not my king

 

Whenever you come across a king in one of Jesus’ parables, you are NOT coming across God.

Christ is the true king, and he chooses to take the form of a servant. Indeed, he most often appears in his own parables as a servant – and often mistreated by a king who does terrible things. Like Aragorn in The Lord Of The Rings, Jesus moves through the Gospels incognito.

The kings represent, in the first instance, men who exercise earthly power over the lives of others. Also, by extension, the ways in which we seek to be the king of our own lives, rejecting the servant heart of God, the love of God for us in Jesus.

Therefore, the kings inflict violence. And whenever we proclaim that these kings are revelations of the nature of God, we demonstrate that our god is violence, control over others guaranteed by coercive force. Such proclamation is spiritual abuse; and underpins most if not all forms of abuse we see, from time to time but with monotonous regularity, in the Church.