What Kind of King is Jesus

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Please join me in prayer. God our helper, show us your ways and teach us your paths. By your Holy Spirit, open our minds that we may be led in your truth and taught your will. Then may we praise you by listening to your word and by obeying it through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Today's reading is from the Book of Matthew, chapter 25, verses 31, 46. When the Son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at his right hand, come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me. Then the righteous will answer him, lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you? And the King will answer them truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me. Then he will say to those at his left hand, you who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not welcome me naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. Then they will also answer, lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger, or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you? Then he will answer them, truly, I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. This is the word of the Lord. [00:02:35] Speaker B: So as we have heard, today is Christ the King Sunday. And the passage that Nora just Read from Matthew 25 is an account of when Christ the King comes in his glory. But before we get to this text, I want to go back back to the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, back before the birth of Christ. And here we meet another king, a king called Herod the Great. He was not descended from the line of David from which the kings of Judah had traditionally come. He was named King of Judea by the Roman Senate with the support of names you may recognize Mark Anthony and Octavian, who would later become named Caesar Augustus. So Herod was not king by birthright, but with the backing of the greatest power in the world at that time, the Roman Empire. Now a first century Jewish historian named Josephus wrote this about Herod. Herod became king because of the money that he gave the Romans. In other words, Herod bought the kingdom and he kept hold of it through brutality. He ordered the executions of those he feared, those he thought might challenge his rule, even members of his own family, including one wife's grandfather. And he had 10 wives, including one wife's grandfather, her mother, and eventually the wife herself. He ordered the execution of a brother in law and two adult sons. Those are just the ones Josephus tells us about. Herod sent armed troops against those who refused to pay him money that was owed to him. What he wanted he simply took or he bought. He was insecure, tyrannical, and he needed subjects who feared him, but not necessarily subjects who liked him. But Herod didn't want to be forgotten either. And if you visit the Holy Land today, you can't help but come away impressed by one clear fact about this tyrant, the man could really build. You may have heard of Masada, the fortress out by the Dead Sea in the Judean Desert that was his. Caesarea is a city by the coast with a beautiful harbor, buildings, a hippodrome, palaces where Herod would overwinter. That was his. About 3 miles from Jerusalem is a fortress called the Herodium, with an upper and lower palace and a large swimming pool where his brother in law met an accidental death. We are told this is also the site of, excuse me, Herod's tomb, the Herodium that was his and perhaps most magnificently, the temple in Jerusalem. Now when Herod became king, there is a temple standing in Jerusalem. It's the temple we've been hearing about from the Book of Ezra that was rebuilt by the exiles from Babylon. But Herod decided he could do one better and he wanted to refurbish and rebuild the temple. And this is a model of what we think it might have looked like, but the one of the Things that we do have left from the temple itself that Herod built is the so called Western Wall, which is actually underneath the Temple Mount, one of the foundations of the Temple. It's a little hard to see here, but if we were up closer, you could see people at the Western Wall, also called the Wailing Wall. And the stones that to build that, each of those is higher than any one of those individuals standing there. So Herod built. He built to protect himself, he built to impress, and he built to leave a legacy in stone. This Herod was king of Judea when Jesus was born. And he is the king to whom the wise men come and say, you know, we've seen the star of someone who was to be born king of the Jews. Do you know where he is so that we might go and pay him homage? Now, I know they are called wise men, but you do have to question the wisdom of going to a tyrannical, fearful king and asking, where's the one who is actually the king of the Jews to be born? Well, Herod panicked. He didn't know anything about this king except that the wise men called him the one born to be king of the Jews. Which was clearly different than Herod's own status and rank, because he wasn't born to be king of the Jews at all. He had bought the kingdom. And even if this king was only an infant now, what would he grow up to be? Did he have followers who championed his cause and maybe would raise an army against Herod? Herod decided to act and he had all the baby boys who were under two years old killed. He was taking no chances. So Joseph heard of this and he took Mary and Jesus to Egypt. And there they waited out Herod's reign. And when Herod died, we are told he returned his family to Galilee and they settled in Nazareth. And then Jesus waited some more, about 30 