Christ the King

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

Psalm 100

Ephesians 1:15-23

Matthew 25:31-46

https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp29_RCL.html

The Last Sunday after Pentecost, Christ the King, Proper 29 Year A RCL.

The Great Dictator (1940, Charles Chaplin). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcP_4Nthzzs

St Matthews Tucson, AZ Christ the King Sunday - Last Sunday after Pentecost.

(21:12-28:42)

 https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9a/5b/29/9a5b29d42c88f7ef4eccbd9b633c2698.jpg

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him…” (Matthew 25:31-32a)

In my church and many others the Sunday just before Advent is the Feast of Christ the King.

One thing that happens at my house is that we watch old movies. Once we’re settled down and the movie starts, if we’ve left room on the couch two dogs appear and welcome themselves to sit with us. The other night’s movie was relevant for understanding the feast of Christ the King. It was called, “The Great Dictator", made in 1940. At the end of the movie, a Jewish barber finds himself standing in front of a crowd of people who are waiting for him to speak and he says things they don’t expect. How did he get there? The director, writer, and producer of the movie heard that people were saying, “You know, what? The great dictator of that country over there looks an awful lot like Charlie Chaplin!” And Charlie Chaplin, who was himself the writer, director, and producer of the movie, thought, “I can use that!” 

The movie begins with two characters who kind of look a lot like each other – and like Charlie Chaplin. One is the great dictator, who looks a lot like that great dictator you might guess the name of, who does all those things you would expect that fearless leader to do. He yells at his microphone, he makes arbitrary decisions. He causes life or death to happen for innumerable people without much sense of compunction or compassion. Meanwhile there’s a Jewish barber in the ghetto who really has no clue about any of this, except finds himself eventually in a concentration camp. Somehow, through the miracle of Hollywood, he is able to escape. In the course of his escape, he finds himself dressed in the uniform of the army, walking down a road. Meanwhile, nobody has seen the dictator for a while. He seems to have disappeared. Suddenly there’s this guy who looks just like him! — so they grab him, put him in a big car, and take him away. The next thing you know he is standing in front of a bunch of people who are expecting him to continue with the hellfire and the brimstone, the condemnation and the heavy “let’s get them” rhetoric. And instead he says, we need to show some compassion for each other and love each other. 

You know, I’ve never seen a king. I’ve thought about it. Forty-two years ago from a distance I saw the Prince of Wales, but somehow I don’t think that is an adequate experience for understanding what a king is. I’m not sure growing up in a country like ours that doesn’t have a king that I really get it, but not every king probably gets it either. 

Because if we look at the lessons in the Bible about what a king should be, from Ezekiel to the Gospels, they’re very subversive of that kind of king who’s just an arbitrary tyrant and authority without accountability. What we see is a whole different idea for what a real king is, and probably even if you had an idea for what the king was, this would kind of wreck it. Because the good king is not like that cruel tyrant at all, so the question will come back: “Have I ever seen a king?” What we hear in the prophet Ezekiel is that a king should be like a shepherd. A king should be, yes, in charge, but protecting, looking after the people, as a shepherd who’s doing their job right looks after the sheep – which can be dangerous, boring, self-sacrificing, and difficult, but it gives you a very different idea of leadership from arbitrary authority and crafty cruelty. 

If you look at the image of Christ the King, and ask what the feast is about, because if the king is an arbitrary tyrant who has no accountability, who just bosses people around… Do we really think that Christ is like that? Would we want to celebrate that? Uh, uh, no. 

In fact, what the feast of Christ the King was implemented for was to say, that’s not what the leader of people really should be doing. That’s not how we should be with each other, that’s not what a real king really is. There’s really only one king, and that’s the one who we’re talking about today. If we look at the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, there is a wonderful image of Christ the King in all his glory, but the image I think that stays with us from the gospel is the king who is not in all his glory, who is a little more prepared than a Jewish barber who’s just been in a concentration camp, but a Jewish barber who’s just been in a concentration camp comes a lot closer to the real king, than the glorious self-aggrandizing dictator, who also look like Charlie Chaplin. In fact, when we see the king – Have we seen the king? – maybe we all have… Have we ever seen someone sick or hungry or naked or thirsty? Have we ever visited someone sick or in prison? Well, then, maybe we have seen a king, after all.

“Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by 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 something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

(Matthew 25:37-40)

Where were you?

In the name of God, Creator of all, Spirit that moved upon the waters, and Son, hungry and homeless, naked and thirsty, sick and in prison, king. Amen.

The abolitionist speaker and former slave, Frederick Douglass, looking back from freedom, recalled a friend who helped him in his first days out of captivity, Mr. Nathan Johnson, “of whom I can say with a grateful heart, ‘I was hungry, and he gave me meat; I was thirsty, and he gave me drink; I was a stranger, and he took me in” - literal application of today’s gospel. 

I’ve been wondering. What did Jesus really look like? Did he look like a king? When we think of Christ the king do we think of him on his throne, the nations prostrate before him at the end of time? Or do we think of him hungry, homeless, naked, thirsty, sick, a prisoner, in need of our help?

Some years ago on a Saturday I was getting into my crummy old car in downtown San Francisco when a man came striding up and asked me the way to Taylor St. I pointed the way: straight up Nob Hill. And off he went at a steady pace. Then I thought to myself, where on Taylor Street was he headed? So I got into my car and drove up to where I could talk to him. Glide Memorial Church, he said, near Eddy St. Oh! The bottom of the hill. He would have had a long sweaty walk for nearly nothing.

So I gave him a ride. (I had to apologize for the condition of my car: it had been stolen, driven into the ground, and then recovered by the Oakland Police.) It turned out he and I were much alike except for one small thing. He had just done fifteen years for armed robbery, mostly in Leavenworth, most recently at Lompoc, and had just been released. They gave him fifty bucks and a suit. So he spent the fifty in a bar and promptly got rolled. He went back and they gave him bus fare and the address of a re-entry program: at Glide Memorial.

Here he was. Not so different from me except that one mistake, is how it felt at the time. Now you know and I know that armed robbery came at the end of a long string of bad choices. But does that make him so different from me - or you? In any case Jesus does not seem to care. He just says, I was in prison and you visited me; I was recently released and you gave me a ride. You could have done more, but I’ll take it. Both of you, come on in.

***

In the 1920s in the era of Mussolini and Hitler, of Weimar and upheaval, the roaring 20s, the pope became concerned that the government was taking on itself almost divine pretensions. And so he decreed a new festival: Christ the King, that we now celebrate on the last Sunday before Advent. It foreshadows the theme of that season, indeed, as we anticipate the arrival of our true emperor but in the form of a baby. Nativity of our Lord we anticipate; in the meantime we have this reminder and summary of where the story ends: in a scene beyond dreams.

In fact the season of Advent, which we anticipate on the Sunday next before Advent, heralds the once and future king: the arrival of the infant and again the One who comes on clouds of glory at the consummation of time. 

This of course reminds us in salutary fashion of what it means to appear before the king: what have you been doing in my absence? We hear over the course of the church year numerous examples of a landlord who returns: the one, for example, who sets up tenants with a vineyard, winepress, and tower, and then sets off for a far country, only to return and summon his tenants to a reckoning; or the one who invests three servants with sums of money - talents - and then leaves for awhile, returning to ask how they have done with the wealth entrusted to them. 

There is hell to pay, or heaven to be enjoyed, depending on the stewardship of the ones holding trust.

Of course this does not just mean talents, as in large sums of money, or in the English-language pun, gifts and capabilities of said servants. It means all we are invested with, all we are given, as creatures of God and caretakers of God's creation. Genesis 1: dominion, meaning oversight, meaning care, with the obvious expectation, Don't wreck it! Take care of it!

Have we done so? Shall we do so? We are invited into this kingdom of harmony not discord, of wealth or at least not want, of freedom of joy not fear, of worship not obeisance, of a freedom not dependent on men or women, but on the ultimate service, the one that no other allegiance stands beside, our perfect freedom as ones who serve him and him only - all other allegiances are subject, contingent, on this first loyalty.

That does not mean of course that we exercise that allegiance by following our personal feelings at the expense of the legitimate duties of a citizen, a husband or father, a mother, wife, or daughter; it does mean that we know that these roles and services are in loyalty to something greater than themselves. All those laws, commandments, and prophecies that Israel collected in ancient days were indeed part of their covenant relationship with the Holy.

