A Sermon for Proper 29, Year B

 

My Kingdom is not from here.

On the small table in my office, I keep an olive wood carving from the Holy Land that Judith gave me as a 25^th ordination anniversary present last year.  I’ve put it out on a stand here in the front of the Church today so you can see it more closely as you come forward for Communion. 

In the carving, Jesus is kneeling, with a pitcher and towel at his side and a basin on the ground in front of him.  Facing Jesus, a disciple – Peter, perhaps --  sits in a chair with one foot extended over the basin.  

The scene, of course, is the familiar footwashing story we re-enact on Maundy Thursday:  Jesus, the Lord and Master, washing the feet of his followers like a slave.  I know of no better illustration of Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel:  My Kingdom is not from here.  My Kingdom is not from here.  When was the last time you saw a king or a president or a governor or a CEO or anyone else of power, authority and social prominence kneel -- kneel ­­– in front of an ordinary working person, and wash his or her feet?  That just doesn’t happen in our world.  Its no wonder that Pilate struggles to comprehend what kind of King Jesus is.  Pilate knows how power works in this world – and to see Jesus as a king is puzzling to Pilate, if not absurd. 

My Kingdom is not from here, says Jesus.  Indeed. 

Where then is Jesus’ Kingdom from?  Throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of having come “from above” --  a way of saying that he has come from God.  Jesus’ Kingdom, the Kingdom that is not from here, is from above, from God.  And yet we find the One who has come from above down on his knees, washing Peter’s feet.  If the One from above, from God, washes feet like a slave, what does this say about God?

At the very least, it says that God’s power is utterly unlike the power we are familiar with in this world.  As Jesus tells Pilate in today’s Gospel, if his Kingdom were from this world, his followers would have battled the temple police to prevent his arrest, as the followers of the powerful in this world impose their will by force.  

But the power of the God from whom Jesus comes is different.  The God from whom Jesus comes from does not intimidate, pressure or manipulate.  The God from whom Jesus comes from does not exercise power by control, compulsion or violence. 

This is hard, very hard, for us to get our heads and hearts around.  We are so used to the sinful, coercive exercise of power that we project it onto God without even being aware of it.  God, we think, is just bigger and more powerful than the rulers of this world -- ”The Man Upstairs,” we say – and, as a child the 60’s, I recall how “The Man” meant those in authority who use force.  We are just grateful that God seems to have our best interests at heart, mostly.  

So we don’t get what Jesus means when he says,   My Kingdom is not from here.  We don’t get that the power of God is not the power that works by force or intimidation or manipulation.  We don’t get how radically different God’s power is from what we know of power in this world.  

God’s power is the power of love.  God’s power is the power that changes people not by making them behave differently but by moving them to become different;  the power of love that transforms human beings not by control, compulsion or violence but by generosity, graciousness and service;  the power of love that turns the world upside down and makes all things new.

We don’t get the reality of God’s power, God’s love, maybe, until we see the King on his knees, washing feet.  Or maybe we don’t get it until we see, really see, the King stretched out on a cross with nails through his hands & feet, and a crown of thorns on his head. 

I said earlier that I  know of no better illustration of Jesus’ words that his Kingdom is not from here than footwashing -- but it is, of course, even more evident on the cross, Jesus’ ultimate act of generous, gracious, serving love.  If footwashing has more power to convey that truth to us than the cross, it may be because we have seen the cross so often – and so often have made it beautiful, like the brass cross behind our altar, not the ugly, shocking reality it was -- that we have gotten, sadly, used to it:  

used to seeing the One from above mocked by his executioners;

used to seeing the One from God bound and powerless, as the world knows power;

used to seeing the King dying a slave’s death.

Yet it is in the cross that God’s power of love is fulfilled, fulfilled so that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under Christ’s most gracious rule in the Kingdom of God’s love.[1]

I had thought to end this sermon by telling you how followers of the One whose Kingdom is not from here are supposed to live – but I don’t need to say that, because you know that already.  You know that we are, as best we can by God’s grace, to live in the power of love, not coercion;  that we are to give, to serve, to be generous and gracious, to get down on our knees and wash the feet of those whom the world thinks unimportant.  You know all that.

I want, instead, simply to leave you to contemplate the foot-washer and the crucified, images of the One whose power is the power of love.  Contemplate those images --  and pray that you, that we all, may be faithful followers of the King whose  Kingdom is not from here.

 

The Rev, Jack Zamboni

November 22, 2009