This sermon followed a Scripture drama based on Luke 1: 5-25, 39-80; 3:1-6. 

I wonder what was your favorite part of this story? 

I wonder what was most important in this story? 

I wonder if you had a favorite character? … 

I want to talk a little bit about the neighbors. 

The Nosy Neighbors are a kind of comedic archetype or trope. 

Our household is most familiar with Fred and Ethel Mertz of I Love Lucy fame, but there are lots of examples in media and fiction.  In our Scripture drama today, we expanded the role of the Nosy Neighbors, but they’re really there in the text of Luke’s Gospel. 

They’re implied in Elizabeth’s long silence about her pregnancy. She doesn’t want to be the subject of gossip or speculation – or to know people are talking about her if something goes wrong. 

And the Nosy Neighbors are right there on the spot when it’s time to name the baby.  Elizabeth and Zechariah’s neighbors and relatives are there to celebrate, at the special party on the eighth day after his birth, the time to circumcise him and name him.  And they are all ready to NAME THAT BABY – Zechariah, after his father, of course. 

And they’re scandalized when Elizabeth – and then Zechariah – have other ideas! 

Then, after Zechariah sings his prophetic prayer over his baby son, the neighbors have SO MUCH to talk about.  That’s all right there in Luke’s text!

When some of the actors and I read over the story together, a couple of weeks ago, we talked a little about those neighbors and what they represent. 

The Nosy Neighbors have expectations about how people should act. About what’s NORMAL and RESPECTABLE. 

It’s not NORMAL for Elizabeth to be pregnant – at her age!

It’s not RESPECTABLE for these people to give their baby a name that nobody in their family has ever had! 

It’s not NORMAL or RESPECTABLE for somebody to expect their son to grow up to be a prophet of the Most High God, and prepare the way for God’s Messiah. 

I mean, everybody thinks their kid is special, but seriously…

But all these things – these are God at work in the world. God acts in human lives in ways that scandalize the neighbors. 

Our drama today includes most of the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel. We skipped the part where Gabriel appears to Mary and asks her to be the mother of Jesus, who is God among us, because we get that story every Advent; we’ll have it in a couple of weeks. And then after that we’ll have Luke’s story about the birth of Jesus – which is the Christmas Gospel you know, if you know a Christmas Gospel: in the time of Caesar Augustus, the manger, the shepherds and the angels, all that. 

The first Sunday in Advent is the church’s New Year’s Day, so here on the second Sunday we’re still at the very beginning of a new church year. And Luke is our Gospel for this year – the version of the story of Jesus that we’ll mostly hear and dwell with in the months ahead. 

And what we see in today’s story, this theme of holiness unfolding in people’s lives in ways that do not fit normality or respectability – it’s true across all the Gospels, but it’s something that was particularly important for Luke. 

He tells Jesus’ story in a way that emphasizes that aspect of his life and his teaching. 

So that’s something to look out for in our year of Luke! Where does God show up, outside the normal and respectable? 

Let’s pause to imagine the scene from today’s Gospel. 

Here’s Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. His hair is neatly cut and combed. He’s clean-shaven. His clothing is simple but sumptuous – finely-woven cloth bleached bright white, edged with gold. 

The room in which they stand, a meeting room at the Roman headquarters, is probably simply furnished, not lavish – a desk and chair of finely-carved exotic woods – materials for writing letters and decrees – guards in the doorway, clad in the fierce beauty of Roman armor, shield on one arm, short sword at hip, spear in hand. 

Somewhere, perhaps on a pole beside the door, a gold standard bearing the letters that stood for the dominion of Rome: SPQR. Simple physical signs of overwhelming military and political power.  

Pilate is not a king. He’s a provincial governor in a rather backward province of a sprawling and fractious empire.

Rome was supposed to be a republic, founded on the Greek principles of democratic rule, like the United States. But as Rome’s power had grown and spread, so too had the power of her rulers.  

Maybe some of you also read Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar, in high school English class? Julius was a statesman and general who was assassinated in 44 BC by a group of Roman senators who feared that he was turning the Roman republic towards tyranny. 

