Reign of Christ, 2024,
Church of St. John the Evangelist,
Kitchener
Five weeks ago, I decided that I needed to make a solo visit to a part of France where my family and I spent several years.
I have had a lot of solo wanderings this past year. I love to take photographs and I have come to using the term “chasing beauty” to describe a good part of what I’m up to when I wander.
There was so very much beauty in the place in which I was staying. Arles, a small city on the banks of the Rhône River, attracted Paul Cézanne and Vincent Van Gogh for the character of its light. A city originally created by the Romans in the second century before Jesus, it is full of impressive buildings dating from that time – some of which are ruins, some of which still stand and are used. Each morning I awoke and opened the curtains to see the 20,000-seat, 2200-year-old arena with its impressive arches, 50 metres from my breakfast table. I chased the beauty of medieval castles and fortifications and marvelled at the harmony and strength of their architecture. Under the particular blue skies that Van Gogh and Cézanne fell in love with, the monuments were dazzling. So much beauty to see as I chased from one impressive statue to the next picturesque rampart.
However, my soul was also deeply troubled and I was distracted by worry. I left Canada the day of the US election and have been, as we all are ‘processing’ that, as we say. And my soulaches about Gaza and Sudan and Ukraine and climate catastrophes were never far from the surface. I think it was day 3 when I overheard someone in a tourist group ask their guide, ‘so how did they build all this stuff way back then?’ and I found myself saying, out loud, “with slave labour!”
And that did it for me. I mean it undid something big in me. Roman ingenuity in engineering could only take monumental shape on the backs of slaves, usually from the conquered, indigenous peoples, harshly treated and without any of the human rights accorded citizens of the Empire. Not dissimilar powers were at play in the construction of the massive churches and monasteries dedicated to God – the economic enslavement of a spiritual system in which one could pay in order to secure one’s soul a place in heaven mobilized hundreds of years of harsh labour by those most desperate and without means to purchase their heavenly privileges. Castles and fortified cities were so big and so impressive because they needed to be because of hundreds of years of near-constant warfare and suffering. And the beautiful art they housed was only for the very most privileged in society.
Well, damn. Chasing beauty, I was reminded of some very uncomfortable truths, and the question of what makes beauty became something I had to rethink, and to re-experience again.
Sitting in a café in Arles atop the foundations of what used to be the Roman Forum – the city centre for all things political, religious, and economic – I could imagine the Pilate whom we encounter in this exchange in the Gospel today. I imagine him as any other imperial governor, sent from Rome to God-knows-where to advance the economic interests of the Empire over the local indigenous population, probably weary as all heck from the power-plays of his court higher-ups, all jostling for power not unlike what we have been seeing at Mar-a-Lago, faced with this oddity amongst the locals. He’s been told there’s someone claiming kingly power amongst the Jews – can’t you imagine a bunch of lower bureaucrats pandering to the local populace and pumping it up to Pilate that this guy’s a serious threat to Pilate’s power, eh? Ah, Jesus, so you’re a King, are you? What is that you say, that your kingdom is not of this world? And that you are here to speak truth?
I need to offer you the line that gets left out of this reading today – that we hear in Holy Week, but often it slides by. “What is truth?” says Pilate, before washing his hands of the whole messy affair. A truly 21st-century question, an eternal question.
Truth, it turns out, was standing right in front of him. Jesus. And today we focus our attentions on the truth that is that the reign of Christ announced in that moment before Pilate, was from the beginning in Christ’s presence in creation, and will be to come in what St. Paul calls the new creation, in our midst and yet still coming, not achieved here on earth, but truly present, a new creation where God’s full presence changes us so entirely that as a whole world we are transformed into a living household of God in which only the power of love lives and moves and has its being. Other powers that hurt, that destroy, that manipulate, that seek their own gratification, that are jealous and petty and fearful… none of these powers have a place in God’s reign through Christ.
Our language is at a loss, just as my camera is at a loss, to give a word or a single picture of what this picture of the new creation looks like. Even in the Gospel story we have today, it’s Pilate who introduces the language of Kingdom, and Jesus’ response says err, um, not really… good starting place to get the idea, but my kingdom, as you call it, doesn’t look anything like any kingdoms of this world. Like language of ‘Father’ for God, we start from our known concepts, but surely a big point of what Jesus is always about is pushing us beyond our known references and into the far-beyondness that is God’s desire for us, beyond what any political system here on earth can fashion for us. This is the ‘eschatological imagination.’ Eschatology refers to the things beyond our grasp and out of our control (two things human creatures really don’t like!), things that are in God’s sovereign hands shaping the new creation out of the material of our own bodies and souls and the earth around us. The closest best expression used across the New Testament is the basileia tou Thēou – the household of God.
Even the church – especially the church?? – has a tendency to want to make monuments out of our achievements, and no matter how they may be dressed up as being about God’s will, we need to look critically at them. We have tended to do these things when we have reached a high level of confidence in having, as church, achieved something of God’s will in bringing the Kingdom of God into being in this world. In France, I was reminded that the will of God at one time was equated with the military supremacy of certain European princes and the murder and subjugation of the peoples of Palestine. Statues of St. Louis, in gratitude for the successes of various Crusades are emblazoned with the Latin version of “It was God’s Will”. Some of these are beautiful monuments. But the truth behind what they boldly proclaim reveals a horror.
Through baptism, we all share in Christ’s priesthood, and we are called in to a basileia of priests. Priesthood is a share in Jesus’ truth-telling about God and about our selves, which begins in paying careful attention to the world through the lens of the cross. Where there is suffering, where there is abuse of power, where there is sinful greed and violence or subtle coercion that robs people of life and love and dignity, those are the places where we will see the hints of God’s reign, bringing these things to the light of day that the world would rather just ignore as the cost of doing business. That power can be felt in our own solidarities; the power of God’s love can even be felt in our own disgust with the sins we witness in the world; the power of God’s love can be felt when we pay attention with care to where we are being called to be a part of healing.
And we need a massive dose of good imagination to chase the beauty of these truths. If we can offer up our imaginations to be filled with God’s love for the world, our imaginations will serve as a renewable resource as we seek to follow Jesus. And it takes a lot of imagination to look beyond the grand monuments to human power, especially when these monuments claim to be saying something about God as well.
Near the end of my visits to great French monuments, I visited an impressive medieval castle. Many of its rooms, not just its original dungeons, had eventually found their main use as a prison. Inside it are preserved carved-into-stone graffiti etched by prisoners, often with their name and a date. 1490. 1560. A lot from the 1750s. I found myself overwhelmed with grief. And I was not alone, as there were two families with young children visiting the castle that morning. As my lens moved over the names and dates on the walls, I fell silent and still as a young girl of about eight traced one of the etchings with her finger. Is it true they were so cruel? She asked her parents. Yes, sadly, said the mother. There was silence. No rushing here. A stillness. A lament. An encounter with truth. This was a graced moment for me. No big monument, but a moment of connection, of the pain we suffer in our struggle to comprehend the world’s cruelty touching the pain of another. And in that touch across centuries, I beheld a beauty and truth that my camera could not capture, and for which I am deeply grateful.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.