John 6:11-15
Christ the King
November 20, 2016
William G. Carter
Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks,
he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they
wanted. When they were satisfied,
he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may
be lost.” So they gathered them
up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had
eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When
the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed
the prophet who is to come into the world.” When Jesus realized that they were
about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the
mountain by himself.
“Those
who seek Christ for something other than Christ himself will find Christ flees
from them,
yes,
the Spirit of Truth flees from them, too.” – St. Rupert
At the height of frenzy during
the recent election season, there was a great new product available online at
Amazon. It was a 100% cotton t-shirt, available in steel gray for the low price
of $24.99. Word is that these were selling pretty fast, especially after each of
the three presidential debates. The sales would also have a good bump after the
latest polls were revealed, or after any news story having to do with e-mail
servers or derogatory words about women or Mexicans.
It was a t-shirt with a message, and
it declared a political preference with perfect clarity: “Jesus for President,
2016.”
Friends tell me that they saw
matching bumper stickers on everything from a pickup truck to a Prius. I
noticed a lot of people making the same statement on Facebook, especially when
it seemed like their favorite other candidate would not win. Some even went as
far as to declare the election wasn’t going to matter at all to them, because
Jesus was their president, no matter who ended up in the White House.
So I thought about this brief
story from the Gospel of John. We have to swap the word “king” instead of “president,”
not a difficult exchange to make. They wanted to make Jesus king, and he
withdrew and slipped away.
In a way, you can’t blame him.
Who would want the job? Really! Especially now. Everything you say is broadcast
continuously. Everything you do is criticized. Opponents crawl out of the woodwork
to oppose you. Old opponents suddenly become your friends, apparently if an
appointment is possible. You can’t even send the second-in-command to a
Broadway show without having the cast stand up and make a speech.
Would you want that? Would you
want to put your family through that? Who would want to become king?
When I was a fourth grader, I
thought it would be pretty cool. You could ride in a limousine and eat whatever
you wanted for supper. Best of all, you could boss everybody around and they
would have to take it.
I remember seeing an old Peanuts
cartoon. Lucy says to Linus, “Do this!” “Do this!” “Do this!” In the last
panel, Linus replies, “You’re right. You would make a good queen.” When you’re
a kid, the possibility of power and unlimited respect seems like a wonderful
thing. But when you see what the job entails, you have to “give up your
childish ways.” Or at least, the rest of us hope so.
They wanted to make Jesus king.
Why? Reflecting on the text, we can think of a number of reasons.
The first is very simple: their
bellies are full. A multitude has just been fed, thanks be to Jesus. Thousands
of people were there, the disciples wondered what to do. Jesus borrows a little
kid’s lunch – five barley loaves and a couple of fish – and five thousand
people are fed.
Everybody was amazed. They had
trailed after him because of all the healings that he was doing; maybe he could
heal them, too. Then he feeds everybody, and the crowd goes wild. They were
saying to one another, “This is the prophet of God!” So they wanted to make him
king.
The reasoning went something like
this, I believe: Jesus is a miracle worker, and if we make him the king, he
will be our miracle worker. We will have whatever we want. Grace will be
gushing out of a faucet. We won’t have to worry about looking for bread. We won’t
have to prepare our own supper. He will just give it to us, if we seize him and
declare him our king.
And Jesus slips away from their
grasp. He doesn’t seem interested in giving people what they want. His mother sneaked
up behind him at a wedding reception and said, “They ran out of wine.” He looks
at her and says, “Woman, what is that to me?” He’s rude to her. As she skulks
away, only then does he turn water into wine. (John 2:1-11) Not because she
asks, but because he chooses to do so.
Likewise, his good friend Lazarus
is dying. They send for Jesus to come, in the hope that he will heal his
friend. What does Jesus do? Don’t know, actually; he sits still until Lazarus
is dead. Then and only then does he go to the tomb and call him out (John
11:1-53). Not because they want him to
do it, but because he chooses to give life again.
I suppose that means nobody is
going to make Jesus king, especially if it’s because they want him to do
whatever they want. No special interest groups to influence the Savior!
OK, fair enough. But they want to
make him king. Because if he’s the king, he can handle everything. That’s what
kings do, right? Not only do they have the power, they have the authority. They
speak the order, they sign the paper, they take charge. They get things done.
The people around Jesus knew
that. They were Jews, they had the story in their Bible. They remembered, from
their own history, how their ancestors went to the prophet Samuel and said, “Why
can’t we have a king? All the other nations have a king. We want a king.”
Samuel said, “You don’t want a
king.” But the people said, “Yes, we do. We want to be like all the other
countries, and they have kings.”
Samuel said, “You don’t want a
king. Kings send your children into battle. Kings take over your fields and
reap the harvest. Kings take a tenth of all that you have, your food and wine
and horsepower, and use it as they wish. Kings steal your daughters and eat
your olives. You don’t want a king.” But the people persisted and complained,
until God said to Samuel, “OK, give them a king.”[1] Let them learn the hard
way.
