Christ the King!

Christ’s Kingship…. In what respect was He and is He the king? How was this understood and misunderstood when He was on Earth and do we belong to His Kingdom today?
As there are many republics across the world, and today Kings and Queens have reduced political clout, the concepts of ‘kingship’ and ‘kingdom’ are increasingly lost on us.
The earliest followers of Jesus used the language of kingship to describe who he was, what he said, and what he did. Every king enjoys a reign, a rule, and a kingdom. Jesus’s very first words of public ministry proclaimed that in him "the kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:15). But as we shall see, his ideas about kingship radically subvert our normal definitions of political power.

At the birth of Jesus pagan magi inquired, "where is he who has been born king of the Jews?" (Matthew 2:2). Their worship of Jesus with extravagant gifts reminds us that Jesus is not only the king of the Jews; he's the king of all nations and peoples. In contrast to our propensity to privilege one ethnicity or people over another, to view one's own people as exceptional to God, and to exclude other people who are different, the pagans from Persia show how king Jesus welcomes all people everywhere.
Whereas the magi worshipped king Jesus, king Herod tried to kill him.
We don't normally associate the birth of a baby with the demise of political power, but Matthew does. His political parody is writ large. Matthew contrasts two rival kings who rule not only over one people (the Jews) but over all the world. This is a baby, says Luke, who would "bring down rulers from their thrones" (Luke 1:52). No wonder that in the 1980s the government of Guatemala prohibited the public reading of Mary's subversive Magnificat — if Jesus is king and lord, then Caesar, Herod, Pharaoh, Pilate, are not lords. Nor are Mammon, materialism, and other 'isms' which try to replace Christ as No.1 in our lives. They are posers to be deposed.

The language of kingship also characterises the accounts of Jesus's death. His "triumphal entry" into the streets of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was a highly symbolic, and deliberately provocative act. It was an enacted parable or street theatre that dramatized his subversive mission and message. He didn't ride a donkey because he was too tired to walk or because he wanted a good view of the crowds. Jesus's triumphal entry was more like a "planned political demonstration" than the religious celebration that we sentimentalise today.
In a bold parody of imperial politics, king Jesus descends the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem from the east in fulfillment of Zechariah's ancient prophecy: "Look, your king is coming to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey" (Matthew 21:5 = Zechariah 9:9).

Jesus was later dragged to the Roman governor's palace for three reasons, all political: "We found this fellow subverting the nation, opposing payment of taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King" (Luke 23:1–2). In short, Jesus died as a politically subversive criminal.
Pilate met the angry mob outside the praetorium, then grilled Jesus alone back inside. "Are you the king of the Jews?"
"My kingdom is not of this world," Jesus replied. "My kingdom is from another place."
"You are a king, then!" mocked Pilate.
"Yes, you are right in saying that I am a king."
Back outside, Pilate then declared that Jesus was innocent. However, the mob hounded Pilate: "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar." Pilate thus found himself sandwiched between angering the mob and betraying his emperor.
He caved in: "Here is your king. Shall I crucify your king?"
"We have no king but Caesar!"
And so human identity is reduced to politics …how like our own age.
Pilate then handed Jesus over and had his soldiers beat, flog, and humiliate him with purple robes and a crown of thorns befitting a man whom he miscalculated was a political failure: "Hail, O king of the Jews!" they mocked.

When Pilate crucified Jesus, he insulted the Jews one last time by fastening a notice to the cross, written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek, that he knew would offend them: "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." They objected, of course: "Don't write 'The king of the Jews,' but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews."
It was too late: "What I have written, I have written," said Pilate. To be sure, with his mockery of the Jews he wrote much more than he ever could have known or imagined (John 18:28–19:22), for later believers would worship this Jesus not only as king of the Jews, but also as "the king of kings" (1 Timothy 6:15, Revelation 19:16), the "king of the ages" (Revelation 19:3), and "ruler of the kings of the earth" (Revelation 1:5).

