Rev. Betsy Aldrich Garland
November 22, 2009
John 18:33-37

Jesus Christ, the Sole Head of the Church

Today – Christ the King Sunday – is the last day of the Christian year. Next Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent, when we begin anew to consider the divine majesty of the universe without and to seek the divine mystery within.

Today’s text opens with the trial of Jesus before Pilate, Rome’s governor in Judea. It’s Pilate’s responsibility to keep order during the Passover in Jerusalem, his job to keep the peace. Jesus’ challenge to the established religious order for the past three years has brought him to this place. The high priest has turned him over. Pilate, a gentile, isn’t interested in the religious issues or Jewish traditions.

But he is in a bind. He knows Jesus is not guilty of overthrowing Rome and setting himself up as king of the Jews. He hears no shouting or running feet in the courtyard, no swords being raised or a rescue underway. Yet he can’t have word getting back to Caesar and his people that he has let things get out of control in Jerusalem. An uprising – which these fanatical Jews might be capable of if stirred up by the temple leaders – will be his political undoing.

Pilate is trapped. The most powerful person in Jerusalem has lost control. He looks for a way out. “What have you done?” he asks Jesus, wanting to know the facts, perhaps a reason to have him crucified. So, is it Jesus who is on trial? Or Pilate? How will he handle this, caught in the middle? “Are you King of the Jews?” “My kingdom is not from here.” “So you are a king?” Pilate asks, trying to get it straight. “You say that I am,” leaving Pilate and us wondering if this was a yes or a no.

“... for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Even in his last hour, Jesus reaches out to Pilate, offers to be, for Pilate, too, the good shepherd that leads to abundant life. Pilate isn’t listening. He who has likely compromised his integrity for ambition many times responds sarcastically, “What is truth?”

This passage about Jesus before Pilate – or Pilate before Jesus – can be addressed on many levels: Perhaps it is about unholy alliances between religious authorities and governmental authorities, or tension between the two. Perhaps it is about two kinds of power, political power and moral power, and their intersection. Perhaps it is about truth and two kinds of kingdoms, a kingdom of the worldly realm and a kingdom of God’s realm, and their conflicting allegiances.

I looked ahead at this text several weeks ago in preparation for today, and I’m compelled to raise the church-state question. This country was founded on the provision of the separation of church and state: The first amendment to the United States Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .” That language goes all the way back to Thomas Jefferson in 1802 when he wrote, “with sovereign reverence,” in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association about the issue. And in 1947, Justice Hugo Black decided that the wall between church and state “must be kept high and impregnable.”

What do you think about such practices as prayer in public schools? A crèche on public property? The Ten Commandments posted on a courthouse wall? Allow them, or not? No matter, they are just the tip of the iceberg. There are more important issues at stake.

In the past several decades, we have seen the rise of the religious right, strident fundamentalism, and hardening of ideologies around matters of personal morality and individual freedoms.

A case in point? We have all watched the recent sparring between Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin and Representative Patrick Kennedy over health care legislation. According to Bishop Tobin, Kennedy’s support of abortion rights is “unacceptable to the Church.” In order for Kennedy to repair his “relationship with the Church” he must “obey the teachings of the Church.”

So I ask you: Is Tobin’s challenge to Kennedy a violation of our Constitutional principle of the separation of church and state? This is not the first time the issue of religion and politics has been raised. Patrick Kennedy’s uncle, John F. Kennedy, when he was running for the presidency of the United States, was faced with opposition based on his being Catholic. On September 12, 1960, he addressed the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, a group of Protestant clergy, on the issue of religion. This is what he said:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote. . . . I believe in an America . . . where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials. . . . That is the kind of America in which I believe. . . . Whatever issue may come before me as president – on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject – I will make my decision in accordance with . . . what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates.

Based on this, we elected John F. Kennedy to be our president.

But today? A lot has changed in 50 years: Evangelicals line up for and against candidates for congress. Mormons pour money into California to defeat Marriage Equality. The Religious Right broadcasts hate on radio. Governor Carcieri vetoes the bill to give domestic partners the right to plan funerals for their loved ones, claiming “a disturbing trend” of the incremental erosion of heterosexual marriage. It’s no wonder young people stay clear of the church!

These are scary times. What has happened to the separation of church and state? What has happened to the expectation that our elected officials will act in the best interests of the electorate? What has happened to our freedom to practice religion – or not, according to our own conscience?

Earlier this week I happened to be sitting next to Rabbi James Rosenberg, recently retired from Temple Habonim in Barrington; we got to talking about this issue. Jim talked about how careful he was in his 40 years as a rabbi not to jeopardize his congregation’s nonprofit status, refraining from endorsing candidates or political parties, maintaining the wall between church and state. It seems not everyone is so concerned. What do you think? We are a democracy, not a theocracy, are we not? We are a government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” aren’t we?

Back to Jesus and Pilate – and truth.

“For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.”

“In the New Testament it is possible to speak of truth as something that is done as well as something that is simply believed or an idea that is thought of,” 1 a theologian reminds us. Earlier in the gospel, Jesus says “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). And now, before Pilate, in the words of another commentary:

Jesus seeks to encounter the real Pilate, the one who in truth is utterly trapped in his desperate effort to stay in control. There Jesus gives himself to be with the true person who is Pilate.
There Jesus invites Pilate to be transparent, to share how it is with him, to utter the truth of his
own life. It is exactly what Jesus does at the beginning of his ministry with the Samaritan
woman at the well. And here in the very last encounter Jesus has with a human being before his death, an encounter that leads to his death, he makes an offer to Pilate. “Everyone who belongs to truth listens to my voice,” says Jesus. 2

This is the Jesus that the United Church of Christ claims is the sole head of the Church. This Jesus, this truth – and to his deeds we testify, to truth lived in speaking truth to power, this truth lived in welcoming the stranger, this truth lived in healing the sick, feeding the hungry, caring for the least of these.

This truth, embodied in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. This Jesus, whose kingdom is not of this world, who comes to us – you and me – when we are afraid, out of control, trapped by life’s circumstances.

This Jesus, who welcomes us, whoever we are and wherever we are on life’s journey.

This Jesus.

Amen.

1. Emilie M. Townes in Feasting on the Word, David L Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Year B, Vol. 4, p. 334.

2. Pete Peery, ibid, p. 337.