3rd Sunday after Pentecost Sermon

In October 1986, in Richmond, California, my brother, Mike Stelle, was elected homecoming king at De Anza High School.

Now, to his credit, he was an all-round good athlete and a generally nice person. He was handsome enough in his rental tuxedo and red polyester crown with plastic jewels. Which, I suppose, were adequate qualifications to sit and wave from the backseat of a convertible during the Homecoming parade.

But to be clear, Mike was no royal. Our ancestral pedigree leans largely towards farmers and manual laborers. The only thing that made him “king” was that enough classmates voted for him – a little monarchy of little paper ballots.

But, honestly, how is that different than any other “legitimate” monarchy? I mean, go back far enough, and at some point, some punk – by force or by wit – convinced the populace he should be “king,” and, well, there you are. You’ve got a king.

Enough generations go by, they start breeding with other royals to add legitimacy. Most try to rope God into the scenario, something of a super-delegate in the whole process. The really cocky ones claimed divinity itself.

But beneath it all, a king is a lot of splendor atop a lot of run-of-the-mill humanity.

Kings nowadays (of course) are typically ceremonial and symbolic. We prefer to cede real political power to some form of elected leaders with term limits – presidents or prime ministers.

Some are better than others. That goes without saying. All of them lie somewhere along the whole spectrum of “ego stroking megalomaniac” at one extreme and “wise, capable public servant” at the other. One hopes for options that lean towards wisdom and capability. But there’s never guarantee of that.

Regardless of our options, at the end of the day, we do need political systems and structures. We humans – living in community, making culture, finding ways to function and survive together – need practical, actual plans on what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it. Which means, we need people to give themselves to the stewardship of this entire political structure: from the volunteers at the polling place to those hired and appointed to various positions to those elected to the highest office in the land. We need the whole thing. And we need to trust it to work, adequately enough, to keep the country and world stable enough, lest it fall into anarchy, where only the powerfully violent will flourish. Just look at what’s happening in Haiti.

But in this all, there’s a danger we’re forever susceptible to: When we’re afraid or feel insecure – when our world and its systems no longer feel stable enough – we will be lured towards some-body, some specific person to put our trust in: someone who will represent us, speak for us, legislate for us, protect us. We all share this human impulse that craves a tangible some-one who will take care of us: be it a general, a hero, a demigod, or a king.

That’s what the Israelites wanted so long ago. “Give us a king!” they demanded of Samuel. “Give us a king so we can be like all the other nations – a king who will govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

Beneath it all, in their fear, it was God they were rejecting. For the whole structure of Israel’s society centered on this fundamental premise: God was the center. And God was their king.

But when they felt vulnerable, their invisible God was not enough. They needed a some-one they could see and touch and trust. “But you can’t trust him,” Samuel insisted. “It won’t work. A king will always be after his own good before yours. And it’s your goods he’ll take… and your sons as soldiers and your daughters as servants.” But they wouldn’t hear it. The fear was too great.

We don’t live in ancient Israel. We don’t have a theocracy with “God our King” at its center. And to be clear: Any attempt to form its equivalence in our country is pure fantasy. It is taking the Lord’s name in vain as a cover for our own striving after power and control, hardly the fruit of those seeking to follow a crucified Christ who calls us to lay down our lives. No. So far as I can tell, a stable, boring democracy is our best bet – where our commitment to compromise means nobody gets exactly what they want, where everyone walks away from the table a little disgruntled. That sounds like a reasonable government to me for a society as complex as our own.

However, we belong to more than the state. We are members of the Body of Christ. We belong to God. We may be planted in this world, bearing fruit for this world, but our roots tap deeply into the soil of God – our anchor and our sustenance.

It is true, we live in a political age rife with fears and insecurities. And, yes, our human instinct craves a king to protect us – a hero, a savior, a strongman. But…  Good news! We’ve actually already got it. We have an actual God made flesh in Jesus Christ to whom we can give ourselves completely and wholly and hopefully. We have a God made flesh in Jesus Christ whose love is pure and true and worthy, and will last forever. We have a God in Jesus Christ who has conquered death, for himself, for us, and for the world. We have a God in Jesus Christ whose embrace is for all, wooing us out from behind the walls of our tribalism and fear.

Now, I will grant you, that Christ remains invisible, which can be problematic.

Unless, that is, we choose to live into the deeper mystery of our faith to be the Body of Christ together, to be the Body of Christ for each other. This is our faith. We can join together to create and embody what can be so elusive when we try to “do faith” alone:

We can hope for another whose hope is dormant.

We can give to another whose resources are depleted.

We can laugh with another in the midst of despair.

We can be for each other the ever-opening love of God.

And when we live this godliness as a body, together, we may then perceive and experience the transcendent reality of God with us.

St. John’s, in the midst of the turmoil around us, saturating into us, this is a season for us in the church to lean more deliberately into the substance of our faith.

In a world that has transferred the energy of its religious hopes onto politicians and their platforms – with a kind of zeal and passion that justifies all manner of bad behavior – this is a season to lean into discipleship: restoring our hope to God in Christ and committing ourselves to walking in his ways.

In a world confused by what is true and trustworthy, with the rise of Artificial Intelligence and lies saturating social media and partisan journalism, this is a season to lean into our assurance of the rock-solid truths of our faith: God is real. Love is always the stronger force. “Love of enemy” can turn every enemy into our friend. There is no sin that cannot be forgiven. The hope of resurrection is real. We can trust Christ and the way of Christ, for he is the way; he is the truth; he is the life.

In a world that is frightened and dividing and withdrawing into bunkers, this is a season to foster healthy community – where we see each other and go to each other, wherever they may be – with compassion and kindness, that’s less concerned with being right or in control, and more concerned with giving and giving our lives away.

In a world where trust in institutions is eroding, this is a season for St. John’s to prove itself worthy of trust – not by manipulation or clever communication strategies – but by vulnerability and integrity and sacrifice.

In a world that’s losing its joy and giving way to despair, this is a season to lean into hope: our hope that God is with us in all things and we will never be alone; our hope that – even if and when the worst should happen – it can be for us a clarifying moment of what matters much and what matters little at all; our hope that whatever “the now” may contain, it is not the end, for our end is God in whom there is no end.

In a world filled with aggression and fury and outrage, to which we will sometimes succumb – doing and saying things we’ll soon regret – this is a season to lean into the gift of reconciliation, which is the hallmark of the church. A good church, like a good marriage, is not one where no mistakes are made, but one that knows how to reconcile when mistakes are made. So this is a season for us to choose growth in the grace-filled skills that can enter into the dialogue:

• What you did hurt me.
• You’re right. And I am sorry.
• I forgive you.
• I accept your forgiveness.
• Let us move forward together, now stronger through this grace.

We are the Body of Christ. And this is a season to cash in on all its benefits! We can be his disciples – we can be like Jesus. There are truths we can hold to, tightly. We can be community, together. We can be trustworthy, for each other and our community. We can hope, and know the freedom of hope. We can reconcile, and know the joy that what once was divided has been made whole again.

As we will soon pray at Communion: “We proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again…[May] we who share these gifts be filled with the Holy Spirit and live as Christ’s Body in the world…. that with St. John and all the saints…we may praise your God’s forever. Amen.