The Man Who Would Not Be King

By

Reverend Litton Logan

July 30, 2006

John 6:1-15 (NRSV)

 After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. ² A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. ³ Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. ⁴ Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. ⁵ When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” ⁶ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. ⁷ Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” ⁸ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ⁹ “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” ¹⁰ Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they^£ sat down, about five thousand in all. ¹¹ Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. ¹² When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” ¹³ So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. ¹⁴ When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

¹⁵ When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Sermon:

          These passages of scriptures are a variation of the scriptures we heard read last Sunday from Mark’s Gospel.

          There are, however, significant differences.   In John’s Gospel the feeding takes place at Jesus’ initiative, a little boy provides the fish and the loaves. In addition, in John’s Gospel this supernatural feeding story is a model or an understanding of the Eucharist—the Lord’s Supper. In our story today, the bread of life is offered to all who come in faith to Jesus as the Christ.

          The author of John’s Gospel is intent on giving to his church and his world what he believes is the evidence it needs to demonstrate that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (20:31).  John’s proofs are found in the miraculous signs and works section of his Gospel of which today’s scriptures are a part. 

However, in our story today, after the people are fed they proclaim Jesus a prophet, one like Moses, who provides manna in the wilderness.  The people are amazed that there would be such a prophet possibly the prophet of their expectations right there in Galilee—a backwater and uncouth region.  Later on, following this supernatural feeding, Jesus will reveal himself to be the Bread of Life, which the heavenly Father gives for the life of the world. We will hear Jesus say:

³⁵ …, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

We have all cut our spiritual teeth on the Gospel of John and the understandings that God was in Jesus reconciling the world unto the divine self.  In John’s Gospel, if one sees and understands Jesus, then one sees and understands not only God’s fullest manifestation in human flesh but also God’s divine purpose for humankind. 

However, there is a verse in these passages of scripture that is very troubling.  A verse that highlights not only an ancient problem in the Christian faith but a very modern difficulty as well.

¹⁵ “Jesus saw that in their enthusiasm, they were about to grab him and make him king, so he slipped off and went back up the mountain to be by himself.”

♦

In Rudyard Kipling’s THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW, we find the famous story 'The Man Who Would Be a King.'  In the story, a white trader, Daniel Dravot sets himself up as a god and king in Kafristan, but a woman discovers that he is a human and betrays him.  His companion, Peachey Carnehan, manages to escape to tell the tale, but Dravot is killed.

          John Huston produced an adapted film version of Kipling’s story in 1975 aptly named, “The Man Who Would Be King.”  Huston’s work was faithful to the original story and some people said even clarified and enhanced the story while remaining true to the themes and spirit of the original characters.

Kipling’s story and its film adaptation touch on a basic human truth—we need to believe in something larger than ourselves and to have something or someone as a role model to look up to for direction and guidance in our beliefs.  People need and want to believe in their gods and to have their super heroes

This theme is as old as the hills. In today’s scriptures, we see the people about to seize Jesus and make him a super-hero-king-savior of their own making and expectations. They want Jesus to be the charismatic, priestly-warrior-king-messiah, who will wield God’s might and power and overthrow their oppressors, both Roman and Jewish.  They see the potential in Jesus for him to invert the existing power structures by putting those on the bottom on top and those on top on the bottom. They would make Jesus the personification of their hopes, fears, angers, and resentments. They would make him their king, imbued with their god like qualities.

Later in Jesus’ life, as he stands before Pilate he will indicate to Pontius Pilate that, yes, he is a king but his kingdom is not of this earth.  Jesus’ kingdom is not like the temporal kingdoms ruled by might, power, war, commerce, and subterfuge.  In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ kingdom is of the spirit where in truth, God rules supreme.   It is a kingdom here on earth, in the present, and located in human hearts that are obedient to God’s claim on their lives.   It is not a kingdom that is to come in some supernatural conflagration out in the future.   No, it is here now, inexorably unfolding in the company of the faithful.

In spite of this understanding and centuries of explanations, we modern people would still seize Jesus and make him a king according to our modern hopes and fears.

Religious TV and pop-culture evangelism, use the words, the images and expectations of a powerful genii like Jesus, who will come one day in some supernova event and right all the wrongs, dispatch the wicked to hell and establish the faithful in places of power and luxury.  They paint visions of coercive religious-political power for their devotees wherein people will be forced to buckle and conform to their understandings of scripture and morality. These images may be comforting for the oppressed and vexed in life but according to John, they are not the true visions of the kingdom of God.