But killing Julius didn’t save Roman democracy. Instead, Caesar Augustus avenged his killers and turned Rome into a de facto monarchy, ruling for 41 years until his death. Augustus was the first Roman emperor to be worshiped as a god. (An idea which led to the persecution of Christians, decades later, when they refused to make sacrifices at the temples of the Emperor.) 

So that’s the vision of kingship Pilate brings into the room – whether he personally likes it or not: the King as god, emperor, untouchable tyrant. Kingship that spreads like a cancer, distorting and devouring.  

And what about Jesus? Look at him: he’s not clean-shaven or tidy. He’s a mess, dirty and bloody from being roughed up by the guards. His clothes weren’t that nice to begin with, and they’re torn and filthy now. His hands are bound. He’s not a king, either – at least, not in any of the ways Pilate means. 

What image of kingship does Jesus carry?  A thousand years earlier, Israel begged God for a king, so they could be like the other nations around them. And the prophet Samuel, speaking for God, warned them: Kings take. They take your sons as guards and warriors. They take your daughters as cooks and concubines. They take your wealth to arm their troops, decorate their palaces. They take the best of your crops and your flocks and your land. You will become no better than slaves to the power, ambition, and greed of the King you want so badly. 

But the people wanted a king. So first Saul, then David, become the Kings of Israel. Our Old Testament lesson today brings us an excerpt from David’s last words: “God has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure.” David’s vision of kingship has a lot to do with wealth and wellbeing – and the hope that his sons and grandsons will sit on his throne when he is gone. And he appeals to God as the Power who will make it so. After all, David hates the godless so much that he wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole – so surely God will continue to favor David’s lineage – says David! 

In fact… all has not gone well during David’s kingship, and all does not go well after his death. His son Solomon is kinda faithful to the God of Israel, but more than his father, he fulfills Samuel’s prediction: He takes. His lavish tastes build resentment among his people. 

After Solomon, the Israelite kingship begins a rapid decline. David’s kingdom breaks in two. There are kings who are too weak and kings who become tyrants. There are wars, coups and assassinations. The Northern kingdom, Israel, is conquered, then, a generation later, the Southern kingdom, Judea, where David’s capital city Jerusalem stands. There is exile, and, eventually, return – return to homeland, but not to independence. Now Judea’s kings are allowed to rule only so long as they serve the interests of the latest great empire. 

In Jesus’ lifetime that empire is Rome, which conquered Judea sixty years before his birth. Rome placed the criminally insane Herod the Great as Judea’s king. He was still king when Jesus was born; another Herod, Herod Antipas, was king when Jesus was killed. Both were vassal kings, holding power only because Rome gave it to them, and expected to serve Rome. 

That’s the image of kingship Jesus brings into the room, as a Jew, a member of God’s people Israel. Israel’s kingship was a story of hubris, war, greed, and loss. Kingship failed for Israel, over and over.  

Pilate asks Jesus, I’ve been told that you’re the King of the Jews. Are you a king? And Jesus answers,,  If I were a king, don’t you think I’d have some followers fighting for me, instead of standing before you, bound and utterly alone?  

All those meanings of kingship – power, greed, violence, hubris, authority, glory – they’re thick in the air between these two men. I think Pilate fully intends the irony of his question. I think Jesus fully hears it, and responds in kind. 

The Godly Play stories we use with our younger children say, “Jesus was a king, but not the kind of king people were expecting.” 

A King who sought to change human systems, not by decree or force, but through radical nonviolence. A King sought to change human minds, not by silencing or dominating, but through questions and stories that break open old habits of thought, and let new light shine in. A King who sought to change human hearts, not with manipulation, shame, or fear, but by living a life of radiant generosity and grace.  A King who loves us so much that They will never coerce us or violate our wills. 

