Sermon for Sunday 22nd November 2009

I recently caught the children watching a re-run of a Robin Hood film. I had a quick look on the internet and there are an astonishing number of Robin Hood films which have been made. I wonder, are you an Errol Flyn or a Sean Connery type? I’ve never been able to resist Robin Hood ever since Alan Rickman played that wonderfully evil Sheriff of Nottingham in the 90s film version. I always think it’s the ideal swashbuckler with something for everyone. You know who the goodies and the baddies are. You can spend a happy little while deciding who you want to be. Do you see yourself as a brave Robin, standing up against the illegitimate power of the Sheriff: clever, cunning even, inspiring his men to live as outlaws rather than collude in betrayal of their king. Would you prefer to be Little John, a fighter, strong as an ox, brave and loyal. Or perhaps you aspire to be Friar Tuck, if you ignore the waistline, living his faith in itinerant prayer and service. Or perhaps Maid Marion, brave enough to buck the authority of the men around her and to escape to Sherwood Forest on the back of Robin’s horse….slow fade.

There’s always a moment in a Robin Hood film, usually when they are arguing about authority or what to do next, when King Richard returns. For dramatic effect, the writer usually makes the scene one of sudden recognition. Mid argument, Richard will throw off his hood and instantly Robin and all of his men drop to their knees. ‘My liege’. There is no more argument to be had. Here is the embodiment of authority and their allegiance is absolute. This is what Christ the King is all about. I can’t understand Christ the King when I think about crowns and thrones and robes; I can’t understand it when I look at stained glass windows or icons of Christ as King. I can understand it when I think of Robin Hood! It is encapsulated in that instant of recognition and immediate, total allegiance which sends us to our knees. In a world of democracy and republics we need to hold onto the importance of this metaphor and the meaning which it conveys. If we recognise Christ, we give to him our total allegiance, he has complete authority and it sends us to our knees.

I think we can play with the Robin Hood analogy a bit more though. Our allegiance to Christ is an allegiance to a Monarch whose rules hold ultimate legitimacy but who is usurped by other powers. The sheriff appears to have the upper hand but the loyal subjects continue to fight their cause outside the prevailing system. I had fun thinking about who the sheriff might be for me and I wonder who or what he might be for you? Is it the scandal of homelessness; of the environment; the scourge of aids; the lonely elderly neighbour? We don’t often use metaphors of fighting in church anymore but they are helpful in understanding our obligation to the gospel message. What are you called into the forest to resist and fight against? Robin had a band of men; Jesus had a group of 12. We are many more than that seated here this morning.

Recently I attended a Church conference. There were superb speakers urging us to live the gospel radically: to include all within Christ’s embrace and to exclude nobody from the banquet of the Kingdom. I want to tell you about two core messages which were delivered at the conference. They were both about how we live. How it is that we give expression to the Kingdom of God, how it is that we show our allegiance to Christ as our King.

The first was a speaker from Northern Ireland who had worked with protestant and catholic teenagers in the years preceding the Good Friday agreement. He had got these young people together to talk to one another. Through engaging at a personal level they had discovered for themselves that actually they had more in common with each other than the sum of that which divided them one from another. The received truths from parents and neighbours about ‘the other side’ were blown apart as they talked and socialised together. This speaker fervently urged us to go out and to talk to the people we think we do not like. His passionate message was that reconciliation and inclusion starts from the bottom up and not from the top down.

The second was a Maori speaker who travels the world for the Anglican Communion speaking at many different conferences and political meetings. She had just arrived from North Korea and her message was delivered with a determined exhaustion from all she had seen and experienced. She spoke of the many widows and orphaned children she had seen in Africa, in Asia, in South America. Her first hand experience of looking raped and brutalised women in the eye gave her words an authority. She told us to look out beyond our own comfortable experience. She told us to remember our brothers and sisters who suffer without the luxury of a voice to scream out to the world. She told us to check our priorities and to remember that these are our brothers and sisters, our fellow citizens in God’s kingdom.

And so I wonder if we dropped to our knees before Christ the King this morning and swore an oath of allegiance to him, what would that then require of us? The delegates I heard at the conference spoke to me of God’s Kingdom but other voices will speak to you. Other concerns will ring in your hearts because only your eyes can look out upon the world you encounter and only you can discern how you could live as a loyal subject in God’s Kingdom. Where is the battle for the Kingdom waged in Cobham? Where is it fought in your place of work? Where does it need to be upheld in our homes? When do we shirk dropping to our knees and instead choose to side with the sheriff?

Our faith engages us in a paradoxical struggle. Our King is not a tyrant but a servant. Our King does not wield a sword in anger but came to his disciples with wounded hands and said: ‘my peace I give to you.’ We drop to our knees not through fear and duty but through awe and total allegiance. This morning is the morning to reaffirm that allegiance to our sovereign and to rediscover our determination and courage to struggle for his Kingdom because that is the path to peace. Christ our King – may your Kingdom come. Amen

© Revd Diana Thornton November 2009