Reign
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Click here for the video, "Reign."
One of the touchstones of my generation is a series of short animated films that ran during Saturday morning cartoons on the ABC TV network in the 70’s. That was back in the day before cable, or dish, and tens, if not hundreds of channels; certainly, before the internet and streaming content. There weren’t even VHS players to watch something whenever you wanted. No, if you wanted to watch a program, you needed to tune in when it came one. So, if you were a kid who wanted to watch cartoons, then Saturday morning was where it was at. Back then, the networks were bound by Federal Communications Commission requirements for so many hours of children’s educational programming. That’s when someone got the bright idea to sneak some vegetables into the Saturday morning line-up so that it could pass as educational. In between episodes of Hong Kong Fuey and Scooby Doo, ABC began running these short musical films from Schoolhouse Rock. The shorts covered everything from math (my hero, zero), grammar (conjunction junction, what’s your function), civics (Well I’m Just a Bill, Yes I’m only a Bill and I’m living here on Capitol Hill) and, of course, history. They clearly did the trick. Most of my friends can still recite the opening sentences from the preamble to the U.S. Constitution using the song they learned on Schoolhouse Rock. Before the shot heard around the world, Schoolhouse Rock taught us about the roots of the American Revolution with a song titled No More Kings about our nation’s desire to be independent of the British crown.
Of course, England’s George III was hardly the first unpopular king in history. In fact, our reading this morning from the prophet Jeremiah begins with God’s own assessment of the kings of Judah who had ruled in Jerusalem until being carried away into exile. And you know that assessment is not good when it begins with a word of woe. “Woe to the shepherds…” the prophet announces. That’s often how kings were depicted, as shepherds charged with leading and caring for their people. Generally, these days, we elect our leaders to govern; to administer our shared resources for the common defense and the common good. But back then the king was not elected by the people. The king was anointed, chosen by God not just to administer resources, but to act toward the people on God’s behalf with justice and mercy. And just as a shepherd is charged with protecting and attending to a flock of sheep, the king too was expected to tend to the needs of people and protect them from harm. A king who failed to do so didn’t just fail the people. A king who failed to do so failed God as well; failed to fulfill the calling entrusted to him. If a leader today fails the people, they might get voted out of office, indicted, or impeached. But the repercussions for failing God hold much bigger stakes. “You have not attended [my people],” God says to the corrupt kings of Judah, “so I will attend to you for your evil doings.” Gulp. One way or another, leaders are held accountable for what happens on their watch.
What had happened on the watch of the kings of Judah is that they gave away the store. They stopped attending to the needs of the people and allowed social inequity between the rich and the poor to go unchecked. They stopped attending to the safety of the people and were forced to surrender Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army. They spent more time more attending to their own power and prosperity than they did attending to God’s charge to them to shepherd the people, and it was the people who paid the price. It was the people who lost everything.
There’s a reason we decided, as the old Schoolhouse Rock song taught, to have no more kings in this country. We forget sometimes, because it doesn’t make it into history books, or Schoolhouse Rock, that the ideas of Reformed Christianity had a profound influence in shaping the balance of power that lies at the heart of our constitution. Over the course of two centuries the Presbyterians who were instrumental in establishing the American colonies had come to the mantra, “no bishop, no king.” They had seen how easily power could be abused by a single individual given the freedom to act absolutely. They knew that humanity, depraved as it was, could not be trusted with such power. And beside all that, Christians already had a king. His name is Jesus. And he has come to redefine power, and what it truly means to reign over all.
That’s what this Sunday is about. It’s about one of the fundamental questions that we ask of people who make the intentional choice to belong to this body. We are asked to trust in Jesus as both Lord and Savior. Today is about what it means to call Jesus, “Lord.” In the early days of the church, to say that Jesus was Lord was to make a radical political statement; one that would have been considered both dangerous and subversive. That’s because back then the major geopolitical superpower was Rome. The Roman empire of the first century spanned from what is now England to Africa, and from Spain to Syria. One quarter of the world’s population lived and died under the auspices of Rome. The leader of this massive empire was Caesar, and he became the focal point of the Imperial cult of Rome. Lest anyone forget, Caesar’s likeness was minted on coins that bore the inscription, “Caesar is Lord.” So, for Christians to confess Jesus as Lord meant confessing two things in one breath: first, that as “Lord,” it was Jesus and Jesus alone whom one trusted as the ultimate authority for one’s life; and two, it meant declaring that Caesar was not. To confess Jesus as one’s Lord means signaling a desire to live under a different kind of rule. To confess Jesus as one’s Lord means living one’s life according to a different story.
The woeful kings of Judah, the failed shepherds of God’s people, failed precisely because of the story they told themselves about what it meant to rule. It meant being a big shot, the kind of person who was served by others. It meant getting what they wanted because of who they were. It meant having the authority to give orders and expecting the people around you to pursue what was in your best interest. In short, it was power over others. It was personal exaltation. And because they were so focused on themselves and the things that would secure this exalted status, they lost sight of God’s priorities of justice for the marginalized and peace for God’s people.
But that is not the story that God would tell. That is not the story that God would have us live our lives by. Instead, to the people dispersed and scattered by the consequence of failed kings, God promises to raise up a good shepherd, a righteous branch of David’s line who will reign wisely, act justly and promote what is right; someone who will gather the people together instead of driving them apart.
In 1998 the journalist Tom Junod was assigned to write a profile on Fred Rogers for Esquire magazine’s hero issue. Junod at the time had earned a reputation for occasional cruelty in his treatment of those he profiled. For reasons that Junod does not understand to this day, Mr. Rogers took an interest in him, befriending him. That relationship is the inspiration for the movie released this weekend starring the actor Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers. In reflecting on the man who welcomed countless children and adults to be his neighbor, Junod observes, “It is a truism by now that there was no difference between Fred Rogers and Mister Rogers, that Fred was always Fred,” and, “Fred’s faith in God was unshakable, and so was his faith in goodness itself.” People who know about Mr. Rogers know that in addition to being the host of his own long-running children’s show, he was also an ordained Presbyterian pastor. Through the television he sought to pass along something of the story of the one who was his Lord. It is a story that assures us that true power comes not from what we have over another, but from what we have with one another, from the graciousness that lies at the heart of creation.
Ultimately, whether we seek to or not, we end up emulating those whom we follow. The story of our lives is shaped by the story they tell. For the corruptible kings and leaders of this world that story usually ends up in service to them and the ends they seek, and comes at the sake of our own souls, if not our lives. Which is why we seek to trust as Jesus as our Lord instead. Because the story Jesus tells leads us to serve one another, to forgive one another, to share in the graciousness that lies at the heart of creation with one another. And instead of robbing us of our souls, it is the very thing that saves them- assuring us of the role we have to play as God’s own children as God puts things right. When we forsake our allegiance to the rulers of this world and the power they would seek to have over us and give our lives instead to the reign of the one whose power is always with us, we begin to become the truest versions of ourselves. We live in the world as children of the God who loves us just the way we are.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit!