. But the people of Israel say, “No! We are determined to have a king, so that we can be like the other nations, with our own king to rule us and lead us and fight our battles” (1Sam 8:19-20). Now the problem with this crucial transition is that until up to this point in the history of Israel the supreme position of God Yahweh is not threatened by any human authority. The Judges were administrators and the Prophets were inspirers. There was no conflict in leadership. But the people of Israel make an explicit choice to have a human authority.
So. they were given a king. That was Saul (1Sam 9:2). Saul’s reign was disappointing (1Sam 15:11; 31:24). So, they were given David. The time of David was marked by many conquests and they did see Israel emerging as a powerful nation. David was followed by Solomon. This was the golden era – alliances are being established, temple is built, history is being written. But this was short-lived. Soon after Solomon there is a division – the Northern kingdom of Israel and the Southern kingdom of Judea. In short, the history of the monarchy for the people of Israel was a big frustration. But the prophets give hope! They remind the people of Israel: We were not faithful to the covenant, but God is faithful (Joel 2:13; Hos 4:1). Yahweh will re-establish the kingdom. He will bring us a king (Jer 23:5-6) who will re-establish the reign of God among us, and he will be the anointed one (Dan 9:3-27, especially verse 26). This was the origin of the figure of the messiah – the anointed one, which, in Greek is rendered as ‘the Christ’. So when Jesus claimed to be the anointed of the Lord (Lk 4:18), it was not difficult for the people to associate him to the expected king in the line of David. To add to this Jesus often spoke about a kingdom, even if he called it ‘the Kingdom of God’. Surely, Jesus was being misunderstood. It was too late to defend himself, even when he said explicitly in front of Pilate, ‘Mine is not a kingdom of this world…” (Jn 18:36).
The King of our Hearts
If we look at the temptations of Jesus that appear early in the synoptic gospels (Mt 4:1-11; Mk 1:12-13; Lk 4:1-13), and more spread out during his public ministry in the gospel of John (Jn 6:30-31; 6: 15; 7:3), we see Jesus making a discernment about his kingdom and what type of a king he is going to be. Jesus has the possibility to be ‘the king of spade’ – using his power to overthrow his enemies. He does not choose this way. He has the option to be ‘the king of diamond’ – using the possibility to possess the whole world and to buy people. He does not give into this. He has the opportunity to be “the king of club”– to use his power to perform miracles to preserve himself. He sees this as a temptation. Jesus discerns that the will of his father is that he be “the king of hearts.” He will have to usher in the Kingdom of God through love, by appealing to the hearts of people – a kingdom that will not be brought through revolution, but through the evolution from within through the conversion of hearts. Now, this is going to take time. It will be a slow process. It entails pain and even death. He opts to be the “Suffering Servant”. And that is why, as the gospel text of today describes, he ends up as a king who hangs on the cross.
In this, Jesus challenges the ‘kings’ and kingmakers of today. He challenges us today.
It is interesting to note that the dialogue between the two criminals, who were Jesus’ companions in his last moments, raises this conflict once again – the conflict between what the people thought Jesus’ kingship was and what Jesus himself had chosen to be. The so called “bad thief” becomes the spokesman for the people: “If you are the Christ (the King of the Jews) save yourself and us as well.” He has a very shallow – problem-solving – approach to kingship and salvation. Jesus does not solve problems. And salvation is not the end of human suffering. The “good thief”, on the other hand, understands the role of Jesus in this world more clearly. Jesus does not save us from human limitations: legal sanctions for our faults, from suffering, and from physical death itself. Jesus gives us hope. He provides meaning to our human lives. Therefore the criminal surrenders his heart to Jesus. He makes a choice to be part of the real Kingdom of God. And Jesus assures him: “Indeed, I promise you, today you will be with me in paradise.” I think, this is what the feast of today invites us to: to surrender ourselves to the loving reign of God, to make a choice to be part of the Kingdom of God, to be free from the tyranny of power, possession and pleasure.
Let me conclude with a story from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali. (Tagore was an Indian poet, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. In fact, Poet Yeats wrote the introduction to the English translation of Gitanjali!). To me, the following story captures very powerfully the core of the feast of today: Christ the King stretches out his hand to request our own hearts, so that together we can establish the Kingdom of God:
I had gone a-begging from door to door in the village path, when thy golden chariot appeared in the distance like a gorgeous dream and I wondered who was this King of all kings!
My hopes rose high and methought my evil days were at an end, and I stood waiting for alms to be given unasked and for wealth scattered on all sides in the dust.
The chariot stopped where I stood. Thy glance fell on me and thou camest down with a smile. I felt that the luck of my life had come at last. Then of a sudden thou didst hold out thy right hand and say ‘What hast thou to give to me?’
Ah, what a kingly jest was it to open thy palm to a beggar to beg! I was confused and stood undecided, and then from my wallet I slowly took out the least little grain of corn and gave it to thee.
But how great my surprise when at the day’s end I emptied my bag on the floor to find a least little gram of gold among the poor heap. I bitterly wept and wished that I had had the heart to give thee my all. (Repeat last sentence. Reference: Chapter 50 of Gitanjali).