How we treat each other is how that relationship plays out. It is not just prayer; not just alms giving or charitable contributions, not even a pledge drive response, but our whole selves that God calls us to put into right relationship: with God and therefore with others and our selves. 

***

A friend of mine had a funny job: he called it "talking to murderers." To make it even funnier, that is what he did. He got in his car, said good-bye to his wife, drove over the hill, and went behind bars, into a maximum-security state prison. And there he would listen to someone say, when I get out of this place, I'm going to find the guy who put me here, and I'm going to kill him. And then, they would ask my friend, are you going to tell them I said that? And my friend would say, yes.

Because that was his job: he was evaluating their psychological fitness for parole. Over the years it got kind of wearing. Talking to murderers. Being alone with them locked up in a little room while they told you what they did, what they had done, what they were planning to do.

When Emma Lazarus wrote that poem "the new Colossus" that is on the base of the statue of Liberty, she left out a few things. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore" - but she didn't say, give me your murderers, give me your rapists, give me your armed robbers, give me even the worst of your self. But that is what Jesus got, when he said, I was in prison and you visited me. That is who he meant.

Before my friend told me about his job, I found out about someone else, a combat veteran who would, after Sunday mass, get in his car, said good-bye to his wife, and head to that same prison, where he would talk to murderers. He did it, I discovered, because of something in the gospel that was read today. I was in prison and you visited me. Jesus didn't say, I won't look very nice. You won't recognize me. I stink and I will scare you. You will be afraid of me. No, he did not say that.

We don't expect to see the face of Christ in someone reprehensible. But I don't think Jesus left anyone out. His kingdom takes all kinds. Even us. Even the wretched refuse of our lives.

And somehow in those wretched awful people and the wretched awful parts of our own lives, still he is king.

Still when we get to the end of time and stand before the throne of God, we will find ourselves looking at - ourselves... and the worst of us, the worst of human nature, redeemed in what can only be divine strength.

For he embraces us, as we are. He does not crown us or condone us. No when he is talking to murderers, rapists, and armed robbers, he does not say, never mind, forget it, it does not matter, you do not matter: he says I love you nevertheless.

And so I love your friend too, this one over here, who has seen more firearms than most felons ever have, the one who came to visit me, the old veteran of a forgotten army, who heard what I had to say in the gospel: I was in prison and you came to see me.

Not very nice people. But somehow redeemed. Only one king can do that, the one we celebrate today.

JRL+

Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King AProper29 Track Two (OT reading complementary to Gospel). https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp29_RCL.html. Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 , Psalm 95:1-7a , Ephesians 1:15-23 , Matthew 25:31-46 . 

http://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_11121925_quas-primas.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5TfrUAqh8w The Call, Scene Beyond Dreams (1984)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46550/the-new-colossus

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself. Boston: Published at the Anti-Slavery Office, 1845. Library of America, Slave Narratives, 2000, 360.

Libby Howe, Living by the Word, The Christian Century, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/living-word/november-22-roc-matthew-2531-46

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB3PrB9Xwnc

Meeting Jesus Again for the Last Time

For the Feast of Christ the King

In the 1920s in the era of Mussolini and Hitler, of Weimar and upheaval, the roaring 20s, the pope became concerned that the government was taking on itself almost divine pretensions. And so he decreed a new festival: Christ the King, that we now celebrate on the last Sunday before Advent. It foreshadows the theme of that season, indeed, as we anticipate the arrival of our true emperor but in the form of a baby. Nativity of our Lord we anticipate; in the meantime we have this reminder and summary of where the story ends: "in a scene beyond dreams" as Michael Been and The Call once sang. In fact the season of Advent, which we anticipate on the Sunday next before Advent, heralds the once and future king: the arrival of the infant and again the One who comes on clouds of glory at the consummation of time. 

This of course reminds us in salutary fashion of what it means to appear before the king: what have you been doing in my absence? We hear over the course of the church year numerous examples of a landlord who returns: the one, for example, who sets up tenants with a vineyard, winepress, and tower, and then sets off for a far country, only to return and summon his tenants to a reckoning; or the one who invests three servants with sums of money - talents - and then leaves for awhile, returning to ask how they have done with the wealth entrusted to them. 

