Let me begin by saying that I shudder in horror with my Jewish friends as I first read the exact words of this passage not thinking about the context.  Pilate tells Jesus, ”Your own nation”(which is Jewish), “and  the chief priests” (who are Jewish) “have handed you over to me.” He is saying  “The Jews are responsible that you are going to be killed.” Part of Jesus’ response includes his statement “If my kingdom were of this world my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.”

Please let’s remember together: Jesus’ grandparents, his mother, Jesus himself and all his disciples as well as the women travelling around with him were Jewish. Until a woman (!) challenged him, he thought his mission was only to the Jews.

Jesus was a Jew, with a radical quarrel with institutional Judaism as it was. I hear him calling everyone, including the religious establishment, then as well as now, to a passionate God-surrendered kingdom creating justice for all and inclusion of all. He was against smug, self-satisfied “religious” people participating in a domination system that stripped 90% of the people of their land; against the people colluding with the Roman occupiers in their political oppression; against those colluding in local, Roman and Temple taxation; against economic exploitation and usurping of land, and very against justifying it all with religious language. The Temple had become a seat of secular power, no longer God’s spiritual dwelling place.

The Jesus I hear in our passage is an enlightened Jewish son of God steeped in the Jewish mystical and prophetic tradition, a visionary calling for a very different kind of Kingdom than the one of the Roman occupiers of the time.

Today is called “Christ the King” Sunday in Catholic and many Protestant churches. So I’d like to think with you about what kind of king is Christ? To what kind of kingdom is he urging us?

Our passage from John transpires on Maundy Thursday. Let’s go back a few days and look with Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan at their description of the first day of this week, in their book The Last Week.

It is the first day of Passover, the day we now call Palm Sunday. Many, many Jews will be coming into Jerusalem, and the occupying Romans with their helpers want to keep the Jewish population peaceful and under control. Through the West gate of the city enters Pontius Pilate. He is the Roman governor. Here he comes, followed by ranks of imperial cavalry, soldiers and police. The Roman military wear armor and helmets. They carry weapons and golden eagles mounted on poles. Their banners are flying. Can’t you picture the gorgeous warhorse Pilate is riding! Here is the Ruler with Roman imperial power.

Pilate is also the representative of Roman imperial theology. Epithets for the former Caesar Augustus and the present Emperor Tiberius are:

Son of God!                   Lord!                 Savior!   Bringer of peace on earth!

Roman theology claimed that at death Caesar Augustus ascended to heaven to be among the Gods. His successor, Emperor Tiberius, claimed all the same titles and was the ruler during all the years of Jesus’ ministry.

So here they are.

Now, from the other side of the city, through the East gate, comes some street theater! A peasant, sitting not on a royal war horse but on a donkey. Peasants surround him. They’re cheering, waving palm branches, and throwing their cloaks on the ground so Jesus can ride over them, and cheering “Hosanna! Blessed is the One that comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!”

This king, the prophets have told us, will truly be a king of peace. A king leading and evoking a kingdom for all people. This will not be a kingdom of power manipulating people, but a powerful, non-violent kingdom of equity, love, reconciliation, resurrection, humility, compassion and justice.

This king clearly would upset the kingdom of the occupiers and the colluders upholding the status quo. There would be a transformation of both the society and the religious establishment.

Before we go back to today’s passage from John we need to review a bit and consider the fuller scene in which his story for today is set.

Remember way back with me to Moses at the Burning Bush when God tells Moses that he, Moses, is to deliver the Israelites out of Pharaoh’s Egypt. When God first calls Moses, Moses says “Here I am!” After he gets news of his mission, he asks God “If I come to the Israelites and say “The God of your ancestors sent me to you” and they ask me “What is his name?”, what shall I tell them? God says tell them “I AM” has sent you.

All through John’s  gospel John presents Jesus as “I am.” The new deliverer king:

I AM The Way.  The Truth.         The Life.           The Bread.        The Gate.          The Vine.

I AM the Light that enlightens every person who comes into the world.

Now let’s listen to what transpires earlier in the evening in John 18, several scenes before the passage for today. Roman soldiers and Jewish religious leaders come to take Jesus prisoner. Jesus asks them twice: “Whom are you looking for?” They answer “Jesus of Nazareth!” and Jesus says “I am he.”

Another translation of this is simply “I am.” After Jesus says that “I am” John tells us that the captors stepped back and fell to the ground. This sounds to me like a Burning Bush experience. An encounter with the King of Glory. It sounds to me like they have encountered the Holy One of Being, the I AM.

So now we go back to our passage in John 18. It is Thursday evening. Jesus is before Pilate. Listen as we re-encounter John’s central motif of Jesus as “I AM.”

Pilate asks Jesus “Are you the king of the Jews?”, and later “So you are a king?” Jesus says to Pilate “You say that I AM (King of the Jews).”

I have been a psychotherapist for 30 years for individuals, couples and families and want to share with you one way I see Christ the King – this Christ I AM.

One way I could describe it would be to say, “the existential Jesus” who did his deep inner work in prayer and came to full self-realization. I think this king knows who he is – because of that he has tremendous personal authority and impact. He rings true; he’s authentic. Do some of you love the story from the Gospel of Luke as much as I do? A woman yells to Jesus from the crowd: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!” In his response Jesus jars the status quo in two ways. First, he doesn’t see the woman just as a bearer of children. And second, he is not seeking adulation; he doesn’t allow her to project onto himself her strength and the work she has to do for the Kingdom. He empowers her toward the Kingdom life. He says to her “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” In another part of Luke’s gospel he tells many people “the one who believes in me will do the works that I do and in fact will do greater works than these.”

He is a tough master and King.

He expects a lot of us. His being speaks realms of possibilities for us humans as individuals to become authentic, whole, deeply self-aware and thereby deeply kin to all other human beings.

Another way I would describe this Christ the King, this Christ the I AM, is to say he’s Jesus who has come to consciousness of himself in God and on The Way. Once he had come to his Self he surrendered it to God, for God’s purposes. This is the same kind of transforming work to which each of us is called: to come to our true self and surrender it for God’s Kingdom.

At the very beginning of his ministry Jesus said “the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Repent and believe the good news! Again Borg and Crossan help us. They tell us that in the Hebrew scriptures Repent means “return from exile,” “Go beyond the mind you have.” Therefore, repentance means embarking on a new way. “Believe in the good news”, they say, means trust in the news that the Kingdom of God is near; commit to serving that King, that Kingdom.

For me, Christ’s consciousness, our consciousness of Christ the King requires that we do the deep inner spiritual and psychological work so that we understand who I am. I am what I am. But as I face myself, understanding more deeply what I am, I can choose to be transformed. I can Choose life, choose repentance, turn around, change, forgive, come out of exile and follow Jesus in his Way of being Love, his Way of being a servant leader, his Way of being a King.

Hildegard of Bingen is so joyous about the regalness of humans fully alive in God’s spirit. Her poetry says what I feel about you, precious friends, precious church family. Before I read her invocation, let me wish all of us a joyous New Year in this church, our 115^th. Let me wish all of us a rich, contemplative, simple, happy and kind advent season, welcoming our new liturgical year.