I like to remind us each year that the feast of Christ the King, which we observe today, is very new, in church terms:  not yet quite 100 years old. The observance of Christ the King Sunday, on the last Sunday before Advent, was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925. The Pope was concerned about rising nationalism in Europe, in the wake of World War I. He saw Christians falling into nationalistic ideologies that too readily identified human power with divine power. People equated my nation’s prosperity with God’s favor, my nation’s interests with God’s righteousness. Pope Pius wanted to remind Christians that that our first loyalty is to a kingdom not of this earth – and that God’s rule is very different from human rule. 

What does the kingship of Christ – and the difference between human and divine ideas about power – have to say to us today, 96 years later? Pondering that question this week, I found myself thinking about comfort and discomfort. Some of the movements of this moment seem to have a lot to do with avoiding discomfort. The war on transgender people – legislative and cultural – is based on people’s discomfort with changing gender norms; and – maybe more importantly – with a strategic effort to try to turn people’s discomfort into a political weapon against the vulnerable. The new wave of pressure on teachers is another example – this idea that students shouldn’t have to learn anything that might make them uncomfortable. Some white parents are saying: I don’t want my child to have to read or hear anything that makes them feel bad about what people who look like them have done in the past – or how they benefit from that past. 

Let’s spend a minute with that word uncomfortable. Notice that it’s a metaphor: when we’re talking about mental or emotional or spiritual discomfort, we’re making an analogy from the experience of physical discomfort. There are lots of kinds of physical discomfort, right? Maybe your shoulder is a little achey because you raked the lawn yesterday. Maybe your bad hip is twinging. Maybe you’re too warm or too cold. Maybe you’re not sitting comfortably in your chair. Maybe you’re wearing shoes that pinch your toes. All those discomfort are invitations to change something. To move to a different space or put on a sweater or take an ibuprofen. To adjust how you’re sitting. To take those too-tight shoes to the thrift store! 

Comfort is static.  Discomfort is an invitation to adjust, move, make a change. That’s an interesting way to think about emotional, mental, or spiritual discomfort too. Those discomforts are also messages that we need to make some kind of adjustment. Move into a new frame of mind, or set aside something that doesn’t fit anymore. 

Now, to be clear, there is good and bad discomfort. A classroom, a church, a community at its best should always be fundamentally safe, even if it’s sometimes uncomfortable. Safe means your boundaries are respected; no one will try to hurt you or use you; the people around us are trustworthy. Safe is really important. 

But if we seek to avoid all discomfort, we’re almost definitionally saying that we don’t want to change or grow, to have any new thoughts or experiences.

Churches so often imagine Jesus as if he were an earthly king, the kind with a throne, a crown, a treasury, and an army. Our hymns, our prayers, our art are full of examples. Part of what’s wrong with that is that we are trying to make Jesus comfortable. 

Comfortable for him – how about a nice velvet robe and a silk cushion? – and comfortable for US, because we understand that kind of power, the kind that’s about security, wealth, and control. 

But when God chose to come among us as Jesus, God did not choose comfort. To see Jesus Christ in poverty, poorly dressed, dirty, footsore, going hungry, without a stable place of residence, at constant risk of being harassed by the authorities… to see him arrested, beaten, executed as a criminal… to see God choose discomfort is a reminder that we, too, may be called to tolerate some discomfort, and seeing where it leads us. 

So many kings, so many kingships, haunt this brief conversation between Pilate and Jesus. Julius, Augustus and Tiberius, David and Solomon and Herod. Strong or weak, bold or craven, ambitious, self-indulgent, cruel. And there’s one more concept of kingship in the room – so different that it almost can’t wear the same name. 

It’s the image of kingship that lives in the part of Jesus that is God and not human. 

It’s the idea of kingship that carries him to this bitter hour, and beyond – to his death under that sign Pilate has made, that reads, “Jesus Christ, King of the Jews.” 

It’s the image of a king without army, palace, or crown. 

A king who invites instead of commanding.  

Who rules through persuasion, love, and grace, instead of rule of law backed by force. 

A king who chooses discomfort, the better to share the fulness of human life and human struggle. 

A king who frees instead of binding. 

A king who gives instead of taking. 

It is nonsensical, in terms of human understandings of power. 

And it is the holy kingship of Jesus.  

David is Israel’s most famous king – remembered as Israel’s greatest king. But he wasn’t Israel’s first king. The first king was Saul. 

It’s easy to focus on David. We all know he’s the main character here. The great king of Israel, whom God favors. Whose kingship is long remembered as Israel’s greatest era, which people in Jesus’ time yearn to restore. But today, as David is crowned king in our Scripture reading, I want to pause and talk about Saul. 

In the eighth chapter of the first book of Samuel, the people of Israel demanded a king. The prophet Samuel warned them that having a king will cost them; but they insisted. Immediately, in chapter nine, a man named Kish sends his son Saul to go look for some lost donkeys. Having no luck, he hears that there’s a prophet in a nearby town and determines to ask him where the donkeys are. He finds Samuel – who tells him that he is the chosen king of Israel. (And also that the donkeys have been found.) 

Why Saul? Well, honestly, the usual reasons, it seems. He’s tall and handsome. He’s the son of a wealthy father and belongs to the right kind of family – in this case, a Benjaminite. We still put guys like that in charge of things a lot.

The accounts of Saul’s kingship are SO SHORT. He becomes king in first Samuel chapter 10. Then he has one good chapter, where he wins a battle against his people’s enemies – kings were military leaders in this time – and everyone is excited about him. Then, almost immediately, he does something that upsets Samuel and/or God, and starts to lose favor. In chapter 14, Saul’s own son Jonathan starts to undermine his leadership by being more bold and successful in a raid on the enemy than Saul.  Saul has a few more military victories – but in chapter 15, God tells Samuel that God regrets choosing Saul as king, and in chapter 16, God sends Samuel to find and anoint David as God’s choice for the next king. Chapter 17 is the David and Goliath story, where we see hints that this bold shepherd boy has more going for him than Saul, King of Israel.

At this point God has un-chosen Saul and chosen David, but there are still FOURTEEN CHAPTERS before Saul’s death. For most of that time David is living in the wilderness with a little band of 600 malcontents, running away from King Saul and his army as they try to seek them out and squash them. 

We don’t know how long Saul was king. Chapter 13, verse 1, reads: “Saul was blank years old when he began to reign, and he reigned blank and two years over Israel.” The numbers that should be there were lost so long ago that nobody can even guess. We don’t know whether Saul’s kingship was really short, as it seems, or whether it was longer and the Biblical text just doesn’t really care about Saul. 

What went wrong with Saul? The first incident that causes Saul to lose God’s favor happens in chapter 13 – very soon after he becomes king. The Philistine army is preparing to attack Israel. They are superior in both numbers and equipment, and Israel’s troops are terrified. The prophet Samuel promised Saul that he would come within seven days and present an offering to God that would secure God’s help during the battle ahead. So Saul waited seven days; but Samuel didn’t come. Meanwhile more and more of his fighters were slipping away, day by day, afraid of death at the hands of the Philistines. Israel’s odds, already poor, are getting worse by the hour. 

So Saul makes the offering to God himself, to ask God’s favor and help. And the moment he’s finished, Samuel walks up and yells at him. “You have done foolishly! The LORD would have established your kingdom for ever; but now your kingdom will not continue.”

Here we only have God’s rejection of Saul in Samuel’s words. Maybe Samuel was just mad. A couple of chapters later, in chapter 15, Samuel is still addressing Saul as King, and sending him to destroy the people of Amalek, avenging a grievance from the time of Moses. Saul is specifically charged to kill EVERYBODY – men, women, children, and livestock. Saul and his army fight the Amalekites and win – but they spare the best of the livestock, and keep other valuables as well. 

Then God speaks to Samuel: “I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me, and has not carried out my commands.” Samuel confronts Saul, who insists at first that the only spared the best of the livestock so that they could sacrifice them to God… but eventually confesses that did it because he listened to the voice of the people, who wanted to keep the animals instead of killing them. Saul is distraught; he seizes the hem of Samuel’s cloak and it tears. Samuel looks him in the face and says: “Just so has God torn the kingdom of Israel from you, and given it to another.”

