Text: John 18:24-40

There’s an improv game which, if you ever watched ‘Whose Line is it, Anyway?’ you might remember called ‘Only Questions.’ As the name suggests, the only lines the participants are allowed to use are questions. If you can’t continue the scene with a question, you’re out. For example, the characters are in a piano bar:

1: (sidling up to 2nd character) Hey buddy, how’s it going?

2: (pretending to play piano) Any requests? 

1: What do you play?

2: (thinking) Do you know the way to San Jose?

1: Oh, how does that go?

At that point in the scene Ryan Stiles couldn’t think of a response so he was out and the next person jumped into the scene.

There’s a tension that builds in this kind of scene which is what makes it funny in improv and which would be infuriating in real life. It’s frustrating to not get an answer. To me, it’s what this exchange between Pilate and Jesus feels like. Pilate is asking questions and Jesus is either not giving straight answers or responding with his own questions.

P: Are you king of the Jews?

J: Where did you get this information?

P: So you’re not a king? What did you do?

J: Don’t my followers listen to my voice and know the truth?

P: What even is the truth?

I have only rewritten that a little! Unlike the improv game, Pilate can’t leave the stage when he gets caught up short. He’s ping-ponging back and forth between Jesus and the Jewish leaders who brought Jesus to him. Pilate has so little interest in dealing with this. As soon as he sees that Jesus is no threat to Rome, he wants to be done. But he’s kind of caught.

Pilate has come to Jerusalem from his home in Caesarea, the normal seat of Roman oversight. He does this during Passover to have a closer handle on activities in Jerusalem. Because Passover is a holiday that celebrates freedom from the rule of empire, Pilate both wants to project the power of Rome, be a visible reminder of Rome’s occupation and domination and be able to put a quick and violent end to any thoughts of rebellion that the Passover might inspire. He’s known to history as quite a brutal governor.

The Jewish authorities and snuggling up to his power and taking advantage of his interest in putting down rebellion to paint Jesus as a problem. Pilate can see pretty quickly that he’s not that. But the Jewish leaders don’t want to get their own hands dirty. They still want him out of the way. They need to finagle a win and Pilate kind of needs to give it to them to keep the peace. 

Meanwhile, Jesus is refusing to put himself into any of their categories. They are only familiar with two: 1) the religious institution as they know it – laws that prescribe action and leaders that offer ritual and oversee who is in and out/clean and unclean – and 2) the hierarchy of Roman occupation or the Roman patronage system. Power and control enforced by violence and domination.

There are no real allegations made toward Jesus. No one seems to actually be trying to charge him with anything. He’s something of a pawn. But he also doesn’t really seem interested in arguing on his own behalf. His only agenda is being his true self. It’s not an accident that he says, “I came to testify to the truth,” or “those who accept the truth listen to my voice.” 

The gospel is calling back to Jesus literally saying that he is the truth: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” And to his identity as the good shepherd, whose sheep hear his voice and follow.

That is his identity. Not a king. And especially not a king like those in the Jewish or Roman world. If Jesus has a kingdom it’s born not from the sphere of domination and hierarchy but from a place but from a place of kinship and mutuality. If Jesus has guards they are guards who do not defend with violence. He has already offered a physical demonstration to this effect by rebuking Peter and healing the ear of the person he attacked.

What Jesus is offering is not kingship but kinship.

I was first introduced to the word and idea of kin-dom of God’ (that’s kin with no ‘g’; kin like family) ages ago. And at first I kind of thought like Diana Butler Bass writes in her book Freeing Jesus, “When I first encountered a prayer using “kin-dom” instead of “kingdom,” I remember thinking that it was a sort of liberal watering down of the robust vision of Christ the King in glory, diminishing the power of his lordship.”

I also wondered whether we needed a new word for something that’s pretty good already: Donald Kraybill wrote the Upside Down Kingdom in the late 70’s and that idea of an inversion of power, a last-will-be-first, weak-will-be-strong beloved community hold up pretty well.

However, Butler Bass goes on to talk about where the idea of kin-dom comes from. She writes:

The noted theologian Ada María Isasi-Díaz recalls originally hearing “kin-dom” from a friend who was a nun as an alternative to the language of “kingdom,” a word fraught with colonial oppression and imperial violence. “Jesus,” she wrote, “used ‘kingdom of God’ to evoke . . . an alternative ‘order of things’” over and against the political context of the Roman Empire and its Caesar, the actual kingdom and king at the time.

