Emissaries From Another World
Holy fools and stewards of mysteries
Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”
Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?”
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”
John 18:36-38
A beautiful thing about fantasy fiction, and why Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were so effective with Narnia and Lord of the Rings, is we get to see our world through another one. We are transported to a different place that bears a familiar resemblance, letting us us see who we are through this otherworldly lens. In these stories, we see a world that looks and acts like this one, and yet doesn’t; they’re beautiful and enchanted, with warriors, wizards, and kings, while for many of us, our world has lost its sense of magic.
Jesus offers us a kingdom that also helps us see our world through another lens. In our John reading today for the last Sunday of the Church calendar year, celebrated as Christ the King Sunday, Jesus tells Pilate that my kingdom is not from here, it’s not like here.
Unlike his other hats, sometimes Jesus’ kingship is a title that we don’t know what to make of. We are comfortable with him in all his different roles—healer, teacher, friend, brother, prophet, high priest, mediator—but king is an interesting one, maybe tricky for us. In a pluralistic society, it may even sound threatening. Yet he is king for this world but not from it; a king over it, but not of it. What do we make of it?
False Kings and False Kingdoms
Let’s be enchanted by Scripture and go into those Roman chambers with Jesus and Pilate. As they’re sparring back and forth, a game of question ping-pong, Jesus says, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom belonged to this world, my servants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over …but my kingdom is not from here.”(John 18:36). Hear that again: my kingdom is not from here. It’s not of here. It doesn’t belong here.
This is crucial because of the bad news: everything in this world is ruled—on its worldly level—by sin. If that sounds harsh or totalizing, it is! It is bad news. Death, decay, distortion, corruption, all of it falls short passively and sometimes actively from God’s vision. And sin really loves to rule, and things usually go horribly wrong, when we think we have finally found an ideology, church, movement, or anything else that is immune to sin.
On the cosmic level, Christians have always pointed out how sin infects and disrupts and distorts divine goodness everywhere through death and decay, not only of the physical but the spiritual too. Sin is relentless—the term our Reformed ancestors used was “total depravity”—and there is no technology, no government, no human innovation that no matter how good it is, that sin cannot distort. Yet we tend to pick false kings who embody some virtue that we hold dear, or provide a counter to another evil. But sin is only less relentless than God himself. Sin delights in Pyrrhic victories, that is, deadly victories, victories that hurt us more than whatever we win. And the impossible situation is that if you fight sin on the world’s terms, you will only fight sin with more sin, repaying evil for evil. As Jesus says, “If I was a king from this world, my officers would fight!” Or as he tells Peter in the garden when he draws his sword, thanks but no thanks.
Emissaries From Another World
If Christ is our king, what are we called to be? The Greek word Jesus uses for us Christ followers in this John passage is hyperetai—servants, officers, or helpers.
So if you are a Christian, you are an officer of a king from another world. We are his apostolic, sent-out servants…emissaries from another kingdom.
What does it mean to be an emissary from Jesus’ kingdom? Let’s start by thinking about the opposite. What does an ambassador for sin look like? We might think of almost cartoonish examples—biker gangs with leather and tattoos—or maybe groups with real sinister darkness: street gangs, cartels, the slimiest politicians, and cronies of violent regimes. No doubt there are many ways to serve as ambassadors of sin.
We also know emissaries of sin often wear Christian clothes (across the whole political theology spectrum). Speaking of other worlds, we went to set that movie adaptation of Wicked on Friday, set in the land of The Wizard of Oz. For those unfamiliar, it’s a twist on the old movie that gives us the full backstory of the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba. No major spoilers here (I may write a fuller review later this week), but one fascinating thing for Christians about Wicked is how it reminds us of the deception of appearances and labels; the show’s title could have been Sinner. Despite its beautiful environs, we discover the land of Oz is a land of lies—the munchkins and the wizard school people are obsessed with image and worldly power that has dark undertones, the wizard is a liar, and the Emerald City—like the temple Jesus said was coming down—is this gaudy false kingdom built on exploitation. And Christians know best how Christian cultures and theologies can make for a good show while embodying a false kingdom. If only sin always announced itself as such instead of dressing up as good.
Whether in the Church or out of it, emissaries of sin are primarily emissaries for ourselves, sometimes not for us as individuals but for our group or movement. When we act as emissaries for ourselves, we want to claim power of the sacred—the divine kingdom not of this world—but we use the world’s means to do so, thus losing the kingdom we wish to claim. This is sin’s favorite Pyrrhic victory. This, as the kids say, ain’t it.
Now, let’s try to see ourselves as Christ calls Christians to be: emissaries from another world. What should we Christians look like?
Think back to those fantasy or science-fiction worlds. When a show or movie introduces a new character from a different planet, there is something both familiar and wonderfully unusual about them. Their norms are different, their speech is different, their worldview is different. Often, like in Star Wars or Star Trek, they are even literally officers from another planet—emissaries from another world. Next time you find yourself in a situation where you don’t know how to witness your Christian faith, it might be fun to think of yourself as a stranger in a strange land, from a people called the Hyperetai, sharing and living in a Way that is unusual.
This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4 about being hyperetai (in contrast to the haughty ways of the Corinthian Christians):
Think of us in this way: as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries….. For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to humans. We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are sensible people in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honored, but we are dishonored. To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are naked and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.
1 Cor 4:1, 9-13
There is so much goodness here that I urge you to read it again for digestion. Fools, weak, dishonored, hungry, naked, homeless. Rubbish. Christian. And these unusual officers, these stewards of God’s mysteries, are sent-out spectacles to not just humans, but the spiritual powers.
If you are a Christian, my challenge for us is to reread that description. What would it mean for you to follow that example?
Maybe start simpler. Jesus tells Pilate that his officers do not fight for him with physical force, worldly force, no, we are to love one another and bear witness to the truth. “For this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” (John 18:37). If we follow this king, we don’t play by the world’s rules to get the world’s power. If power comes to you by playing by the king’s rules, great, “more power to you.”
But Jesus does not want you betraying what is true, loving, and just in order to bring about his kingdom—he says no, trust me, I’ve got this. Yes, sure, we should be curious about the truth of the world, be curious about what the world is like, but to know it is to understand its ways are not the king’s ways. Study the world, be an academic, be a businessman understanding economics to turn a proit. But as you go through life, pay attention to the king’s orders. When you are emissaries of this king, and you really listen to him, you will hear the king’s orders often telling you not to do what everybody else is doing. He’s not from here. He’s not of here.
Let your actions truly witness to the different world of the king, whose love and justice and truth are not what the world gives. Be a true emissary of his kingdom. And if you’re a big enough of a holy fool, you might even help steward his mysteries.
