About the author: Rev. Micah Cronin (M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary) is an Episcopal priest of the Diocese of New Jersey. He is the Associate Rector at St. George's By the River in Rumson, New Jersey.
On June 14th, millions of people across the United States participated in “No Kings” protests. No Kings is a coalition of labor unions, various political action groups, conservation organizations, faith-based groups, LGBTQ+ and feminist organizations, and others. Its current aim is to unite a broad base of peaceful opposition to the current federal administration, organized around the statement: “No thrones. No crowns. No Kings.”
The American Revolution continues to resonate in the present day, making the slogan “No Kings” particularly motivating for many who are dissatisfied with their government. It is meant to evoke the convictions of the American founders, who risked execution by defying the British crown and choosing to live by their own understanding of freedom. It is not a comment on religion.
And yet, as a Christian and an American, I cannot help but think about how kingship pertains to Jesus. Specifically, are we so politically broken that the familiar Gospel summary “Jesus is Lord” is no longer tenable? This is a rather complex and weighty question that I will not attempt to solve here, but I do have some thoughts which may at least move us along toward progress.
When we say “Jesus is Lord”, we are saying that we understand Jesus’ Lordship as God in-the-flesh submitting to crucifixion, taking sin and death onto himself, and defeating them in his resurrection, again in the flesh.
Lordship for Jesus meant intimate connection with humankind, living in our bodies, bearing our sin, enduring our death, and rising again in his body.
For Christians, it also means that Jesus is present in the Holy Spirit, who brings God’s revolutionary overthrow of sin and death to bear across all time and space, here and now.
In my opinion, nowhere else in the New Testament is God “here and now” as we find in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Note, for example, how the twelve disciples often misunderstood Jesus’ identity and mission, even though they had close, face-to-face access to him for an extended period. Yet once Jesus had been raised from the dead, ascended into heaven, and the Holy Spirit arrived on the scene, suddenly the whole world was imbued with God’s imminent presence. Reality was suddenly alive with the Spirit. Jesus’ followers were feeding and healing one another, singing from jail cells, not only forgiving but also baptizing their enemies, and boldly committing themselves to the proclamation that Jesus is alive.
The belief in Jesus as Lord, then, is belief in a kind of Lordship, dominion, or rule that is different from how both Jesus’ contemporaries and many people today understand and enact these.
It is a faith in a God who is lavish with forgiveness and mercy and who promises to make all things new, beginning with the here and now.
I think of the story laid out in chapters 3 and 4 of the Acts of the Apostles, in which Peter and John heal a disabled man being carried in for prayer at the Temple. Their healing enables him to walk, run, and leap with full strength. A crowd gathers, and Peter uses this opportunity to once again preach the good news that Jesus is alive. This quickly attracts negative attention. The local authorities, who had just recently called for Jesus’ crucifixion, arrested Peter and John and jailed them overnight. The next day, they threatened Peter and John and ordered them to stop teaching in the name of Jesus. Peter and John assured them that this would not be possible, for they “cannot keep from speaking about what [they] have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).
Peter and John return to the other apostles, and they pray. And it is their prayer that I find striking—indeed, in light of the current religious and political landscape, as I can see from my vantage point, more of a miracle than the healing which set off the whole series of events. They do not pray for God’s vengeance. They do not pray for hellfire. Rather, they ask for God to “look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:29-30). These traumatized, grieving people watched their beloved friend, teacher, and Lord suffer and die. Then they experienced his resurrection, only to have to say goodbye to his flesh-and-blood presence among them and get to know him in a new way in the Holy Spirit. Then, they experienced rejection from some of their fellow Jews, even punishment for acts of mercy, healing, and truth-telling. And they harbored no resentment. Rather, their experience of Jesus as Lord and King increased their desire for healing and mercy. A new kind of Lordship, enacted first in the hearts of Jesus’ followers, I hope even here and now.
What is God’s kingship, established in Jesus’ death and resurrection, and how does it ripple across time and space through the Holy Spirit’s activity in the Church? It is the continued healing, redemption, and renewal in the face of the powers of sin and death, which torment and ensnare all of us.
It is not vengeance. God’s kingship is God’s merciful and just yes to humanity, even to those of us who, in our enslavement to sin and death would oppose God. Conversely, God’s kingship is also God’s wrathful 'no' to sin and death, that all of us might one day share in Jesus’ resurrection.
In his letter to the Episcopal Church titled “Acting faithfully in troubled times”, which Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe wrote as Marines and National Guardsmen were being deployed to the anti-I.C.E. protests in downtown Los Angeles, he stated:
At its best, our church is capable of moral clarity and resolute commitment to justice. I believe we can bring those strengths to bear on this gathering storm. Churches like ours, protected by the First Amendment and practiced in galvanizing people of goodwill, may be some of the last institutions capable of resisting the injustice now being promulgated. That is not a role we sought—but it is one we are called to.
How can Christians who comprise such churches be prepared to fulfill the call that Presiding Bishop Rowe describes? On the most basic level, it truly is the work of the Holy Spirit, independent from human effort, which readies us. But these days, I find myself wanting to pray like the apostles after their first taste of post-resurrection resistance and injustice. I want to face my enemies with hope for God’s redemption and renewal, not resentment. In my prayer, I want to call for God’s healing and mercy, not God’s vengeance. And to have this, I must practice it by proclaiming God’s Yes to humanity and God’s No to sin and death, through words, action, and prayer. In so doing, I believe that the Holy Spirit will bring me into greater and greater conformity to Jesus and his resurrection.
It remains to be seen how this moment, and the coming aftermath, will affect how Christians communicate the Good News that Jesus, who was crucified, is alive as the Lord. However, I believe that the No Kings protests illustrate a strong rejection of the kind of kingship that God also rejects. Perhaps more importantly, “No Kings” also points to a longing for another type of kingship, a full affirmation of human life that only God can provide, and in fact, has already accomplished through Jesus and is unfolding before us in the work of the Holy Spirit.
