Scripture: John 6:1-15; Ephesians 3:14-17; 1 Samuel 8:4-5 Series: After Pentecost
Preaching on the feeding of the five thousand (John 6:1-15), Wilson argues the often-missed point is kingship: after the miracle the crowd tries to seize Jesus to make him king, and he withdraws alone to the mountain. Tracing the human longing for a king to ‘pass the buck’ from 1 Samuel 8 through King James, Charles I, and the English Civil War, he shows Jesus refuses worldly power and instead gives a heavenly kingdom marked by Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3: other-focused, humble, rooted and grounded in love. Wanting Jesus as king means wanting someone else to do the hard work of loving neighbors. The remedy is to make Jesus king of our own lives, measured by Wesley’s three General Rules: do no harm, do all the good you can, and follow the ordinances of God (the means of grace). To avoid love is to avoid God.
Illustrations: washington-declines-third-term, king-james-edits-kings-translation, english-civil-war-charles-i, swimming-pool-rules-metaphor
July 28
How not to make Jesus King
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.” Ephesians 3:14-17 NRSV
“After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.” John 6:1-15 NRSV
This is a sermon about kings. When you first read this passage, kingship does not jump of the page. We have a famous story about feeding the hungry, but a question of kingship is going on here.
Kingship hasn’t been a political question in this country since about 1796, when George Washington declined to run again and offered the first peaceful transfer of power in this nation’s history.
There are two books of kings in the Bible. King David is a very central figure of the Old Testament and of the new. The fact that Jesus is of the line of David is very important.
In the book of 1 Samuel, the people want a king. There are tired of life under Torah and the Judges and that want a central figure to rule over them and to make all the decisions for them.
In 1 Samuel 8 it says:
4 So all the Israelite elders got together and went to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “Listen. You are old now, and your sons don’t follow in your footsteps. So appoint us a king to judge us like all the other nations have.” (1 Samuel 8:4-5)
They want the king to judge them, to make decisions for them, they want a king who will look like the kind of ruler that other nations have so that they can look like the other nations around them.
Kingship has a unique position in the history of biblical translation. The most famous english bible is named after an English King, James I.
He didn’t translate the Bible. He organized a set of astonishingly erudite scholars to do it. But James was no slouch with the languages. He was fluent in Hebrew and Greek. He read over a draft of the whole thing and gave back notes to the translators. The only part of the translation that he quibbled with was 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles concerning the descriptions of the Kings. He felt that the Geneva Bible and The Bishop’s Bible (the lawful Bible of England when James was crowned), he felt that both of them were too harsh on kings and that they might give people a bad idea about the importance of kings. This was a theological point to James. He saw his kingship as divinely ordained so if people had a low view of kings they would have a low view of God.
The English Civil War began over King Charles, James’s son, meddling in the church of Scotland. Charles had a high view of kingship like his father and he had a friend revise the prayerbook to take away some of the presbyterian elements of the church and bring back some high church effects like altar rails.
The Scots had a different view of kingship than Charles did. They rebelled. Charles sent in an army that was crushed. Charles then called for a parliament to raise funds for a new army. That parliament raised an army, but they also questioned the legitimacy of the king, eventually leading to the overthrow of Charles, the trouncing defeat of his armies at Naseby in 1645, his execution in 1649, and the commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell.
This led to England going 10 years without a king. The English Civil War directly led to the colonists in 1776 realizing that they didn’t need a king to live: existence did not demand a royal sovereign. Yet the desire to have one person solve all of our problems has not gone way.
Many humans in history have decided that the solution to all of their problems is to make someone else do it. Pass the buck.
In scripture, this happens after one of the most famous scenes in the Bible: the feeding of the five thousand. This miracle takes place in each of the four Gospels. Like a lot of things, the John episodes is slightly different from the others.
The preceding chapter, John Chapter 5, takes place in Jerusalem. Chapter 6 brings Jesus back up to the Galilee area, which is interesting because it is the time of Passover. Later, Jesus will famously head to Jerusalem for Passover. But in this passage, he goes back to his familiar territory for Passover. People have gathered around him because of his miracles.
