Sermon: Christ the King
St Saviour's, Claremont | Licensing of Layministers
21 November 2021 – Archdeacon Mark Long
2 Samuel 23:1-7, Psalm 132, Revelation 1:4b-8, and John 18:33-37; NRSV
I am here today on behalf of the Bishop of Table Bay, Bishop Joshua Louw, to license new Layministers of this Parish, and as Archdeacon to admit them to their Office; and today marks the beginning of a new journey in faith for them, but also for you all as a Parish community. Licensed lay ministry is specific to the liturgical and pastoral needs of the Parish, and those called into this service are nominated by the Rector and Parish Council who attest to their faithfulness, integrity and knowledge. Your Layministers are, therefore, women and men whom you can trust. We are all called through Baptism to share in the ministry of Christ and in Christ’s mission to the world; and it is within this broader call that your Layministers are licensed with the Church’s authority to engage with specific responsibilities in the areas of worship and care.
There are a number of key words that I have used: faithfulness, integrity, knowledge; service, authority, responsibility. These are all words that speak into the nature of leadership, specific today in the context of your faith community, but relevant, too, to our broader social context. The challenge for those of you who are being licensed today is to hold these words, to give them content and context for the ministry and mission of Christ here at St Saviour’s, remembering always that our mission as God’s people lies beyond the walls of this building: it is resident in our families, our social networks, our workspaces, and the broader world in which we live.
As God’s people seeking to live out the ministry and mission of Christ we are called to live differently, specifically we are called to live in opposition to generally accepted social norms particularly when it comes to the use of power. The reality of this call is initially formed in us through our worship and pastoral care, which makes the role you as Layministers will play alongside your Rector in these areas of responsibility so crucial. But what is power? In essence it is the ability to act, a human ability we all have. The important question is are we using this ability creatively or destructively? Are our actions life-giving or life-threatening? And how is power being used both in our community of faith and also in the political and economic structures we participate in daily? How are we learning to use power justly in our times of worship together and in our pastoral care of one another? How is this learning translating into our mission to the world, in ensuring power is used justly in our social, political, and economic environment? And where power is misused or abused, what is our responsibility as God’s people? The answers to these questions are what we grapple with as we engage in liturgy, with Scripture, as we immerse ourselves in the Sacraments, and gather for fellowship. We live out these answers as we reach out to one another and the world with caring and love. And this is why it is so important that those who are licensed to serve with the Church’s authority in these areas of responsibility are people of faithfulness, integrity, and knowledge.
If power is to be used justly, what is justice? In today’s reading from John’s Gospel Jesus speaks about justice in terms of truth: “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.”[1] The context in which Jesus makes this comment is important: the powerful is questioning the powerless, and Pilate’s seemingly innocent question to Jesus is, “So you are a king?”[2] There is nothing innocent about Pilate’s question, he is purposefully needling Jesus; and while I suspect we are tempted to see Jesus responding here with divine authority, actually Jesus is just responding “… with honesty based on his experience as a marginalized individual.”[3] Jesus’ response, “You say that I am a king”[4] and his subsequent focus on truth serves to highlight Pilate’s prejudice, and (that Pilate is playing along with the lies and corruption of his constituents[5] who in this case are the Jewish leadership who have chosen to collaborate with the oppressor of the day, Rome, and have handed Jesus over because everything that he is highlights their betrayal of justice, their betrayal of truth; and they would rather have Jesus crucified than face the truth of their choices. This is a hugely intriguing interaction because Jesus does not exert his divine authority in order to counter the powerplay by Pilate but manages to hold his ground and use the interaction to point to the source of divine authority, to the source of justice: to truth; and we see this in his comment that his “… kingdom is not from this world. … is not from here.”[6] Jesus is not providing a geography lesson here, but rather a lesson in values: “Jesus is saying that the values of his kingdom are different from those of the current system”[7] that has him up on trial for his life. Jesus’ kingdom is not about control, is not about exerting the power of kingship from a worldly or secular perspective; it is about service, it is about entering Jerusalem on the back of a donkey and not on a warhorse, it is about getting down on his knees and washing the feet of those who follow him. Jesus refuses here to play Pilate’s game; if he had Pilate may have set him free instead of Barabbas. What we see here is justice in action, which is not about evading the consequences of injustice, but showing injustice up for what it is. The Jewish leadership in collaboration with Rome, Pilate as the agent of Rome, were all seeking to misuse their power to remove Jesus’ agency, which in essence is what the powerful do all the time. It is the nature of Empire to remove the agency of those conquered, to demand assimilation into the new order, and to crush anyone who seeks to question that order. Jesus amazingly maintains his agency although he will lose his life; in pointing to the truth he ensures that in resurrection justice will ultimately triumph.
My challenge to those of you being licensed today is to explore, together with your Rector, what agency looks like in the context of Worship and Pastoral Care at St Saviour’s, and to be courageous in creating spaces that allow people to discover their power, to use that power justly; to care for people in such a way that the truth of their agency and humanity is not diminished, but increased. Begin by exploring what this means for you as individuals and as the liturgical and pastoral team here at St Saviour’s, what it is to wash one another’s feet. Be cautious of exercising your authority in any manner that may diminish people’s humanity or limit God’s power to act in and through you and in and through others, but avoid false modesty. Embrace your fear, and be the example to others that God is calling you to be, and which the Church affirms through the licenses you receive today.
Hold close the following words by Marianne Williamson (incorrectly attributed to Nelson Mandela),
Let us pray,
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