A Sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Patrick H. Wrisley on Sunday, November 24, 2024

Today is Christ the King Sunday, the final Sunday on the church’s liturgical calendar year. For Christians, this is our “New Year’s Eve” as we wind down the year and peek into the new year with the dawning of Advent next Sunday morning. This liturgical day was established in 1925 by Pope Pius XI, who in the context of growing nationalism and secularism in the shadow of a bloody WWI, wanted to remind people our ultimate allegiance is to Jesus Christ and the reign of God. Pope Pius wanted to impress upon the church a critical message. If people and nations reject the reign of God among us, there cannot be lasting peace in our world.^[1]

Yes, the world did and does need this reminder but sadly the people in the pews are not listening. Just seven years after Christ the King Sunday was established, the Nazi party took over the Reichstag. This happened in a wave of authoritarian right-wing zealotry. Nazism arose for several reasons. It was a reaction to the political, economic, and social changes that occurred under the Weimar Republic in the 1920s. It arose from a deep sense of nationalism after their defeat in WWI and their opposition to communism as well as the fact Germany was forced to pay reparations to the international community after the First World War.^[2] Hitler and the Nazis summarily replaced the Reich of Jesus Christ with the Reich, i.e., the empire, the realm, the kingdom of Hitler and the Nazis.

With the history of the last one hundred years as our guide, we need to reclaim the vital importance of Christ the King Sunday. As members of Christ’s church, we must remember our allegiance is first to God in Christ. This comes before any cultural or political order. And it is in our scripture text this morning we see the seismic clash between the empire and the church. Lest we forget, the words Caesar, Fuhrer, and Lord all mean the same thing. Christ the King Sunday forces us to acknowledge which lord we are going to follow. The deal for you and me is that we have to pick one and only one. Do we choose the side of Empire or do we choose the realm of Christ and the church?

We have left Mark’s gospel and find ourselves in the Passion narratives in John’s Story. Jesus has thus far been betrayed, arrested, beaten, and is now getting paraded about in an atmosphere of carnival. He has stood before the Jewish religious Empire and was found guilty of blasphemy and now he is before Caesar’s Roman Empire to be tried for sedition. We pick with Jesus and Pontus Pilate facing off in Pilate’s headquarters. Listen to the Word of God.

John 18:33-38

³³Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” ³⁴Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” ³⁵Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” ³⁶Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” ³⁷Pilate asked him, “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.” ³⁸Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” 

I love this text. Although Jesus has already gone through a tough night, he still has grit. He is salty and direct towards Pilate and his questions. He is keeping his sense of self all the way to the end of his earthly life. Pilate thought he would deal with a frightened itinerant preacher from Galilee. But he faced a gentle man with nerves of steel. This man would not be intimidated by someone with assumed power. The lectionary compilers cut verse 38 from the reading this morning for some reason. I chose to add it back because people in our country have a hard time understanding this issue.

Pilate’s question, I believe, was one he was asking of himself and not of Jesus. Jesus got inside of his head and Pilate in the atmosphere of carnival asks a self-reflective question to himself while directing it at Jesus.

What is truth?

What is truth? It is a very poignant question for us. This is relevant. The last local and national political cycle has been full of what Late Show host, Stephen Colbert, calls “truthiness.” It is a word he coined in the 2006 election, and it even earned a place in the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. Truthiness is defined as, “A truthful or seemingly truthful quality that is claimed for something not because of supporting facts or evidence but because of a gut feeling that it is true or a desire for it to be true.^[3]

You are enjoying your holiday get-togethers, and you start quaffing down all those lemon bars and apple pies. In your mind, you tell yourself, “These are fruits and fruits are good for you, so I think I’ll have another.” That is Truthiness.

At a cocktail or dinner party, you hear someone say, “There is no climate crisis. The Earth has warmed up and cooled all through history.” That is Truthiness.

FOX News and CNN – all Truthiness.