Jesus feeds the five thousands. Jesus doesn’t let anyone go home hungry, and then they try to make him king.
As John writes, “Therefore Jesus having known that they intended to come and snatch him in order that they might make him king, he went away again to the mountain, himself alone.”
Jesus doesn’t want to be king. Jesus doesn’t practice the politics we expect. Jesus doesn’t want the trappings of kingship. Jesus doesn’t want the authority of kingship. Jesus doesn’t want any of that.
He withdraws to the mountain by himself. He would rather be in a solitude than in worldly authority. Jesus does not seek power, he literally runs from it. They are trying to make him a king and rightfully so. He is the most qualified king in history. He is the prince of heaven, but he is not the king of this world.
Jesus never tries to occupy worldly structures. He seeks to give us heavenly ones. The kingdom we are given is not of this world. It is not based on scarcity, like the kingdoms of this world. It is not based on good guys and bad guys. It is not based on the haves and the have-nots.
The heavenly structure that Jesus gives us is the kingdom of heaven. It is where the poor are blessed, the hungry are satisfied, mourners are comforted, the lost are found, the blind see. It has where the past does not dictate the future. Where are mistakes do not define us. Where our errors don’t chase after us.
Paul articulates the kingdom of heaven quite well in his letter to the Ephesians read earlier.
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”
A few things to take away from this.
First, Paul is concerned about others. Paul isn’t first looking out for himself. Paul isn’t trying to avoid responsibility but to care for others.
Second, Paul begins by offering worship to God the Father, the source of all authority in heaven and earth. Paul humbles himself before God the Father and claims nothing beyond what has been given by God.
Third, Paul asks God to strengthen this other person that they may be rooted and grounded in love.
The kingdom of heaven is other-focused, humble, and rooted and grounded in love. These aren’t just what the kingdom is but what it does. Being a part of the kingdom of heaven is to do these things based on what God has done for you.
The desire to make Jesus king is the desire to make someone else do the hard thing. It is the desire to ask other people to love their neighbors. It is the desire to ask other people volunteer.
You are loved and forgiven by God. You are given new life in Christ’s heavenly kingdom. But this is not a passive gift. It is an active one. Like Paul, Jesus wishes you to be rooted and grounded in love in all things and in all activities.
There is no part of your life in which you should separate yourself from love.
This is what the people do when they try to make Jesus king. They want him to take care of the obligation to love people and Jesus sees the error. Loving your neighbor is not just for a certain few who can handle it.
Instead of trying to make Jesus king of this world, we need to make Jesus king of our lives so that our lives are guided by love. How do we measure that?
John Wesley had a set of general rules that he gave out to people to help them live a Christian life. The rules are not like rules at a swimming pool: no running, no diving in the shallow end, et cetera. The general rules are a tool to help us follow through with God’s promise on our life.
First, do no harm. We start by making sure we aren’t currently in a state of harming our neighbor. If we have been saved by the blood of Jesus. If you realize you are forgiven by God, we start living for people beyond ourselves, and we have to start that by making sure we aren’t hurting anyone around us.
Second, do all the good you can. Not just some of the good. All of the good. You do it. Not someone else. It is not your neighbor’s job to love their neighbor. If you claim Jesus as Lord, it is yours.
Finally, follow the ordinances of God. This is an awkward, 18th century phrasing that some have paraphrased as “stay in love with God.” I don’t like the paraphrase because it is passive. The point is not to stay but do. Act. Give. Serve. Love. Share. Follow the ordinances of God means, worship, pray, serve, give, do these concrete things. John Wesley calls them the means of grace. We believe that God works in a myriad of ways, but also that God works through these specific ways and that we should not avoid them. In fact, we should do all we can to do them as much as we can.
Jesus did not wish to be made king. He did not come to be made a king but to save us so that we could live out his kingdom here. Don’t avoid loving. Don’t avoid doing good. For to avoid love is to avoid God. Let us live like Paul
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.