May I speak in the name of the one God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

So we come again to the year’s end, the liturgical year, which means that today we are celebrating that Christ is King.

My first experience of monarchy was in 1957 – I was 8 years old, the Queen came to Hull and amongst the places she visited was a children’s home with which my father had some connection, and so we were there beside the steps as she went up into the building – almost touching distance. There was great excitement. Later in the day we went out to the village of Paull, beside the Humber estuary to watch as the royal yacht Britannia made its way out to sea to take the Queen on a state visit to Denmark. As you may gather it is a memory that has lived with me vividly ever since.

Some of you will have been here when the Queen visited York – perhaps in 1988 when she formally reopened the south transept after the fire, or perhaps when she distributed the Maundy money in 2012. Some of you I know were here on one or both of the King’s recent visits. Some of us had the privilege of being introduced to him. All these experiences shape our view of monarchy.

I know there will be different views amongst us today about monarchy. I wonder what is your image? According to Wikipedia there are 43 sovereign states that have a monarch as their head of state – most now have restricted powers, limited by their country’s constitutions, but there are still a few, a handful, where the monarch has absolute power. I expect many of you are enjoying the new series of Wolf Hall where we see the Henry VIII style of kingship wonderfully played out by Damian Lewis. Now there was a king. “off with her head”, meant the head rolled.

And Pilate had that sort of power – in his case it was power delegated from the emperor – but still power to decree life or death – no appeals, no stays, no convention on human rights there.

And he had all the other trappings of absolute power – a palace, wealth on display, all the resources he needed, and armed soldiers to enforce his bidding. That’s what kingship meant to Pilate.

And now he has been told that this man who is produced in front of him in chains claims that he too is a king.

And they have a discussion about kingship.

It is striking that the place in the gospels where this discussion about kingship takes place is not at the transfiguration, nor the resurrection nor the ascension, nor any other place where glory is on display. No, it is in the shadow of the cross. Jesus is a prisoner, accused of treason and facing a death sentence.  And there he has a discussion with Pilate about whether or not he is a king and, if so, what is the nature of his kingship.

What Jesus says about his kingdom – is that it is not from here; it is not of this world.

How can Pilate be assured of that? “Well” says Jesus “if it was a kingdom like the kingdoms of this world, like your kingdom Pilate – then my followers would be fighting to protect me from you because that is how kingdoms operate in this world”.

That was true then and it has been true ever since.

Earlier this year I read Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which takes us from the Roman conquest to the middle of the 8^th century. Covering the Anglo Saxon period when there were several kingdoms on this island. And I could not believe the number of battles that there were between various kings, often between people who were blood relatives.

Only last weekend we were remembering those who died in the two world wars of recent memory.

And in addition to the warring kingdoms of nations we now need to add the corporate kingdoms of business and enterprise. They also have real power in this world, power which they use to get yet more power, as they build their brands and their businesses in competition with one another.

So whether it is clans, tribes, nations, corporations – all under their kings wage war of one sort or another – it is all about conflict, about winners and losers.

Jesus says to Pilate – that is not what my kingdom is about. You want to know what it is about – well it is not about conflict but about truth. That’s what I came for – to testify to what is ultimately true. And my followers are those who listen to me to get that truth.

The truth which Jesus spoke about again and again is counterintuitive to the received ways of doing things – basically it is about turning the world upside down. In Acts 17 we read that when Paul and Silas went to Thessalonica it was said “these people who have been turning the world upside down have now come here”. And what lay at the root of that?” As the Thessalonian mob said “they are saying there is another king named Jesus”.

His mother Mary when told of his coming also spoke about things being turned upside down, about the God who looked upon her lowliness and who would thereafter scatter the proud, put down the mighty, send the rich away empty, and who would lift up the humble and meek and fill the hungry with good things.

Jesus himself often spoke in ways that were counterintuitive –

About greatness – he said whoever is humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

About leadership – he said it was about washing feet, and about service.

And as to how you should respond to being wronged – you should forgive – How much should we forgive each other – is it as much as 7 times? – “no” he said, “70 times 7’.

And so we could go on.

None of this makes sense by the standards of the kingdoms of this world, but it is what God’s kingdom is about. And when you hear it and hear about it and when you see it, you know it makes sense. You know it is the truth about how we should be living in this world.

But it is a challenge to all those received ways of working, and if you challenge the status quo of the powerful, they will try to silence you.

And for Jesus being true to that kind of kingship led to the cross.

Of course the ultimate truth is that it will not always be like this. One day he will reign in power. Daniel looked forward to that day as we heard in our first reading.

It spoke about one like a human being, or as some translations say “the Son of Man”, coming with the clouds of heaven, being presented to the Ancient of Days. “And to him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.”

Whilst that is then, that is not now.

Now we are still in this world, some of us have had and some of us do have positions of authority and so have power over other people; the expectation we have grown up with and that others have is that we can use that power to achieve what we want to achieve. And of course as we have been reminded in the last couple of weeks any abuse of power in the church can be so damaging. This morning, on this Feast of Christ the King, Jesus challenges us to live counterintuitively and counterculturally in his upside down kingdom.

Of course there will also be those here who have been on the wrong end of the exercise of power and authority. And for those there is real comfort in this gospel account too. We know that King Jesus has been there. And as his followers we are one with him – or you might say he is with us where we are – whether misunderstood, rejected, accused, powerless, or abused. He knows it, he gets it, and through his resurrection life and his transforming love can change our lives beyond measure.

Amen.