KING OF THE WORLD

Perhaps the name Jack Dawson doesn’t ring a lot of memory bells for you, and it doesn’t have to.  It’s the name of a fictional movie character that was played by Leonardo DiCaprio about 25 years ago.  Jack was a poor kid from Great Britain who had finagled his way to onto ship that was crossing the Atlantic Ocean to the United States, where new opportunities awaited him and many others.  The movie was set in the year 1912.  Jack was full of youth and enthusiasm and ambition and, at one point in the film, he made his way to the prow of the ship as it steamed along at high speed; as he stood at the guard railing he shouted out, “I’m the King of the World!” with the wind in his face and clenched fists swinging in the sunshine.  He was ecstatic.

Of course, that ship was the Titanic, as was the title of the movie.  That single line from the film has become enduring even today: “I’m the King of the World!” Everything was hopeful and free and possible. Life was going to be good.

If you have seen Titanic you know that Jack Dawson never made it to America.  Together with hundreds of other passengers, he drowned in the frigid waters of the sea.  Jack had no idea what was ahead of him and no control over it.  He was just living in the moment, with his own flawed understand of what it meant to be a king.  I replayed that movie last week on Netflix, and now today I am confronted with our Liturgical Feast Day, which is technically titled “Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.” What a contrast; what a paradox.

Jesus, who actually was and is our king, never went around saying that.  In fact, he ran away from those in Galilee who wanted to make a king.  When his disciples tried to speak about him in royal and exalted terms, he rebuked them.  And in today’s gospel of John, when he is presented with the exact opportunity to identify himself as King of the Jews – a question posed to him by the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate – he declines to give a direct answer.  He doesn’t say “yes” or “no”, but instead he asks Pilate why he is asking the question in the first place.  Why is Jesus so evasive?  Why not just tell us?

Because we attach all of the wrong associations to our imagination of what it means to be a “king.” We think of the Windsors in England. We think of privilege and earthly power and palaces and money and the command of military forces.  None of that is what it means to be a king, as Christ himself taught us.  We think of the ability to threaten others or have them do our bidding just because we want them to.  We think of people who live very remotely from us, and who have servants and chauffeurs and guards.  Again, it’s all wrong. To cry out that Jesus is “King of the World” is not wrong, but it can so easily be misunderstood, or perhaps I should say warped.

Our friend and former pastor, Fr. Bill Murtaugh, is now the pastor at the Parish of Christ the King in southwest Minneapolis.  If you ever drive by that place you will see, carved into the stone, our Lord seated on a throne, wearing a jeweled crown and having dominion over those who serve him. Again, that’s not necessarily wrong, it’s just not yet.  That’s a vision of heaven, but it is nothing that Jesus ever taught us about how to live on earth, here and now. And we have a lengthy history of churches, including our own, getting that completely wrong.

Both of our first two readings today, from the Old Testament prophet Daniel and from the New Testament book of Revelation, are in the genre of what biblical scholars call apocalyptical. They attempt, in highly symbolic language, to tell us about our ultimate destiny at the end of our lives and the end of the world. And so Daniel tells us about our Savior who receives “dominion, glory, and kingship.”  That’s true; but it’s not now. Jesus never asked for, nor accepted, such things while he was with us.  Those things are ultimate rewards, but not the way.

In a similar way, the Book of Revelation (attributed to St. John) speaks to us of Jesus who enjoys “glory and power forever and ever. Amen.” Jesus didn’t do that when he was standing in front of Pontius Pilate and being asked to render an account of himself.  This man who is described in Revelation as “The Alpha and The Omega, the one who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty”…  This one simply tells the Roman guy who imagines himself to be powerful that “my Kingdom is not of this world.” Not yet.

Christ is our King, but he did not attain that title by ruling over people here as we are accustomed to think that mere earthly royalty attempt to do.  As our Eucharist Prayer will soon tell us again at this Mass, Jesus accomplished his early mission by being broken, by pouring himself out. By being ridiculed by the likes of Pontius Pilate, and ultimately by giving his life for others.

If we aspire to follow our Christ into his kingdom, we are required – while we live here – to do the very things that he showed us and taught us: i.e., to attend to the poor and the weak, the sick and the grieving, the lonely and the lost, and to refuse to cave in to false and fleeting ideas about what being “royal” is all about.

On board the Titanic, Jack Dawson proclaimed himself to be “King of the World” because he was young and ignorant and had no idea what he was saying.  Jesus, on the other hand, who (at least in the Gospel of John) knew himself to be the true king but refused to say so, knew exactly what would be required of him in that role in the here and now: serving, giving, suffering, self-emptying, putting up with loudmouth fake authority figures, forgiving, welcoming, creating community among us imperfect seekers. This is our King. This is whom we seek to emulate.  This is the ultimate victor in the end.