When Jesus insisted that his kingdom was "not of this world" he didn't mean that it was merely spiritual, or relegated to a future age beyond history or in heaven. Far from it, as his detractors rightly surmised. In its simplest terms, the kingship that Jesus announced and embodied is not of this world in the sense that it is not established here. Imagine what life would be like on earth, here and now, if God were king and not Obama, Medvedev, Kim Jong-il, Mugabe, or Ahmadinejad.
Every aspect of personal and communal life would experience a radical reversal in such a kingdom. The political, economic, and social subversions would be almost endless — peace-making instead of war mongering, liberation not exploitation, sacrifice rather than subjugation, mercy not vengeance, care for the vulnerable instead of privileges for the powerful, generosity instead of greed, humility rather than highness, and inclusion rather than exclusion. The ancient Hebrews had a marvelous word for all this, shalom, or human well-being.

And so in the readings for this week we discover how Jesus is a king who instead of waging war, "he makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire." (Psalm 46:9). Jesus the king welcomes criminals (Luke 23:43). In the mission and message of Jesus, says Paul, God intends to "reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood" (Colossians 1:20). Peace and reconciliation for all of creation are thus signs of the kingdom of God in Jesus.

And where do you and I fit? Are we subjects of this Kingdom?

The Lord's Prayer just might be the most subversive of all political acts: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." If we choose to live and pray this way we have a very different agenda than the world’s agenda… whatever our party political persuasion. Nothing will ever be the same. We have nailed our colours, entered a kingdom, pledged our allegiance to a ruler, and submitted to the reign of Christ the King.

(thanks to Journey with Jesus www.journeywithjesus.net)

pray always without losing heart

According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus told his disciples a parable because they were having problems with prayer. We all have problems with prayer. Jesus disciples were having problems with prayer. That's why Jesus told them this parable.
We have many questions and issues and problems about prayer. Mainly we wonder if prayer is really heard by God. So many of our prayers seem unanswered: We pray for health, but there is still a spot on the X-ray. We pray for peace, but the troops aren't home and the war rages. We pray for doors to open, but they seem to be bolted against us.
We have problems with prayer, but when we look closely, our deepest problem with prayer is that we lose heart. We just lose heart. We lose confidence and trust and hope that our prayers will be heard and answered. We lose heart.
'And Jesus told them a parable that they might pray always without losing heart'. Say it with me...

John Wesley encountered many times of rejection and denial. I picked up a few of these instances from his Journal … paraphrased:
Sunday A.M., May 5:Preached in St. Anne’s. Asked not to come back.
Sunday P.M., May 5:Preached in St. John’s. Deacons said, "Get out, and stay out!"
Sunday A.M., May 12:Preached in St. Jude’s. Can’t go back there either.
Sunday P.M., May 19:Preached in St. Somebody Else’s. Deacons called special meeting, and said I couldn’t return.
Sunday A.M., May 26:Preached on street. Kicked off street.
Sunday A.M., June 2:Preached at the edge of town. Kicked off highway.
Sunday P.M., June 2:Preached in a pasture. Ten thousand came.
If you and I are to get an answer, it may take some action. Consistent, and persistent action! George Mueller, the great prayer warrior, said, "The great fault of the children of God is, they do not continue in prayer; they do not go on praying; they do not persevere!" So..pray always without losing heart'

The story that Jesus told his disciples was about a corrupt and selfish judge. This judge hated people and he hated God.
Unfortunately, appearing in his courtroom was a poor widow who needed justice but had nothing. She had absolutely nothing. She had no money, she had no husband, she had no standing, she had no power, she had no resources, she had nothing. She was so insignificant, she probably couldn't have got justice in a good courtroom with a good judge, but here she was in the courtroom of the worst judge in the land.
Now, did I say that she had nothing? That's not quite true. She did have one thing... note. She had the capacity to be a pest, to annoy. And, when you only have one weapon, you use it. So she annoyed this judge constantly. She shouted aloud for justice in his courtroom: “Give me justice! Give me justice! Give me justice!” She knocked on his chamber doors, left messages on his ansaphone. She probably even put him off his stroke at the Golf Club shouting, “Give me justice! Give me justice! Give me justice!”
Finally, she wore the old judge down. The judge said to himself, “You know, I don't care about justice. I don't care about this widow, I don't like people, I don't like God and I don't care about anybody. But this woman is about to drive me crazy! I'm going to give her what she wants just to get her off my back.”

And that's the story that Jesus told us that we should pray always without losing heart. It's easy to misunderstand this parable, or to fail to see the full picture.

