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Psalm 132:8-18
John 18:33-37

Having just returned from a long train trip to Nova Scotia, I read with interest the = recent obituary (New York Times 11/23/06) of an American icon by the name of Steam Train Maury who had taken his last westbound freight at the age of 89. I can think of only one member of our congregation who might have heard of him, b= ut he was recognized (by those in the know) as the grand patriarch of hobos --- men who have been part of America’s history and imagination since the late 1800’s. Most who came to be called “hobos” were itinerant laborers who hopped rides on freight tra= ins looking not only for adventure and freedom but for places where they might = find work --- and many did as field hands, loggers and miners who played an important role in the development of industry and the American West. It’s estimated that during t= he Great Depression more than a million desperate people availed themselves of free rides on the rails, often sleeping in box cars as they traveled about = the country looking for work.

Co-author of a book entitled Tales of the Iron Road: = My Life As King of the Hobos, Steam Train Maury escaped from an unhappy home life by hopping his first freight train at the age of 14. In hobo mythology, of whi= ch he was chief care-taker for many years, death is referred to as “taki= ng the westbound,” and with few genuine hobos still around, the last whi= stle Steam Train heard a few days ago signaled the passing of an era.=

In preparing a sermon, I always read the relevant pa= ssages early in the week, gather information as to what they may have meant in the= ir original context and then allow things to speak to me through the week --- hopefully with the guidance of the Holy Spirit! --- as to what relevance th= ose bible passages may have to the contexts in which we live our lives today. T= hat obituary was among the things that caught my attention. “Hobos,” for heaven= 217;s sake! Not only wouldn’t any of us recognize the name of the “ki= ng of the hobos,” none but the oldest among us here would even remember = who hobos were!! We live in such a different world than the one which spawned t= he hobo phenomenon --- and not just because box cars are now sealed and railro= ad security has been tightened. To think that there was a “king” walking in our midst while most of us were unaware even of his kingdom̵= 7;s existence. Something similar to that, though of much more important, happen= s in our gospel reading today.

It’s “Christ the King” Sunday whic= h in the liturgical year brings the season of “Ordinary Time” to a climax before Advent begins the cycle once again. Jesus is on trial before Pontius Pilate in today’s gospel.&nb= sp; It’s the story of two different kinds of kingdoms confronting = one another --- a confrontation that still goes on. It’s also the story in which a well-known question is asked --- a question which we and other faith communities around the world would do well to more humbly attempt an answer= .

To govern the region of Judea which Rome ruled with its occupation forces, Caesar had appointed Pontius Pilate as procurator, or governor, and his job was to administer the province and pre= vent the kind of things we have been unable to prevent during our current occupa= tion of Iraq. Keeping the peace was his job and the religious leaders of this conquered people conspired to help him do it, so long as their own power and interests were left untouched. Neither side would have profited from having someone ‘rock the boat.’ As we know from watching daily events unfold in the Middle East even today, the interplay between religious and political leadership is a delicate and potentially explosive matter.

John’s account of Jesus being brought before P= ontius Pilot, the so-called “trial” in which the question of kingship = is batted around, gives a bit more emphasis to the political/religious confrontation than the story as told in the synoptic gospels. You may remem= ber the public controversy over Mel Gibson’s recent film about the death = of Jesus in which the Jews are portrayed as being fully responsible --- Pontius Pilot having washed his hands of it and merely gotten out of the way of the= ir getting what they wanted. His script depended upon Matthew’s gospel, written at a time when the early Christians encountered more hostility from= the Jewish hierarchy than from the Romans --- hence the slant. By the time John’s account was written several decades later, the political lands= cape had changed and the role likely played by Pilot and the Roman occupational government in the death of Jesus was given its due.

John uses the literary technique of a drama with sev= en scenes to convey the movement of events involved in the trial. Two stages a= re set --- one inside of Pilot’s headquarters where Jesus is interrogate= d, the other outside where the Jews who have claimed Jesus to be a troublemaker remain. Pilot moves back and forth between those stages until the final sce= nes bring a merger of the two. In his book Telling the Truth: the Gospel As Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale, Frederich Beuchner sketches for us what one= of those scenes might have looked like as we, the audience, watched the drama unfold:

They have brought the up-country messiah in for questioning. The man stands in front of the desk with his hands tied behind= his back. You can see that he has been roughed up a little. His upper lip is absurdly puffed out and one eye is swollen shut. He looks unwashed and smel= ls unwashed. His feet are bare. If there were just the two of them, Pilot thin= ks, he would give him his carfare and send him back to the sticks where he came from, but the guards are watching, and on the wall the official portrait of Tiberius Caesar is watching . . . so he goes through the formalities.<= /o:p>

“So you’re the king of the Jews,” = he says. “The head Jew,” because there hasn’t been one of th= em yet who hasn’t made that his claim --- David come back to give Judea = back to the Jews.

