Christ the King 2009 Dt. 17, Ezek.34

Christ the King Sunday marks the end of the church year, even though a lot of us don't mark it with particular force. I always have trouble with the very name, king, in a democratic country. My trouble is really the same trouble as the Scriptures have, because their experience of kingship was rarely positive. More to the point, their leaders consistently failed their faith and their people. As Advent looms, we are asked to think about the kind of world we have and how to get to a better one. This includes a change in individual behavior, but it also depends on changes in the way we organize our live stogether in socieity.

 

The Dt. passage is a prophecy of kingship or an insertion from an age when disappointment with kings became obvious. Kingship started out of imitation and fear of other nations, resulted in empire, then fell into a continual burden on the people. The messianic hope was one where finally a good king would emerge. We can have little doubt that Ezekiel's vision is in the experience of exile. Having seen kings fail over and over, the vision still has reason to hope for a different future. Ezekiel imagines that the new kingship will look out for the public interest, the interest of the whole flock, not just a few. Leadership won't be taken as a license to gain personal advantage at the expense of the public good. It looks toward a time when public servant would be a reality, but here it is God who will intervene to change things for the better. In that way, messianic hope is born of human disappointment and failure..

 

The nature of divine power/rule is not only one type. Just as people in the time of Jesus expected a certain type of rule with a political messiah, we have not changed too much in our expectations. We want God to directly intrude on the political decisions. Instead of being guided by Scripture we mew about putting up big statues of the 10 Commandments. We want God's power to be directed against our enemies and to give us a dose of miracles. If anything, the messiahship of Jesus should show us that it is long past time for us to move away from such a childish definition of power. Divne power gets pictured as help, of rescue. That certainly is advanced by Jesus and healing, but Jesus not not force, coerce, control. God works from all sides of leadership, not only above but along w9ith us, or giving us a prodding from behind.

 

Andrew Carnegie spoke of his philanthropy as doing real and permanent good. for me that is what distinguishes charity from justice. Charity is not permanent but seeks to ease a burden, but justice seeks to eliminate the causes of unfair burdens. Ezekiel's oracle has God detailing the failings of leaders and the insertion of a divine mandate to : strenghten the weak, bind up wounds, seek and save the lost, and keep an eye on the strong or enemy. In other words, god will rectify the failing of the political order to take care of th epeople. Justice arranges the system to prevent the strong from preying on the weak. In so many ways, we live in a more just world. Social Security has its problems but it is a much better set of problems than consigning most of the elderly to poverty. Put differently, leadership, charity, and justice are spiritual issues where private and public meet. The new divine regime will be one where the needs of the public will be matched by private virtues, where persoanl ambition will be wedded to the progress of all of us.