years, and finally he appeared on the stage. Is this the time for him to take his kingdom? What would he do? What kind of king would Jesus be? Knowing what we know of kings, kings of Israel, kings of Judah, of Babylon, of Persia, King Herod that we've talked about, we have a pretty good idea of what to expect. If Jesus really wants to be a king, he should raise an army of followers. He should arm them with weapons. He would use force as necessary to establish and maintain his rule over the land and over the people. And like the kings of the Old Testament, like Solomon, like Herod, Jesus should build. He should build temples and palaces and fortresses and walls and cities. So that he would be remembered. If Jesus wanted to be king, there was a ready made script written for him. But Jesus apparently hadn't read the script. Or if he had, he didn't follow it. We might say he improvised. And instead of moving into Jerusalem, the city of kings, he settled in the seaside town of Capernaum. There, on the shore of the Lake of Galilee, he didn't raise an army, unless you call a few fishermen and a tax collector and a couple of others an army you'd want to go to battle with. And then Jesus did another unlikely thing. He started to preach. And what he preached, according to Matthew, was the kingdom of heaven is here. Repent. This means it is time now for God's kingdom to have sway, for God's kingdom to be here. Turn around. Orient yourself to God's kingdom. Get in step with God's kingdom. And as Jesus preached, he also healed those who were ill and sick and suffering with various kinds of diseases. And he taught, and we well know his teaching in parables. His teaching about the law and what it demanded of us. His warnings of coming judgment, his instructions on how to live. No armies, no buildings, no conquest, no visible triumphs. He was calling people to the kingdom, healing those who were sick and teaching them how to live. You have to admit this is an unusual way for a king to establish a kingdom. Just what kind of king and what kind of kingdom was he announcing? We learn something about Jesus kind of kingdom from his teaching in the Gospel of Matthew. His teaching begins with something we have come to call the Sermon on the Mount. And that sermon itself begins with a series of words that we call the Beatitudes, which means blessed. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. The kingdom is not for those who seize power for themselves, says Jesus. It is for the poor in spirit, those who don't have the means or the desire to force themselves into the halls of power. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. The kingdom is not for those who inflict pain and suffering on others, but for those who are quite familiar with it because of their lot in life. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. The kingdom is not for those who seek status and prestige, but for the meek, the gentle, the humble. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. The kingdom is for those who long for what is righteous. That is to say, who long for that which is just and true and good. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive Mercy. In this kingdom, life is turned outward towards the other. This kingdom isn't for those who insist on getting what is theirs, on what belongs to them, on getting even, but on being merciful and gracious. There is an outward flow of action. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. The kingdom is for those who devote themselves single mindedly to God, who put God at the center of their lives, and everything else radiates out from that. They will see God, says Jesus. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. The kingdom is not for those, says Jesus, who destroy lives and land by waging war or stirring up conflict and hostility, but for those who make peace among their fellow human beings. Herod King Herod. Herod the Great, as he is called, and so many other kings like him acted in ways that said it is the strong, the powerful and the rich who would get the kingdom. But Jesus had a different vision of what kind of king God had appointed him to be in his kingdom, and what kind of kingdom he was calling people into. Now, Herod's kind of kingdom is easy to understand. You see it in fortresses, in cities, in buildings, in walls, in power, in displays of grandeur. We get this kind of king. We understand this kind of kingdom. We may even secretly pine for this kind of kingdom, one that is visible, easy to see, there, victorious Jesus. Kingdom is harder to see. It takes faith, trust to see God's kingdom at work in Jesus and his ministry. It takes trust to believe that Jesus promises are true, that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who make peace, who are merciful, that it is those who will enter into God's kingdom. It takes trust to forego vengeance, getting even, getting what one deserves. It takes trust that this is the way of righteousness, the way of God, because this kingdom is so unlike all the kingdoms of the world. It takes trust to commit oneself to the kingdom that Jesus describes and brings. Later on, Jesus had more to say about trust and about the kind of kingdom he was announcing. And in a passage that is probably known to us all, he had this to I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They don't gather into barns or reap or sow, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your span of life. And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don't toil or spin. And yet I tell you that Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of them. And if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not also clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore don't worry, saying, what will we eat? Or what will we drink? Or what will we wear? For it is the Gentiles who seek all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But strive first for the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Now this passage resonates with me and always has, for several reasons. I sometimes called it my life verse. I'm a worrier. And here I find that Jesus gets that. He sees me for who I am, and he doesn't condemn. But he does invite us to a different way of living, a way that moves into the kingdom, a way centered on God, a way that moves us away from worry and into trust. But I confess I still worry. I worry about all those things. Jesus talks about food and clothing, shelter. In January of 2025, in the fire that tore through Altadena, my mom lost her home of almost 50 years. She's 96. What do you wear when it's all burned up, when you have no spare socks? No bathrobe? No sweater? No hairbrush? No Q tips? Where do you live? No house. What will you eat? Your kitchen's gone. What's going to happen to me? How are we not supposed to be anxious about tomorrow? And Jesus says, God knows. God sees. God cares. Trust God. But it isn't always easy to trust. And it wasn't easy to be trusting on January 8th, when we got the first photographs that showed that everything had burned to the ground, that everything was gone. Sure, life is more than food and clothing and houses, but it isn't less than those. And Jesus knows that. He doesn't say, you don't need any of that. You don't need a house. You don't need clothing. You don't need food. He says. Your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. Trust God. God will provide. It's just not easy to do when the fire has taken it all away. There's another reason this passage resonates with me. My husband John and I are bird watchers. And for those of you who aren't or find it an unusual hobby. Please note that there is a clear command of Jesus in the Bible which we are obeying. Look at the birds of the air. And we have seen in our own backyards bluebirds lay eggs, incubate them, feed their hatchlings, teach them to fly. We have seen towhees and goldfinches foraging for seeds. We have seen the hummingbirds tasting the nectar of each flower. And farther afield, we have seen pelicans and terns and gulls and osprey catching fish provided for them. We see that the birds of the air are provided for. So John and I have another claim to superiority in obeying the commands of Jesus. You can join us. We also chase wildflowers, especially in California and the West. In the last 10 years, we have given ourselves seriously to considering the lilies of the field. We have been on the hunt for flowers, commonly known as mariposa lilies. Their genus is Calochortus, which means lovely grass. There are about 75 varieties of mariposa lilies in the western states, and we have now seen them all. And we can tell you that Solomon, in all his glory, is not clothed like one of them. I won't show you all 75, but just consider for a moment the lilies of the field. God clothes them, says Jesus. And yet they are just grass. Grass of the field, Lovely grass. Won't God clothe you? One of the things I find particularly challenging about Jesus words, not to be anxious, is that they were not delivered to people who had an abundance or a surplus of anything, any of the things that he talks about, food or clothing or housing. The people whom Jesus. It has been estimated that in the Roman Empire as many as 90% of the people lived at near or below subsistence level. There's a very small group at the top who don't. The people to whom Jesus spoke were dependent on the success of crops, grain, olive, grapes, figs. They were dependent on the sun and the rain. They share a Mediterranean climate with us. We know something of what it means to be dependent on rain. They were dependent on the success of fishing, on having enough to be able to buy the few goods that they needed, maybe a cooking pot, one jug for water, a tunic or a cloak. They were dependent on their own good health to be able to make a living. When Jesus taught them to pray, give us this day our daily bread, they knew exactly what he meant. Jesus called on them to trust that God would provide the daily bread they needed. And he promised that God would do so. Now, there are other passages in Matthew about The kingdom and Jesus kingship. And I want to return to the one that was read this morning. This passage in Matthew 25 describes a judgment. When the Son of Man, a name for Jesus, comes in all his glory, and when he sits as king on the throne and judges the peoples, what do you think his judgment will be based on? Given what we just read about trusting God, maybe Jesus will say, you there, you really worried about housing. And you, boy, did you worry about clothing. Where was your trust? And you over there, you worried about everything. All you people who just didn't trust me, it's the left hand side for you. Curiously, that's not what Jesus says. Instead, this king divides the sheep and the goats based on how they treated others. Did they see others hungry and feed them? Did they see someone in need of clothing and provide that? Did they see someone sick and take care of them? Did they see a stranger and welcome them? What is so striking and important about this passage is that earlier Jesus had promised that God would provide food and clothing and shelter, even as he had done for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. And on that basis, Jesus had called people to trust God. But in this passage in Matthew 