There is hell to pay, or heaven to be enjoyed, depending on the stewardship of the ones holding trust.

Of course this does not just mean talents, as in large sums of money, or in the English-language pun, gifts and capabilities of said servants. It means all we are invested with, all we are given, as creatures of God and caretakers of God's creation. Genesis 1: dominion, meaning oversight, meaning care, with the obvious expectation, Don't wreck it! Take care of it!

Have we done so? Shall we do so? We are invited into this kingdom of harmony not discord, of wealth or at least not want, of freedom of joy not fear, of worship not obeisance, of a freedom not dependent on men or women, but on the ultimate service, the one that no other allegiance stands beside, our perfect freedom as ones who serve him and him only - all other allegiances are subject, contingent, on this first loyalty.

That does not mean of course that we exercise that allegiance by following our personal feelings at the expense of the legitimate duties of a citizen, a husband or father, a mother, wife, or daughter; it does mean that we know that these roles and services are in loyalty to something greater than themselves. All those laws, commandments, and prophecies that Israel collected in ancient days were indeed part of their covenant relationship with the Holy. How we treat each other is how that relationship plays out. It is not just prayer; not just alms giving or charitable contributions, not even a pledge drive response, but our whole selves that God calls us to put into right relationship: with God and therefore with others and our selves. 

***

A friend of mine had a funny job: he called it "talking to murderers." To make it even funnier, that is what he did. He got in his car, said good-bye to his wife, drove over the hill, and went behind bars, into a maximum-security state prison. And there he would listen to someone say, when I get out of this place, I'm going to find the guy who put me here, and I'm going to kill him. And then, they would ask my friend, are you going to tell them I said that? And my friend would say, yes. Because that was his job: he was evaluating their psychological fitness for parole. It got kind of wearing. Talking to murderers. Being alone with them locked up in a little room while they told you what they did, what they had done, what they were planning to do.

When Emma Lazarus wrote that poem "the new Colossus" that is on the base of the statue of Liberty, she left out a few things. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore" - but she didn't say, give me your murderers, give me your rapists, give me your armed robbers, give me even the worst of your self. But that is what Jesus got, when he said, I was in prison and you visited me. That is who he meant. 

Before my friend told me about his job, I found out about someone else, a combat veteran who would, after Sunday mass, get in his car, said good-bye to his wife, and head to that same prison, where he would talk to murderers. He did it, I discovered, because of something in the gospel that was read today. I was in prison and you visited me. Jesus didn't say, I won't look very nice. You won't recognize me. I stink and I will scare you. You will be afraid of me. No, he did not say that. 

We don't expect to see the face of Christ in someone so reprehensible. But I don't think Jesus left anyone out. His kingdom takes all kinds. Even us. Even the wretched refuse of our lives.

And somehow in those wretched awful people and the wretched awful parts of our own lives, still he is king.

Still when we get to the end of time and stand before the throne of God, we will find ourselves looking at - ourselves... and the worst of us, the worst of human nature, redeemed in what can only be divine strength. 

For he embraces us, as we are. He does not crown us or condone us. No when he is talking to murderers, rapists, and armed robbers, he does not say, never mind, forget it, it does not matter, you do not matter: he says I love you nevertheless. 

And so I love your friend too, this one over here, who has seen more firearms than most felons ever have, the one who came to visit me, the old veteran of a forgotten army, who heard what I had to say in the gospel: I was in prison and you came to see me. 

Not very nice people. But somehow redeemed. Only one king can do that, the one we celebrate today.

Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King AProper29 Track Two (OT reading complementary to Gospel).

https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp29_RCL.html

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 , Psalm 95:1-7a , Ephesians 1:15-23 , Matthew 25:31-46 . 

http://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_11121925_quas-primas.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5TfrUAqh8w The Call, Scene Beyond Dreams (1984)

https://www.christiancentury.org/article/living-word/november-22-roc-matthew-2531-46

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB3PrB9Xwnc

Where have you seen the King?

Where have you seen the King?

Where have you seen the King this week?

