Christ the King Sunday
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Canton OH
Revelation 1:4b-8, John 18:33-37
November 22, 2015
The Rev. Barbara Bond
The Kingdom not from this world
This has been a great week for saints. In our calendar of the saints, we celebrated
three women, three musicians, and today, a woman musician! Allow me to name them:
Monday was the feast day of Margaret of Scotland, an 11th century queen; Wednesday
we observed Hilda of Whitby, an abbess from the seventh century; on Thursday,
Elizabeth of Hungary, a 13th century queen; on Saturday, three church musicians from
the 16th and 17th centuries, William Byrd, John Merbecke and Thomas Tallis; and today
is the feast day of Cecilia, a third century martyr who is commemorated as the patron
saint of music. As we come to the end of our liturgical year, we have packed in some
wonderful saints who have witnessed powerfully to Christ in their lives.
I’d like to look a little closer at one of them, Elizabeth of Hungary. She was born into the
royal family of Hungary, and married an important royal figure, Louis IV of Thuringia, so
her royal pedigree was impeccable. She could have lorded it over all kinds of people,
but that is not the direction her life took. Instead, she lived a life of service and spiritual
devotion. She was married to Louis at the age of 14, bore three children, and devoted
herself to the poor and the sick. When she was 16, she received spiritual direction from
the Franciscans and took on many of their ways, claiming Lady Poverty as her way of
life. She gave up her dowry to help the poor; during a famine and epidemic, when she
was 19 and her husband was out of the country, she sold her jewels and established a
hospital where she herself took on nursing duties. She opened the royal granaries to
feed the poor. Her husband approved of her generosity, but after he died, Elizabeth
encountered considerable opposition at court, and so she left, taking her three children
with her. After living in considerable distress, she took the habit of the Franciscans and
became the first tertiary Franciscan in Germany – tertiary meaning that she formally
ascribed to the rules of the order. Her family came to her aid with a subsistence, and
she was able to live out her days caring for the sick and needy. She died from
exhaustion at the age of 24. She was named a saint four years later. Many hospitals
have been named in her honor. I am betting that she was the model for the operatic
role of Elizabeth in Wagner’s opera Tannhaeuser.
I have looked at St. Elizabeth for two reasons: one, she is the patron saint of our
chapter of the Order of the Daughters of the King; and two, because her life story
seems to be what Jesus is talking about in our Gospel reading today. Jesus is standing
before Pontius Pilate, and they are discussing different kinds of power. Pilate
represents the Roman Empire – the most powerful force of the known world at the time,
politically and militarily. Roman forces occupied Palestine, and controlled pretty much
everything and everyone, although the Jews were allowed to live their lives and practice
their religion without much disturbance. Pilate is trying to figure out how Jesus fits into
all this. His frame of reference is Roman power. So, um, Jesus must be a king, maybe
king of those Jews.
But Jesus said, no, I’m not a king like you have in your system. He says, “My kingdom
is not from this world.” That must have stumped Pilate. What other kind of kingdom is
there?
Yes, we celebrate Christ as King, but a different kind of kingdom, not of this world in
power, but of the world of love, a kingdom where all are welcome, where military power
is meaningless, where chronological time is not important. It is a different realm
altogether. The Book of Revelation plays with this idea of a different idea of time. The
book opens with greetings from the King Jesus who was, and is, and is to come, from
the King who says that he is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, an
existence that is, always.
I think St. Elizabeth understood this. She was a Queen, but she did not lord it over
anyone. She lived her life as a Queen in the kingdom of God. I find it especially
touching that she took on a rule of life from the Franciscans, and remained true to it in
all that she did.
A Rule of Life can come from outside sources, like the Franciscans or the Benedictines,
or it can be a more internal process, where we examine our lives and make decisions
about how we shall live. Our diocese is encouraging all of us to look at this process
during Lent next year. I’ll get back to you about that!
The women of our parish who have joined the Order of the Daughters of King do quite a
bit of study before being installed, mentored by another Daughter of the King. Our St.
Elizabeth chapter began in 2008 with four members and now has 20. Each Daughter is
encouraged to develop a rule of life. When they are installed, they take life vows.
Today, our chapter members are going to renew the vows they made at installation. I
trust this will be an example for us all. The Order is founded on prayer and service, and
as you look at our Daughters gathered here today, I am sure you will see women who
live out these vows every day. Like their patron St. Elizabeth, they understand that they
are members of Christ’s Kingdom.
We all live in the secular world, but we don’t have to live by its standards. Rather, like
Elizabeth and Jesus himself, we have a different Kingdom that calls our allegiance, the
Kingdom of God.