25, Jesus judgment is based on whether his followers provided the very same things to others that he had previously said God would provide for them. And I have to admit, it's always amazing to me how long it took me to see these connections. For years I have read the passage about the birds and the lilies as a call to for practices of prayer and devotion and all kinds of things in order to learn to trust God more fully. And it wasn't until somewhat recently that the link began to impress itself upon me that like it or not, we are inextricably linked to each other. Jesus call to the kingdom is a call to trust God. But it is also always about the people of that kingdom. There is never an exclusively inner or personal rule of this king. Jesus is the king in God's kingdom and he is the king of a people. And we are called to be a part of that people. Jesus had asked, why do you worry about what you will eat? Trust God who feeds the birds of the air to feed you. And then Jesus the judge turned to those on his right hand and said, I was hungry and you fed me. Jesus had asked, why do you worry about what you will wear? Trust God who clothes the lilies of the field to clothe you. And then he said to those on his right hand, I was naked and you clothed me and why do you worry about where you will live? Trust God, who provides nests for the birds of the air. And then he turned to those on his right hand and said, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. If God feeds the birds and provides shelter for them, if God clothes the grass of the field, he will do that for you. God provides. Trust God. But here's the twist. What we trust God for, hospitality, food, clothing, shelter is what we are to provide to others. It turns out that the way that the God of the kingdom provides food and shelter and clothing is through the people of the kingdom. Jesus is not just announcing the coming of a kingdom, he is forming a people. Jesus passion is to call and form a people who will trust God and be trustworthy in their relationships with each other. God's kingdom is what one scholar has called a contrast society. Here, the patterns of behavior aren't turned inward on ourselves. They aren't turned in on what we can get, what we hold. No, our actions are turned outward in generosity, in hospitality, peacemaking, mercy. The patterns of this kingdom are not those of earthly kingdoms, not those of earthly kingdoms, but they are the patterns of God, who is gracious and generous and merciful and makes peace. Jesus says, seek that kingdom. Read that script. Live that script. The goats are sent away from the king's presence because they didn't provide for others. They were not only anxious about what they didn't have, they were anxious about what they had and couldn't let go of it. The sheep who saw the needs of others provided for them. They trusted a generous and merciful God and so have the freedom that goes with trust and generosity. You can think of people who need to hold on to what they have and people who can let it go to others. We have models for what that looks like in this very congregation. We know as a family that after the fire, there were people who, while we were evacuated, welcomed us into their homes and offered shelter and food and clothing. And many of you have been recipients of that and have provided for others who needed that at a time when they didn't have the things that we are promised God would provide. And there you were, providing for us and providing for each other. In this contrast society, people's hands are not opened to grab and to get, but open to give. Jesus doesn't call us to a kingdom of stone and buildings and fortresses, but to the kingdom of God, the kingdom of mercy, gentleness, kindness, peace. So what kind of king is Jesus? Let's be honest. Jesus is sometimes a frustrating king. And this is A frustrating kingdom. Wouldn't it be much easier, much more impressive, just to snap his fingers and wipe away all wickedness and evil and unrighteousness? What are we waiting for? We're waiting for the final unveiling of Jesus kingdom, of his coming and glory. And we discover that when Jesus the Judge comes, when he comes to gathering his people together in his kingdom, he is looking for exactly the kind of people he had blessed in Galilee. The meek, the merciful, the peacemakers, those hungering and thirsting for what is right and true and good. He's looking for the kind of people who commit themselves to God's contrast society to the way that Jesus calls them to live to the kingdom of God. Because Jesus is the kind of king who thinks it is more important that his people live together and relate to each other with love and mercy and forgiveness than it is for him to leave a landscape dotted with fortresses and buildings and even magnificent temples. Jesus is a king who didn't follow the script for what kings should be and what they should do. Maybe we wished he had. Maybe we had wished he had been a king who flexed just a little bit more muscle. It's not always easy to live in trust. Jesus is the kind of king who calls us to trust God. He is the kind of king who from the outset of his ministry, had turned aside from ambition and self seeking to a life lived in humility and meekness. And even as he calls us to trust God, he calls us to be trustworthy. He calls us to be people who can be trusted to be generous and merciful and kind, because that's the way God is. Jesus is the kind of king who doesn't urge his followers to take up arms, to seek vengeance to get what is theirs. He is simply the kind of king who calls us to follow him into God's good kingdom. May God give us the grace to do so. Amen.