In 1925 Adolf Hitler published the first volume of his autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf, with volume two following a year later. No doubt he found fertile ground in the imaginations of German extremists who felt that their dreams for power and domination had been betrayed by the treaties and agreements ending the Great War in 1918.

In 1926, 40,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan–which at a membership of over five million was the largest fraternal organization in the United States–marched on Washington, demanding immigration restrictions based on nationality and race. Some of us may think of the Roaring Twenties as a time of jazz, glitz, excess, and bootleg booze, but it had a dark, scary side that may look uncomfortably familiar these days. 

So in response to what he believed was a worldwide trend toward secularism and nationalism, Pope Pius XI instituted the feast day of the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, which calls for Christians to acknowledge Christ’s kingship over all of Creation regardless of national boundaries, following Christ first and foremost over any other authority. 

I don’t know about you, but for me this requires some unpacking. Having seen American Christianity hijacked by a White Christian Nationalist movement that has cast Jesus as a gun-carrying straight white American man; having seen the rise of theocracies in Afghanistan and Iran that have crushed the rights of women, and seeing the theocratic tendencies within our own political system that not only permit but encourage toxic masculinity—have you heard the latest MAGA battle cry, “Your body, my choice”?–, I worry about a declaration–that ironically originated in an institution that practically defines patriarchy—asking for my unquestioning acceptance of its declaration of Christ as a king.

I didn’t grow up under a monarchy. I grew up learning the history of our rebellion against it. My understanding of earthly kings is counter to my understanding of Jesus as a poor dark-skinned Jew who touched lepers and taught about love and justice. And from what I’ve seen about most holders of great power and how they treat people with less power—especially people of color, the poor, women, the disabled, immigrants, queer and transgender people—I struggle with a feast day that cloaks the Jesus I love in the imagery of limitless power, wealth, and domination. Because when we think of kingship in this way, we run the risk of seeing God this way as well. And we’re seeing how that turns out. We may envision Christ as Shepherd, Child, Judge, Healer, Teacher, Word, Savior, Creator and yes, Mother, but unless his crown is made of thorns, I struggle to envision Christ as a king. 

And maybe that is where we may begin to come to terms with this day; to realize that God’s definition of kingship came first—and humans have just mangled it beyond recognition. So what is ours to do? To remember what the kingship of God looks like, and to learn how to live into that vision.

How do we do that? Begin by looking back a bit.

Long before the Holy See’s 1925 declaration there was a Negro spiritual called “Ride On, King Jesus,” first published in 1867, but by that time well known among enslaved Black people as part of their oral tradition. It was not a song decreed by patriarchy; it was a heartfelt cry of faith from the hearts of the downtrodden; a declaration from the depths of their being that the hard road that they were on would someday lead to the throne of Christ, their King. 

Ride on, King Jesus, no man can-a hinder him!

Ride on, Jesus. You know what it is to be sold for silver, beaten, ridiculed, and killed. And yet you ride on through it to resurrection and freedom. Ride on, King Jesus, liberator and savior, no human power is greater than you.

Or, as Joshua Maria Garcia has succinctly put it, “If Christ is King, then no one else can be.” 

No one can hinder him.

This is the king that stands quietly before Pilate in today’s Gospel lesson.

Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

This scene is part of a larger drama that unfolds at the headquarters of the governor, wherein Pilate shuttles between his interrogation of Jesus and his queries to the crowd awaiting his verdict outside. As a representative of Roman power he is chiefly concerned with keeping the peace in Jerusalem, and the restless crowd concerns him; the Temple authorities are stirring up bloodlust for Jesus, regardless of the fact that Pilate can’t find anything under Roman law with which to charge him. 

“What has he done?”, Pilate asks. 

“If he weren’t a criminal we wouldn’t have brought him to you,” is the crowd’s tautological reply. 

“Judge him according to Jewish law,” he says. 

“But we’re not allowed to kill him, and you are,” they respond.

Pilate returns to the interrogation room. He challenges Jesus:

“So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

In the following verse (inexplicably left out of today’s reading,) Pilate asks, 

What is truth?

Stephen Fowl writes in Christian Century that in earthly power dynamics truth is less a high moral concept than it is an instrument; the politician’s desire, for example, to speak the truth–or not—as a way of furthering or foiling political goals. We’ve come to think of truth as the results of fact-checking versus what Mark in last week’s sermon called “the dark arts of mis- and disinformation.” Every day we ask, like Pilate, “What is truth?” and find the answer astonishingly elusive in these polarized times. But Fowl writes that the truth of which Jesus speaks is not an instrument to be manipulated:

[Truth] does not serve to support Jesus’ power or authority. Instead it is the decisive identity marker of Jesus and his followers. They are “of the truth” rather than ‘of the world.’”

This is something new; Truth as identity. Fowl continues: 

“…this is a very different version of politics. It is a kingdom based on truth that can make the citizens of this kingdom holy… Yet even as we’re wary of false holiness, we must also recognize that holiness is one of God’s deepest desires for us… God’s call to holiness is an invitation to love what and whom God loves… This is clearly not a politics of those who belong to the world.”

In the world, but not of the world, loving what and whom God loves, this is the definition of Beloved Community whose citizens are called to be followers and imitators of a king who is Truth and who bears witness to the truth—truth that is freedom, as opposed to the captivity of lies and manipulation. The truth of the kingship/sovereignty of God is what distinguishes Beloved Community from our clumsy attempts to live together on the world’s terms rather than God’s.

What does this mean? 

For Jesus, testifying to the Truth led straight to the Cross, his kingship made manifest in his crucifixion; his free and costly self-offering, rooted in his boundless love for Creation. 

It’s not impossible to live into this truth–there are actually monarchs in history—Edmund of England and Elizabeth of Hungary come to mind (your homework is to look them up)—and there are saints known and unknown who have sacrificed much, even everything, for the sake of others. And they did it in imitation of Christ the King whose crown is thorns, not gold; whose robe is humility, not domination; whose essence is Truth, not deception; and whose way is Love, not fear. 

So, what is ours to do?

Be courageous in the face of those who would use fear as a weapon.

Be faithful and generous in acts of mercy and justice in the face of those who would harden our hearts.

Speak the truth of a faithful sovereign God to those who would use Jesus rather than follow him. 

And trust in this: If no one can hinder King Jesus, no one can hinder us, either.