Saul’s failures are not great. But they’re also not terrible. They’re kind of boring, honestly. Commonplace. Impatience. Anxiety. A little ordinary human weakness and greed. And listen: Saul didn’t ask to be king. It’s not like he put himself forward as the best man for the job. In fact, back in chapter 10, when Samuel first gathers the people to present and anoint Saul as their king, Saul hides. 

If we take the text at its word that Saul was God’s choice: Why would God have chosen Saul?  It’s an interesting question. Maybe God knew the people, who had this very fixed idea about their future king, would only accept someone who fit those ideas.  (The text stresses that Saul was VERY tall.) Maybe God knew Saul wouldn’t be able to carry the burden of leadership – and felt that that would be a valuable learning experience for the people. Maybe Saul was genuinely the best candidate Israel had to offer at the time.

Or maybe God’s choosing and rejecting of Saul is simply part of how those composing this text are making sense of the messiness of this chapter of their people’s history. 

Saul probably would have lived a reasonably happy life if he hadn’t become king. It’s that role and its pressures that start to break him. And he does break. David comes along and he’s younger and cuter and braver and more successful in battle and more favored by God… Saul’s own children, his son Jonathan and daughter Michal, both fall in love with David… and Saul can’t take it. He can’t say, “Hey, good for him! I’m lucky to have him around!” His jealously and insecurity spiral into hatred and paranoia. I wish I could tell you the whole story! 

Saul failed as king. There’s no question about it. But he is a tragic figure, not a villain. I pity Saul. 

Like every historical document, First Samuel tells its story with a particular viewpoint and agenda. And this text’s perspective is not actually that Saul was a bad king and David was a great one – but that kings in general are maybe not as great as you might think. 

The Fourth of July is an interesting time to think about history. And I don’t mean just history as “things that happened in the past,” but history as a human process. History as a way of making meaning of both past and present. History as a human process often simplifies events, or tells them with a particular slant.

Lots of things that seem glorious were actually really messy. Lots of things that seem predestined, inevitable, could easily have gone otherwise. Lots of people who seem like noble heroes were actually deeply flawed… and some of the people who seem like villains – or nobodies – are really interesting, and worth our understanding and compassion.

In today’s Gospel when Jesus says that prophets aren’t honored in their hometown, he’s pointing at an aspect of this truth. When you know someone well, you know the whole picture, for better or worse. It’s harder to idealize or romanticize.

Many churches don’t mark the Fourth of July, Independence Day, our chief national holiday. I have deep respect for that choice. Better to ignore it completely than to engage it shallowly. At St. Dunstan’s we often to share a few readings from American history, as our observance of the day – as an exercise in living with the ambiguity of history. 

Facing that ambiguity can be uncomfortable. We see that in the current wave of pushback over schools teaching American history with greater attention to the voices and experiences of different groups, and to our nation’s many failures to live up to our boldest ideals and aspirations. Many folks have a real visceral reaction to the idea that our national history is not as glorious and inevitable – that our great men were not perhaps as great – as we learned in elementary school in decades past. 

How do we cope with that ambiguity and discomfort? Well, for me, one big answer is my faith – my identity as a Christian, which is a higher loyalty than my citizenship as an American. Using my understanding of God’s intentions for humanity – things like mutual care, justice, and wellbeing for all – using that as a yardstick, I can measure the successes and failures of my city, state, and nation. I can look for the places where movement towards better is happening, or could happen – and strive to support it, with my time and voice and resources. 

When we hold up the realities of our common life agains our shared values and aspirations, and find ourselves yearning and crying out for better, we join a chorus that spans nearly 250 years. 

Let’s share a few such voices now, and pray that their words may inspire us to deeper commitment to the ideals of freedom, equality, and democracy that are the foundation stones of this nation, and to God’s dream of mutual care, justice, and wellbeing for all.