"No Kings but One...and Many" - Sermon for Last Pentecost 11-23-25

Every once in awhile I meet someone who says he is Jesus. I try to balance my skepticism of their claim with the gospel and baptismal injunction to seek and serve Jesus in troubled people such as these. And who knows: in that moment, that person could well be the Christ.

The other day, I met someone who said he was a royal. I was in my priestly garb, walking near Sixth and Mission, when a man stopped me. When I said I was an Episcopalian, he recalled that we are an offshoot of the Church of England, of which King Charles III is the titular governor. This man said he was one of Charles’s sons, news that I took as a normative bit of madness that befalls many there, but I treated him with the respect due his lineage nevertheless.

Royals, legitimate or counterfeit, aren’t afforded much respect these days. The “No Kings” protest marches last June and October brought millions to the streets in cities large and small across the country. I was tempted to chalk “No Kings but One” on our church sign – in sly reference to Christ the King – but I didn’t want to court partisan misunderstandings, or foist Jesus on unsuspecting passers-by for whom Christ is an enigma or anathema.

The scriptures give us differing views on the kingship of Christ. Jesus, the gospels report, wasn’t clear one way or the other. After feeding the multitudes, Jesus headed to the hills so the people wouldn’t force kingship on him. Jesus downplayed his messiahship with his disciples, and when Peter outed him, Jesus told them to keep it to themselves. Jesus’s Palm Sunday ride into Jerusalem – on a donkey rather than a war-horse – was a parody of and a protest against Roman imperialism. Jesus told Pontius Pilate, Caesar’s governor in Jerusalem, that his kingdom was not from this world. And in today’s passage, the crucified Christ’s kingship is a taunt and a challenge – since you’re the king, save yourself … and us, too, while you’re at it, said the one hanging next to him.

But in other places, the scriptures affirm Christ’s kingship. The Old Testament prophets ache for and foretell the Christ, the Messiah, the righteous successor to King David. And the New Testament writers testify to Christ’s cosmic, eternal reign as king of the new heaven and the new earth.

Yet in each of these references to the kingship of Christ, Jesus is not seating himself on a gold-plated throne. His rule is one of humility, not hubris; of honesty, not hypocrisy. The ruler of the universe is decidedly not a member of the ruling class. Jesus is the obedient Son of the Father; he is the worthy Lamb of God that was sacrificed and slain; he is the agent of creation, killed by his own creatures; he is the crucified king.

Jesus is the crucified king, and by the power of his resurrection, the firstborn of creation became the firstborn from the dead. Dead and raised so we can enjoy life eternal with him.

This morning, I baptized Mark Hawthorne. Baptism, as I taught Mark, is our participation in and our union with Christ in his death and resurrection. Saint Paul makes this clear, and the church’s baptismal liturgy repeats this theme many times. In baptism we are anointed as priests, prophets, and kings – or monarchs, if you prefer a gender-neutral expression.

Baptism makes us priests, in that we offer the sacrifice of ourselves to God. It makes us prophets, in that we speak and live God’s word. And it makes us kings – monarchs – in that we are members of the Royal Family, which is the Church.

There is truth in the madness on our streets. There is truth in the desire of millions not to bend a knee to any would-be king of a corrupt ruling class. There is truth in the ones claiming to be royal, their status due not to any delusion, but because baptism makes them so. And there is truth, ultimately, in Christ-crucified and raised, the King who promises paradise to you, to me, and to any who ask him in faith and humility.

Father Daniel S.J. Scheid, SCP

Last after Pentecost, Proper 29

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Francisco

“No Kings but One … and Many”