And do you know something? According
to the history books of Israel, they didn’t have one perfect king. Oh, they
thought the next one would be the right one, but they were wrong … maybe
because all their rulers were men. Yet they never gave up hope, even after the
nation was repeatedly invaded, even after the office of “king” was eliminated. “The
next king is going to be good. He’s going to handle everything for us.”
So Walter Brueggemann, the Old
Testament scholar, reminds us that a big thick book in the Bible is called “Kings.”
The history was so thick that they had to put in two large scrolls, later
called “First Kings” and “Second Kings.” Brueggemann says the real title of
those scrolls ought to conclude with a question mark: “Kings? You call these
kings?”[2]
So maybe we should give up the
vain and silly notion that, if only we put the right person on the throne, they
will give us what we want. Our earthly rulers can’t ever live up to those
expectations. They need our prayers so that they might govern wisely. They need
our prayers because they will ultimately answer to the God.
Yet the people wanted to make
Jesus king. The notion first arises in the first chapter of John. Nathanael, sassy
Nathanael, hears about Jesus and says, “Nothing good ever comes out of the Podunk
town where he’s from.” But Jesus throws it back at him, and then lets him know
that he has observed a lot more about Nathanael than is comfortable. So
Nathanael says, “You’re the king, the king of Israel.”[3] The idea is planted. Like
a seed, it starts to grow. The buzz begins to spread.
By the time we get to chapter
six, the crowd is cheering and surging: they want to make Jesus the king. And
there’s nothing like a crowd, especially when most of them agree with one
another. That’s one of the remarkable reports from our recent election. There were
mass gatherings of people, everybody in agreement. If you speak against, you
might get punched or hauled out of there. And if a huge mob is cheering in
unison, it’s hard to say no.
And Jesus says no. They were
about to seize him by force and make him king. He would have nothing of it.
Maybe if they had read the Gospel
of Matthew, the crowd would have known better. You probably remember the story.
Jesus was in the wilderness, working out the implications of his baptism. The Tempter
came to him and said, “I’m going to give you all the political power in the
world. Just say the word, and the kingdoms of the world can be yours.” According
to Matthew, Jesus said, “Go back to hell where you belong.”[4]
Maybe if they were paying
attention on Palm Sunday. The Gospel of John says it got pretty noisy. The
crowds saw Jesus, they cheered with a victorious Psalm. They called him “king.”
They even cut down palm branches, just like they did when they had a political
uprising against another empire, almost two hundred years before. “This Jesus,
he will be king. He will drive out the Roman army, he will restore the Temple
to its full glory, and then there will be no more PeeWee Football or Travel
Soccer to interfere with Sunday School. We’ll be in charge.”
But - and it’s a mighty big “but” - Jesus climbs
onto a donkey, just like the humblest leader that old prophets ever mentioned.
Because he wasn’t going to be that kind of king.
Maybe if they were listening when
he stands before Pontius Pilate. Pilate says, “So I hear you are a king.” Jesus
says, “Those are your words.” Pilate
said, “I’m no Jew. What have you done?” Jesus says, “My kingship is not from
around here.” So you’re a king? And Jesus says, “For this reason I was born: to
point to the Truth.” Pilate doesn’t get it, any more than the crowd who had
their bellies filled.
In one final, slick move, Pilate
decrees that a sign be placed over the prisoner’s head when they put him on the
cross: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” Some of his enemies complain, “He
isn’t our king.” But Pilate leaves the sign up there, translated into all the
languages of the city. And everybody who passed by wondered what kind of king
he was. All the kings they know don’t get crucified. All the kings they’ve ever
heard about don’t withdraw from the cheers of the mob. All the kings that the
world notices are the ones who love to be in charge.
And yet, Jesus is King. Not
because our bellies are full, but because he already is king. Not because he
gives us whatever we want, but because he is the Source and Destination of our
lives. He is not the king because somebody puts it on a t-shirt, a bumper
sticker, or a Facebook post; his kingship does not originate from human
acclamation or getting a lot of votes. Rather it comes from the love of God
that sends Jesus into a world like this.
I think I know why he disappeared
when the crowd wanted to make him king. It’s because he doesn’t need a crowd in
order to be crowned. He doesn’t need our approval before he grants us life, or
grace, or daily bread. He doesn’t ask our permission before he forgives us or
sends us out to forgive. He doesn’t need anything more than our awakened
hearts, seeking him, loving him, living like him, following him, giving
ourselves for others just like him.
In the words of St. Augustine, “Jesus
is sought after for something else, but not for his own sake.”
So there’s our answer: to seek
him for who he is, and not for what we want him to be. To live for him and not
merely for ourselves. To praise him for his own sake, and to rejoice that the whole
world is held in his crucified hands. To love all the people he loves, and to
trust in his mercy.
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