May I speak in the Name of God Who is: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
It was the Franciscans, the followers of the poor little man from Assisi, who led the Church to designate this last Sunday of the Christian year the Feast of Christ the King. So, today we all gather to celebrate the reign of Christ. Our music is filled with images of Kings and Kingdoms and Kingship. Our prayers are filled with royal themes. The Scriptures proclaimed today likewise speak to the theme.
We’re not supposed to like royalty in this country ever since our forbearers decided in 1776 that we could live quite well without kings and prelates, thank you very much! But there is something about the idea that still appeals to us (even more so among Anglophile Anglicans). It is the British royal family that continues to capture our imagination and interest, whether it was the abdication of Edward VIII or the death of Princess Diana, the maturing of the young princes William and Harry and this year the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middelton, not to mention all the fuss when they visited Southern California not long after. It seems like we are all inclined to join in the words of the number from the popular Broadway musical Camelot, “I wonder what the king is doing tonight.” Today, however, we celebrate a different sort of King.
This Feast of Christ the King, the last Sunday of the Church year, the Sunday before Advent, celebrates the reign of Christ, the completion of the ministry of our Lord and the inauguration of his universal kingdom, the new age when all “the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin are brought together under his most gracious rule.” To live under the divine and just rule of God was the hope of most of the Old Testament. Much of the people’s longing was to have once again a king like David, the ideal king, beloved of God. Jews living during the time of Jesus needed a hope like this, a hope that life under God’s rule would be better than life under Roman rule; the Jews could remember the time of the Maccabees, only four generations back, when they controlled their own country. The people hoped for a political and religious restoration which would turn things back to the way they used to be.
None of these hopes came to fruition. God intervened, but not in the way anyone expected. When Pilate asked Jesus at His trial if he is a king, Jesus answered that his kingship is not of this world. The kingship of Christ celebrates the last victory, but it celebrates a victory that turned the expectations of kingship upside down. The Jesus we celebrate came in human history born as one of us, moreover born amongst the poor. We need to reaffirm our King in His Gospel integrity.
Let us dare to take a look at our King. Our King: born in a dirty stable because there was no lodging willing to take his family in. Our King: poor, powerless, and apparently uneducated. Our King: no army to command, no navy to deploy, to power to tax, no bureaucrats to order around, no pageantry, no court. Our King: clothed in sandals and a working man’s garb, no jewels, no finery, only dust and sweat. Our King: dying a shameful death on a cross, naked, jeered by the crowds, taunted by the soldiers, abandoned by friends. What a strange King. What a strange faith… Who could believe all this? Through the centuries, the answer to that is simple… people like you and me, that’s who!
We know our King and he know us and loves us. Our King walked from town to town, mingled with the common people, saw their needs and reached out his hand, knelt and washed his disciples’ feet. That is our strange King. When the King comes into the fullness of His kingdom his subjects will consist of those who ministered to Him in the manifestation of His lowliness. Job asked: “Can you by searching find God?” The reality of Christ’s message is that God lies hidden in our neighbor who needs our help.
Since most of us tire of just meeting the needs of people with whom we live and interact on a normal daily basis; the destitute, victims of war, AIDS patients, abused children, the elderly, or prisoners are easily forgotten.
St. Paul writing to the Church in Corinth said: “Consider your own call brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.” These are the ones blessed by Christ the King.
I hope and pray that every faithful member of Messiah parish has come to accept the practical implications of Jesus’ kingship in their lives and in the corporate life of the parish. This means not only our doctrines and practices; but also the parish’s year-to-year programs and community outreach; all of its week-to-week activities and the budget which allows it all to happen are subject to Christ’s will and purpose. A parish that acknowledges Christ as its head cannot be a comfortable little closed community where people gather just for another social opportunity.
Too often we Episcopalians have been rightly accused of having a “country club” mentality. I certainly don’t see that here at Messiah parish and as soon as I arrived here I was pleased to witness the open, welcoming attitude which characterizes this place. Christ commanded His Church to reach out to the community and throughout the Gospel story there stretches a motley array of people; mostly outcasts, the despised, the rejected and neglected, those at the end of their ropes to whom Jesus reached out and who allowed a holy, kingly encounter with Him to enter and transform their lives. And so we must follow the King in embracing the world with all its diversities and differences, in its pain and unpleasantness, concerned for all persons extending our arms in Gospel witness of loving service and in defense of their basic human dignity.
So, this is our King. This the One who forsook all regal privileges to enter the totality of human existence, literally to enter the realm of hunger, poverty, disease, and oppression as one of us. This is He Who when His own followers tried to keep sick women and little ragamuffin children away from Him says, “No, let them come to me. Anyone who cannot welcome them cannot welcome my kingdom.” Our King doesn’t sound at all like Emperor Constantine or Henry VIII. He does not look like the power brokers of our present age either, be they prime ministers, presidents, sports heroes, film stars, or software manufacturers. So, this Sunday we are called to consider who we choose to follow… it’s up to us, it’s our choice.
“When the Son of man comes in His glory, and all the angels with him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate them one form another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and He will place the sheep at His right hand, but the goats on His left. Then the King will say to those at His right hand, “Come, O blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment