Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary
On this final Sunday of the Year B lectionary cycle, the Feast of Christ the King, we turn to John for the gospel text, John 18:33-37. Before us is the second of seven short scenes that make up a brief, but intense and decisive drama in John’s gospel: the trial of Jesus before Pilate (18:28-19:16). In Scene 1 (vv 28-32), the Temple authorities have presented Jesus to Pilate, calling him a “criminal” worthy of death—a punishment they are not authorized to carry out. Our text is Scene 2. At issue is whether or not Jesus claims to be “king of the Jews.” If so, he is guilty of sedition against Rome.
In John, kingship is associated with Jesus by others (John 1:49; 6:15; 12:13, 15; and here, by Pilate); but most translators agree that even here, Jesus does not apply the title himself. In v 33, Jesus speaks three times of “my kingdom,” but only does so to make clear that his “kingdom” is not derived from, or rooted in, the “world system” of power that includes Rome. Some translators have indeed phrased Jesus’ response to Pilate’s question (“Are you a king?” v 37) as a confirmation of Pilate’s suggestion; thus, “You are saying (this), because I am a king.” But the majority prefer the translation, “You are saying that I am a king.” In effect, far from confirming Pilate’s proposal about Jesus’ purpose and role, Jesus resists it and establishes his true identity: “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world: to testify to the truth.” Pilate famously parries, “What is truth?”
This text brings into focus a question with which we, like millions of Christians before us, must grapple, both in the conduct of our personal lives and in our lives as citizens: What does Jesus’ way of being in the world—including here, when he is on trial—tell us about the sort of power that is compatible with Christ’s kingdom, and serves to sustain it? What forms of “kingly” power does Jesus indicate can neither establish, advance, or sustain the reign of God in this world?
Popular religious movements, both in Europe and in the US, assume that the “kingship” of Jesus entitles us to make use of the taken-for-granted, “kingly” prerogatives of this-worldly leaders. They imagine that, in the name of our King, we must make (some notion of) Christian “values” the law of the land. Force, including deadly violence, may be needed to compel universal acquiescence and obedience. But here, before Pilate, Jesus exposes the bad faith of such movements (v 33): “If my kingdom were of this world,” Jesus says to Pilate, “my followers would be fighting for me. But as it is [they are not fighting, because] my kingdom is not ‘of’ this world.” Whenever a movement, political or religious, claims to serve Jesus, and then proceeds to employ this world’s tools of threat, terror and violence to enforce its vision of righteousness—that movement is waving a false flag.
This final gospel reading of the church year foregrounds a question that has become, perhaps, the question of our time: “What does it look like to live by the values of the kingdom of Jesus in a world where the zealous again and again take up tools of violence to enforce the ‘reign of God’?” Centuries bear witness to countless efforts to serve God (or even “enthrone Jesus”) by means of oppression and violence. They have done horrific damage—and have ultimately failed. Pilate and the Empire he served are long dead. As for Pilate’s question—“what is truth?”—God has answered it: truth is the Risen, Living Word, whose wounded hands continue to cradle all victims of violence, especially violence done in His name. Wherever we bend down and join Him, his reign makes the ground holy.
Insights into Biblical Greek Grammar and Syntax 