The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King
You Say I am a King

John 18: 33b-37

So, Pilate went back into the praetorium and summoned Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me?” Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants [would] be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.” So, Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answered, “you say I am a king.  For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Discussion Questions: 

1. Have you ever been falsely accused? What were the circumstances and how did you treat your accusers?
2. How is Jesus’ definition of Kingship a challenge for you?
3. What does it mean to you personally to say that Jesus Crist is king? In what ways is Jesus king in your life?
4. How do you emulate Jesus’ understanding of power in your treatment of others?

Biblical Context

John 18:33b-37
Mary M. McGlone CSJ

Today’s Gospel comes from Jesus’ trial before Pilate and focuses on Jesus as a king. In John 12:13, crowds acclaimed Jesus as he entered Jerusalem and cried out to him as the King of Israel. Even though it was a religious or theological title, the people had political aspirations for their messiah. What was difficult for them to remember was that if the Messiah was sent by God, then his mission came from God, not from the agenda of his people. Everything about Jesus as the king of Israel was therefore a revelation of God’s will.

In today’s Gospel scene, Pilate asks Jesus if he is the King of the Jews. The difference between being the King of Israel or King of the Jews is that the Jews were a people like any other, defined by ethnicity, not by covenant. It is no surprise that Pilate doesn’t understand the implications of his question, nor that Jesus avoids answering it.

Instead, Jesus questions Pilate: Is he asking for himself or as a matter of trial evidence? Pilate retorts that he is no insider to Jewish thinking. He claims that he is a civil leader whose task is to keep peace and eliminate threats to political stability. Thus, he seems genuinely curious when he asks, “What have you done?”

Jesus responds that his kingdom is unimaginable in Pilate’s world. Pilate lives in the world of winner-take-all. Jesus says that if he were a part of that world, his followers would rise up and he would never fall into the power of apostates of foreigners.

Pilate then takes the conversation back to his world of thought: “You are a king?” Jesus’ response, grammatically difficult to translate, affirms: “You are saying that. I am royal.” The point is that Jesus does not exactly say he is “the king,” but admits to a kind of royalty that is not exclusive, territorial, coercive, or in any other way understandable on Pilate’s terms.

There seem to be two interrelated challenges for us who would celebrate this feast. If we call Christ a king, we must remember that his title comes from God’s realm. Thus, he will not fit our models nor act on our agenda. Secondly, claiming Christ as king calls us to live the values of his realm, redefining power and greatness and learning from him how to be free enough to give all we are.

If we celebrate this feast as an autumn version of Palm Sunday, every “Glory to God” and “Hosanna” we sing demands a recommitment to carry out our baptismal promises.

 Are you the King of the Jews?

Reflection
Fr. Michael K. Marsh

Are you the King of the Jews?” It’s a simple question and Pilate wants a simple answer, a simple truth. Yes or no. You either are or you aren’t. Which is it?

That’s the kind of question I always tried to ask when I was practicing law. Yes or no? This or that? I wanted a clear question and a clear answer. I wanted to eliminate all wiggle room. I wanted to possess the truth. If I could do that then I could establish some power, control, and security, and I had a better chance of creating the outcome my client and I wanted.

Even if you’ve never questioned a witness or tried a lawsuit, I’ll bet there have been times in your life when you too wanted a clear answer and a simple truth. I’ll bet there have been times when you tried to categorize your life, relationships, other people, and the world into this or that, yes or no. You took your experience, what you knew, what you had been told, what you believed or wanted to believe, and marked off the boundaries of what was true. You wanted to possess the truth.

I understand that. I want to possess the truth. Pilate wants to possess the truth. I think we all do things to try and possess the truth. We want to know that within the borders of our truth we have given ourselves some power over our lives, some stability and security, some predictability and control. It’s often our first response to the circumstances of daily life.

There is, however, a dark and dangerous side to claiming possession of the truth. When we claim to be the sole custodians of truth, we put ourselves in the position of having to defend, guard, and protect that truth. We promote and impose our truth on others. Lines are drawn and walls are built. Conversations are reduced to a monologue of rhetoric, and relationships give way to either isolation or domination. And pretty soon violence arises in the words we speak and the actions we take. Sometimes it is a violence that injures or kills another human being but it always wounds the human soul, theirs and ours.

At some level settling for a simple truth and claiming possession of that truth is at the heart of conflict and violence.

If I learned anything from my time practicing law it was that my clients and I had, at most, only a piece of the truth. We did not possess the whole truth. The more witnesses I questioned and the more cases I tried, the more I began to realize that the truth was never as simple as I wanted it to be or as I tried to make it. That’s not just about practicing law. It’s also about practicing life, practicing faith, practicing relationships. Like it or not, it’s a reality we face every day.

I wonder if that’s why Jesus does not give Pilate a straight answer. Maybe that’s his way of telling us that truth is never as simple as we want it to be, never as absolute as we often assert it to be, and never as exclusive as we sometimes claim it is. He knows that truth is more than a fact, an answer, or an experience, and that it cannot be possessed. Rather, it is a life to be lived.

The truth to which Jesus testifies is the God who is beyond the circumstances of this world and yet always present in the circumstances of this world. Jesus came into the world to tell us about that truth, to show us what it looks like in a human life, and teach us how to be a part of and belong to that truth.

So, here’s my question. Do we belong to the truth or do we live and act as if the truth belongs to us? How we answer that question will determine whose voice we listen to, the choices we make, the priorities we establish, the words we speak, and the actions we take.

“Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice,” Jesus said. Okay, then whose voice do we listen to when we act as if the truth belongs to us? Our own. We listen to our own voice and when we do it becomes difficult if not impossible to hear another’s voice, human or divine.

When we make ourselves custodians of the truth, when we believe that the truth belongs to us, we listen to our own voice and the voices of those who think and act like us. We listen to the voice of our political party, our country, our religion, our faction. We listen to the voice of our fear and insecurity. We listen to the voice of our prejudice, our individual needs and desires, our experience.

I know those voices. I’ve heard and listened to them. I know they are real. And they do speak a truth, but it is only a piece of the truth. They remind me that the world is not always safe and life is not always easy. But I also know this. There is another voice, a voice that speaks from a kingdom not of this world.

Reflection excerpt from: Interrupting the Silence, Fr Michael K. Marsh