Hear the Christians sing.

Crown him with many crowns! O worship the King all glorious above! Hail redeemer, King divine! Jesus Christ, superstar!

What is it with belief in Jesus which makes people sing out these things? The evidence of his life alone is not impressive. Born to a family on the run. Preached sermons for a few years that have been misunderstood ever since. Then a pathetic death by mob rule in Jerusalem. What kind of a king is this?
Something happened to the early Christians which made them sing. And sing of a king ? and not any old king, but the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Why do God?s people sing of this King when all we know about him suggests that monarchy was far from his mind?

Indeed, is monarchy itself a suitable image for the holiness that is God. You would not think so if you read the papers at the moment.

Monarchy? These days, it seems an extraordinary idea for God?s people to impute onto their saviour.

Well, no less extraordinary for us than for the rabble who shouted Christ?s name through the streets of Jerusalem. They who called the one riding on a donkey their king. Their cries must have been heard by Pilate, leading to his incredulous question: ?You! Are you the King of the Jews?? It must have seemed as unlikely then as now.

Yet I stand here to proclaim a kingdom to you. And a kingdom of which Christ is the King.

A king who came to baptize monarchy with compassion.

A king who came to submerge our aspirations of grandeur beneath the smooth waters of grace

A king who plunges power itself into the deep and healing waters of love.

And what goes for Jesus, remember, goes for his people. What is part of the divine promise is promised for God?s people too. Living in God?s kingdom means to let go of power. Having aspirations of care and compassion, letting go of personal power and letting go of some of our mighty ambitions. Letting go of some of our striving and being held in the hand of God in return.

And we shall be changed. If these things happen, we and all the world shall be changed.

What else needs to be said about monarchy from a pulpit?

Well, monarchy rests on the idea that the office of King is more than person who holds the office. Monarchy demands that the human being takes on the mantle of hope and expectation which the wider community weave together. Monarchy is the acceptance of that role by an individual chosen by the randomness of birth. (Well, that is one way of seeing it). But the important thing is that there is a marked difference between the person and the office. The holder of the office is not at all the same as the institution itself. And the sufferings of the current royal family stem from inabilities to distinguish between the person and the power. Between prince and potential. The mysticism of monarchy (which Episcopalians have been quite keen on through the centuries) is squandered for the price of here today, gone tomorrow celebrity. Monarchy can only survive if there is an acceptance that despite appearances to the contrary, the person and the power are not the same thing.

This brings me back, this morning, to return to a theme that I have preached on once or twice recently. It is this ? ?things are not quite what they seem to be?. For those of us who worship in this kind of church, things are not quite the way they seem to be. Time, in church goes in circles. Things, to put it bluntly, have a cosmic dimension.

This is never more true that when we think of Jesus Christ as King.

For the child born in the manger, heralded by angels, worshipped by shepherds, discovered by wise ones. This was a king who was more than he must have seemed at the time. Here was a child who was not what he seemed to be.

Here in this place, we share in a meal of bread and wine and I spoke recently about how things are not what they seem ? for here, when we eat, we actually take bread and wine from the hand of the Lord in the upper room itself ? but wait! That is not all! We take the food as part of an altogether different feast too ? a royal feast. The feast of heaven is going on here in this place at one and the same time as the meal in the upper room. A feast which heralds a kingdom where all are fed ? fed spiritually and fed physically. Nourished and filled. Souls nurtured. Bellies full. That royal feast is proclaimed here on earth week by week, here in this place, and we go out to work to make it happen within the constraints of time and circumstance. Here in this place, things are not quite what they seem. Bread and wine, a royal feast for all.

Things, are not quite what they seem. And in closing, I want to ask you about something else ? not the child king born in the manger who was more than he seemed. Not the shared of food in the upper room who was more than the disciples could comprehend. Not the one hanged on a tree of shame who was then seen around and about a group of disciples who were then transfigured in his presence. No. I want to ask you about you.

About you yourself as you sit here in this church. Are you what you seem to be? Are you what others see?

All of us come to God as a bundle of contradictions. All of us come here wearing the opinions and expectations of others like badly fitting clothes. But I ask you. Are things what they seem for you?

Or are you in fact, despite appearances to the contrary perhaps, a beloved child of God.

For that is the claim, the outrageous claim of those of us who have followed Jesus from manger to tomb and beyond. Our claim is that things are not the way they seem. Our God is here. Knowable. At work in us as we make our way through this world.

As you sit here. Are you who you seem to be, or are you, as I am trying to suggest, Belov?d. Blessed. Holy?

For that is the claim of the Church through the ages. Proclaiming that kingdom.

That kingdom where all are already loved.

Amen.