It seems people in our country have lost their appetite for honesty; it does not seem to matter anymore. If facts do not fit my agenda, I will manipulate the facts just enough to make them plausibly correct…in my mind at least. Truth has been relegated to how we feel or by what opinion we have or share. Who needs facts when we know in our gut what is right?

When the first Europeans landed on this continent, they encountered the Native American Indians who looked different from them and us, so they were portrayed as “red savages.” Since we are Christians, we have this notion of Manifest Destiny on our side to take their land because we got this feeling God told us it was really ours. Truthiness.

The Bible mentions people owning slaves in both the Old and New Testaments. Therefore, some believe it is fine for them to own slaves and treat them like chattel. People were convinced, “We white folk are superior.” This is how many in our country felt and it caused civil war. It was all based on Truthiness.

One commentator writes, “In intellectual terms, we tend to think of truth in terms of reliability and dependableness. In religious terms, it expands beyond this to an unwavering conformity with God’s will so that we think in terms of reality and understanding.” ^[4] Another says, “We want simple answers that bring less stress and less reflection, ignoring the reality of nuance and inconsistency common to human existence. We want the truth that convinces us. We do not want the truth that convicts us. We seek the truth that affirms us. We avoid the truth that challenges us. We want a truth in our own image, not in the image of God.”^[5]

And there you go. Insert the dropped mic.

Christ the King Sunday is a cold washcloth in the face to wake us up. It reminds us that Jesus Christ is the Truth. He points to the Truth and shows each of us how to live in and with the Truth. When Truth is robbed of its personal ethics and responsibility, it becomes Truthiness. Like love, truth is easier spoken about than lived out. Truth demands risk and a cost. Truth is inconvenient and difficult. Truth is not always popular. Truth can be controversial. Truth is ethical and requires an anchor to something solid, dependable, and universal. For people of God, that rock and anchor is Jesus Christ and the way he lived and loved.

Beloved, today is the day we remember our allegiance is to the reign of Christ. It is not the reign of party affiliation, consumerism, Christian Nationalism, or any other -ism. I close with words from the members of the Confessing Synod of the German Evangelical Church. They wrote these words during Hitler’s attempt to make the Church in Germany an arm of the Nazi government. This group of brave Protestant pastors and theologians wrote a declaration on what the church believed and how it should act during those tumultuous times. It is called the Declaration of Barmen. You see, during the 1930’s, many Germans collapsed their Christian faith, their national identity, and military aspirations and rolled it all together into one big package. The Declaration of Barmen stood against that and declared what in the eyes of the Church what truth is. Beginning with scripture, it goes on to make a daring proclamation.

“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6). “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. … I am the door; if anyone enters by me, he will be saved.” (John 10:1, 9.) Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death. We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures, and truths, as God’s revelation.”^[6]

Joshua declared to the Israelites, “Choose this day whom you will serve.” He continued, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!”^[7] 

Church, today is a day we choose whom we shall serve. Shall you choose the Empire of politics, business, and culture, or, shall you choose the reign of Christ our King?

© November 24, 2024, by Patrick H. Wrisley. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls, NY, and not be altered, re-purposed, published, or preached without permission. All rights reserved.

[1] Green, Joel B.; Long, Thomas G.; Powery, Luke A.; Rigby, Cynthia L.; Sharp, Carolyn J. Connections: Year B, Volume 3: Season after Pentecost (Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship) (p. 494). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition. 

[2] See https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-german-churches-and-the-nazi-state, accessed 11/23/24.

[3] See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truthiness#:~:text=truth·%E2%80%8Bi·%E2%80%8Bness,for%20it%20to%20be%20true.

[4] Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 4: Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ) (Feasting on the Word: Year B volume) by David L. Bartlett, Barbara Brown Taylor https://a.co/3LVuF11.

[5] Connections: Year B, Volume 3: Season after Pentecost (Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship) by Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, et al. See https://a.co/3hBOo40.

[6] The Book of Confessions of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., The Declaration of Barmen, 8.10-8.12.

[7] See Joshua 24:15.