The man says, “It’s not this world IR= 17;m king of,” but his accent is so thick that Pilot hardly gets it, the accent along with what they have done to his upper lip. As if he has a mout= hful of stones, he says, “I’ve come to bear witness to the truth,= 221; and at that the procurator of Judea take= s such a deep drag on his filter tip that his head swims.

He pushes back from the desk and crosses his legs. S= tanding by the door, the guards aren’t paying much attention. One of them is picking his nose, the other staring up at the ceiling. Cigarette smoke drif= ts over the surface of the desk --- the picture of his wife when she still had= her looks, the onyx box from Caesar, the clay plaque with the imprint of his fi= rst son’s hand on it, made while he was still a child in nursery school. Pilot squints at the man through the smoke and asks his question.

He asks it because he would give as much as even his= life to hear the answer and half because he believes there is no answer and would give a good deal to hear that too because it would mean just one thing less= to have to worry about. He says, “What is truth?” and by way of an answer the man with a split lip doesn’t say a blessed thing.

However inadequate this ‘trial’ may seem= to us, especially for a potentially capital offense, let us not judge the Roma= ns too harshly without reflecting upon the so-called “military tribunals” recently established to pass judgment on alleged “enemy combatants̶= 1; imprisoned at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay. Jesus, at least, knew what he was accused of and who his accusers were and he didn’t spend years lo= cked in a cell before coming to trial. Just as Jesus will end up putting Pilot a= nd the Jewish leaders on trial, so the trial itself provides a mirror of judgm= ent upon human affairs even today.

Issues of ultimate significance are raised during the exchange between Jesus and Pontius Pilot in the ‘trial,’ and for John these issues summarize his understanding of the ministry and the ident= ity of Jesus. With tongue-in-cheek we may hear Jesus’ response to the question concerning “Are you a king?” as something akin to “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is!” For the record, Jesus responds to the question as any good rabbi would --- he asks a question in return which puts Pilate on trial as to whether he can make a personal decision to accept Jesus as ‘king’ of a wholly differe= nt kind of kingdom than the one Pilot represents. Or is the Roman procurator simply going to accept the hearsay evidence from Jesus’ accusers implicating him as a revolutionary in a way he surely does not intend? Pilot had to decide: Has this itinerant preacher and miracle worker simply been facetiously anointed ‘king’ of a group of “hobos,” = the down-and-outs with whom he is reported to keep company? Or is he really a threat to the law and order of the political regime? Does he intend to ‘rock the boat?’

Luke’s gospel says the Jews testified that Jes= us taught people that it was not right to pay their taxes. Later in John’= ;s narrative, Jesus is accused of claiming he is the son of God. With the ulti= mate hypocrisy sometimes exhibited by religious as well as political leaders when pressing their own agendas, the Jews --- of all people --- turn Jesus in for disrespecting Rome’s claim that there is no God but Caesar! Had they conveniently forgotten about Daniel in the lion’s den and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednigo in a fiery furnace?

In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ awareness that = he is from God and is going again to God is repeatedly stressed. As he travels ab= out the hills and towns and lakeshore of Galilee teaching the truth about God a= nd one another and doing miracles of healing that could only have a divine sou= rce, he regularly attests to his awareness that his ministry fulfills the will of Him who sent him, and he knows that even the hurdles he confronts, including the final one, will ultimately be opportunities for God’s glory to be revealed. Neither Pilot nor the Jews are really in charge at this trial, despite appearances. The kingship of Jesus was not bestowed by earthly auth= ority, and since human hands did not place the crown on his head, human hands cann= ot take it away.

We who claim to be followers of this ‘kingR= 17; whose violent death, even, was used for God’s loving purposes, are now the ones on trial this and every day concerning his ‘kingship.’= Do we recognize him? Do we honor him with appropriate responses from our lives= and from our treasures? The kingdom to which he invites us --- and asks us to invite others --- is not the same as the corporate kingdoms and nation-stat= es, the political parties and social organizations to which we belong and pledge allegiance. The values and behavior prescriptions of God’s realm are often at odds with those of this world’s kingdoms. War, for example, = and all forms of violence, hunger and homelessness, poverty and prejudice do not exist where Jesus reigns as king.

“I am the Truth,” Jesus said about himse= lf, and the “truth” Jesus taught concerning how and why to love and care for one another was exemplified in his life. The truths about who we a= re, why we’re here and where we are going God reveals to us, if only in b= its and pieces, through life’s experiences of faith, hope and --- greates= t of all --- love. So guided by the teachings and the ongoing Spirit of Jesus in our midst, we who acknowledge = the kingship of Jesus are challenged each day to discern together what new disguises truth may be wearing in the world around us --- and then go stand alongside it, lovingly, in support.