In the name of the living God: who loves us in all our rainbow diversity.
Coffee group, which has met online over recent months uses this prayer… Thank you for leading us into a time where more of reality is being unveiled for us all to see. I sometimes wonder how thankful we really are! The truth, if that’s what unveiling is, is not always easy.
This word UNVEILED is a translation of the word apocalypse: a great biblical word. UNVEILING/apocalyptic would not be a bad commentary for this Sunday’s readings. This is ‘one heaven and hell’ of a Sunday – I did warn you earlier in the month that in this season we would be faced with our mortality – not only our own individual dyings but the end of all things: Apocalypse Now – things as they truly are; the feast of Christ the King AND the celebration of our Rainbow Community. They belong together.
The best example in the Bible of apocalyptic writing is The book of Daniel….our reading starts off with a picture of power that is reasonably in line with our ‘ordinary’ understanding: the ancient one rules in might, the court sits in judgment and the books are opened… but then an ordinary human being, who looks very like the rest of us, comes and is presented…when the bowing crowds fade away, and the fire and the throne fade away, we wait on this merely human figure…rather as, in the gospel, we pause and wait on Jesus before Pilate. .and that’s it…a cliff-hanger of a reading…a pause, a moment in time. Daniel is famously ‘resistance literature’ and the story will go on to show imperial power defeated by ‘non-violence’. This is how God’s reign will dawn, though the reading doesn’t spell out the detail.
Then, in the Gospel, Jesus actually demonstrates it: always and only in John’s Gospel, Jesus is the one who reigns from the cross… it’s quite shocking and yet it’s central: From the very beginning of the gospel to the end: I when I am lifted up will draw all people to myself, my hour is not yet – but when my hour comes, my throne will be the cross: my kingdom is not of this world, but kingdom it is; and Jesus is in some sense in control of proceedings. (The other gospels do it differently: but it’s always there at the heart of the story – this paradox: to lose your life is to save it.). .In John we have this exchange with Pilate about the meaning of truth…
His persecuted community, the one for which the gospel was first written, is there in the background…not a secret society but an apocalyptic community that will, like Jesus himself, reveal a non-violent way of life and death and the hope of resurrection.
In this telling of the trial we have two pictures of power face to face:
Again that moment of tension and liminality: which way will it go?….this dangerous moment of crisis and opportunity.
If Jesus is king, then Pilate is not… his interest in Jesus is to know whether he is challenging Caesar’s kingship and power, his own authority as Caesar’s rep, the Empire busy enslaving people to build its roads:
Pilate doesn’t feel that secure in this moment: there’s murmuring among the people and he’s in a far outpost; he needs the crowd on his side. If Jesus’ version is TRUE… Then his is an aberration.
The most central fact about Jesus is one that is really hard to get our heads round. … Jesus is modelling the POWER OF LOVE to restructure our entire universe.
And our calling, on this reading, is to be that apocalyptic community which follows the same path. Our experience of the last couple of years – is the unveiling of so many injustices in this city, under our noses, and elsewhere in the distribution of vaccines ……and in those parts of the world exposed to extreme climate change. The unveiling too, of extraordinary generosity and courage and medical skill – and community-feeling. Unveiling is simply truth-telling about reality in so far as we are able; we have all seen it. There are no excuses.
When we put anything ahead of our care and concern and connection with one another and with our universe, we are not following in the ways of the Kingdom which Jesus models. Our community is richly diverse and yearns to celebrate that more and more. It’s good that on the feast of Christ the King – the crowning of the church’s year we remind ourselves that we are a Rainbow people! Of course in terms of sex and gender, of course in terms of ethnicity and race; but we’re not there yet… we are all in there – as I’ve said before, like the rest of the natural world, we are and rejoice to be rambunctiously queer; that is rightly to be celebrated on Rainbow Sunday. It is a part of the unveiling of the truth. But it’s also true that we’ve hardly started on privilege, opportunity and class. The kingdom is now and not yet.
Also here and now in our city is the growing gap between wealth and poverty, our government’s obsession with economic growth at huge risk to the environment, in border controls which tear families apart, in inhuman prison conditions as winter approaches…. All of that is unveiled for us to see.
And Jesus’ only criteria are: how we care for the earth, for the poor, the sick, the immigrant and stranger, the prisoner… That’s where the Kingdom is. Our so-called Christian society does not always measure up on these basic principles… We are to centre those people at the heart of our politics and structure our communities to serve those most at disadvantage. Jesus was not concerned with interior private religion; he was concerned with justice – and the kingdom of Justice.
Powerful forces have structured our nation with the same systemic violence as the Babylonian empire where Daniel is set… and we have colluded.
Jesus’s kingship is not in judgement on individuals but on our society and our collusion. We are called to live the kingdom of God – of NOW and NOT YET – in our society. Creation works best when care of the most vulnerable is prioritised – and when the most vulnerable are at the centre. The trickle down theory that if the richer get richer, then everyone will… has been shown to be rubbish.
This Kingdom of God is one where the neglected are put centre stage – where work is not to make the rich richer but for healing the bent bones and the minds fractured/By life./ It’s a long way off, but to get/ There takes no time and admission/ Is free,….
We should all learn the RS Thomas poem by heart for Advent:
In order to do this, we have to let go of our present way of seeing things.
What if only love has any authority over us? That’s the essence of the gospel. God in Jesus is revealing the key to human flourishing. Communities which tend to the least will flourish. This is central, not secondary, to the gospel. This feast day is an about unveling the love at the heart of the universe.
Covid has unveiled some of the terrible disparities in our society… it has been an apocalypse and this feast day is also an apocalypse, unveiling the love at the heart of the universe. Unveiling is always a bit like taking a plaster off: painful, because truth is threatening to the status quo –but the One who is in our midst and who we will prepare to meet in Advent… is the Way, the Truth and the Life. His presence with us calls everything into question… and of course it takes a lifetime to deconstruct our patterns. I’ve just started to read my Advent book – which is the one Paul recommended to us last week: ‘Seeing Differently’ May this lead to a change of heart that leads to a sea change in the way we structure our society. It’s full of wonderful incremental suggestions for how we can all move in that direction.
At the same time as being the Truth, Jesus is also the Life… which he gives us abundantly. And we are left with God’s project of an unimagined and a peaceful diversity… which is precisely how we are part of creating the abundance for all.
And this is the regular centre of our worship: this extraordinary week-by-week gift of God. By being participants in the Rainbow Community of God’s people, little by little, we are to imagine God’s Kingdom Come on earth, and imagining it and praying for it, to bring it about.
As our poem says: present yourself with /Your need only and the simple offering /Of your faith, green as a leaf…..or rainbow coloured.
Let’s be alert to all that is being revealed to us in these apocalyptic times. Amen
