"The Credentials of the King"

      Here in the United States we do not crown a king.  Most of the time, we're grateful for this.  The Presidency is the closest we come to a king, in terms of political power and prestige.  Among many other things, the President is charged with administering justice.  Opinions differ about exactly what justice means.  But no one would argue,

      We want our Presidents to be just and fair.  We are idealistic about what credentials our president should posses.  We see this in the media frenzy over the still months-away presidential elections.  We want someone who can practically walk on water!  But that, of course, has already been done.

      The fact of the matter is no leader could fulfill our idealistic expectations.  Even if we could agree on what credentials are absolutely necessary, no human being can be that perfect, that immune to the push and tug of politics.  We so desperately need wise and just leaders, but in our fallen state, no one human being is up to the task.

      And then there's the trouble of even being able to discern what credentials our leaders ought to have.

      People in the ancient world struggled with the same thing, even if they didn't elect their leaders.  Even in a monarchy, people hoped for the best.  In Psalm 72 the psalmist paints a picture of the ideal king.  The ideal ruler is just; righteous; concerned for the poor.  This ruler takes the side of needy children; crushes the oppressor; is long lived; and filled with compassion. This ideal king is one who saves and delivers.  During his rule the land will have abundance.  There will be a time of general prosperity.  (It almost sounds like a campaign ad, doesn't it?)  The people and the land will be blessed.  The credentials of this ideal king are very clear indeed.  They have to do with justice, in all its many forms.

      Is Psalm 72 wishful thinking?  In the ancient near east, (then, as now) the reality of what monarchs were, was very different from the idealism portrayed in this psalm.

      Between last week and this week's lectionary readings, we see polar opposites in terms of the credentials of the king.

      Just last week we left behind King Herod, who ordered the slaying of all the Hebrew baby boys.  Murder was nothing new to him. He was a despised ruler with a bloody history.  He murdered his beloved wife because of his jealousy.  He even killed three of his sons. Herod ordered the murder of countless rivals and presumed rivals.  So his response to the possibility of another king, born to take his place, was predictable.  It was violent.

      Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon reflect on Herod's dilemma.  This is what they have to say: “. . .the rulers of [the] world. . . at least had the good sense to look at Jesus and see that, in him, they were in big trouble. Matthew says that the moment King Herod heard about the birth of Jesus, he called together his political advisers and 'was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him' (Matthew 2:3).  Herod had been in office long enough to know a threat to his rule when he saw one.

      "Herod knew that, in this baby at Bethlehem, everything his kingdom was built upon was in mortal peril.  So Herod responded in the way rulers usually respond: violence."¹

      Herod is the person Matthew calls "King" until something very significant happens.  When the magi worship Christ, Herod is dethroned.  Matthew never again refers to Herod as "King" in his gospel.  The occasion of the magi's worship becomes Jesus' crowning².  There is a new reign at hand, and it is the reign of the kingdom of God.

      Between last week and this week, we see polar opposites in terms of the credentials of the king.

      Last week, in Herod, we saw an all too human king.  A human king, possessed of the very worst of humanity: greed, pride, violence.  A king who wielded power without mercy, who looked only to increase his own prestige, with no concern even for his family, let alone his subjects.

      This week, in Christ, the infant King, we see humanity made perfect in Jesus.  A Godly king, possessed of the very best of humanity: generosity, humility, love.  In the infant king, we find power redefined. In the man who was Jesus, we know God; a God of complete and endless mercy.  A God who is concerned for the needy.  A king who gives up his very life for his subjects.  Polar opposites, indeed.

      The story of Epiphany captures the battleground between two great kings: the despot and the Messiah.  It is a battle which continues to be fought within us.

      Herod is not dead.  Herod lives on, in us.  Though Herod is an extreme example, we all struggle with pride, greed, self-centeredness.  We all struggle with looking out for #1 and ignoring the pressing needs of others.  We all struggle with attraction to power.  Sometimes, we look for good things in all the wrong places.  It is hard for us to see the good hidden in the small and the weak; harder still to trust the idea that power is made perfect in weakness.  It goes against everything we have been so carefully taught.

      It is difficult these days, too, to find courageous acts of justice.  Last summer there was an amazing story of someone with deep concern for the world's poor, but most people never even heard of the person.  The leader I refer to was not a king, nor an elected official. He was an agronomist.

      Only five people in the history of the world have ever won these three awards:  the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.  You have heard of four of them, I'm sure:  Martin Luther King, Jr.  Mother Teresa. Nelson Mandela.   Elie Wiesel.  Any one of these could be thought of as a righteous leader.  But the latest person who won this trifecta of awards is someone most of us never heard of.  A native Iowan, his name is Norman Borlaug.

      What Borlaug did was remarkable and simple.  He developed ways to increase grain productivity seven-fold.  His work has impacted all of humanity.  He only saved an estimated billion people.  Yet most Americans have never heard of him.³  I hadn't until I read about him in Newsweek last summer.  Borlaug worked steadily for decades in the field of agriculture, but his work didn't stop there.  At age 93 he continues to struggle with the politics of food production.  He is a quiet champion of justice for the world's poor.

      An unlikely leader. A man with credentials of concern for the poor, working toward abundance of the land and general prosperity.  A virtual unknown.

      And yet, these leaders do exist.  They exist on a big scale and they exist on a small scale.  They are often quietly hidden.  They work at places like the White Rock Center for Hope.  They work at jobs for which they are underpaid, but for which the intangible benefits are beyond measure.  They work to change laws that discriminate against the poor.  They silently sponsor families in trouble.  They do pro bono work for a group, for their church, for the helpless.  They give money to scholarship a struggling young student.  You have to look for them.  Sometimes you have to follow the signs.  You often find them in low places, not high.  Sometimes you may not see them at all; you only see the effects of their work.

      This is how it was with the perfect king.  With the one whose power was made perfect in weakness.  Herod looked for him in high places, but the magi found him in the most humble of homes.  Isn't it interesting that it was a group of foreign visitors who found him?

      These foreigners knew nothing of the Hebrew Scriptures.  They knew nothing of the prophecies and predictions.  Still, they knew a righteous king when they saw one.  They were not taken in by the glitter and the gold of Herod.  They were attracted by the compelling light of the helpless One.

      If we rely only on credentials of power and prestige, we will find ourselves in trouble.   Everything the world is built upon means nothing in the eyes of our King, whose power is made perfect in Jesus.  Our Jesus, concerned with the poor and oppressed (Matt 25).  Our Jesus.  Sometimes you may not be able to see Him, but if you keep looking, you will see the effects of his work.  You will find Him everywhere you turn.

      You see Him in the face of need:  the child whose parents are going through a divorce; the single mother overwhelmed by bills; the lonely widow who needs a new focus in her life;  the young man who cannot seem to find his way in the world.  We find Him when you step outside of ourselves.

      And we experience him in the struggle.  The endless struggle between good and greed.  The Herods of this world, and the Herods inside us, rarely give up without a struggle.  When we ask for the advent of God's kingdom, when we pray "thy Kingdom come", we enter into the struggle.  Christ's credentials are different; to these we cling.

      We cling to them when we are kind to a stranger, for no reason.  We cling to them when we suppress our own desires.  We cling to them when we stand up for those who have no voice.  We cling to them when we give freely of the gifts we have been so generously given.  We cling to them when we say "no" to violence of any kind, even the violence that beats in our own hearts.  We cling to them when we say "thy kingdom come", when we pray "not my will, but thine, be done".