How did you recognize him? How did you expect to find him?

Did you see him in royal robes, riding on a chariot of clouds, heralded by angels?

Did you see him down and out, hungry, thirsty, naked or ill-clothed, sick, or in prison?

How did you greet him? Like any other person? Is that good or bad?

Did you greet him when you greeted the stranger, the lonely, the forgotten, the ill-favored?

Did you greet him when you greeted your mother, your brother, your sister, your least-favorite aunt or cousin?

Did you greet him at the bank or the bar? Was he the barista or the cashier?

How did you treat him?


We do not expect this Jesus. We do not expect the Messiah to appear to us like this. We expect something a little more… royal.

And yet we are told, in this vision of the Apocalypse, of the consummation of time, that this is what a king looks like – this is what the King looks like.

He looks like us.

He looks like us because in him God became one of us. The eternal Word took on human flesh and became a man.

He walked among us, he laughed and suffered, he spoke Greek or Aramaic or Hebrew, he listened to the wise old men by the village well. He helped his father in the shop. When he was young he drew water for the kitchen. He went on a journey. His cousin John baptized him – and then he went into the desert wilderness.

And then he gathered some friends together and he went on a longer journey, a harder journey. At first they seemed just to be wandering around Galilee and the country east of the Jordan, causing trouble for local officials and pig keepers, drinking at a wedding feast, telling some stories. And then it changed.

If you want to follow me, you must take up your cross. You must come with me to Jerusalem. To the great festival of Passover. But I myself will be the Lamb. I will be the offering. And sins will be forgiven.

The people will be released – they will be free to love God. Because they will know God has been willing to pay the price, to bring them home to him.

I will be treated like the least of God’s creatures. I will be hungry, and thirsty, and naked, and sick, and in prison. I will be tortured. I will be crucified.

It is the way of Glory.

Mockingly they will hail me, “King of the Jews.” And they will be right.

I will be their King and they will be my people.

I will be their shepherd and they will be the sheep of my hand, my own people.

I will gather them to me. And at the last day, I will bring them home.

Knowing now that you did - that as you treated the least of his children you were treating him the same - are you glad?

Will you be looking at people differently this week?

When Jesus comes, we say, when the Messiah comes, everything will be different.

He will change things. He will make them new.

Or: He will restore Israel. He will make all things well again.

Won't he?


That is what the Messiah is expected to do - that is what he is expected for - to set things right, to make them the way they should be, or were... or we wish they were.

We cannot have back what we used to have. We cannot have Eden before the Fall, Israel before the Exile, Jerusalem before the Temple came down.......

The Messiah - isn't he the One who would rebuild the Temple?

But Jesus did not do any of those things.

He did not come in power on clouds of glory, electrifying might blasting from his fingertips. He did not come and sweep Caesar aside. He did not cleanse the Temple as the Maccabees did; he -

He called for something more. He called for us to prepare our hearts - to make him room. He called for us to pray Messiah down - right into our own lives. He asked us to transform our lives, from the inside out. The domain of God begins -

The reign of God starts - not with a great military victory but with a change in the human heart. "Change your minds", Jesus said - change the way you think and act and move. Change your way of being in the world.

Then we can talk about the consequences.


What we do now - we cannot hide it - is our preparation for the victory of our God. How we act now - we cannot avoid it - is our proclamation of the reign of God.

We could dress up and show off like some of the people Jesus denounced. We could go through the motions. We could look pious, or righteous, or holy. But who cares? Too many could see through us.

What you cannot fake is this: to treat your neighbor as you would yourself - or God.

Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your neighbor, Jesus says, as if it were me.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength, and love God through your neighbor.

That will be the beginning of the kingdom of heaven, right there in your life and mine.


God the Father,
help us to hear the call of Christ the King
and to follow in his service,
whose kingdom has no end;
for he reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, one glory.
Amen.

+

Notes for sermon given on the feast of Christ the King, St Alban's Church, Edmonds WA.

In addition to the Sources & Resources Year B (listed in a separate post) there are two unexpected influences on this sermon:

John Fisher, "Have you seen Jesus my Lord?" song (1970)

God-sighting testimonials - from Bill Talen (http://www.revbilly.com/)

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