Royal Subjects
When you are working on a team, do you like lots of supervision or lots of independence? A balance can certainly work. With a high value put on rugged individualism all our lives people often prefer to take the task and run with it. How old do you suppose you were when you began asserting yourself with the declaration, “No, I can do it myself.” It is natural for people to want the individual freedom to take responsibility and express themselves in their work, while still understanding the system of authority.
In schools every class has its teacher. In the army, every platoon has its captain. In the corporate world every department has its head. This is because order is important if a group is trying to accomplish something together. Tasks are assigned, and supervision takes place in the process. Depending on the nature of the process, the leader is either providing close supervision and management or mentoring with plenty of freedom for team members.
In some of the language of the scripture, the expression of relationship between God and the people is Ruler and subjects, or Shepherd and flock. How does this sit with you? Do you feel any resistance, identifying yourself as royal subject or sheep? These images can elicit a mixed reaction. Just mind your step in the pasture. Perhaps, given that it is God we are speaking of, you do not object to the contrast of absolute authority and complete fealty. Perhaps the image of God’s power, and your relative helplessness is not something you resist.
This Sunday is Christ the King Sunday. The two psalms to choose from in our liturgy are Psalm 100 and Psalm 95. We also choose one of these two every time we enter into the prayer service of Morning Prayer. We refer to them as the Jubilate and the Venite. I realize to the modern ear the words sound like a flavor and a serving-size at Starbucks , but they are not. There is no Vente “Jubi” Latte at any coffee shop. To Episcopalians, or at least to choristers and Morning Prayer regulars these are familiar references for these psalms, because in Latin the first words in them are “Be joyful” – Jubilate in the case of Psalm 100 and “Come” – Venite in the case of Psalm 95.
What the psalms surely have in common is they are invitations to come worship God. They both carry the imagery of God as Lord and Shepherd, and the worshipers and singers as subjects and sheep. Here are a few of the lines from each:
Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee,
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture
and the sheep of his hand. —Psalm 95:6-7
Be joyful in the Lord, all you lands;
Serve the Lord with gladness
and come before his presence with a song.
Know this: The Lord himself is God; *
he himself has made us, and we are his;
we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. —Psalm 100:1-2
It seems important to ask ourselves whether we are really so steeped in our individualism, and our pride, that we cannot authentically see ourselves relating to God as our Ruler and Shepherd. Is the armor of our ego so thick that “Christ the King” Sunday does not work for us? It is good to start with love we can trust and true humility. Warming to the image of the Shepherd/King requires trusting the love of the Most High Omnipotent Good Lord. We must allow ourselves truly to absorb the word from the First Epistle of John: God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. —1John 4:16. We have to fall confidently into the arms of the Good Shepherd. Going with this image of our relationship requires authentic humility within the heart of the Christian. We have to recognize our own need, due to our own tendency to stray, and get ourselves into scrapes and dangers.
If God is to be “great God, and a great King above all gods,” and if God “himself has made us, and we are his…his people and the sheep of his pasture,” then we have to bring ourselves down where we ought to be. Without ditching our good values of individualism, and the drive to do all we can with our gifts in the efforts of our lives, we can learn to let God be God. No person and no thing is a god. And none of us are: Only God is God. We can train ourselves to absorb this, by yielding to God’s instruction, by obeying divine guidance. From Scripture and Sacrament, from the deep within the heart of prayer we can listen, trust and obey. Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. In God’s reign, we follow the way of love; as sheep of this pasture, we follow the Shepherd’s lead.
Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Collect for Christ the King Sunday)