I tell you a truth, and please never doubt it, there are those alive in our country today, who given half a chance would establish a form of Christian fundamentalism that would make radical, Islamic fundamentalism look like child’s play. 

Such religious extremes I cite either deny or fail to understand that God’s relationship to this world and to all people is one of a loving Creator-Sustainer-God not some arrogant, benevolent dictator of religious orthodoxy. 

I will share with you another truth; God will not rescue or validate self-serving, human religion.  The real and true God, so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that all who believe in him might be saved in this life as well as whatever awaits us in death.  Therefore, Jesus is the authority of God’s power made known to us in this world through the human capacity to love beyond self-interest not through coercive and strident religion.

Many of the immature Christian ilk preach what is called the gospel of success and prosperity wherein Jesus becomes the genii of wealth and prosperity or at worst some simple-minded, self-help guru.  They evoke the name of Jesus as a talisman or magic incantations to ward off evil or bring about prosperity.   They claim the power of the Holy Spirit as a medium of personal aggrandizement, wealth, and prestige. The practioners of such childishness are nothing more than aspiring sorcerers not Christian prophets, teachers, or preachers. As such, they trivialize the very name of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. Such people reduce the gospel to the absurd, the mundane, and the trivial and the powers of evil are well pleased with them

An example of what I am talking about can be seen on various religious TV programs and in other areas of public media.  Specifically, driving into Oklahoma City eastbound on I-40 one can see a billboard that says, “Jesus is Lord, he has come to set the captives free,” with a reference to Isaiah 61:1.   Underneath this, it says in big, bold letters, “Joe Bob’s Bail Bond” and gives a telephone number.  The first time I saw the billboard I couldn’t believe my eyes, so I got off the interstate at the next exit, circled around, and read it again.  I said to my wife, “Can you believe that thing?”  To which she respond, “Yes, we’re in Oklahoma.” Such childish, profane, and trivial use of scripture disgusts and saddens me.

Immature Christians, who refused to grow in their faith, who choose to remain spiritual children, remind me of the story of little Joey and the preacher:

♦

“Preacher," announced little Joey, "there's somethin' I can't figger out." "What's that Joey?" asked the preacher.

"Well accordin' to the Bible, the Children of Israel crossed the Red Sea, right?"

"Right."

"An' the Children of Israel beat up the Phili-istines, right?"

"Er--right."

"An' the Children of Israel built the Temple, right?"

"Again you're right."

"An' the Children of Israel fought the 'gyptians, an' the Children of Israel fought the Baby-lonians, an' the Children of Israel wuz always doin' somethin' important for God, right?"

"All that is right, too," agreed the preacher.  "So what's your question?"

"What I wanna know is this," demanded Joey.  "What wuz all the grown-ups doin?"

♦

Children in faith, just children.

Then there are those who call themselves the grown-ups of faith, the more sophisticated, mature, and enlighten Christians, who would seize Jesus and make him a political correct, emasculated warrior-social-worker, who champions only the causes of the political and social under dogs in vogue at the time.  They would establish their kingdom of Christian socialism, liberalism, and humanism under his banner and crown him the impotent king of popular consensus. He would become all things to all people and nothing of importance to anyone.

It is this kind of trivialization, cultural exploitation, and immaturity that Jesus sought to avoid that day by heading for the hills.

In light of these two extreme poles in Christianity, is it any wonder that many people to day have lost a true understanding of the power and presence of the living Christ within their lives and the world?  Is it any wonder that the Christ seems to have slipped off to avoid such trivialization and exploitation and headed for the hills leaving many with the “Christs” of their own making?

The “Christs” of culture and political correctness will always forsake us in life’s clutches because they were created out of the stuff of our fears, angers, hatred, power needs, or silly, arrogant cultural perspectives.  Every super-hero leader will have feet of clay and disappoint us in someway or the other in the final human analysis.

Jesus was a man who would not be king.  As such, he disappoints his followers. When they discover his true nature and purposes--they kill him.  Jesus, the man, who would not be king or Christ according to the crowd’s expectation, pays the ultimate price for disappointing his followers and their social and national hopes.

