The recognition of Truth is a matter of awareness, not information

Today is the last Sunday in the Church Year, 

            commonly referred to as Christ the King Sunday.

 

Our devotion wants to honor Jesus as King,

            ascribe to him power and majesty,

            elevate him where before he had been lowly,

            reflect our gratitude and love 

                        for the way he gave himself for us

 

Now, honestly, I just plain don’t like this title of king.

            It’s just not the Jesus I know 

                        either in my own experience or from the witness of scripture.

 

It was only a few Sundays ago, in fact, that we had the story

                                                                        of the disciples James and John,

            asking Jesus about sitting on his right and on his left 

                        when he ascended to that throne as the Messiah King.

And Jesus put them in their places very clearly and firmly,

            letting them know that if they wanted to be on his right and his left,

            then that would put them on their knees with him 

                                                serving everybody else.

 

King is certainly not a title that Jesus ever applied to himself.

Not even when asked directly, 

            such as when Pilate, in today’s gospel reading, asked,

                        “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”

 

Pilate is questioning Jesus to find out if he is making a claim to be king

He asks, “What have you done?”

            meaning what have you done to get yourself arrested,

                        to get into this situation – on trial for your life.

 

Jesus points to two different ways of looking at kingship:

            as the world does, as a political-military ruler,

                        and if so, he would have had attendants/servants/bodyguards

            acting to protect him,

            but that is not where this kingdom is from.

This kingdom is something very different.

 

For an earthly kingdom

            we can think of characteristics of it such as

                        a king ruling autonomously,

                        an up-down power differential,

                        servants waiting on him,

                        and the king having all the wealth.

Jesus then doesn’t look like a king.

            He has no wealth,

            no servants, but instead he acted himself as a servant 

                                    – such as in washing feet.

He had no need for a special status so as to have power.

Instead he expressed a natural, spontaneous authority

            that was far more powerful 

                        than any title or position can give.

 

Jesus’ Kingdom was not an artificial political construct

            with borders drawn on a map,

but kingdom as the reality of God’s creation operating as it naturally does

            without the warped overlay of

                        the imaginations and ambitions of the human heart

 

Kingdom of God/Heaven can be defined as 

“that array of life where the way of being is righteousness 

and is everywhere exhibited, 

it is where everything is living utterly spontaneously.”  

If you live this way, 

then life will respond because you are so ecologically integrated. 

See Isaiah 11, about the Peaceable Kingdom to get what I mean.  

 

Think also of all those parables about the Kingdom of Heaven/God 

            that start with the words: “the Kingdom of God is like…”

 

See how in those parables there are no borders, boundaries, 

            but a limitless expansion of life.

 

AND the kingdom and the King are the same

 

Remember Luke 17:21

“The kingdom of God is not here or there, but within/among you.

 

-       God’s all pervasive self-revelation

-       creation born from the beginning, continuing ongoing creation

 

When Jesus speaks of the Kingdom, 

                                    it is not his own kingdom he is talking about.

It is his Father’s Kingdom, where God reigns,

            and what Jesus perfectly reflects and witnesses to with his whole being.

See the Kingdom of God as all divine, omnipresent self-revelation.

Jesus is a walking parable of the Kingdom of God and how it works.

            

Remember Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying to his Father,

                        “Not my will, but yours be done.”

Jesus as the revelation of the Kingdom, which is liberating love.

 

In Jesus the full will of God is expressed transparently.

 

But Pilate doesn’t get it.  He says,

            “So you are a king?”

And Jesus answered, “You are the one saying that I am a king.”

            BUT for this I was born, and for this I came into the world,

                        not to be a king,

            but to testify to the truth, to be a witness to the truth, to what is real.

Everyone who is of the truth is able to hear my voice, to hear my witness.

            And Jesus puts his life on the line for the sake of testifying to the truth.

Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, 

            as he is described in the reading from the Book of Revelation for today.

                                    Did you notice that?

 

But Pilate, having been put on the spot

            and needing something to pin on Jesus to justify a crucifixion,

isn’t able to hear his witness or recognize the Truth standing right in front of him.

                        You know how Pilate responded to what Jesus said

                        about testifying to the truth -- 

 

                                                Pilate said, “What is truth?” 

 

And that is the main question of the whole Gospel of John:  What is Truth?

 

What is Truth?

 

The answer to this question 

                        will not be found in any academic pursuit,

            because truth is not captured in a grand unified theory

                        or any intellectual understanding,

            but in knowing, in experiencing, in encountering 

                        what is REAL in our lives.

It is a matter of consciousness, awareness, 

            and the realization that comes out of lived experience.

The recognition of truth is a matter of awareness, not information.

 

Jesus said, “You will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free,”

and Jesus, pointing to himself in terms of full realized union with the Father, 

            could then say, “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

 

“Everyone being of the truth hears my voice.”              John, chapter 5

            being of the truth – that is, reality

            hears my voice – experiences that inner recognition

 

Our ideas about the coming kingdom may be very limited!

So we need to look at King Jesus who embodies the Kingdom –

                        which is freedom, abundance,  and life itself.

 

For us when hemmed in by our own frustrations

            over political systems

                        when we see injustice or abuse or exploitation

                        and we feel powerless to change

                                    the human system of government

                                    into something under the Reign of God

            or in our family systems

                        when we would yearn to see greater compassion            

                                    or love or forgiveness or healing or reconciliation

knowing the Kingdom hasn’t come there yet,

then surrender in trust to Jesus,

            the Truth of the Kingdom of God,

            the Living Revelation of the Kingdom.

 

Looking to Jesus putting all things right – shifting our perspective

            until we can see the Kingdom come.

 

Stick with Jesus,

because failure to trust him with your woundedness 

            limits the coming of the kingdom within your awareness

 

So let us praise the King of Glory,

            the Uncreated Light,

            the Word through whom all was created.

 

Let us offer him our hearts and minds and strength and all our being,

and let him work within us

            the healing of our inner deafness

                        so that we may have ears to hear,

            the opening of our eyes

                        so that we may recognize 

            and the expansion of our awareness

                        so that, as the collect for today says, 

“we may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule.”