Our lives are given measure and structure by calendars. Of course, the fact that I used a plural noun there means that even with the help of calendars, things can sometimes get out of hand. Most of us pay homage to more than one calendar. We follow daily and weekly calendars, which are usually part of the ordinary calendar year. Then there’s the academic calendar, and the budget calendar, and, of course, most important from my perspective, the church calendar.
The church calendar does more than structure the passage of time. The church calendar is an educational tool that reminds us of the stories of our faith, and the sacredness of God’s cycle of birth and death. The church calendar connects us with Christians everywhere – those who live today, and those who have gone before. The church calendar stretches back in time, and most events noted on it have been celebrated for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
But today’s observance is different. Today we observe the Feast of Christ the King, and as an official celebration of the church, this event is not even as old as our own parish. This observance was established by Pope Pius XI in the year 1925.
As occasions go, this one is truly a liturgical oddity. It does not turn up on the calendar of saints. You will not find it mentioned in your prayer books, although the collect and lessons appointed for today clearly fit the theme. So it is well to ask just exactly what is this feast that shows up on the last Sunday of our church year? What relevance does it have to our lives and what does it have to teach us, today, in the 21st century?
1925 was the middle of a decade that has been named the “Roaring Twenties.” It began as the world celebrated the end of what was called “the War to End All Wars.” As peace spread, new technologies, new fashions, new art, all kinds of new life appeared on the world stage. People were filled with optimism and enthusiasm. They became “consumers” of the many newly manufactured goods. An international marketplace emerged, feeding a growing desire for things – things that could be owned, things that would provide status and the appearance of worth.
But as 1921 gave way to 1922 and ’23 and ‘24, enthusiasm began to wear thin.
It was in response to the loss of faith, and this increase in what he called “bad” faith (that is, faith in human systems and things), it was in response to this that, in 1925, Pope Pius XI wrote a letter to the church, proclaiming the observance of a new feast – the Feast of Christ the King. He wanted the church to remember the saving work of God in Christ. He wanted the church to recall the vision of the
It is not necessary for us to decide whether or not the Pope’s idea worked in 1925. That’s a matter for more historical discussion. What matters for us is that the church calendar places this image before us – this image of Christ as King - today, in
For those who lived in
“King” of course, is a political term. Kings rule over a particular piece of geography, and those who live within that land have a particular relationship to the King. Kings have a people.
Now I grew up in the South of these
I was talking about this Southern sense of “having a people” recently with a friend who is from
To say that Christ is King of our lives implies something that is similar to both these definitions. We are Christ’s people. If Christ is King we are, in fact, his subjects. In truth we are dependent on this One whose kingdom knows no bounds, whose reign has no end. Through the waters of baptism we have been buried in his death, and he now holds our lives in his hands.
That’s what means to say Christ is King. So, this might be a good place to end the sermon, except…
Except I don’t think we should stop until we have looked at the issues of power that surround the use of the word “king.”
The danger of observing the Feast of Christ the King is that as a celebration it lends itself to all the trappings of Christian triumphalism. Christian triumphalism is an attitude that gives Jesus the crown, but takes the power into our own, human hands. Christian triumphalism is a theology of glory that seeks an experience of God without suffering. At its worst, Christian triumphalism has trampled cultures and people in the name of the gospel. At its best, Christian triumphalism prevents us from living, as Jesus lived, with the poor, the hungry, and those in prison. We avoid Christian triumphalism only by looking carefully at the locus and use of power.
Our gospel reading today demonstrates how slippery power can be. As an official of the Roman government, Pilate is in the position of power, and yet, in his confrontation with Jesus it is clear that Pilate is the one who is powerless. Jesus has answers. Pilate has none. Still, Jesus has been arrested. Surely he is without power. He has submitted thus far, and he will not fight the soldiers who nail him to the cross. But in the end, the tomb will be empty, and his followers will see him again. The power and truth of Jesus’ resurrection will stand against the march of time and against the force of any power human beings can produce.
When Pilate asked “are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus replied that he was not a king in any ordinary way. “My kingdom is not from this world.” Two thousand years later, we cannot explain Christ’s kingdom any better than that. It continues to defy human understanding. There are no borders, no boundaries to defend. There are no soldiers to stand against invasion. There are no weapons for the soldiers to use. Christ’s kingdom turns all our values upside down. The one who serves is the one who rules. Power lies in the relationship of caring and support. Power is found through shared pain, through holding on in the face of danger, through presence in the midst of death.
In the end, it was actually Pilate who made things crystal clear. The gospel of John tells us that “Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. It read: Jesus of
Pilate identified the cross as Jesus’ throne. Before Jesus ruled in glory he knew every ounce of suffering that can be wrung from human flesh. If we would share the glory of Christ the King, we must also be willing to share this suffering. This is the truth to which Jesus bore witness. Unless the grain of wheat dies there can be no harvest. Unless the Son of Man is crucified and buried, there is no Easter morn. Here is truth. We cannot claim kinship with Jesus until we ourselves have gone out to feed the hungry and visit the sick. We cannot join the triumphal entry into Jesus’ kingdom unless we go first to those who are in prison, to the poor, unless we ourselves stand with those who are oppressed and hear the voice of Jesus say: Look. Look here. These are my people.
We observe the Feast of Christ the King at the end of our liturgical year because this image has the power to break through the distortions of our everyday world. The truth of Christ’s kingship and Christ’s kingdom describes the goal, the summation of all our Sunday lessons, all our hopes and dreams. Our goal is Christ’s Kingdom realized, God’s kingdom come, heaven touching earth at last, no death, neither sorrow nor crying but only the fullness of joy. We taste that Kingdom in the bread and wine. Then, with all our values turned upside down, and, knowing that God’s time is never the same as ours, we go from this place into world of need.
I’d like to anchor today’s somewhat odd celebration with a prayer by theologian Walter Brueggemann, who seems to understand better than most the distance we must travel between reality and sacred truth.
Let us pray:
“O God, ours is a seduced world, where we call evil good and good evil, wherewe put darkness for light and light for darkness, where we call bitter sweet and sweet bitter, where we call war peace and peace war, so that we can rarely see the truth of the matter. Give us courage, dear God, to depart the pretend world of euphemism, to call things by their right name, to use things for their right use, to love our neighbor as you love us. Overwhelm our fearful need to distort, that we may fall back into your truth-telling about us, that we may be tellers of truth and practitioners of truth. We pray in the name of the One (who is) filled with ‘grace and truth.’ Amen.”