What is a King?

The scriptures referred to are Daniel 7:9-10,13-14; Psalm 93; Revelation 1:4b-8 and John 18:33-37.

It doesn't take a Bible scholar to figure out what theme runs through our 4 lectionary readings today. They are all about kingship. Our Old Testament reading is Daniel's vision of one “like a human being” (in the Hebrew, literally “like a son of man”). He is given an everlasting kingdom over all people and nations. In the Psalm we sing of God as king. The two New Testament passages explicitly call Jesus king. In Revelation he is called the ruler of the kings of the earth. In John 18, Pilate, the representative of the Roman emperor who called himself “king of kings,” asks Jesus if he is the king of the Jews. Jesus explains that his kingdom's source is not earthly.

This coming together of the texts is not accidental. This Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King. It falls on the last Sunday of the liturgical year and makes for a perfect transition to the season of Advent. It is a recent addition to the church calendar, having come from Pope Pius XI in 1925. It was in part a reaction to the rise of Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator, who in turn inspired Adolph Hitler to become the strong man leader of Germany. The pope wished to remind Christians that their ultimate allegiance is to Christ.

Today, though, it brings up several questions: What is a king? Do we need a king? What kind of king do we need? And in what sense in Jesus Christ our king? We will not get to all these questions today and so we will be looking at these topics throughout Advent. Today we will look at what a king is and what he does.

The word “monarch” comes from the Greek and is simply the combination of the words for “one” and “leader.” While monarchy has evolved over the years, during the times of the Bible it meant that the supreme power of the state was wholly invested in one individual who ruled for life. In an absolute monarchy the king rules by decree. His word is law. An individual with such power is outside the experience of most people living in the U.S. unless they previously lived in a monarchy. Even so, most monarchies today are either limited or constitutional, where the king or queen has few powers or is a figurehead, as in the U.K. Only if you have lived in Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Oman or Qatar would you know what an absolute monarchy is like.

Perhaps the best way to understand this form of monarchy is to contrast it with our form of government. While most monarchies are dynastic, with the king or queen being succeeded by their offspring, some countries do elect their kings. We elect our presidents but they do not have absolute power. The checks and balances built into our system by the founding fathers means that each branch of government has certain powers over other branches. So our president cannot declare war; only Congress can. He cannot make laws; only Congress can. He cannot spend the nation's money in whatever fashion he wishes; only Congress can. If he breaks certain laws, he can be held accountable by Congress.

Obviously a politically powerful president can try to get around such restrictions, as we have seen. He can't declare war but if the country is under attack or a serious external threat, he can, as commander in chief of our armed forces, order them into action. Still he is under the War Powers Resolution and Congress must grant him special powers in time of war. He can't pass laws but he can issue executive orders which are as binding on federal agencies as laws are. He can send drafts of laws and proposed budgets to Congress and then lobby hard to get them passed. But if Congress resists him, they can severely hamper him in doing certain things.

In addition, our president is still a citizen and subject to the constitution and the laws of the land. He can be removed for “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” according to the Constitution. In an absolute monarchy, however, there is an absolute division between the ruler and everyone else. He is not under the law; his word is law. The rest of the government just exists to carry out his will. If that scares you, that's understandable. So how did the idea of giving one person so much power develop?

Back when we were wandering family groups and tribes, a tight, nearly military kind of organization was important for survival. The tribe was solely responsible for its own food, shelter and security. Nothing was provided by anyone else. Nothing was taken for granted. Even if it was a group of hunter-gatherers, questions had to be decided, like when will the group go out for food, in what direction, how far and for how long. Who stays behind to guard the camp, the women and the small children? What should the group do if it encounters another group? Should they fight? Flee? Make peace? The most efficient way to organize this was around an individual who had proved himself to be a good leader. In perilous times, a warrior might be best. In peaceful times, a wise judge might be preferred. Hopefully, you got a combination of the two: someone who kept the group safe from external threats and who also kept the group working together smoothly.

