We all have our default images of what things should be like. When I was training for ordination, I spent much time at St Mary and St Ambrose Church, Edgbaston. The Revd Hilary Savage was the priest-in-charge. As part of my placement, she took me into school. In one class, Hilary explained that I was training to be a vicar just like she was. One little girl looked me carefully up and down, and asked a question that causes a chuckle to this day; ‘Reverend Hilary, how can a man be a vicar?’ The little girl had only ever experienced Hilary’s ministry, and therefore to a certain extent her imagination of what might be was not as free as it perhaps later would be.

Pontius Pilate, who were are all too familiar with from the Passion narratives and creedal statements seems to be someone whose imagination is not as free as it might be. Pilate would have had his own default image as to what a king was like. He would have seen how effective and indeed brutal the exercise of authority could be by Caesar. Pilate himself was dependent on the largesse or whim of his Emperor for his own position. A position that had been given, but just as easily taken away if Caesar was not content with how the procurator exercised Caesar’s power. Pilate had no power but that of Caesar.

The prisoner who was before him, Jesus of Nazareth did not fit any image of what it meant to be a king; and yet Jesus stood before Pilate because others claimed that Jesus had asserted that he was the king of the Jews. In the interchange between Pilate and Jesus it is clear that they are at cross purposes and only Jesus knows it. To the question, are you a king? Jesus tells Pilate that his kingdom is not of the world. His kingdom therefore does not conform to the default setting. Pilate returns to his question, are you a king? The limits of his imagination are confined by his experience; possibilities of ways of being a king are corseted and constrained. Pilate it might be said would stop at nothing to stamp out change. This clash of conflicting views of the world made the death of Jesus inevitable.

Not long after the resurrection of Jesus, early Christians looked for ways of understanding how Jesus could be described as king. A man hung upon a cross was not – and is not – the likeliest of candidates for being described as the ruler of the kings of the earth. Nevertheless, this is how the author of Revelation to St John the Divine describes Jesus.

How did this happen? First, their imaginations were engaged. They were part of a group who had experienced Jesus had been risen from the dead. In the darkest of moments, the resurrection changed – and still has the potential to change – everything. As my wife’s husband is fond of saying: ‘many things can make us look, but only experience can make us see’. Second their imaginations began to wrestle with the scriptures that shaped and sustained them looking for vocabulary to explain what had happened.

It was through this they came to book of Daniel, and with it the story of the one like a son of man being vested with power and authority. Daniel was writing to a group exiled and disenfranchised who found hope in that their champion was to exercise authority alongside God. Stories as we saw last week nourish hope and create infinite possibilities. A champion who was from heaven enabled those in exile to begin to see themselves as God’s people once again. The early Christians were able to explore ideas of the one who was given power and authority and speak of Jesus in that way. This in and of itself is incredible. However it was not the most important discovery and assertion that the early Christians made.

Those Christians not only believed that Jesus was the king, but that he had changed what it meant to be king; and enabled all sorts of re-imaginations to happen. This refashioning of what it meant to be king happened on a number of levels. It is there if we sit in the text of Revelation, this ruler of the kings of the earth is also the faithful witness or to make the Greek explicit the ‘true martyr’ and also the first born from the dead. In the Revelation, power is always shown through weakness and vulnerability. Instead of the roaring lion one might expect, the image thrown up is of the lamb that was slain. It is to this figure rather than Caesar than Christians owe their allegiance.

The kingdom that Jesus offered is one that is open to all regardless we might say of who they are or where they come from. It is a kingdom that is shaped by the early baptismal formula proclaimed as the newly baptised emerged from the waters: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. It is a place where Gentiles and Jews learnt to worship, minister and share life alongside each other, even though at times that was contentious and difficult. It is a place where slaves like Onesimus were useful to masters like Philemon, becoming family rather than possessions. It is a place where a woman called Lydia could minister and encourage a man called Paul, where Mary of Nazareth could teach the Scriptures to the Son of God; and Junia and Priscilla could exercise episcope alongside their male colleagues. It is a place where gifting, calling and vocation are more important than ethnicity, class, gender or academic achievement. This is possible because the kingship of Jesus was envisaged as being different. The imaginations of the first Christians were set free in the way they interacted and wrestled with both their sacred stories and the contexts in which they found themselves.

I wonder what our default patterns are today. Do they constrain us or set us free; do they give us life or crush our spirits. Do they give us room to imagine what might be and create hope?

As we enter into a week of mission, it is my prayer that we will have our imaginations stirred as to what might be possible, that we will delight in the company of fellow-citizens of the kingdom from around the globe, and we will take risks in terms of invitation and hospitality as we seek to follow the path of the servant king; knowing that he first invited us and made us welcome.