A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities by Rev. L. John Gable
April 7, 2019
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
Fourteen centuries before Charles Dickens penned these now famous words in his book, A Tale of Two Cities, St. Augustine wrote a book of similar comparisons titled, The City of God. Augustine, we know, is one of the most influential of the early church fathers, as well as one of the most colorful. Born and raised in Northern Africa in the 4th century, he came to be named the Bishop of Hippo following his conversion. Perhaps his most famous line is written in his book called Confessions, “My heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.” He began writing The City of God in 410 after the Vandals sacked Rome. Many non-Christians of the day blamed the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity for this devastation. Augustine tried to defend the church by tracing the history of two cities or states, or we will say kingdoms, from the beginning of time.
Quoting Augustine, “Accordingly, the two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men and women; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience…In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other the princes and the subjects serve one another in love…The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of rulers; the other says to its God, “I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.”
I could certainly read on, but clearly Augustine is laying out the tale of two cities, the comparison between the kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of God.
Now ideally, these two kingdoms, or cities as Augustine calls them, can and should co-exist and work in cooperation and harmony with one another, each desiring a shared objective. In its simplest terms, the role of the civil government is to promote the good of the community in temporal concerns. It is charged with the protection of life and property, as well as the preservation of peace and order. The role of the Church, or as it is so called The City of God, is to bear witness to the values of the Kingdom of God and to announce to the world the coming of the God’s reign, “already” in our daily activities and “not yet” as we anticipate God’s eventual and eternal fulfillment in history. Until that day and that fulfillment as Christians we live as citizens of these two kingdoms, and we have responsibilities within each of them. We believe that God has established and even ordained the civil authorities and institutions for the ordering of society, so we are instructed to obey the state and respect its laws and pray for its leaders; yet at the same time, we are to recognize that the state is not the final authority in our lives, or even in human history, so ultimately we claim our allegiance, not to a civil government or a political ideology, but to God and the eternal reign of His Kingdom.
Theologian Jacque Ellul writes, “The Christian who is involved in the material history of this world is involved in it as representing another order, another master, another claim….Thus he/she must plunge into social and political problems in order to have an influence on the world, not in the hope of making it a paradise, but simply in order to make it tolerable; …not in order to ‘bring in’ the Kingdom of God, but in order that the Gospel may be proclaimed, that all people may really hear the Good News of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
So in as much that we are citizens of two kingdoms, it is inevitable that at some point the two will clash and we will be asked, or better forced, to choose between them and make our allegiance known. This is exactly what is happening in our Gospel lesson this morning.
Jesus has been arrested and tried before the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the synagogue in Jerusalem, and the chief priests have found Him guilty of blasphemy, saying that He claims to be God! (That is rather ironic, isn’t it? It is amazing the trouble you can get in to when you tell the truth.) According to Jewish law, blasphemy is punishable by death, but the Sanhedrin doesn’t have the power of capital punishment any more than the Session of our church would, so they haul Him before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, and bring three charges against Him. First, they say, “We find this man perverting our nation.” Ah, the “perversion” borne of teachings about the love of God and the forgiveness of sins, of the imperative of sharing our goods with those in need and turning the other cheek to those who strike you. The second charge was that He was, “forbidding us to pay taxes to the Emperor”; again a trumped up charge. Recall Jesus’ nimble demonstration of looking at the inscription imprinted on the Roman coin and saying, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.’?; hardly a prohibition on paying taxes. And finally they charged Him with saying that “He Himself is a Messiah, a king.” This seems to be the only charge in which Pontius Pilate takes any real interest. He needs to know if this Jesus of Nazareth is any real threat to his office or to the peace of Rome in that region, so he asks Him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Given Pilate’s position he is asking the political, not the spiritual question, making no attempt to discern the conflict which exists between the two kingdoms here. Jesus answers, “You say so”, which Pilate takes to be a “yes” yet still sees as being no real threat so finds Him innocent of all charges and proceeds to set Him free, but the crowd resists. And here we see the kingdoms of this world pitted against the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and poor Pilate is caught right in the middle.
Admittedly, and rather creatively, he tries to find a way out. He finds out that Jesus is from Galilee and knows that Herod, the governor of that region, just happens to be in town, so he sends Him over to him, which Herod is pleased about, he’d always wanted to meet Jesus but never had had the chance. But after examining Him, Herod also finds Jesus innocent of any punishable offense and sends Him back to Pilate, who then, a second time, explains His innocence to the crowd, this time offering to flog Him before he releases Him, but again that doesn’t satisfy their blood thirst.
A third time Pilate declares Jesus innocent, but this time the crowd not only cries out for His crucifixion, but also for the release of a notorious revolutionary and murderer named Barabbas. Again the irony is almost too much to grasp. They would rather have the evil they know than the uncertainty they don’t know. So recognizing that there is a riot brewing, and that his primary responsibility is to maintain the peace of Rome in that place, Pilate does the politically expedient thing and gives them what they want. He releases Jesus for execution. Consider it a fair rap or not, this act of complicity leads us, and believers through the centuries, to confess in the Apostles’ Creed, “suffered under Pontius Pilate.”
In this civil courtroom in Jerusalem twenty centuries ago we see the climax of the conflict between the value systems of these two kingdoms. “Once there was a carpenter who didn’t overcharge for doing finish work. Once there was a physician who healed the sick for free. Once there was a man who fed the people at no charge….and they crucified Him.” (Michael Staton). Protestant Reformer Martin Luther understood the inherent conflict between these two kingdoms as he spoke of “right handed” and “left handed” power. The “right handed” power of the world is based on force and intimidation and brute strength. This is the power of the state and governments and nations with their military forces and economic leverage. This is the power of personal ambition and self-promotion. “Right handed power” is the power that is exercised and exerted in what Augustine refers to as the earthly city. To this Luther contrasts the “left handed power” of the Gospel. This is the power of love, the power of forgiveness, the power of self-sacrifice and grace. While we have the tendency to be intimidated by the “right handed power” of this world, in reality there is no greater power than that of the “left handed power” of God, shown most conclusively in the cross of Jesus Christ. The power of Rome that put Jesus to death turned out to be nothing more than the instrument that ensured the victory of God’s love and forgiveness. The perversion of justice in this world ultimately led to the victory of God’s justice on the cross of Calvary.
Friends, you and I are citizens of two kingdoms, residents of two cities, and at some point those two kingdoms are going to collide with each other, and you and I are the battleground, our minds and our souls, on which that great conflict will be waged. And on that day we will have to make a decision as to which kingdom will claim our ultimate allegiance and that decision will influence every other decision we will ever make, including where we want to spend eternity.
As sojourners with dual citizenship we are called to seek the peace and justice, the good will and well–being of others, regardless of ethnicity or nationality, because together we are Children of the Heavenly Father. We are to live in respectful harmony even with those with whom we most vehemently disagree on issues of social and political ideology because we hold an allegiance to a higher authority; the worship and service of God and Him alone, because one day the kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever. One day, perhaps to everyone’s amazement, the right handed power of the kingdoms of this world will rightly relinquish control to the left handed power of the Kingdom of God. This is what the prophet Isaiah spoke of as he envisioned the coming of the Messiah, “So He shall startle many nations and kings will shut their mouths because of Him…this one who was despised and rejected by others, a man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity would surely bear our infirmities and carry our diseases. We accounted Him stricken by God and afflicted, but He was wounded for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, upon Him was the punishment that made us whole and by His bruises we have been healed.”
Indeed it is the tale of two cities. It was the worst of times, “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.” It was the best of times, “For by His wounds we have been healed.” Amen.