The Solemnity of Christ the KIng

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Lectionary: 161

Jesus answered, "You say 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's reply to Jesus --  "What is truth?" -- reflects everything the powers of this world know. Had Pilate answered his own question he would say, "Truth is what I make it. Power is the only truth." 
I often speak with those wise Veterans who have decided to take a few days off from their troubled lives to spend time in the psych ward. Some have been there repeatedly and have found a kind of haven in its stark halls and unadorned rooms. I speak with them about courage and cynicism. 

• Cynicism, I define as, "Oh to hell with it. There are no values. I'll just go along to get along. I'll survive in this crazy world by doing what everyone else is doing. My values don't count and I don't count." 
• Courage is defined as, "Here I am. I believe in goodness, truth and honesty and by staying here I can make a difference. I will not ignore or abandon myself, or forget who I am."

Pilate was a Roman official. Like everyone else in the world-as-he-knew-it, he had to obey his superiors. They told him, "Keep a lid on problems in Jerusalem by whatever means." The means at hand were his soldiers. 
Like soldiers of all time who find themselves far from home in an occupied country, they cared only for each other. Placed in a hostile land, their first loyalty was to their battle buddies. They lived only to survive another day; and, for fun, they bullied the locals. Pilate could use that contempt to fulfill his mission and, perhaps, advance his career. 
Power, as I have said of violence, despises intangible virtues as piety, integrity and honesty. What use are they to an empire that believes only in security and engages in continual war? 

Jesus spoke a foreign language to Pilate when he spoke of truth. It made no sense to the procurator. How can Jesus even pretend to be a king when he had no armies, no weapons and no subjects. Why would anyone call a helpless man a king? True, Pilate knew of peripatetic philosophers who taught about a Platonic spiritual world. But he had no time and no interest in lofty ideals. They might as well be somewhere over the rainbow. 

Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI has called upon Catholics and Christians throughout the world to celebrate a Year of Faith. It should be a year of prayer, renewal and recommitment to a New Evangelization. 

Christians find ourselves in a world quite similar to the Roman Empire. We are an odd minority amid rapidly developing economic and political systems that would scrutinize every human being. Their values are power, security and control. 

Within a century it will be possible to know the complete genetic code of every person on earth, and their interests, needs, desires, religious beliefs and political opinions. We have seen that Tower of Babel collapse once already, in the form of Communism. The Party set out to create the perfect soviet citizen by controlling the arts and sciences, education, economics, technology and politics -- and by destroying every dissident. Inevitably, the Tower with its ideology collapsed. It could not control the corruption of the human being, that insatiable instinct to promote one's own interest at the expense of others. 

A future Earth that attempts to manage every human being with data will also fail -- amid enormous suffering -- because data is not Truth. There are no cyber-systems that can manage Truth. It abides in this world, but is not of it. 

This Feast of Christ the King reminds us that, under the delusion of pursuing power through knowledge, we have neglected Wisdom. In the end he will judge those who worshiped power and neglected Truth.