[Sermon delivered at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Phoenix, Arizona on the Feast of Christ the King, the Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, November 20, 2022]
✠ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in Essence and Undivided. Amen.
What I am about to tell you probably runs counter to anything you might hear in a political science class. What we understand as independent countries, nations, and peoples, are just window-dressing, or better yet, an overlay. Regardless of whether lands, nations, and peoples are governed by autocracies, democracies, or oligarchies, whether they rule by fiat or constitution or custom or religious precept, underneath them all runs what philosopher’s call a Zeitgeist, a “Spirit of the Age.” While the political structure is there to provide a day-to-day framework to keep the business of life running, but the underlayment, the Zeitgeist which powers it and encompasses the hearts and minds of all those who live in this world makes we know as, “The Kingdom of the World.”
In contrast, the Israelites in their often-imperfect walk with God came to realize that there was a alternative that did not reflect Zeitgeist. Slowly this concept grew and developed until they realized that opposing the Kingdom of the Word was another mindset, not governed by the “Spirit of the Age” but by the Spirit of God, and they called it, “The Kingdom of God,” and it became clear that the two were in conflict over the same thing, the hearts and souls of humankind.
When two dominions of any sort claim the same thing, conflict arises. That is simple logic. In some cases, compromises and arrangements can often be made to de-escalate tensions, but here there is no such détente. The reason is that both realms are at their very cores incompatible and incapable of co-existence. The issue is that the Kingdom of the World, because it sundered from God a long, long time ago, the God Who is Love,[1] Life, and Light,[2] instead negates these attributes and thus has become subject to Sin, Death, and Corruption, which St. Paul calls the Power of Darkness.[3]
When presented with conflict, each party must address the problem in one of four ways:
Ignore the problem
Embrace the problem
Eradicate the problem
Subvert the problem
The Kingdom of the World and the Kingdom of God are not exempt from this consideration. For each, ignoring the problem is not an effective strategy; it addresses nothing. Embracing the problem is also an impossibility as there is no compatibility between Being and Nothing. That leaves eradication and subversion, and these measures came to a head dramatically about two thousand years ago.
At that time, in what was by all accounts a political backwater, something remarkable happened. The area was a political minefield, nothing unusual in and of itself as there were several such hotspots all over the world at the time. What was unusual is that in that area the Kingdom of God had been concentrating efforts for almost two thousand years to prepare for an event of cosmic significance, that is, the Incarnation of God as a human being to become the corporeal King of the Kingdom of God, a human being which in the words of Jeremiah that we read today was, “The Righteous Branch,”[4] in which St. Paul notes “…all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,”[5] Who Himself proclaimed good news for the poor, release for the captives, sight for the blind, liberty for the oppressed,[6] everything counter to what the Kingdom of the World professed.
The Kingdom of the World did not quite know what to make of this, but it did recognize a threat when it saw one. At first, it tried simple eradication with Herod’s slaughter of the Holy Innocents.[7] Then, since eradication failed so miserably, the Kingdom of the World had its highest-ranking member try to subvert this threat with the Temptation in the Wilderness.[8] This, too, was a spectacular failure.
Not to be outdone, however, the Kingdom of the World put eradication back on the table. This time, as we read in today’s Gospel, a collusion various agencies effectively captured God Incarnate, crucifying Him between two criminals,[9] and heaping humiliating abuse on Him for good measure.[10]
In so doing, they played into the Hand of the Living God, which is a terrible place to be.[11]
When the Power of Darkness pushed the human authorities to crucify Jesus, it made a grave miscalculation. The Crucifixion, far from being a decisive victory against God’s Kingdom, ended up being a Trojan Horse, “to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of His Cross.” [12] Instead of bringing Death into the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of God wrecked the chief weapon of the Kingdom of the World by bringing God into Death. Jesus was not merely another righteous human whose death would at best be normative or at worst the destruction of Humanity’s last hope, but He was the perfect union in His person of both Divine and Human natures. Because of that perfect union between His Humanity, which allowed Jesus to die upon the cross and descend to the Dead, and His Divinity, which cannot be corrupted or destroyed, Human Nature was redeemed from Death and Corruption and restored in the Resurrection from the Dead.
The implications are staggering. The hold of Sin, Death, and Corruption that existed since the Ancestral Sin and had subsequently enslaved Humanity, was broken by the Sinless One. The Enemy’s “big gambit” ended up being instead a cosmic face-plant. A fatal face-plant. The Power of Darkness tried to swallow the Uncreated Light, and in doing began its own eradication. “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever.”[13]
So what does that mean for us in the here and now?
First, we need to stop confusing the Kingdom of God with our earthy political institutions, which are thoroughly entwined with the Kingdom of the World. The United States of America is not God’s chosen nation. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is not the City of God. Russia is not the Kingdom of God. These are allowed to exist by God’s Providence that there be some degree of order in the chaos of fallen creation.
Second, as citizens of the Kingdom of God, we need to work for the welfare of the state in which we find ourselves, but not pin all our hopes upon it. Compare how the Prophet Jeremiah directed the exiled Jews to behave toward Babylon:
“…seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare…Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfil to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”[14]
Like the exiles of Judah, we who are made citizens of the Kingdom of God by our baptism should consider ourselves to be in foreign territory, wherever we are. When we submit to baptism, we join ourselves sacramentally in Jesus’ Death and Resurrection. We literally leave behind our old allegiances and join our natures to the archetype and architect of our faith. In that act we name Jesus as our Saviour, our Lord, and our King. In this new allegiance we make a covenant with Him, a series of solemn vows and promises, leaving behind our allegiances to the old way of life. As members now of the Kingdom of God, we have new outlooks and values that often oppose the outlooks and values of Spirit of the Age. Out of spite, the Power of Darkness, having dropped the big ball, now concentrates on trying to keep us ineffective or even ignorant of the wonderful thing Christ the King has done for us, trying to keep its hold on as many of us as possible.
My brothers and sisters, this need not be so! We must remember that Jesus the Christ has won the decisive battle and has freed us from our harshest of masters. No matter how unpleasant the Power of Darkness makes our lives, we still have the knowledge that nothing it does ultimately matters, anything we do to counter it is never in vain. When we work for the welfare of those around us, we now do so not as cogs in the machine but as free agents of the Kingdom of God.
Jesus is our King; therefore we reject the Power of Darkness, that is, Satan and all those in rebellion against God.
Jesus is our King; therefore we reject everything that corrupts and destroys what God has created.
Jesus is our King; therefore we reject every desire that turns us from God.
Jesus is our King; He is our Saviour from the Power of Darkness.
Jesus is our King; He is the embodiment of God’s love and grace for us.
Jesus is our King, Whom we promise to obey and follow, proclaiming His Gospel, loving our neighbours as ourself, striving for justice, peace, and the dignity of all.
Jesus is our King, who said, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come Lord Jesus![15]
The Power of Darkness does not have a snowball’s chance.
✠ Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, Holy Dominic, and all the saints, Saviour save us. Amen.