“Kingdom” is, however, a corrupted metaphor, one misused by the church throughout history to make itself into the image of an earthly kingdom. Indeed, Christians have often failed to recognize that “kingdom” was an inadequate and incomplete way of speaking of God’s governance, not a call to set up their own empire. Isasi-Díaz argues that “kin-dom,” an image of la familia, the liberating family of God working together for love and justice, is a metaphor closer to what Jesus intended.

If that sounds more like contemporary political correctness than biblical theology, it is worth noting that Isasi-Díaz’s “kin-dom” metaphor echoes an older understanding, one found in medieval theology in the work of the mystic Julian of Norwich. Julian wrote of “our kinde Lord,” a poetic title, certainly, summoning images of a gentle Jesus. But it was not that. Rather, it was a radical one, for the word “kinde” in medieval English did not mean “nice” or “pleasant.” Instead, in the words of theologian Janet Soskice:

In Middle English the words “kind” and “kin” were the same—to say that Christ is “our kinde Lord” is not to say that Christ is tender and gentle, although that may be implied, but to say that he is kin—our kind. This fact, and not emotional disposition, is the rock which is our salvation.

To say “our kinde Lord” was to say “our kin Lord.” Jesus the Lord is our kin. The kind Lord is kin to me, you, all of us—making us one. This is a subversive deconstruction of the image of kingdom and kings, replacing forever the pretensions and politics of earthly kingdoms with Jesus’s calling forth a kin-dom. King, kind, kin.

I don’t think we need to abandon imagery of kingdoms and king-ship. Maybe we need it now as much as ever as certain leaders vocally deny but act like they want to be kings.  But we have an opportunity to decide: do we align with the kingdoms of this world or the kin-dom of Jesus?

There’s a reason we’ve been having no kings rallies. The authoritarian tactics of the current administration do begin to look more and more like kingship, but as we’ve talked about both in adult study and in our previous series on Christian Nationalism and discipleship, no government of this world is going to look like the kin-dom and no nation of this world will function like the family of God.

In the Gospels it is Jewish leaders who are aligning with power/empire. It’s Jewish authorities who lead the charge to have Jesus killed. Unfortunately this has led to millennia of anti-Semitism and discrimination against Jewish people. Nowadays it is Christians – our people – who are setting themselves up to reign like Kings. Christians, or at least people who claim Christianity, are seeking power and getting cozy with leaders who will be their enforcers. 

Even so, I believe that the church may be best positioned to model kin-ship and what the kin-dom of Jesus could and should look like. At our best, we in the church do operate like a family. While I am sometimes frustrated that we don’t talk enough about power and how it functions in the Mennonite church that’s because the way we operate is very non-hierarchical and I believe we enact a priesthood of all believers in a way that values each person for their gifts and their presence. 

As I was writing this I discovered a church (not a Mennonite church as far as I could tell) in Indianapolis that talks about the way they embody the kindom of God on their website: 

In alignment with the values of solidarity and liberation within the Kindom of God, we do not practice membership at Trinity Church. Trinity is a part of the Church Universal and the Kindom of God to which everyone belongs. We invite everyone to participate fully in the life of the church according to their giftings in the capacity that they feel led to by the Holy Spirit. If anyone calls Trinity their church home, it is just that and we rejoice to be in community with them.

We have never articulated our membership practices in this way at Evergreen but I do think we live it out. We rejoice in everyone who participates and makes this body a family.

We all know that families aren’t perfect. They too can operate like kingdoms – and in ancient Rome they were very much an extension of the empire. But Jesus offers true family. Kin-dom. If we listen to his voice, hear the truth that he offers, we too can be a part of the Kindom of Jesus. Indeed, I believe we already are.  Thanks be to God.

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Resources:

• You Can’t Have God’s Kin-dom Without God’s Kingdom – Lutheran Coalition for Renewal (CORE)
• “On ‘Kingdom’ and ‘Kindom’: The Promise and the Peril” – Issuu
• The Kin-dom of God – Red Letter Christians

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