Some may say Jesus wants us to keep our eyes focused on the bad judge. He does tell the disciples, “Pay attention to what this unjust judge says.” And if we pay attention to the judge, well, what do we see? What we see is that, even though he was a corrupt man, at the end of the day he did give the woman the justice that she demanded and needed. So maybe what Jesus is teaching us is that, even though the headlines in the newspaper often show a world of corruption and evil, this is, you know, God's world, this is a world ruled and overruled by a loving and just God, and at the end of the day, there is justice after all. Maybe that's what Jesus wants us to see.
Well, I believe that and I think that's part of it, but I don't think that's not the heart of Jesus' story, because if that's all Jesus wanted us to see, the moral of this story would be, “Take heart. Things are not as bad as they seem.” But the message of this story is “pray always without losing heart.”

OK, maybe Jesus wants us to focus our attention on the poor widow. Did you notice how she went after what she needed? It was, after all, her persistence—“Give me justice! Give me justice!”—that managed to wrangle justice from the unjust judge.

I read a delightful story about Mother Teresa. She went to visit Edward Bennett Williams, a legendary Washington criminal lawyer. He was a powerful lawyer. .. he was the lawyer for Frank Sinatra and Richard Nixon, among others. Williams' biography tells the story of when Mother Teresa visited him because she was raising money for an AIDS hospice. Williams was in charge of a small charitable foundation that she hoped would help. Before she arrived for the appointment, Williams said to his partner, “You know, Paul, AIDS is not my favorite disease. I don't really want to make a contribution, but I've got this Catholic saint coming to see me, and I don't know what to do.” Well, they agreed that they would be polite, hear her out, but then say no.
Well, Mother Teresa arrived.....a little sparrow sitting on the other side of the big mahogany lawyer's desk. She made her appeal for the hospice, and Williams said, “We're touched by your appeal, but no.” Mother Teresa said simply, “Let us pray.” Williams looked at his partner; they bowed their heads and after the prayer, Mother Teresa made the same request, word for word, for the hospice. Again Williams politely said no. Mother Teresa said, “Let us pray.” Williams, exasperated, looked up at the ceiling, “All right, all right, get me my cheque book!”

Maybe that's what Jesus wants: pray like that, pray like Mother Teresa, pray like the widow, cry out, bang on the doors of heaven with insistence.
Well, that's part of it, to be sure. But that's not all of it. If that were the whole meaning of Jesus' story, then the moral of the story would be “Be feisty. Pray always.”

But the message of this story is more...., “pray always without losing heart.”

No, Jesus' story is not finally about the bad judge and it's not finally about the insistent widow. It's finally a story about God and about you and me. This story says, if a poor widow with no standing can finally wrangle justice out of an evil judge, how much more will you—God's own child, the one God formed in the womb, the God who has loved you from the very beginning— how much more will you and I find and know our God who will hear and answer prayer. He says to us, pray always without losing heart, for I will answer.

There's a famous story about a young boy named Frank who was walking along the bank of the Mississippi River and he noticed in the river another boy about his age wrestling with a homemade raft. He said to him, “What are you doing?” He said, “I'm going to take this raft out to that island in the middle of the river. I dare you to go with me!” Well, Frank couldn't resist the dare so he scrambled down the bank and got on the raft. The two boys headed out to the middle of the river but the current was swift and strong. As they approached the island, the raft broke up and sank and they had to swim to the island. And there they were, abandoned on an island, late in the afternoon. Nobody knew where they were. What would they do?
Right at that moment a Mississippi paddle steamer started coming down the river and Frank ran to the edge of the island and began screaming and waving his hands, “Help! Help!” The other boy said, “Don't waste your breath. They can't hear you and even if they could they wouldn't pay any attention to boys like us.” But just at that moment the paddle steamer turned toward the island. The boy said to Frank, “How did you do that?” And Frank said, “Well, there's something you don't know. The captain of that boat is my father!”

Well, the captain of the universe is our father and how much more will He, who has loved us since before we began...how much more will He hear our cry. So pray always without losing heart.

Paul, In that amazing bit of the letter to the Roman Christians (8:31-32) cries out; 'If God Is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own son but gave him up for us all... how will He not also along with Christ, graciously give us all things?
So, people... pray always without losing heart