          John writes to a church that is also disappointed with Jesus.  John’s church is sorely disappointed because Jesus has not returned according to their expectations and vindicated them and their faith.  John tells his church that their discounting and minimizing the importance of this world, this life, against some expected one in the future is wrong headed.  He tells them that Christ is here, now, and alive in the lives of those who love God.  John implies that they are living in the now of their eternity with Christ. The kingdom to come is now, it is awaiting its fullness in and through the work of those who claim the power of God and are willing to pursue God’s will—which is to bring all people into the fullest relationship with God and with one another through the power of love. 

God’s kingdom to come will not reach its fruition through religious force anymore than it will by political or military force.  It will come to its fruition when every human being on earth experiences the indwelling power of God to love their neighbor as themselves and to love their enemies as well.

That is where the kingdom of God is and what it is really like.  It is not beyond the confines of time and space, up there or out there, as we know it.  It is not in some parallel dimension or alternate universe.  The kingdom of God is in us, now! It is in our capacity to love and be loved.  What does it look like? Are the streets paved with gold?  Is it one endless, cloudless day.  Is it a place where you can eat and drink all you want and not get fat or drunk?  Tempting as that may sound, the kingdom of God it is none of these things.  If you want to see and know where the kingdom of God is located then look at the person setting next to you, behind you, in front of you.  This is God’s kingdom-- loving human hearts in the loving community of God’s people.  That is were Christ, God’s fullest manifestation in the flesh, wants to live and rule supreme today.

I am amazed at the proliferation of idolatrous, religious empires and systems of belief built by human beings that fail to provide people with the true manifestations of Christ in their lives.  Jesus wants nothing to do with our kingdom building.  Jesus wants nothing to do with our desires to coronate him ruler or justifier of our kingdoms—religious or political.  What God desires is that we coronate God, Lord of our lives and live in this world as Jesus the Christ did, loving God, ourselves, and one another, working for the good of all life on this planet, even if it kills us.

Here what the prophet Micah says:

Micah 6:8 (NRSV)
          ⁸ He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

          and what does the LORD require of you

          but to do justice, and to love kindness,

          and to walk humbly with your God?

We must trust this and stop wasting energy on shallow, self-serving religious enterprises that are nothing more than prideful busy work or our whistling in the dark anticipation of death.

Have faith in God, not in humans, who would make the Christ into their own images and empower him with the energy of their fear, hate, and comforting illusions of immortality.  Let Christ live in us not through religious rules, regulations, convoluted orthodoxies, but in our willingness to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with out God.

♦

A man named Jack was walking along a steep cliff one day, when he accidentally got too close to the edge and fell. On the way down, he grabbed a branch, which temporarily stopped his fall. He looked down and to his horror saw that the canyon fell straight down for more than a thousand feet.

He couldn't hang onto the branch forever, and there was no way for him to climb up the steep, sheer wall of the cliff.  So, Jack began yelling for help, hoping that someone passing by would hear him and lower a rope or something.

HELP!  HELP! Is anyone up there? "HELP!"

He yelled for a long time, but no one heard him.  He was about to give up when he heard a voice. Jack, Jack. Can you hear me?"

"Yes, yes!  I can hear you. I'm down here!"

"I can see you, Jack.  Are you all right?"

"Yes, but who are you, and where are you?

"I am the Lord, Jack.  I'm everywhere."

"The Lord?  You mean, GOD?"

"That's Me."

"God, please help me! I promise if, you'll rescue me, I'll stop sinning. I'll be a really good person. I'll serve You for the rest of my life."

"Easy on the promises, Jack.  Let's get you off the face of this canyon; then we can talk."

"Now, here's what I want you to do Jack.  Listen carefully."

"I'll do anything, Lord.  Just tell me what to do."

"Okay.  Let go of the branch." "What?" "I said, let go of the branch. Just trust Me. Let go."

There was a long silence.

Finally, Jack yelled, "HELP!  HELP! IS ANYONE ELSE UP THERE?"

♦.

We must let go of the “Christs” of our own making.  If we try to make the Christ of God into a savior-king according to our ways of thinking, the real Christ will slip off and leave us with the saviors of our own design.  Moreover, a savior of my own construction is not something I want to face eternity with.  Trust God, let go, let go, of the shifty, changing cultural “Christs” and love your self, love your neighbor and love your enemies, because there isn’t anyone else or any other way up there that works now and eternally.  Is there?