Church of the Incarnation

"Crown him with many crowns," we sang to begin this service. "Crown him the Lord of lords, who over all doth reign." 1 It's Christ the King Sunday, and we're celebrating Jesus as our sovereign lord.

But there's just one problem with that: as Americans, we don't want a king. We fought a revolution to escape a king's reach and boldly declared, "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." 2 We declared that no human was, by mere virtue of birth, ruler over any other human. We went on to declare that government derives its power solely from the consent of the governed and that the people have the right to alter or abolish any government that becomes destructive to these ends. 3 We will not have a king, and we will overthrow anyone who attempts to behave as a king. We are fiercely independent and free to decide our own futures.

The Episcopal Church, which is the American branch of the Anglican Church, is structured very differently from most other Anglican branches. We have a constitution which declares us to be "a constituent member of the Anglican Communion... in communion with the See of Canterbury." 4 We refuse to answer to the Archbishop of Canterbury as other Anglicans do; we will not have anything that looks like a Pope telling us what to do. Rather, we govern ourselves. Decisions about our doctrine and worship are made by General Convention, a meeting held every three years. There are two "houses" which vote. The house of bishops consists of all bishops, both active and retired. The house of deputies is comprised of priests and lay people elected to represent each diocese. For a resolution to pass at Convention, it must be passed by both houses. Our bishops do not have the authority to make major decisions without our input and approval. Likewise our Presiding Bishop lacks the authority to make major decisions. Her job is to preside at meetings of the whole church and to enforce the decisions made by the whole body. She can't make any changes in our doctrine or worship without our input and approval. This structure is partly because we're Americans and we refuse to be ruled by a king, but it's also partly because we believe God works through all the faithful and not just through one divinely ordained leader. We believe that we hear God most accurately when we engage the whole body in listening and that one person listening alone can mis-hear and misunderstand God all too easily. We don't want a king in our church because we don't think a king will help us hear and know God.

Americans simply will not have a king.

And yet, we tend to ordain people as king by popular acclamation. Living in Memphis, I had the opportunity to visit shrines to two such kings.

Long before Michael Jackson was the king of pop, Elvis was The King and Graceland was his castle. The tour of Elvis's home shows the opulence and grandeur of his lifestyle. You get to walk through two of his private planes, one of which has a bed and telephone in it. And you can see many of his cars - sleek convertibles and plush limousines. You see his all-white living room with its ten-person couch, his pool room with its upholstered ceiling, and his jungle room with its log furniture. Room after room displays his costumes, some covered with blinding jewels and others topped with sweeping capes. But then you walk through the displays of his other achievements. You see the checks he wrote to all sorts of charities. He was a financial backer of the civil rights movement, and he provided the funding that turned the St. Jude Children's Hospital into a reality. Elvis gave away far more than he spent on himself. He cared for his subjects as a good king does.

The other king whose shrine I saw in Memphis is Martin Luther King, Jr. The National Civil Rights Museum is housed in the Lorraine Hotel where King was assassinated. Its focus, though, is divided between King and all the thousands of others whose work in large and small ways made his possible. Like many before and after him, King told his subjects that he would set them free, that he would establish just laws which would keep them safe. His followers were loyal not because he demanded it but because he deserved it. And he used his power only for the good of the people and never for his own gain. Like any good king, Martin Luther King, Jr. inspired the people with his vision of a better kingdom, more just laws, and greater freedoms for the downtrodden.

While we refuse to have a king imposed on us, we do seem to seek and even create kings among us, people we can admire and trust, people who inspire us and care for us. While we adamantly insist on our right to make our own laws and our own decisions, we yearn for someone to shoulder some of the burden of our freedoms for us, someone to set some basic guidelines for us and someone to keep us out of danger. Like the Jews of Jesus' day, we long for a king like the great David, the youngest and least significant in his family, a nobody like us, whose simple faith made it possible for him to slay the terrible Goliath with just a slingshot and three small stones. We long for a king who will inspire us to be better, to dream bigger, to hope more boldly. We long for a king who won't command our loyalty but who will earn it by having our needs always in mind and by working tirelessly for our good.

We Americans know that such a king doesn't exist among humans. Even the great King David sent a man to the front lines to be killed in order to free up the man's wife for himself. Human kings are always going to let us down.

But as Christians we have a king who'll never fail us. Jesus may not have a castle like Graceland and he may not wear jewel-encrusted jump suits, but Jesus' throne is heaven itself, and the angels attend him. Jesus is a king who serves his people unswervingly. His triumphal entry into the city is on a borrowed donkey and his moment of greatest glory is his death on a cross. He will never abuse us or mislead us or neglect us. He will always inspire us to love more completely, to serve more humbly, and to fight more devoutly for the welfare of the downtrodden. In Jesus' kingdom we don't need to grasp so tightly our freedoms and rights, because Jesus has no intention of taking them from us. In Jesus' kingdom we'll find peace and equality and deep freedom.

It turns out we Americans do need a king after all. We need Jesus, the humble servant king who will never fail us.

As we sang at the beginning of our service,

		"Crown him with many crowns,
		the Lamb upon the throne;
		Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns
		all music but its own.
		Awake my soul, and sing
		of him who died for thee,
		and hail him as thy matchless king
		for all eternity." 5   

References:

1. Hymn 494, The Hymnal 1982.
2. The Declaration of Independence.
3. The Declaration of Independence.
4. Preamble to Constitution of the Episcopal Church.
5. Hymn 494, The Hymnal 1982.