First Friday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
What Kind of King?
by Peter Schuurman
"He shall have dominion from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth."
Psalm 72:8
In the British comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail, there is a scene that is ancient and yet so contemporary. The legendary King Arthur appears before a peasant named Dennis to ask for directions.
“I am king,” King Arthur announces.
“Oh, king, eh? Very nice,” says Dennis rather insolently. “And how'd you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers. By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma, which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society.”
A peasant woman then joins the conversation. “Didn’t know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective… I didn’t vote for you.”
“You don’t vote for a king,” replies King Arthur. He then explains how the magical Lady of the Lake proffered him the sword Excalibur, a symbol of his divine appointment.
Dennis retorts: “You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just ’cause some watery tart threw a sword at you in some farcical aquatic ceremony!!!”
There you have it, the contemptuous voice of our grown-up secular age. Spirits do not exist except in fairy tales, and power does not derive from divine appointment but through what Dennis calls “the mandate of the masses.” In modern democracy, “The voice of the people is the voice of God.”
We don’t want a king.
In fact, today, even the masses must bow to a new sacred entity, the entitled individual, the Sovereign Self, the Big Me. Canadian sociologist Sam Reimer’s new book Caught in the Current on the Age of Self-Spirituality says the locus of authority has shifted from something external to the self to the internal world of individual feelings: “I am the only one who can tell me the truth of who I am.”
Black Friday has become a National Holy Day, a time when we celebrate the Consumer as King. The insatiable inner hunger we have for more things has free rein across the country, and we call it generosity and joy. Or even, rather blasphemously, Christmas shopping. Using the name of the crucified peasant-teacher to drown in knickknacks, plastics, and packaging.
It seems we cannot live without someone as King. Or Queen. Our electronically mediated celebrities come in both genders, and they capture our loyalties, too. Significantly, a screen is something that displays, but also investigates and hides things. We have been screened by celebrity culture.
Most of your neighbours have no idea it was Christ the King Sunday, 10 days ago. Christ, meaning Messiah, Anointed One. This king is foreshadowed in Psalm 72, our text for today.
But we self-styled individualists don’t want any king; from our experience, we know most kings are despots. The crown is corrupt. “No kings!” we indignantly shout, and for good reason. Trump and Putin, Hamas and Netanyahu, China and Iran—those who would be king do look more like despots, dictators and demagogues than servants of the people. Our screens invite us to a cynicism about all power outside of ourselves.
The Latin form of verse 8 in today’s Advent psalm was suggested by Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley in 1867 as the motto for Canada: “A Mari Usque ad Mare”—“From Sea to Sea.” It was officially adopted on the national coat of arms in 1921, over 100 years ago.
Use of this text could be explained as a way of denying the indigenous people’s entitlement to the land, a gloss on a national injustice. At the time, it was likely used as shorthand for the word “dominion,” which grants Canada some distance from the British Empire of the day. But if such subversion was intended, it works to benefit the mostly white Canadian elite themselves. That we are a “dominion” applies further to any current potentate who would threaten Canada’s sovereignty and claim the land as his own state. There could be some piety here that is worth preserving: the land belongs ultimately to God.
This is not to deny that the indigenous peoples of Canada have the original claim to steward the land and that much of the land was stolen from them in shady deals and unfulfilled treaties. Many indigenous people would agree that the land ultimately belongs to the Creator.
Here is the key point of the meditation today: if Christ is King, no one else can be. This is what Advent anticipates. This is what Jews and Christians have longed for in the Messiah-King.
Why? Writer Andy Crouch says it well in his book Playing God. Power is not a zero-sum competition, but it can be given, shared, and multiplied. Teachers empower their students without losing their own power. And parents have absolute power over their baby children, yet usually do not become corrupt and descend into selfishness and abuse.
This is God-like power, the good God-like power, which Psalm 72 makes clear is the character of the beloved King:
Give the gift of wise rule to the king, O God,
the gift of just rule to the crown prince.
May he judge your people rightly,
be honorable to your meek and lowly.
Let the mountains give exuberant witness;
shape the hills with the contours of right living.
Please stand up for the poor,
help the children of the needy,
come down hard on the cruel tyrants.
(Psalm 72:1-4)
Even though cruel tyrants abound, the vision of good rulers persists. Even though the church has failed and abused its powers through the ages, it stewards texts like this as self-critique and as the norm for good governance. Christ, the sacrificial servant King, demonstrates what it means to rule from sea to sea: to bring justice and to help the children of the needy.
I have a friend and mentor who will sometimes remark with me on the troubles of the world. We see tyrants threaten neighbouring countries, church officials build walls to keep people out of full participation in ministry, and bullies online recklessly use words to belittle vulnerable people. We shake our heads in resignation.
Then he inevitably says, “But the Lord is still on the throne.”
Yes, from sea to shining sea. This is not just our Advent comfort, but it is also the prophetic critique of all others who rule. This Psalm is echoed in Mary’s Song, called the Magnificat, in Luke, chapter 1.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
the callous rich were left out in the cold.
Maybe we do want a King. A king like that!
Lord Jesus, come quickly!
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