Christ our Kin
John 18:33-38
Through the written word, and the spoken word, God help us to hear your living Word, Our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“My kingdom is not of this world” says our Lord.
And Pilate asks, “So you are a king?”
“You say that I am. I came to bring the truth.”
“What is truth?”
This passage is full of word play and a sort of verbal whiplash. It reminds me of the response children sometimes use to an insult, “I know what you are but what am I.”
We can consistently rely on Jesus’ crafty use of language. The truth is embedded in the sometimes-confusing phrasing. Jesus makes us really pay attention and undoubtedly put Pilate on his toes.
To this creative word plan, I will add another phrase. Kin-dom of God. Some you may have heard me say kin-dom rather than kingdom, and here is the sermon where I’ll tell you why!
Kin-dom, as in KIN or family, people of the same ancestors, or relatives. This phrasing is thanks to Ada María Isasi-Diaz, the mother of mujerista theology, or the theology of Latina women. Kin-dom is now a phrase that has spread throughout liberation theology and mujerista theology. Ada María Isasi-Diaz uses the phrase “kin-dom” in her writing and helps to explain the importance of phrasing and language in our largely patriarchal tradition.
In the book simply titled, Mujerista Theology, Ada María Isasi-Diaz notes, “There are two reasons for not using the regular word employed by English Bibles ‘kingdom.’ First, it is obviously a sexist word that presumes that God is male. Second the concept of kingdom in our world today is both hierarchical and elitist—as is the word ‘reign.’ The word ‘Kin-dom’ makes it clear that when the fullness of God becomes a day-to-day reality in the world at large, we will all be sisters and brothers (and I would add siblings)—kin to each other; we will indeed be the family of God.”
So here we are on the final Sunday after Pentecost, commonly referred to as Christ the King Sunday, and I want to offer to you that while Jesus may be king, he is more.
Our understanding of the word kingdom gives us a limited understanding of a king. In this way, a king is a leader and authority first and foremost. And sometimes exclusively an authority. Throughout history we can see kings with little concern for the people around them unless it is for the sake of conquest. In fact, this is the case for many Christian kings with an ultimate concern of spreading their reign and power.
In fairness, a king’s relationship to his kingdom should be one of care and protection. Kings are supposed to care for their subjects. There are examples of kings who have done exactly that. And there are kings throughout history that have clouded our understanding. Rulers, of kingdoms and of companies, of cities and of countries, have corrupted our view of leadership.
This week, I learned that Pope Pius XI (eleventh) responded to nationalism and the rise of fascism in Europe with Christ the King Sunday. Starting in 1925, Christ the King Sunday was intended to be a reminder of how Jesus is the real ruler of our hearts.
The language of kin helps us see how Jesus is different from earthly kings. He is the head of the church and our Lord, but in a way that is unfamiliar and other worldly. Kin-dom help us to have a more honest and fuller understanding of who Christ is.
Christ our Kin. Christ who came to dwell among us in flesh and blood. Christ who came to bear the truth. Christ whose only crown would be a crown of thorns. Christ who died so we might all become one body in him.
Jesus states plainly that his kingdom is not of this world. The way Jesus responds to the empire and the way that the empire responds to him makes this perfectly clear. He is not interested in an earthly kingdom. Jesus has been Lord of all since the beginning of creation. To merely rule over people in the way an earthly king does would be a complete demotion, and perhaps more importantly it’s a distraction from the truth Jesus brings to the world—A truth that asserts a God so much more powerful than any earthly king.
Kin-dom helps to remind us of the other worldly-ness of Jesus. In Christ, we are not seeking the ruler of a country or the leader of a military. We are seeking a Savior. In Jesus, we seek and we find a savior who dies for our sins, who lives and dies so that we can be connected with God in life everlasting.
In Jesus, we find so much more than a king. We find kin. We find connection. We find family. We find a community so interwoven that we can be called one body, the Body of Christ.
This is so much more than semantics though. This is not about the dropping of one letter and replacing it with a dash. Kin-dom is about a way of life.
Kin-dom, I think, more so than kingdom communicates what we really hope for as Christians. The concept of a Christian kingdom limits us and can even lead us astray. A kingdom model can lead us to conquest, genocide, and forced conversion in the name of God. A kingdom model has no obligation to enact God’s justice. God’s justice can be overshadowed by vigilante justice, where one man goes free while others lie dead.
When we focus on kin, we are reminded that Jesus calls us to a life where we love God and love our neighbor as our self. Jesus calls us to a life in connection and community, not a life of individualized salvation, belief, and judgement. We are called as the body of Christ, as sisters and brothers and siblings of Christ.
Our Latinx siblings have offered a tremendous gift in their decolonized and liberative theology that centers on connection and community. Isasi-Diaz asserts, “The main obstacle to the unfolding of the kin-dom is the alienation from God and from each other.” And further, she explains, “our participation in the act of salvation…is liberation.”
Liberation requires relationship and concern for our fellow human. It is a loosening of the chains of an earthly kingdom. Liberation is a step towards salvation. Salvation is liberation. Salvation is liberation from sin, from the evils of this world, and from death itself.
When we participate in salvation and thus in liberation, we must be in community. We become kin. Through the salvation Jesus offers us, we become the best of what family and kinship can be. Rather than a top-down structure of stratification, we become an interconnected system of mutual care and concern. We let go of the expectations and constraints of this world in order to truly love God and love one another.
Family is complicated, to say the least, but it can be a powerful reminder of the way love flows through the cosmos from God our Mother to God the Son all through the power of the Spirit. Family, at its best, is a unit of accountability, dedication, and responsibility. It’s a place where the ultimate concern is for the liberation and flourishing of other people. Family is a steppingstone to the kin-dom of God. And conversely the kin-dom of God is family in its most Godly form. It is connection. The kin-dom of God sort of family is the removal of all alienation from God and our fellow human.
It’s true, Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world. It is bigger, and grander, and more glorious. It is a kin-dom. God’s rule over our lives makes us one. We are unified in the spirit and called together as siblings.
My prayer for us all is that we may live in the reality of a kin-dom that is already and not yet. May we seek and become the kin-dom. May we search for the salvation and liberation of our kin. And may we find Christ our Kin throughout the world.
AMEN.
© 2021 The Rev. Adelyn Tyler
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas