“Not of This World”

John 8:33-37

“O give thanks to the Lord for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.” So says the first verse of Psalm 106. How appropriate those words are on the day of our Sixth Harvest Thanksgiving Celebration. The Lord is good. His steadfast love does endure forever. Giving thanks is our only proper response.

We thank God in many ways: giving him his tithes and our offerings and giving special thank offerings are but two. But how do we best thank God for his steadfast love and goodness? Max Lucado offers this possibility, the act of worship:

“Worship is when you’re aware that what you’ve been given is far greater than what you can give. Worship is the awareness that were it not for [God’s] touch, you’d be hobbling and hurting, bitter and broken. Worship is the half-glazed expression on the parched face of a desert pilgrim as he discovers that the oasis is not a mirage.

Worship is the ‘thank you’ that refuses to be silenced.

We have tried to make a science out of worship. We can’t do that. We can’t do that anymore than we can ‘sell love’ or ‘negotiate peace’. Worship is a voluntary act of gratitude offered by the saved to the Savior, by the healed to the Healer, and by the delivered to the Deliverer.”

We are the saved, the healed, and the deliverer. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who by that mystery we call the Incarnation walked as God among us, is our Savior, Healer, and Deliverer, the living embodiment of God’s goodness and steadfast love. He has saved, healed, and delivered us by way of that mystery we call the Atonement in which he who was sinless died for our sins.

Today’s text from John describes one part of the horrible miscarriage of justice that preceded our Lord’s death on a cross: his confrontation with Pontius Pilate. Pilate knew that the evidence against Jesus was flimsy, that the charges him were false. Part of those charges bothered him not one whit; he didn’t care that Jesus was considered a blasphemer by the Jewish leaders. What he did care about was the charge of sedition leveled against Jesus. He had to make sure that Jesus was not some hot-headed revolutionary plotting to overthrow Roman rule.

Jesus was and wasn’t a revolutionary. Reginald Fuller states that Jesus is not the paradigm of a political revolutionary. In his book The Upside-Down Kingdom Donald B. Kraybill put it this way: “In the gospel accounts we find that Jesus was indeed a revolutionary – of sorts. He did defy the ruling religious, political, and economic powers. His statement that the law of love supersedes the dictates of human institutions made him a revolutionary. But he hardly was a violent one.”

This kind of revolution started by Jesus hardly registered on Pilate’s consciousness. The revolution Jesus led in no way threatened the great and mighty Roman Empire, at least not in terms its leaders could comprehend. This takes us right back to the text and the gist of Pilate’s question to Jesus: “Are you or are you not a king?”

In an expository piece on this text that he wrote for The Interpreters Bible, Arthur John Gossip paraphrased the gist of Jesus’ response to that question: “Not in the sense in which you use the word. But in a deeper sense, yes I am. Only, my kingdom is not over people’s bodies but their minds and souls; and it’s maintained and extended not by violence and force of arms but by persuasion of the truth finding its way from heart to heart and winning for me willing subjects.”

Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is the Prince of Peace, but his Kingdom is not of this world, at least not in terms the world can understand. Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of Jesus’ words make this very clear: “My kingdom doesn’t consist of what you see around you… I’m not that kind of king, not the world’s kind of king.”

Why are we dealing with kings and kingdoms today? This is our Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday, with a focus on thanksgiving. It is also, in the understanding and practice of liturgical Christians around the world, Christ the King Sunday. It is the final Sunday before Advent and then Christmas, seasons that anticipate and celebrate the birth of King Jesus in Bethlehem and his coming again in glory.

Part of what we’re giving thanks for today is that our King is a King of goodness and steadfast love, that his Kingdom is neither limited by borders nor to any form of humanly-conceived system or institution. His is a Kingdom of truth – God’s truth, for he is the living revelation of that truth: “… for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

We who listen to his voice, who belong to God’s truth, are called to worship him in spirit and in truth. We are called to an awareness that what we’ve been given is far greater than what we can give, and out of that awareness offer him our thanksgiving and praise – the thank you that refuses to be silenced. When we bring our tribute to our King – when we give him his tithes and our offerings – we do so as an act of worship. This worship is not coerced. Nobody can force us to worship God or follow Jesus. No one can force us to pay tribute to our Lord. We give what we give as a voluntary response to the steadfast love and goodness of our God. We give it as an act of love to the One who first loved us.

And we do so remembering that this is a love beyond measure or comprehension. How much does our Lord love us? Maybe Paul’s words to the Philippians can help us understand: “… who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.”

Let’s focus for a moment on those words “even death on a cross.” Crucifixion was a death reserved for the scum of the earth. It was a humiliating form of torture and execution. For the Jews of Jesus’ time it was more than that. They understood crucifixion in terms of Deuteronomy 21:23: “… for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse.”

By way of that mystery we know as the Incarnation, our King Jesus emptied himself of all divine prerogatives and became a human being. More than that, he came as the Suffering Servant Messiah – the One by whose his stripes we are healed – and died a humiliating, accursed death. In doing so he carried out that mystery we call the Atonement, and thus became our Savior, Healer, and Deliverer. That is how much he loves us.

And we respond to that love by loving him in return, displaying our love in acts of gratitude and worship. We also display that love by loving one another just as he loves us. We further display that love as we go out into the world to carry out acts of humble servanthood and sacrificial love in his name. Thus we live out God’s truth as citizens of God’s Kingdom.

This Kingdom is universal. Its citizens come in many shapes, sizes, and colors. We speak many different languages. We worship our Lord in a wide variety of ways. We bring him his tithes and offerings in ways that reflect our histories and cultures. We can give in so many ways. Some of us have God’s tithes and our offerings electronically transferred from our personal accounts to those of the church. Many of us quietly and discretely place our money or checks in an offering plate or basket, something we learn to do as children in Sunday school. We sometimes literally and at other times symbolically bring the first fruits of our labors and present them to God, often as we sing and dance to the beat of drums. And as long as we bring these gifts in love as we worship God in spirit and in truth, those gifts, whatever their form, are acceptable to our King.

Our King: the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. He is the King who has transcended Rome’s secular suspicions and Israel’s Messianic expectations. Our King: Today we worship him – and praise him – and love him – and thank him. Maybe quietly and sedately as an act of reverence. Maybe noisily and exuberantly as an act of joy. Maybe doing both. Whatever, let us take seriously the words of that long-ago psalmist:

“Praise the Lord! O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.” Amen.