Kingmakers from the Bottom
[Preached by Aaron Scott at All Saints Episcopal Church, Bellevue, WA.]
Text: Luke 23:33-43
We get uncomfortable about Christ as king, in this denomination. Why is that? Ever since Presiding Bishop Curry preached at the royal wedding, I can’t count the number of Episcopalians posting cutesy memes of the Queen and waxing poetic on Facebook about how quaint it might be to live under the British monarchy. It’s still in the DNA of this institution, I guess, as a descendant of the Church of England: this denomination, for all its progressivism, has a real fetish for the trappings of the crown. But catch Episcopalians talking about Jesus as king? Nope. We want Jesus as an ethereal poet and a gentle shepherd. Meek. Modest. Long-suffering but sweetly smiling anyway. Endlessly patient with the problems of this world.
Too bad for us! That kind of Jesus is nowhere to be found in the scriptures. He’s a king. He is our king. He is The King. And his throne is not at Buckingham Palace.
Where is it? Where is the true throne of Christ the King?
Where was it back then?
[aesop_quote type=”block” background=”#31526f” text=”#ffffff” align=”left” size=”1″ quote=”The throne of Christ was the cross…Not because he was meek but because he turned the world upside down, putting the last first.” parallax=”off” direction=”left” revealfx=”off”]
The throne of Christ was the manger: an impoverished infant hidden away from a murderous regime, squatting with his family among livestock, nursed and protected by his mother Mary—the Queen of Heaven, the Queen of Refugees.
The throne of Christ was the poor house. That is what Bethany literally translates as: “house of the poor.” King of the poor. King of the lepers. King of the sex workers. King of the criminals. King of everyone so broke they had no choice but to engage in some shady business to survive.
King of the crucified.
The throne of Christ was the cross. A king on a cross. A king assassinated by the most brutal imperial power the world has ever seen until today. A king executed by state violence in the same manner as rebel slaves were executed. Not because he was meek but because he turned the world upside down, putting the last first.
So where is the throne of Christ the King today? We know he lives. We say he lives. But where?
[aesop_quote type=”block” background=”#31526f” text=”#ffffff” align=”left” size=”1″ quote=”This system is blasphemy against God’s precious creation.” parallax=”off” direction=”left” revealfx=”off”]
The throne of Christ is anywhere a homeless mother wraps her body around her children to keep them warm and alive as they sleep in their vehicle through the dead of winter. The system which forces her into these circumstances is empire, just as it was in Jesus’ time, and it is sinful. This system is blasphemy against God’s precious creation. But her refusal to give up, to do anything less than fight for her family’s survival every single day—within that tenacious love is the kind of fire that holds the key to the salvation of the entire world.
The throne of Christ is in the love poor people choose to show each other in the most desolating circumstances, even as our entire political economy is hell bent on maintaining their isolation and destruction. For us, today, Christ is King in the detention centers. King in the homeless camps. King in the prisons. King of the streets. King of the felons. King of the trap houses. King of the trailer parks. King of the projects. King of the squats.
The kingship of Christ is wherever the leadership of poor people continues to turn the world upside down. This is not abstract. This is concrete, and it is happening.
[aesop_image img=”https://kairoscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/19437548_10155520973689292_3123558240083065698_n.jpg” panorama=”off” imgwidth=”300px” alt=”Aberdeen, WA River Encampment Memorial” align=”right” lightbox=”on” captionsrc=”custom” caption=”An altar and memorial at a tent encampment near the Chehalis River in Aberdeen, WA. The encampment, which was home for hundreds of people for over 30 years, was recently demolished by city officials.” captionposition=”left” revealfx=”off” overlay_revealfx=”off”]
I work at Chaplains on the Harbor. We are a mission station of this diocese, in rural Grays Harbor County. We do a lot of things (I’ll tell you all about them after the service!), but I think the most important thing we do is invest in the leadership of poor people. We believe fully that poor people are experts on their own struggles, and experts on what needs to change in this society to make it more fair and more reconciled to the dream God has for all of us—not only the poor but with poor people leading the way for the redemption of the entire earth.
At Chaplains on the Harbor we invest in leaders in both small and big ways. For folks who have been homeless, who have been incarcerated, who have been stigmatized for their addiction and criminalized for their poverty, who have been shamed over and over again and told for most of their lives that they’re worthless, stepping into leadership can be terrifying. So maybe you start small: by putting someone in charge of making the sandwiches for the free lunch program. And then maybe you put them in charge of buying the food for the lunch program. And then you put them in charge of supervising other sandwich makers.
And then you get them up and speaking about their experiences, their observations, and their analysis—first in front of people who they know. And then in front of strangers. In front of churches. In front of city councils. In front of senators. Until eventually they are directly addressing the highest levels of governance in this country, speaking their truths to power. Royalty from the bottom like Jesus, stepping into their authority and confronting the empire.
[aesop_quote type=”block” background=”#31526f” text=”#ffffff” align=”left” size=”1″ quote=”When we choose to follow Christ the King, we are making a choice about where we will seek out authority in this world.” parallax=”off” direction=”left” revealfx=”off”]
In this way—in our raising up of leaders from the shelter floor to the Senate floor—I like to think of us king-makers from the bottom.
What is a king?
A king is a leader.
A king is an authority.
A king is a leader whose authority is believed to be, at least in some part, granted by God.
When we choose to follow Christ the King, we are making a choice about where we will seek out authority in this world. If we choose Jesus, we choose to see and hear and follow the queens and kings and leaders chosen by God among crucified peoples today.
Why would we do this? It flies in the face of everything we are told about whose leadership matters. It is foolishness in the eyes of pundits, politicians, and the powerful.
Well: what has the leadership from the top brought us? Has it brought us less suffering? Has it brought us less poverty? Has it brought us less violence? Has it brought us more love, more justice, more of God’s dream? No!
So maybe we could be brave and try something new. Maybe we could finally try things Jesus’ way. We could try walking among the poorest places—the places about which respectable people ask, “Can anything good come out of here? Can anything good come out of Aberdeen? Out of Flint? Out of the border? Out of the reservations?”—and trusting in God’s unequivocal “YES! This is my modern-day throne!” Yes—leaders can and do and will continue to rise up out of these places to lead the way to a kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. It is already happening. The time is at hand. Our King—and all the kings and queens and royalty of the bottom—are waiting on us to join them in making good news: of the poor, by the poor, and for the poor, for the sake of the liberation of all creation.
[aesop_image img=”https://kairoscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/12246750_1157119387650670_3861998915804113725_n.jpg” panorama=”off” align=”center” lightbox=”on” captionsrc=”custom” captionposition=”left” revealfx=”off” overlay_revealfx=”off”]