A royal republicanism

 ‘…Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom....’ (Luke 23:42)

Luke 23:35-43 (Year C: Christ the King)

One upon a time there were lots of kings in Ireland and across the known world (known, that is, to the cultures and institutions of the ‘West’).  Today, a number remains largely in ceremonial and figurative roles as custodians of national identity and constitutional stability ‘just in case’.  It is hard to think in royal terms or use royal language in 21^st Century Europe. Certainly, in France, the trappings of royalty have long been thrown off though a very small band of eccentrics hanker for a restoration.  British royalty is a different matters and excites a diversity of emotions (largely positive). In southern Ireland the term ‘Royal’ still lingers as a historical addition to the title of a few venerable institutions. Prejudice notwithstanding folk, there, sneak in a read or peek at ‘Royal news’ when they think others are not looking. 

   

Transposed to religious imagery and terminology the idea of Kings and Queens sits uneasily with popular sentiment in many political tendencies nowadays from liberal to socialist to particular forms of nationalism. Even in terms of private religious devotion the image of the crowned suffering servant on the cross outweighs by far the image of a High King sitting and judging in the heavenly courts. Even still, we recite the Our Father daily without thinking too much about the implications of the phrase ‘Thy Kingdom come’.  If God has a Kingdom then God is a King and if Jesus is God then Jesus is, also, a heavenly King just as he affirms it in this passage from Luke as well as in many other places in the Gospel accounts.

The reality is that Jesus’s kingdom is nothing like ‘earthly’ kingdoms. It took a long time for the first disciples and apostles to figure this out and, it could be said, some disciples today struggle with the notion in the sense that they seem to think that latter-day accommodations to popular democracy and universal suffrage are somehow inconsistent with the reality that Jesus Christ is King in all and over all. Another way of approaching this ‘kingly power’, to borrow one of the English translations (for example the RSVCE take on Luke 23:42 in the English language), is to acknowledge that having been born, and having grown up in relative obscurity for about 30 years, and having ministered for 3 years through preaching and healing and then having faced torture and slow death to be followed by resurrection we are faced with a new kingly reality. This reality is the deliberate, chosen and completely unworldly rejection of normal, ‘this worldly’ kingly power. It was not for lack of kingship or power that Jesus allowed himself be raised on the wood of the cross.

Line by line

“The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.’” (verse 35)

The irony of all this is that Jesus was and is God’s Messiah, the Chosen.

“The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.’” (verses 36-37)

The irony of this is that Jesus had come to save everyone else including those who ‘came up and mocked him’.

“There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the Jews.” (verse 38)

The irony, here, is that Jesus is King not only of the Jews but everyone who comes to him in trust.  Hidden from the eyes of those who scorned him is the scandalous and un-royal reality of crucified love.

“One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other criminal rebuked him. ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence?” (verse 39-40)

Two criminals and one would-be criminal. Thee in all.  One criminal gets it; the other doesn’t.   The reality is that all three were under sentence but only one volunteered to undergo sentence for the other two.  The two criminals typify the range of responses to grace. We note that, whereas in Matthew and Mark, the criminals were described as thieves and both mocked him, in Luke, there was a moment of grace and exception. Luke is big on mercy and his gospel is written with this very much to the for his audience then and today.

“We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.’” (verse 42)

The Law of punishment was cruel and undiscriminating. How ironic that these criminals, who according to Matthew and Mark were robbers, face crucifixion but the occupying army, hangers-on and extortionate tax collectors who were ‘making the rent’ were not called to account.

“Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’” (verse 42)

One of the robbers robbed heaven that day. An act of deep faith transformed his relationship.  He had not complied with the 600 laws plus. We may assume that he had not prayed and fasted as custom dictated. He had not engaged in prescribed penitential in a this-wordly purgatory set aside for people who, though forgiven, had to undergo a retribution of further suffering. No, he stole heaven through grace. True, he continued to suffer greatly but he knew salvation that very day.

“Jesus answered him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’” (verse 43)

Just imagine meeting Jesus some day and being told this.

In answer to the request of the ‘good thief’ (‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom’ verse 42) Jesus answered him: ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’ (verse 43). The promise to be with Jesus is to sit with him in heaven. In a manner of speaking we could claim that Jesus promises us a share in royalty. In other words, we become kings and queens with Jesus. Now that is a radical claim and one that utterly undermines ‘earthly’ royalty to a point of asserting a ‘republic’ in which the ‘subjects’ of the King are, at the same time, sharers in the kingdom of peace, joy and love.  Does this sound a tad too unorthodox? Not really. Consider the letter of Saint Peter – the ‘first bishop of Rome’ as many would hold (1 Peter 2:9):

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

There is, according to custom and long tradition, the ministerial priesthood in which men and women are called to serve at the altar. Then there is the ‘royal priesthood’ of all the faithful that belong to God or ‘a people for his possession’ as one translation puts it.  Since we, all of us, lay people, religious, deacons, priests and bishops fully belong to the ‘royal priesthood’ there is no hierarchy of grace or dignity.

Republican, other-worldly royalism rule is one based on real love. It is a reign of profound gentleness, utter kindness and a loving and free invitation. In other words, it is a type of reigning with which we are very unfamiliar.  However, there is a chance that we can find the spark within us where the Risen Jesus is mysteriously present ever and always.  The first in-breaking of the Kingdom starts with its out-breaking in my heart and your heart and someone else’s heart. Where two or three are sincerely gathered in his name and united in his love there is the Kingdom right now, in our midst.

We have one sure goal - through all the twists and turns of life and through the experiences of earthly kingdoms that oppress not just in palaces but, sometimes, in places of gathering, of worship and at family tables. That light, that truth and that goodness is for each a possibility of witness and life fulfilment. Everyone without exception has some light, some spark of truth and some unique gift to make. Let’s not put obstacles in the way of others so that, truly, at the end of each person’s life they can say:

For this I was born and for this I came into the world.

Regardless of sex, age and religion is everyone’s unique talent acknowledged, affirmed and put to good? This is the call of radical discipleship which, alone, is consistent with the heavenly republic of equals.

A troubling question

Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, who died earlier this year provokes a troubling question about God in general and Jesus in particular though he never mentions the latter:

Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out, swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing...And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes.  And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished. Behind me, I heard the same man asking: "For God's sake, where is God?" And from within me, I heard a voice answer: "Where He is? This is where--hanging here from this gallows..."
― Elie Wiesel, Night