Can I ask you please …

What was the look o­n Jesus?s face as he taught the disciples?? What tone of voice did he adopt when he said these things?? Was he standing or sitting?? Did he have the Hebrew scriptures in his hand or simply written in his heart?? What [and this is the point of this sermon] is the very nature of the gospel stories about Jesus. And how are we to read them? And how are we to live by them?By asking what the look o­n Jesus?s face was, I hope to get you to think a little deeper about this morning?s gospel reading and also about the way in which we read the Bible in general.

You see, there is a lot we don?t know. Sometimes the gospel author will tell us a snippet ? that Jesus was standing or looking with compassion or that he was reclining with his friends. But most of the time, we have little idea what the look in his eye was or what the tone of voice he used was.

Our faith tells us that Jesus was fully human. Then his teaching must have been fully human teaching. His voice must have been a normal voice. Full of many shades of meaning. Ironic sometimes. Angry sometimes. Compassionate sometimes. Gentle sometimes. Knowing. Wise. Funny. Incredulous. Sad. Sorrowful. Sometimes full of grief. Sometimes full of Joy.

And we just don?t know which tone of voice he used in his conversations with his disciples. And as we all well know, it makes all the difference. Sometimes we get the wrong end of the stick even when someone is in front of us. How easy it must be to get it wrong when the words of the Lord come to us filtered by 2000 years of history, never mind the gossip in the early church, gospel author?s with chips o­n their shoulder and the many who have brought the word to us ? translating, printing, distributing.

How can we know that what the bible says is true? And here we find ourselves discussing the same theme that the young people have decided that they want to talk about in their discussion group this morning.

I can o­nly speak from my perspective.

For me, my passion for the bible begins in my heart as the worlds of the gospel warm my soul. It means that it is hard to be a dispassionate objective observer. I believe that the bible that I might have in my hand is the word of God. But, I also believe that God has written his word in the human heart. The bible, no doubt is written for the mind. The word of God is also written in the human heart. [And the word that is written there is the word Love, in case anyone was wondering].

And we can know the truth of the bible when we bring it together with our own experience of the living Lord. And the living Lord is the o­ne who teaches us a message that is nothing less that love.

There are those who would keep the word of God bound in hard black covers. I say that we must use the gifts that God has given us in order to understand what the message is. And those gifts include understanding and scholarship. And those gifts include imagination and thoughtfulness. And those gifts include prayer and meditation. And those gifts include hearing the word and listening and pondering it. And those gifts include living with the word with honesty and walking with God with integrity in the modern world.

If we want to understand how the bible is true, we must come to experience the many ways in which the bible is true. Bringing all our creative endeavour to the task in hand.

So, let me look again at the passage from the gospel that we have had this morning. Let me mull over it now with you and try to apply this way of thinking to it.

You see, I know that there is a traditional way of understanding this passage ? the sign of the times. There are those who carry thick black bibles and who wander this world with think black hearts ever more trying to preach that the time that Jesus was talking about is right now. They treat this a prediction of the present. Aha, they say when an earthquake comes ? God is telling us that the last days are here. Aha, they cry when there is war ? rumours of war ? the end of the world is nigh. (I actually saw someone with a poster walking up and down Buchanan Street this week proclaiming just that ? The End of the World is Nigh and yes, he did have a big black Bible held high in his hand).

But there might be a more creative way of reading this passage. You see, for me, Jesus is telling us something about the way human beings see themselves in history ? always thinking that we are at the centre of the picture. For, when I read this passage, I hear and ironic tone in the words of the Lord. Maybe even a touch of humour, if not sarcasm. For I remember that there were wars in his day. There were earthquakes in his day. Nation rose against nation then as now. People knew famine then as they do now and as they have done ever since.

And what the Lord tells me in this passage is that the dates and the times don?t matter. For it has been ever thus.  Perhaps he is telling us that we can know the Lord God in any time and in any catastrophe. And the suffering caused by human and natural disasters cannot stop God from loving us. Cannot stop God from being here in the world.

It is not the end of time that is just around corner. It is the end of a world without God that is just around the corner.

For Christ came to preach a kingdom that is here but still coming. A reign that has begun but is yet being ushered in ? something which we will think more about next week when we think about Christ the King.

In Mark?s gospel, Jesus tells us, urges us, to listen to him. To hear the word of the Lord. The o­ne written o­n the page and the o­ne written o­n the heart. As we do so, let us hear again the words of the writer to the Hebrews and, whatever we think about the coming Day of the Lord, whatever we think about the Day of Judgement or the Day of Salvation, whatever we think and whoever we are, ?let us consider how to provoke o­ne another to love.?

Amen.