"Go into His Courts with Praise"

A great King roams His domains disguised as an itinerant teacher living in poverty. He observes His people — their ways, their thoughts, their conduct of life. Finally, He encounters one man whose pattern of life and personal qualities evince what He has long hoped for in His people. This man is an exemplar, a paragon, a role model. And He praises him:

We must pause here and take stock. For here is the example we must emulate if we are evermore to please and serve our King in newness of life (Rom 6:4).

We are in awe of this singularity and clarity. "Who is this man?" we ask in all earnestness. "Which man has attained this perfection? And what are these signal qualities?"

Before we receive the answer to our question, let us first consider another, related question: "Which figures in the Gospels loudly, clearly, and consistently attest the Divinity of Jesus of Nazareth?" .... as no others do. Which ones cry out ....

And again

And elsewhere

They "fell down before Him," for they knew through long experience the correct posture when approaching the Most High King. After all, had not every one of them been courtiers in His empyreal Courts? Had they not been soldiers in His Heavenly Host? (Host, we must remember, is a distinctly military term.) And the final voice on Earth to address this King fittingly is also a military man, assigned to the execution of Jesus of Nazareth. He looked up from the Cross and said,

All of these figures from the Gospels, all military figures (every one of them), share a trait and knowledge that we, in general, famously lack. They recognize true authority when they see it and behave accordingly. Authority — a pure word, nearly all root, whose kernel is author, from the Old French autor from the Latin auctor, which means, "one who invents" or "one who causes."

Standing before them and standing before us, then, is the First Cause: the One Who set everything into motion and created it. Has ever such authority appeared on the Earth? And what, may we ask, could be more authentic (a word having hints of the Latin passive periphrastic, suggesting that we cannot resist His authority).

So let us return to the question with which we began? Who in all of Israel is the man whose mind and conduct is singled out for greatness? He is a Roman centurion, a man in authority. He says,

Jesus, of course, is all Authority. He is the Supreme King .... and the court of last appeal. He is our Maker and our Judge. Even people hearing Him in the synagogues detect it:

And the King Himself plainly declares it:

And

Recognizing, much less bowing, before authority is not an Americans value, in general. The earliest toast of the American Republic heard in taverns and inns through the former colonies was this: "No Bishop! No King!"

It has been fairly said that an instinctive revulsion toward authority, engendered within us from our youth — did we not stick out little chests in the schoolyard and say, "I have my opinion! This is free country!" — has been responsible for the white hot engine of scientific and technical research which is a crowning glory of the United States. You see, to carry on pure research, you must disrespect the ones who came before you insofar as you assume they did not get it right. We must also add that "questioning authority" has been responsible for the proliferation of religions which is a hallmark of American life.

When the subject of authority figures comes up, we shrug. Like the demons, we ask, "What has that to do with us?" But we must not pass over it so lightly, for it turns out that everything we do and everything we care about will depend upon our response:

Jesus tell us that many people will be affected and over the course of all salvation history: many from the East, many from the West, and stretching back as far as Abraham, signifying prehistory.

The word Kingdom appears twice in these two brief sentences. "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven" and "sons of the Kingdom" who will be cast out. Kingdom, then, is our primary subject, and right conduct as subjects of the King follows it as the night the day. For on one side, great Patriarchs are named and on the other, outcasts. These are the boundaries. The faithful centurion ranks high on this scale, which includes all humankind: Jews (sons of the Kingdom) and Gentiles, (that is, everyone else in a whole world).

The purpose of the parable, of course, is to pose the all-important question: where do we come out in the reckoning? And the question is posed in a most extreme context. For if we should be counted among the outcasts, we may count on life where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth — by tradition, Hell.

We use the word "Christlike" casually today. It summons up a kindly but ineffectual figure — perhaps a breathless, effeminate man, who moves in studied slowness and affected dignity. He places a hand on our shoulder, and he pastors us. He is not one in authority. In fact, he has no authority. Like actors out of central casting who attempt to pantomine holiness, this fellow's stock and trade is being seen to be gentle. He is kindly, but he is not kingly. He speaks, and we may choose to receive his words .... or ignore them. In this scenario, authority lies entirely with us .... and the vagaries of our minds and hearts — what we want. We may well wonder what these sorts of people pray for? Or how they pray.

But in our Gospel lesson this morning, we find no ineffectual man. We behold a Sovereign. Above all, He is Kingly. In fact, the only place in the Gospels where He reveals that He is "gentle and lowly in heart" (the only place) is an invitation to take His yoke upon us. We wear the yoke. He bears the whip. We submit to His Royal Authority. He is the King; we are His subjects. Subjection then is a primary value in His Kingdom.

The Seventy returned from their several apostolates and reported this very thing:

And Jesus' ideal for governance, as He prepares to ascend from the Earth, is revealed to be royal thrones. We must pause to note that the title actually spoken by the Seventy (they said "Lord") was Κυριος (Kyrios), or King, a title used to address YHWH in the Hebrew Bible (Septuagint), from which Jesus quotes.

In our twenty-first-century American democracy, the Sovereignty of King Jesus no longer causes strong feelings to well up in the heart or to make water stand in the eyes. Either He is repudiated altogether — fewer than half of all Americans express any kind of fealty to Him (Gallup, 2021). Or He is relegated to being "Christlike" meaning that no one need pay Him any mind. I recall C. S. Lewis' Letters to Malcolm (1968) — a book that is devoted to prayer. That is to say, How does one pray? .... which presupposes another question: How does one imagine God? How does one approach God?

One of the Roman Catholic parishes I served became part of a cluster. The pastor decided to name the cluster, "Parishes of the Ascended Lord." It was a tortured phrase for he strove to form an acronym: PAL. And he was forever preaching that Jesus was our "buddy." Jesus "has our back." I cannot imagine prayers offered to God that begin, "Hey, Bud! What's up?" .... and perhaps ending, "Ya know, it wouldn't hurt to have a new Ferrari." Do we believe that such prayers ascend to Heaven. Can we picture such a person standing the Courts of God and behaving this way?

I did not go back to refresh my memory re-reading C.S. Lewis' book (it is in a tub somewhere with a hundred other storage tubs). But it summons up in my memory a passage: Father God is not a senile, old Grandfather with a long, white beard Who just wants everyone to be happy. And His Son is not a meek, little man, wringing His hands, because He wants everyone to love Him. Such figures have no authority, much less sovereignty.

He is our God and our King. We fall down before Him. We crown Him with many crowns: the Lamb upon His Throne.

And We must follow the virtuous centurion each day and say every morning saying,

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.   Amen.