Proper 8

Most of us have heard about the legendary King Arthur and his knights of the round table. Many of us learned about Arthur through the movies. And some of us came to know about Arthur through Monty Python and the Holy Grail (once voted the most popular film ever by folks in the United Kingdom).

One memorable portion of the movie is the “constitutional peasant” scene:

ARTHUR: I am your king!

PEASANT WOMAN: Well, I didn’t vote for you.

ARTHUR: You don’t vote for kings.

PEASANT WOMAN: Well, ’ow did you become king then?

ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake, [angels sing] her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. [singing stops] That is why I am your king!

PEASANT NAMED DENNIS: Listen — strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

            ARTHUR: Be quiet!

            DENNIS: You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you! I mean, if I went around, saying I was an emperor, just because some moistened bink had lobbed a scimitar at me, they’d put me away!

            Little is known about the “real” Arthur, and there is some considerable debate among historians as to whether he existed at all. What is clear is that many of the Tudor monarchs who ruled during the Renaissance vehemently defended the Arthur story as a means of tracing their genealogical lineage to him and justifying their reign. The facts are much more in doubt, with historians being able to say only that, at best, Arthur may have been a military leader fighting against the invasion of Germanic tribes around the year 400.

But while truth and legend may diverge, what remains the same, both in the movies and in real life, is our fascination with royalty and the idea that one man, one king, can rule justly and powerfully. Seems that whether it’s the fifth century or the first or the 21st, people are looking for a hero to save the day and lead the way. But somehow, the fantasy is always greater than the reality.

Centuries before Arthur, the people of Israel bought into the prevailing wisdom of the cultures around them and asked God to give them a king — a hero of stature, a leading man who would cut an impressive figure and solve their troubles. Somehow for them, like many cultures before and since, they bought into the legends of royalty and sought willingly to give over their allegiance to one man — a warrior king who would somehow unite them and make things right.

God’s response to their request is instructive to all would-be kingmakers: Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it. Despite warnings from the prophet Samuel, the people are desperate for royalty (1 Samuel 8). God gives them just what they want and, beginning with the somewhat psychotic reign of Saul, we read throughout the rest of the Scripture that their reliance on earthly royalty most often led to an existence that was much less than a mythical Camelot with no happy-ever-after ending.  We hear about the death of King Saul and his son, Jonathan, in today’s Lesson.

On more than one occasion the people wanted to anoint Jesus as the new earthly King of Isarael. But Jesus always refuses the crown and slips off into the countryside. If anyone deserved it and could deliver the goods, it was Jesus. But while heroic warrior-kings make for good stories and blockbuster movies, the kind of kingdom Jesus was bringing in would redefine once and for all what true royal power was about.

Bottom line: Jesus believed that power was only truly useful if it was given away.

The greatest legacy of King Arthur has much less to do with castles, wizards and magic kingdoms. What’s often overlooked in the story is that Arthur is a king who intentionally shares his royalty. Arthur wields a different kind of power than the magical sword of legend — it is the power of shared leadership, bringing together a diverse group of people around a circular table to symbolize that “for men to be men they must first be equal.”

St. Augustine, in contrasting the city of Love with the usual cities of men, says: In the one, the princes and nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all.

Jesus was the original once and future king, gathering together a motley crew of disciples, teaching them, training them, empowering them, and inviting them to give up their own royal fantasies and be agents of the kingdom. Unlike the earthly kings before and after him, Jesus truly had the power to be a hero, a victor, a symbol of ultimate royal authority.

But rather than be waited on hand and foot, he instead washes the feet of his subjects. Rather than choosing the roar of the crowd, he chooses a cross for his coronation. His power is perfected in being freely given away, empowering others with God’s incredible grace.

Truth is, no form of earthly leadership is perfect. Monarchy and autocracy can be efficient but brutal, while democracy is popular but very messy. Whatever the system, wise rulers — whether real or imagined — know that power is only truly realized when it is shared, and people have a real stake in the ultimate outcome.

An example from our own American history is instructive. As we get ready to celebrate Independence Day, it’s important to realize that our own United States could just as easily have become an American monarchy rather than a democratic republic. At the close of the American Revolution, George Washington was more popular in this country than any man at any time before or since.

As the war ended, some of the Continental army officers complained that Congress had not followed through on certain promises of lands and compensation. So they hatched a plot to march the army westward and leave the Congress to try to negotiate a peace settlement with no army to back it up. At the same time, they would make Washington a king and place him on the American throne.

Washington would have none of it. With no mincing of words, Washington crushed any such notions, saying, “If you have any regard for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, banish these thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from yourself or anyone else, a sentiment of the like nature.”

In a great 18th-century sound bite, he was also alleged to have said, “I did not fight George the Third in order to become George the First.”

Washington knew that the only hope for the new country was a representative form of government — a sharing of power — a government that Abraham Lincoln would later so eloquently characterize in the Gettysburg Address as a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

Still, even after 248 years of independence, we look for heroes to save us. Presidential campaigns are full of promises and potential, and groups of people with wide and varied interests demand leaders who will meet their needs. In some ways, like our spiritual ancestors before us, we really do want a king.

But the truth is that no matter who gets elected, who sits on the throne or who wins the battle — earthly kingship is a finite office with a finite power.

Better for us that we recognize that our true allegiance is to the King of Kings — a king whose power is realized in his people, not just for them. We are not called to be passive, pining for Camelot or the shores of heaven, but to do the work of the kingdom here and now, following the example of Christ, using the power of the Holy Spirit to lead others in the way of peace, salvation and hope.

Now that’s a Round Table to which we’re all invited.