John 18:33-37
Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew , am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that 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.”
In the Name of the Creator, the Redeemer and the Sustainer. Amen
Are you the king of the Jews?
It’s a human trait to want to label things, to pin them down.
Being able to name and thus identify something gives many people security.
That’s why Jesus was so annoying.
He refused to be labelled, refused to conform.
Just when folk around him thought they had him sussed - calling him rabbi, teacher, healer, king… Jesus would confound them and do something unconventional, something that meant he could no longer be typified, no longer fit into the boxes that folk constructed for him.
And the authorities around him, church and state, were so riled by their inability to work him out, to define him and control him, that they resorted to violence.
And, lest we think the insecurity of religious authorities that Jesus encountered was simply of his time, let me share with you just a snippet of when I’ve bumped up against that same sort of frustration when I’ve confounded folk because I didn’t follow convention or conform the their stereotypes.
30 years ago, when my call to ordained ministry was being assessed, the panel of 10 men and 1 woman wanted to know: Do you have a desire to preach.
In my tradition at the time, preaching was deemed to be a big part of vocational identity.
But it wasn’t mine.
Somehow, I circumnavigated that stumbling block and went on to training.
After University, however, came the next stumbling block - I didn’t feel called to serve in parish ministry - which was the expected and, I would say, the only acceptable route for a new ordinand to take.
I felt called to serve in Hospital Chaplaincy.
One of my colleagues asked at that point - Do you want to be a minister or not?
I was very aware of their frustration - but I couldn’t simply comply when God was calling me to another form of ministry.
Eventually I did embrace parish ministry - that brought me to Ayr. But, 30 years after my first experience of ‘not fitting in’ I confounded colleagues again when I took up a National post working on renewal in the church.
Again, there was murmuring and shaking of heads.
And, sadly, what I learned, or what I had confirmed, is that when folk don’t conform or can’t be labelled or can’t be put in a box, they are seen as a threat!
I think I’ve spent most of my ministry disappointing folk.
It’s not a comfortable place to be.
But I believe it is the ministry to which God calls us.
A ministry of disappointing folk.
A ministry of refusing to conform
Refusing to be labelled.
Refusing to be pinned down.
Not because we are fickle.
But because we are committed to the unconventional ministry of love and of service.
We are called, when folk expect to be met with judgement, to offer love.
We are called, when folk expect rejection, to offer acceptance.
We are called when folk expect certainty, to offer possibility.
And we are called, when folk expect censure, to offer service.
Following in the way of Christ the king
Who humbled himself
Who emptied himself
Who became poor
Jesus, labelled king of the Jews said: 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.”
For what are we born?
To what are we called?
Let me suggest that we are called to disappoint.
We are called to confound expectations.
We are called to follow the way of a servant king
We are called to climb out of the boxes that folk construct for us, to discard the labels that folk pin on us - and to love and to love and to love some more.
In the Name of Christ the king.
Amen