Even a chieftain who held his position due to his strength and strategic intelligence as lead warrior had to be good at dealing with the tribe's internal conflicts. After a while, certain problems had arisen often enough that he could articulate certain principles and make them laws. The laws dealt with everything—property rights and ownership, respecting others, who could marry whom, how to determine and punish guilt, etc. You can see examples of this in the Torah, beginning right after the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. Of course, laws are general and in specific instances, conflicts might involve a clash between two principles, as when someone defending himself murders another person. Tricky situations and possible exceptions meant the chieftain not only made the laws but had to judge individual cases. When the group was relatively small, this was possible without taking too much time away from his other duties. And if the chieftain was wise enough to be impartial in these matters, it made things consistent.

Usually the chieftain was the father or alpha male of the group. This is simply because if you didn't have a wise and effectively protective father, the family or tribe either died out or was taken over by another tribe, often as captives and slaves. While we do know of tribes led by women, like Boudica, chieftains were typically male. He was leader by virtue of his wisdom and prowess, or by taking over from a weaker leader. If you had a good chieftain, your tribe was safe, prosperous and peaceful, at least among yourselves.

As tribes grew, intermarried, merged, developed farming, settled down, built towns and cities, established trade and gained control over larger areas and diverse peoples, the position of the King emerged. He was formerly a tribal chieftain, so strong militarily that he could fend off invaders or conquer neighboring tribes, and so good an organizer that the peoples under him prospered. If he was wise, he allowed former chieftains to be his vassals, ruling their peoples or lands for him. Thus we got an aristocracy, powerful lords who are not the king but who act as his representatives in ruling parts of his kingdom.

The king was not only the leader of the people politically but religiously as well. This probably went back to the time of the chieftains. The patriarch not only organized the security and work of the tribe, he not only made and enforced the laws, he also acted as the tribe's representative to the power or powers who ruled and organized nature, ie, the gods. He expressed thanks for the regularity of seasons, harvests, the migration of herds, and all the things outside human control upon which the tribe relied. The patriarch led the prayers, made the sacrifices, read the signs, and asked for blessings on events in the life of the tribe, like births, maturity, marriages and deaths.

Eventually kings might claim to be divine or to be descended from gods. Even Israel used the title “son of God” for the Davidic ruler. (Psalm 89:26-27) Because of their fierce monotheism it did not mean the ruler was literally divine but that God had adopted him as his own. (2 Samuel 7:12-14) The ideal was always David, a man after God's own heart, who represented God's strength, wisdom and justice. (1 Samuel 13:14)

So ideally a king was a person strong enough not only to protect his people from external threats but to ensure that the group lived and worked harmoniously so as to secure their continued survival and prosperity. He made just laws and acted as judge, resolving disputes and balancing the competing claims of justice and peace. He represented the people before God, giving thanks, asking forgiveness and securing blessings for his people. Good kings were beloved. It is interesting to note that the word “king” comes from the same word as “kin.” At least in the early days, before large nation-states, he could literally be the father of his people.

Those of us raised in the democratic tradition may find our hackles rising in response to the idea of one human being having that much power, especially if his main qualification was his physical or military might. It's why we separated the power to make laws and to judge cases from the presidency and gave them to Congress and the courts. We have the advantage of looking back at history and seeing all the flaws in human monarchies. Yet we can also see how kingship arose and why it was seen to be needed at that time. It is, in some ways, more efficient than democracy. And, when facing a military threat, we also give our president added powers to fight our enemies. Yet we have seen how our system also has flaws. And the Bible itself is not blind to the flaws in kingship. We'll talk about that next Sunday.

Today we celebrate Christ as our King. But what does that mean? We will get to that and other questions in the coming weeks. And this week I am going to leave you with some questions to ponder. Use them as the focus of your prayers and devotions this week.

Ask yourself: if Jesus is my King, how does that affect my relationship with him? How should I treat his words? How does this affect my loyalty to other things?

Use Jesus' words from today's gospel as a jumping off point: “My kingdom is not from this world.” Note that Jesus does not say of this world but from it. What difference does that make?

Next week we will examine the question: Do we, in the 21^st century, need a king? Or would he just be a royal pain?

First preached on November 22, 2009. It has been revised and updated.